I woke the next morning half under Maeve, who’d rolled over in the night, with Kayt tucked up into my side to get out of range of Efa, who was well known to kick in her sleep.

Moving carefully, I slithered out from under the blanket and my guardswoman. Kayt rolled into the warm spot I’d left behind and I tucked the blanket back around her shoulders. Then I stretched and looked around. My housecoat and others lay draped across the bottom corner of the bed, near where Aster and Larkspur were still asleep spooned together and looking unbearably cute. Aster was the little spoon.

Well. That explained what had brought my mage to Clan Harou.

“Bravo, Aster.” I murmured and crawled off the bed so I could retrieve my coat without waking the sleeping lovers. It was hard to get privacy in an elven household and, in fact, few elves even wanted any. That had been part of the attraction of the human world to me when I was a teenager. Now that I was a little older, I missed the comfortable rank-free puppy piles of home.

The other two guards, Odele and Friea, looked up from an intent card game as I entered.

“Good morning, my lady.” Odele said amiably.

“Stooop.” I moaned, taking a snaking path towards the cook corner. “It’s too early for titles.”

“Poor you.” Friea said, not without sympathy. “Are you making tea?” She asked, hopefully. “Can you make tea?” She amended, casting a dubious look at the enameled copper water dispenser that took up most of the cooking corner.

“Sure, sure.” I caught myself on a yawn. I’d learned to use a dwarf kitchen when I was fourteen during a series of meetings to renew and revise the original treaty between the Allied Clans and the dwarves. I’d been stuck with the job every trip since then. “Odele, do you want a cup too?”

“Yes. Strong please.”

I turned to Friea and she nodded. “Same.”

The water heater was about my height and more of a filtration system than anything else. It looked like a brilliantly enameled samovar complete with a little spot on top to warm a teapot. The dwarves used a network of natural hot springs to heat the mountain and cook food, but the water in the pipes was gray water. You could bathe in it if you didn’t mind a little mineral build up, but drinking it straight from the pipe wasn’t pleasant or healthy in the long term. The filters made it potable, but the water came out near to boiling so you had to let it cool if you wanted a cold drink even though hardly anyone ever did. The halls of Ravnvaldr were cold even at the height of summer.

I made a kettle, enough for everyone, and filled it from a tap on the side of the filter designed to look like a spitting fish.

Tea tray in hand, I went over to see what game my guards were playing and blinked in surprise. “Is that… Exploding Kittens?” I asked.

“Coryfae brought a deck back from the other side…” Of course she did. “…and it got popular in the barracks.” Of course it had. “Your Lady Mother ordered more decks on Amazon for the keep.” Odele explained. “Do you want me to deal you in?”

“I’m fine, thank you. Next time, though, please.” I said and made a mental note to bring my box of board and card games home with me next time assuming I saw my apartment again anytime soon.

Kayt came drifting out of the bedroom and bumped back up into my side. I opened my arm without really looking and wrapped my coat around us both. Young elves were always a little touch starved and Kayt was just at the edge of adulthood. I didn’t flatter myself that she was responding to any particular maternal aura of mine. I didn’t have one for starters. One of the guards would have been warmer and more solid, but I wasn’t wearing armor so I was the most attractive option.

She woke up enough after a few minutes for tea and then the caffeine had her up and bustling within another ten minutes. I stayed where I was, spectating the card game. Odele and Friea were devious players and clearly both knew where the exploding kitten was in the deck until Odele managed to get both a See The Future card down and then a Shuffle card without Friea negating the play.

I didn’t get to see who won because Efa arrived then and hauled me off for a wash. It was more relaxed than that first night at least, but Larkspur appeared halfway through with a small stack of correspondence that had appeared overnight and which we needed to go through. Most of the notes were short invitations to this party or that concert, but at the bottom was a black bordered card with Ylem’s seal on the back that informed me I’d been granted half an hour of the Princes’ time that afternoon in the Water Garden.

Efa sucked in air and shot to her feet, barely pausing to grab a towel on her way out of the bath. Kayt came scrambling in a few minutes later loaded down with hairdressing supplies. I had a sinking feeling as I recognized several packages of fifty inch extensions among them.

“New braids?” I tried to keep the cringe out of my voice. I liked having braids and wore them frequently, but having them put in tested the limits of my ability to stay in a chair, not to mention they were hell on my edges. At least Kayt wasn’t a stranger. I’d never gotten used to that part of going to the braid shop.

On the bright side, she had magic and if I was lucky then I’d only be trapped for an hour rather than the rest of the day.

“Box braids, my lady.” Kayt confirmed without pity.

At least I got to stay in the water.

I left the bath with hip length braids capped in beads of gold and larimar. Kayt had also taken the time to turn my short french tips into long, viciously beautiful points tipped in gold filigree and real gems. It was good that Larkspur was willing to take notes for me. After this I wouldn’t be able to write by myself fast enough to be useful during an after-action session.

Efa had my costume laid out and I gulped at the sight of it. I cast an imploring look her way and she grinned.

“It’s just for an hour or so.” She reassured me. “Larkspur enchanted the trim so it won’t be so heavy.”

Envision Queen Elizabeth’s coronation robe and then add all the jewelry and floating scarves of an ancient Chinese Imperial concubine and you’d have an idea of what the gown that waited for me on the bed looked like. You wouldn’t be able to walk close to me without risking a jab from my headdress. I wasn’t sure I could walk without getting poked by something, but I’d have to keep a straight face and deal with it if I did.

Aster looked up from where she was polishing an equally resplendent helmet. I realized I didn’t recognize the device on the side of it, below the feathered crest. It was clan Harou, I could tell because of the deer, but it wasn’t a stag. That was my father’s crest; a stag rampant framed by the base of a waterfall. This one had a doe couchant under a bower of stars and above a river. Technically, as a Speaker, I had the right to a personal crest but I’d never used it. Before I’d been too young and afterwards I’d been living on the human side of the veil where no one cared.

I looked at Aster and she had that irritating grin on her face again. She did know something I didn’t.

Making a tactical decision, I turned to Efa. “This isn’t my mother’s state gown.” I said, feeling hollow.

Efa pursed her lips and nodded. “No. She commissioned the wardrobe once she was certain that you were done growing. We used your measurements from the gown we made for you at midwinter.” She sighed and cupped her cheeks with both hands. “I forgot that you’d been measured in heels and now all the hems need to be pinned.”

I looked back to the gown laid out before me. Had mom known how hard I’d end up struggling in order to make a career among humans? Was Ylem right? Was I more elf than human?

Given what I’d recently learned about BIR, did I even want to be more human than elf?

I’d always thought I ought to be, but my year among the humans had been unexpectedly hard in ways it hadn’t been while I was just in school. It was more than the way other humans reacted to my gender or unquantifiable racial background and I couldn’t quite articulate how.

Brinkerman had been protecting me from a lot, in retrospect. He was a good boss and good at explaining weird human behaviors when I needed it, but I’d never realized that there was such a rift between the two apparent parts of BIR until I’d tried to cross that invisible divide on my own.

It left me feeling stupid and powerless.

The dress on the bed wasn’t meant for someone powerless. I’d look like an evil queen in that; powerful and implacable.

I looked at Aster. “Is that a new helmet?”

“It is.” She wasn’t grinning anymore, but still radiated pleasure. “You were always going to need a private guard, poppet.” She explained, not unkindly, and turned to show off the matching pauldron with the same crest on it. “Your father and mother agreed that it would make things awkward while you were just starting out. Even a hardhead like the Duke knows that a guard would have made your life more difficult on the Earth side, but the human world was going to have to make some concessions if they wanted to keep you long term. Human or not, you’re the First Daughter and a Speaker for Clan Harou.”

I huffed a little laugh. “Well, it’s fortunate they don’t seem to want me.” I felt a wide hand settle on my head and realized Aster had gotten up.

“Not for them.” She said in a quiet voice. “I don’t know the particulars of what happened, although I think I’ve guessed some of it. No one wanted to get in the way of your ambition, but you’ve been missed at home. Your rescue mission wouldn’t have worked if we hadn’t been waiting for you.”

Several pieces of a puzzle I hadn’t realized I’d been assembling fell into place. Kayt’s dressing kit would never have served for an elven woman. They’d never need extensions. Elves could grow miles of thick, straight, strong hair and never worried about breakage. Kayt would have had to get special lessons on dealing with my 3B hair.

Larkspur was too talented to have been available at a moment’s notice and Aster had been well on her way to becoming Captain of the home guard when I’d left for school.

“I’m sorry you had to wait.” I said softly and bowed my head to my household. “I will do my best to make it worth the while.”

When I looked back, they were bowing back. Even Odele and Freia had stood up from their game. Efa rose and came over to give me a very cautious hug that became much more certain as I sank into it.

“You already have.” She whispered in my ear. “We’re all proud of you. Things are only going to get better.”

Of course Markham was waiting outside the garden limits as I arrived.

The Water Garden was surrounded by a carved crystal fence and guarded when the Prince was giving audiences. The master of ceremonies minding the gate was in the middle of ignoring the group from BIR as I approached.

I stomped on the sigh that threatened to slip through my guard. I had no doubt Markham was there at Ylem’s invitation and probably right on time, but he was still about to watch me breeze right past him.

Amos had blundered worse than I thought the night before. Ylem now knew that there was bad blood between me and the human delegation and he was going to use that to play with the humans like an oversized cat.

Aster and Larkspur did not help matters by smoothly interposing themselves between me and Markham so I couldn’t even see him. I’d have acknowledged him at least, but maybe they had the right idea. I couldn’t afford to look at all interested in Markham’s good opinion, not while we were under the master of ceremony’s watchful gaze. Everything she saw would go straight to Ylem.

Maeve withdrew the black bordered note from her pouch and offered it to the master, who did not look at it.

“He’s expecting you, my lady.” She looked right at me and then turned to open the gate. “Please proceed to the Mirror Pool. Do you need a guide?”

I schooled my expression with a will of iron.

No, I did not need a guide. No one needed a guide to the Mirror Pool. It was the central feature of the wheel-shaped garden and the hub that all the spoke-like feature gardens radiated out from. It was located down a straight path from the entrance. You could see it from where I was standing, but the master had asked just to make me say ‘no.’

More dwarf mind games. How lovely.

“No, thank you. I had the pleasure of touring the gardens of Ravnvalder when I was a girl. I remember the way.” I replied quietly instead, pitching my voice so it wouldn’t carry and twist the knife further, and the compliment had the unexpected effect of engaging the master’s enthusiasm.

“The Path of Falling Rain has been expanded in the past year.” She volunteered. “If your time in the garden permits, you must see it.”

“I will do that.” I promised and allowed her to guide me inside before she firmly shut the gates behind my party. I did not look behind, but I did wonder what I’d have seen if I did.

The gardens had not changed too much from my girlhood recollection. The Water Garden was composed of rock and crystal formations and artificial mountain springs. The largest installation was a still circular reflecting pool in the center of the garden and shrouded on all sides by ornamental rock walls and draping curtains of low-light vines. The water was only a few inches deep, but clouded with some shimmering particulate that swirled in restless clouds just below the glassy surface. If you looked into it you could see yourself as clear as any mirror.

Ylem had often seen my father in this garden or sometimes the Sun Pavilion when they were at odds since it took an hour on foot to get there and it was all up ten flights of narrow stairs.

The prince was seated on a crescent shaped bench watching the clouds move below the surface of the pool, but looked up as I approached.

“I hope you aren’t angry with me.” He said by way of a greeting.

“Oh, I intend to get fair value for my time.” I replied and curtseyed deep. “Your master of ceremonies recommended the Path of Rain to me. Would you care to give me a tour?”

“I do like how well you take hints, my dear.” He murmured and came to offer me his arm. “Why don’t we talk as we walk?”

“Of course.”

Aster, Maeve, and Larkspur dropped back a pace or so to give us room, but still followed close behind.

Ylem guided us away from the Mirror and down a shadowy path marked by two mossy stones. You wouldn’t be able to see us from the entrance and I gathered that was the entire point.

The Path of Falling Rain took its name from the pinprick luminescent detritus that gently fell from specially cultivated lichen growing on the ceiling above. The flakes were harmless and enchanted so you couldn’t inhale one, but beautiful and they lit the quiet path a cool spectrum of soft blues and greens.

“Now, what business does Harou have with my court?” Ylem asked.

“We’d like to review the guard agreement for the summer trade fair in Vigny.” I replied, much to his surprise.

“Truth?” Ylem asked. “I’ve had no complaints these past years. Have you heard something I haven’t?”

“No one is unhappy yet, but my father has had unsettling reports from the soldiers this year and last. Vendors and dwarven fairgoers have been heard saying the elves police the dwarves. It happens in social situations, usually joking but sometimes not. My father is concerned that those jokes are concealing real discontent.” I took note of Ylem's quiet look of contemplation. “Our peoples are friendly and we would like to stay that way.”

“These things do start small.” Ylem murmured. “However, my available caravan guards are almost all occupied with escorting traders to and from the fairs. We have trouble meeting demand and my caravaneers use the fair time to rest for their return trip. The way back is often more dangerous than the trip out when the brigands and giants know that they’ll be coming. I don’t have anyone to spare.”

“Would you consider providing magistrates?” My father wanted supplemental guards, but we all knew that Ylem wasn’t hiring our soldiers because he wanted to. The caravan trade brought a lot of resources into Ravnvaldr and the dwarves only had a short season to import anything they wanted to have during the long cold. It was a busy time. Any dwarves policing the fair wouldn’t be earning as much for their community as they could have been otherwise. “If dwarven troublemakers are judged by dwarven law and dwarven judges then it’s harder for them to make accusations of discrimination later when they don’t like the ruling.”

“Perhaps.” Ylem hmmmed to himself. “It will depend on who is able to make the trip. I can at least supply judicial witnesses to assist your magistrates. I will need time to review my rolls, but I think we can come to an agreement.”

“Thank you for hearing me.”

“I always have time for such a lovely and useful young lady.” He replied and laughed when I rolled my eyes.

“Have I been so useful?” I guessed. “In your evaluation of Elliot Markham perhaps?”

“More so than I’d dared hope.” Ylem patted my hand. “Will you indulge an old man’s curiosity?”

For a dwarf, Ylem was in the middle of his prime –although that still meant he was ninety years older than me.

“It depends on what he is curious about.” I smiled and added; “…and if he is willing to make it worth my while.”

“Answers for answers, then.” It was a generous offer, but not one I could take carte blanche.

“Within reason.” I told him.

“Within reason.” He agreed, but his charming smile faded. “What is your history with the human delegation? I don’t believe that you just happened to run into each other. For one thing, I’m aware that you’ve been living across the new Veil these past eight years.”

“I was apprenticed in the Bureau of Interplanar Relations.” That wasn’t exactly true, but I didn’t want to explain the concept of interns to Ylem. He’d do something dreadful with it.

I watched Ylem’s expression and managed to catch a faint flicker of surprise before he could make it vanish. Aha. He hadn’t known that. Good. “It… didn’t go well and I’m still not sure why.”

“You worked with them and they still didn’t know to wait for true midsummer?”

“They didn’t ask me and wouldn’t listen when I tried to tell them.” I held my free arm against my stomach, still remembering the terrible feeling of the Guide’s rage. “I went to my parents for help and we were able to put together a rescue. I don’t much care about the senior team members, but the junior staff didn’t deserve that fate. We caught up before anyone got hurt, but it was close.” I paused and added. “My business here was real, but father was going to wait until the contract renewal in spring to bring it up. There is tension in the South Coast between the Water People and the Coastlanders again. He can’t risk not being there if they start forcing their neighbors to choose sides.”

It cost me nothing to admit that. The Water People and their coastal cousins warred nearly every other summer. Sometimes it was just border sorties, but some once or twice the fighting had spread into the mainland and shipping lanes. Everyone knew about it.

“I see.” Ylem hummed another thoughtful note, but didn’t comment further. “Your turn for a question, I think.”

I considered it. There were a lot of things that I could ask, but we seemed to be keeping them minor and personal. Then I thought about all the things I didn’t know, that I was supposed to have been learning. Maybe there was another way and other people to learn from. Ylem had been a statesman for longer than twice my life and seemed willing to let me trade on our history so long as it didn’t cost too much. “What are your observations about the other humans?” I asked him and that got me another smile from the dwarf.

“Markham interests me and the woman... Ahn-gee Deh-veh-roh?” Ylem pronounced her name very carefully and looked at me to check if he’d gotten it right. I nodded and he continued. “They are both listening more than they speak. The other one, the younger man, I understand less. He’s ruled by his emotions, but I don’t know what those emotions are yet. Jealousy? Pride?” Ylem shrugged one shoulder as if discarding the mystery. “If he was a dwarf I would have had him sent back to school or have him trained for another vocation. He’s not suited to speaking for others.”

It was telling that Ylem thought Angie Deveraux was worth the trouble of learning her weird human name, but Amos wasn’t. “After last night, I don’t expect I will see much more of him. If your Elliot Markham is wise then he’ll be sure of it.”

Amos was a young upper class white man so I wasn’t sure I agreed, but Ylem hadn’t asked so I didn’t offer. I was still unclear about all the nuances of human racial prejudices myself and I didn’t feel up to explaining it all to an outsider if I didn’t have to. Amos would have to do worse than lose his temper at a dinner party to be grounded in the apartment.

“Maybe. Amos Duvall is one of Marhkam’s main aides after Angie Devereaux.” I said instead. “It wouldn’t be that simple.”

“Interesting.” Ylem slowed us down to a stop in front of an interesting waterfall feature. We watched the water burble for a quiet moment. The water lit up in blue-green bursts whenever it hit stone. I wondered if it was magic or an Anwyn-native species of phytoplankton. Perhaps the master of ceremonies would know. If I asked Ylem then he might take it as a sign that our question exchange was over and I didn’t want to be the one who backed away first.

I shouldn’t have worried. The comfortable silence drew the subject to a natural close. After a while Ylem released my arm, took my hand, and bowed about as low as a monarch could over it.

“My dear, I have enjoyed our conversation and I’m glad to have met you again.” He let my hand go. “I have enjoyed our talk so much that I have an offer for you. Be my guest for the winter and I’ll provide both magistrates and a supplemental squad from my personal guard for the fair at Vigny.”

I managed to bite down on my surprise and the impulse that immediately followed it to squint at him in suspicion. I’d never seen Ylem offer more than someone had asked him for. “Why?” I asked and he chuckled.

“My grandchildren are overwintering with me this year and hosting their friends.” He explained. “They are all energetic young people who have only had each other for company all during the warm months and many of them are from the surface. Varied company helps keep them from feeling confined. ”

“You’ll have an entire complement of aliens from another dimension visiting your court.” I cocked an eyebrow at him. “You have another reason.”

“I often do.” Ylem allowed. He turned to gesture towards a tangled arch of vines at the end of the walk. We continued onwards. “I’ll be fascinated to see if you can guess it.”

“If I can guess all of them, you mean.” I replied and he barked out a surprised laugh. “I’m certain of some.”

Ylem had already admitted to using me as a yardstick to measure Markham by. I doubted that he was done yet. He’d need a reason to keep me around now that my interview was over. He could have put off granting my audience, but that would have risked insulting my clan and elves didn’t often suffer insult without bloodshed.

The only reason Markham and BIR had gotten away with it was because the Clan leaders had come to think of them as idiot children, but that wouldn’t last forever. They didn’t know it yet, but they were eating up all the goodwill my family had to spare.

“Yes, I have my reasons and your delightful candor is one of them.” He sobered. “My dear, I am fond of your family and of you in your own right –however you are not a good example of your species.”

I recalled what he’d said at the gate. “More elf than anything else.” I quoted him. I wondered if that was what kept me from bridging the cultural divide between me and my own species.

He nodded, his gaze softer than it had been at the time. “You were raised by elves and trained by elves. Eight years won’t make you human the same way the delegates are.”

Oddly, that made me feel a bit better.

“I had the influence of my mother.” I pointed out.

“Yes, but I will point out that Lady Catherine would have been working hard to integrate with her new community while you were growing up and she’d lived an isolated life before that.”

‘Isolated’ was probably an overstatement, but rural Wisconsin was very different from the cosmopolitan roots of the movers and shakers at the Bureau.

Still, he’d given that up too easily and it was a mercenary sentiment even for him. I thought about what we’d discussed and smiled. “Are you using me as a role model?” I asked.

Dwarves could be cutthroat, yes, but didn’t often set people up to fail nor did they like to waste their own time. If he was going to bother with the humans then Ylem was going to give them some route to success, however painful.

Ylem took my hand and kissed it. “I don’t plan on telling them so.” He told me and his smile grew conspiratorial. “Aren’t you curious to see if any of them notice on their own?”

Well, when put like that…

“I would love to accept your offer of hospitality.” I told him. “Pending the agreement of my entourage and my family, of course.”

“Of course. I will instruct my wise folk to make a working room available to your mage should you need to exchange personnel.” Ylem pointed to a spiraling crystalline staircase just beyond the arch of vines. “Now that our serious talk is complete, I wish to show you the Path of Stars. It was completed just this month and you will not find it’s like anywhere on the surface world…”

We did not leave the garden until almost the dinner hour and well past the half hour I’d been allotted. Markham, flanked by Amos and Angie, was still waiting as I made my foot-sore way out of the gardens.

Our eyes met as Aster helped me up the last flight of stairs. My dress felt like lead and I was too tired for emotions anymore. I nodded politely and told him, “Good luck.”

Markham said nothing and I tried not to be disappointed.

Ylem was right. I did want to see how well he’d do and it seemed like I was going to get my chance.