Wood Sprites

26: A Date Which Will Live In Infamy

Nikola Tesla explored their room, clumsily handling everything with his awkward dog paws. They rescued their tablets, the lamp on the nightstand between their beds, their alarm clock, and their matching china piggy banks. Nikola Tesla paused to examine his front feet. “Why do our hands look like this?”

“Because you’re a dog,” Jillian said.

“We are?”

“Well, at the moment, you are,” Louise said. “It’s complicated.”

Which seemed to be the theme for their life lately.

Nikola tried to pick up their new camera and nearly dropped it. Louise yelped and snatched it out of his paws. He gazed up at her with puppy-dog eyes. “We want to look at it.”

Louise was sure April Geiselman would label this as karma. They wanted their baby brother and sisters so bad, and now they had them, with all the chaos that implied. How, though, mystified Louise. Somehow magic had weirdly combined the frozen embryos and the robotic brain of Tesla. It seemed impossible, but there was no denying that Nikola was a whole different creature than their nanny-bot.

Louise held the camera down to Nikola’s eye level and wondered how differently he might be seeing the object. “It might break if you drop it. Let me hold it while you look at it.”

“So, you’re a boy?” Jillian moved around the room, putting treasures away while Louise kept the dog — puppy — boy — babies — distracted.

Tesla peered closely at the camera, tilting his massive head back and forth. “What’s a boy?”

Jillian gave Louise a pleading look for her to answer the question. Louise shrugged; she had no idea how to explain when the person in question lacked any reasonable body parts.

Jillian tugged at her hair in frustration. “A boy is — someone who is not a girl.”

“What is a girl?”

“We’re girls.” Louise tried to head off that route of questioning.

“Well, then, we must be a boy, because we’re not you.”

“That works,” Jillian and Louise agreed.

Nikola was distracted from the camera by the snow globe of the hyperphase gate in orbit over Earth. (The Elfhome one was the first thing Jillian had put up out of reach.) He gave a little “oh” of amazement when the glitter swirled. Louise struggled not to snatch the globe out of his paws. She really didn’t like it that much; it still felt vaguely dangerous to her for some reason. She supposed it could be worse; there could be four babies fumbling through the twins’ belongings, in mass confusion.

“What are we going to do?” Louise whispered to Jillian. “Mom and Dad are going to freak if they find out. And they will, if he keeps talking.”

“We’ll tell them we figured out how to upload a personality, and we chose Christopher Robin. Nikola, can you say, ‘Silly old bear’?”

He tilted his head with confusion. “Silly old bear?” He had a perfect Christopher Robin lilt, but the intonation was wrong.

“No, no. Silly old bear.” Jillian gave the correct tone of an older person addressing a child.

“What’s a bear and why is it silly?”

“We are so screwed,” Louise whispered.

“We can work with this,” Jillian said.

“But what about tonight? We can’t leave him alone!” She was imagining all sorts of awful things like him getting out of the house and getting stolen.

“We can’t take him to the gala.”

“What’s a gala?” Nikola asked.

They stared at him with slight horror.

“It’s a party to raise money for some charity.” Louise attempted to define it in words that he might understand. “People get dressed up fancy, and there’s music, and pretty decorations, and. .” Actually, she wasn’t completely clear what the gala was going to be like, so she fell back on the parties of Jane Austen. “People dance and say snarky things to each other, and there’s food and—”

“Food?” Joy woke up and joined the building disaster.

“Oh, now you’ve done it.” Jillian sighed.

“I’m hungry!” Joy cried.

“You’re always hungry, you bottomless pit.” Jillian opened the lowest drawer, where they’d hidden all of Joy’s food. “Oooh, you’ve eaten everything!”

“So hungry!” Joy clambered into Louise’s arms and gazed up at her pleadingly. “Open can!” She made the sound of the can opener. “Yummy, yummy, stinky food in can!”

Louise wished she knew how much Joy was supposed to eat. Was she actually starving like she seemed or was she just pigging out? She didn’t seem to be getting any fatter. After she’d eaten her fill, she would sleep for hours. “We should feed her before Mom and Dad get home.”

They moved to the kitchen since Joy was a messy eater. Jillian spread out paper towels for Joy to stand on as Louise used the can opener to open up the organic cat food that they had bought for the baby dragon and hidden under the sink. Joy sat on her haunches and clapped her hands together. Nikola watched with interest.

“Gimme!” Joy cried the moment that the can was open, releasing its pungent smell. She grabbed fistfuls of dark moist meat and shoved it into her mouth as quickly as she could shovel it in.

“Do you think we should move her to baby food?” Jillian asked.

Louise shrugged. They’d started with little three-ounce cans with pull-top lids that Joy mastered after they opened the first can in front of her. During the night she raided the kitchen and left the empty cans all over the floor. Luckily, Louise woke up and found the mess first. They’d moved to the twelve-ounce cans, which meant the little dragon was eating nearly a quarter of her weight in one sitting. “She likes these.”

“Nom, nom, nom,” Joy mumbled around the mouthful.

“Why is she putting it in her mouth?” Nikola asked.

How did he know it was her mouth and not know about food? It made Louise’s head hurt.

“It’s yummy.” Joy held out a handful to him. “But stinky.”

“No!” The twins both cried and leapt to intercept Nikola’s attempt to eat the food.

“That’s dragon food,” Louise said.

Nikola eyed the half-empty can. “It says ‘cat food,’ not dragon.”

He can read the word food but not understand it? Louise glanced at the clock. They had exactly one hour before this became a complete disaster.

“Nikola, do you understand danger?”

He tilted his head to the right and then to the left. “Danger is when the primary target is in an area that might harm the primary target.”

That sounded like robotic logic. Louise supposed that if Nikola could move the dog’s body and talk over its speakers, then the full robotic brain could also be accessed.

“Until we tell you otherwise, only talk to Jillian and me.”

“Joy!” the baby dragon cried, waving her hand to be included. The hand held food that dribbled through her clawed fingers.

“And Joy.” Louise supposed Nikola might be able to teach Joy more English. So far she seemed only interested in learning words that got her more food. “If you really need to say something to us, and there’s someone else there, you need to say ‘Tut, tut, it looks like rain.’”

“Tut, tut, it looks like rain,” Nikola quoted solemnly.

“Yes.”

“But there’s only a thirty percent chance of rain,” Nikola complained.

“We’re so grounded.” Jillian sighed.

They washed out the empty cat-food can so it wouldn’t smell, buried it deep within the trash, ran the range exhaust fan, and sprayed the kitchen with air freshener. Joy needed to be washed carefully, and she squirmed like an earthworm as they tried soaping her up and spraying her down in the kitchen sink.

“Just hold still!” Jillian cried.

Joy stuck out her tongue at Jillian.

After they were all dried off, they went back upstairs to get dressed for the gala and plan for their parents’ arrival. Nikola followed them up, murmuring Christopher Robin lines that they’d taught him and complaining.

“Tut, tut, it looks like rain. It still doesn’t make sense. Silly old bear. But what bear? You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. That one at least makes sense.”

Louise stared at the mirror, trying to gain the confidence to actually leave the house. She felt like everyone was going to be looking at them, knowing the impossible and illegal things that the girls had been doing the last few days. Stealing magical artifacts from a museum. Baby dragons. Robotic dogs possessed by unborn siblings. She wanted the comfort of knowing that she and Jillian were drawing attention because they were cute and not because people knew. Jillian looked cute, and they were twins. It stood to reason that Louise must be just as cute. All she needed to do was believe.

“We should just leave him here,” Jillian said as Louise tied a big yellow bow onto Nikola.

“No! We have to take him.” Louise’s whole insides went queasy at the idea of leaving their little brother behind. “It’s part of having a baby; you can’t leave them alone just because it’s inconvenient. Something might happen to him.”

“We were going to put him in the time capsule in the back of the closet.”

In truth, they had only given a little thought about where they were going to store the nactka once it was loaded. It seemed unlikely that Nikola would be safe in the back of the closet for years and years. The plan had seemed so solid until it hit that “and then what” gray zone. Tesla wasn’t really a good compromise. They needed to do more, but until then, they needed to take care of Nikola like he was a real baby.

And real babies had to have someone with them all the time.

Tesla would just have to be added to the list of things they had already planned to take. Speaking of which, she needed to pack them. They needed to take their tablets and the gossamer calls they made. The magical whistles were hidden with all the other things related to the codex. She shoved the calls into their purses, and then in a near panic, added the flash drive and photographs.

“If we take Nikola, we’ll end up having to take Joy, too.” They weren’t sure what taking the magic generator out of Nikola would do. Until they could carefully test it, they’d have to keep one running inside the nanny-bot while the other recharged. So far, they hadn’t been able to separate Joy from the generator, which made them suspect that she needed magic to thrive.

“Gala food!” Joy cried.

Leaving Joy at home seemed even worse than taking her.

“No. We all go. We’re a family.”

The trick, however, was to get Nikola to the gala at the Waldorf Astoria without their parents noticing. By secreting him in the car before their parents got home and careful redirection from the parking garage to the gala, they were able to keep him quietly following behind, unnoticed. He was being good, although part of it seemed to be that he was overwhelmed by everything. He kept twisting his head, trying to see everything.

When they checked in, however, one of the women manning the ticket window glanced beyond their parents and said, “Oh, that’s not really real, is it?”

As their parents turned, Jillian threw both arms around Nikola and grinned brightly. “No, he’s not real. He’s our nanny-bot.”

“What is he doing here?” their mother cried while their father looked too surprised to speak.

“He’s going to record us all together!” Jillian cried. “We both want to be in the picture — you can’t tell we’re twins if we’re not in the shot together. And we never have any video with Daddy in it when we’re together.”

Which was something their mother complained about constantly.

“We can’t bring him in with us.” Their mother started to scan the lobby.

Nikola cringed away from their mother.

Louise petted his head, trying to comfort him. “Why not? He wouldn’t bite or bark or pee.”

“He’s just one big self-moving camera.” Jillian pointed to a couple with their phones out, taking video. “They’re filming.”

“We’ll have to check him in the coat room,” their mother growled.

“Someone might take him!” Louise cried.

“You should have thought about that before bringing him.” Their mother turned back to the woman at the ticket window. “Where’s the coat-check room?”

“It’s the middle of June.” The woman looked surprised at the question. “We didn’t set up a coat check.”

Their mother stopped scanning to glare down at them. The hand went out. The finger pointed. “You. Two. Are. In. Trouble.”

Louise swallowed hard and gripped Jillian’s hand tightly.

“How much trouble depends on the rest of the night,” their mother continued. “You two be good and charming to Anna Desmarais and much will be forgiven.”

“Do we really have to be nice to her?” Jillian had the courage or stupidity to ask. Louise squeezed her twin’s hand hard in warning.

“Don’t push me now,” their mother growled quietly so no one around them could hear her. “You will be nice if you ever want a life again.”

“She’s been awful to you!” Jillian cried. “Why do you have to be the one that’s nice?”

“Because I am better than her!” their mother snapped. “I do not let other people define me. I am who I am, and that is an intelligent and gracious human being. And as such, I do not drop to the level of bullies and trade insult for insult.”

“But isn’t that just letting them win?” Jillian ignored another squeeze.

“No, it’s called standing your ground without sinking to their level.” Their mother held out her hand to Jillian. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

With Jillian linking Louise to their mother, they went in search of Anna Desmarais. A cold dread flowered in Louise’s stomach and grew. This was going to be the worst night ever.

They went into a big ballroom full of richly dressed people. At Louise’s eye level, it was a confusing wall of silk dresses and black tuxedoes. They wove right and left, avoiding groups of people standing and talking and laughing. The wall of black parted, and a woman stood alone in the crowd, quietly distanced from everyone.

She noticed them coming. For a moment, she watched their mother approach without a change in expression, like an ivory statue. Then she noticed Jillian, and a slight frown crossed her face.

Louise’s feet stopped moving out of sudden fear. Nikola bumped up against her. For a moment, Jillian was pulled between their mother and Louise. Her twin looked back, impatient, and jerked Louise forward to follow.

“Don’t piss her off,” Jillian whispered. “She’s killing my hand!”

The exchange had drawn the woman’s attention to Louise, and her eyes widened in surprise. Louise felt something leap the space between them, a spark of knowing, powerful and dangerous.

In that moment, she knew that this was Anna Desmarais, her mother’s nemesis. That the woman felt she was smarter than those around her. That she felt she was able to do anything she wanted, take anything she needed, and go through anyone that stood in her way. Louise knew because there was an answering echo inside her, a resonance of being. She recoiled as if suddenly seeing a mirror and it showed how selfish and wrong everything she’d done in the last few weeks had been. What she could become.

Did Anna see that Louise was just like her? Could she guess what Louise had done in the last few weeks?

“Mrs. Desmarais.” Their mother pulled them into a line before Anna. Their father was trying hard to look at ease and failing. “This is my family. My husband, George. Jillian and Louise.”

“What beautiful girls,” the woman murmured without taking her eyes from Louise. “Yours?” The tone was polite, but it put shivers down Louise’s spine.

“Yes, mine,” their mother said coldly. “I have the stretch marks to prove it.”

“Ah, I didn’t realize you had children. Twins, no less? Are they clever, just like their mother?”

Her mother lifted her chin as if sensing a hidden insult in the question. “Yes, they are. They go to Perelman School for the Gifted.”

“Perelman?” Anna cried. “Wasn’t that the school that had so many children hurt by the bomb?”

“Yes, but they were nowhere near the flying glass. They’re putting on Peter Pan for the school play. They were in the art rooms on the top floor checking on props when the bomb went off.”

“I’m Peter Pan.” Jillian beamed full-on cute at Anna. “We’re fraternal twins, not identical. I want to be a movie director when I grow up. Louise wants to be a naturalist. We’re both huge fans of Nigel Reid. We’re really excited about meeting him tonight. Thank you so much for the tickets!”

Louise nodded, glad that Jillian was handling it. Which one of them was the brave one? She added a quiet “Thank you” and forced herself to smile.

Anna smiled at the thank-you, but her eyes remained troubled. “I’ve heard that the art gallery might still be a target for the terrorists since the queen’s delegation returned to Elfhome.”

“Vance Roycroft is no longer a threat.” Their father avoided saying the man had actually been killed in a shoot-out.

Jillian continued with megawatt-level cute. “Our friend Zahara was late that day. She and her little brother were at the front door — the good side of the front door — when it went off. Boom!”

Louise nudged Jillian to get her to stop talking about the bomb. It felt wrong to be talking about it so casually. Zahara and her brother had nearly been killed.

“Zahara is Mbeya’s daughter.” Their mother stooped to name-dropping.

“They haven’t caught all the members of that terrorist group.” Anna looked honestly worried. “Are you sure it’s safe for them to go to Perelman with all that’s going on in the city? Maybe they would be safer at a boarding school.”

“That is what the terrorists want,” their mother said. “Us so frightened that we run and hide.”

“You’re making a statement with your daughters’ lives,” Anna said.

Their mother straightened to full warrior-queen height. “I feel safer with them home with us, where I can check on them anytime.”

“Do you have children?” Their father tried to run interference on a brewing fight.

Both women gave him a hard look.

Anna relented first. “Yes, I do. They’re all older than even you, and unlikely to give me any grandchildren. My sons have a genetic disorder, and my two girls are both grown women who chose lives that didn’t include husband and children.”

“Oh, I’m — I’m sorry.” Their father gave their mother a slightly panicked look.

“You should rethink your decision on Perelman,” Anna said. “Children are your greatest treasure. When you lose your children, it tears a hole in your heart. Without my children to fill it up, my house is too big and empty. I would just rattle around it at night if I stayed home, so I go to events like this to fill my time.”

She laughed as if this was a joke, and their parents were forced to join in. This night, Louise realized, wasn’t the end of the war, but the start of a new battle. She could take no more; she attempted a rescue. “Can we go find Nigel Reid and get his autograph?”

“We have Tesla with us!” Jillian reminded their parents. “So you could keep on talking.”

Louise wanted to kick Jillian; couldn’t she see that their parents needed to be saved?

Jillian caught her glare and patted her purse, reminding Louise that they wanted to hand over the gossamer call in person. They wouldn’t be able to do that with their parents in tow. They’d assumed that at some point one of them would slip free, but it would be more fun if both of them got to talk to him.

“Adult conversation is so boring to them at that age,” Anna said. “Let them go. We have things to discuss.”

“We do?” Their mother nearly growled the question.

“I have a Christmas event in mind at the Natural History Museum that I think your company would be perfect for.”

Their mother took a deep breath and flicked her hand, dismissing them. “Yes, go on.”

Jillian caught Louise’s hand and dragged her way. Louise wished she didn’t feel like she was abandoning her parents to evil.

There was face-painting, balloon animals, clowns and jugglers, and herds of squealing kids. Since they still had time before the meeting, they got their faces painted on the theory it was like a mask. The artist did them both as Bengal Tiger cubs that complimented their yellow dresses and black belts. As an additional precaution, they went past the buffet table and loaded a plate full of cookies for Joy, just in case the baby dragon woke up.

They had picked out one of the smaller meeting rooms that they knew would be empty and hacked into Waldorf Astoria’s event scheduling system to make sure it would be unlocked for the night. Louise led, still uneasy from her encounter with Anna Desmarais, the uncomfortable feeling of looking in a mirror and seeing something ugly reflected. All they had done to set up their meeting was have the room unlocked. They couldn’t expect a private conversation with Nigel any other way; the stars were all being mobbed by crowds of excited fans who were being lined up and timed for their few moments of interaction. They only planned to do good things, so a certain level of ruthlessness could be forgiven — right?

Distracted by her thoughts, she was off-balance when they walked into the room and found Nigel waiting. He’d taken advantage of the table and had a slickie, a tablet, and a phone laid out. His blond hair was better contained than when he was on camera, and he wore a tuxedo instead of his normal bush khakis and white linen shirt. There was no mistaking, though, his merry blue eyes and gentle smile.

He looked up, surprised. “Ach, what bonnie wee lasses!”

They circled the table like tigers, checking the room for spy equipment. Louise doubted that there would be any, but Jillian had wanted to be sure.

“I’m sorry, but this is going to be a private meeting.” His Scottish burr faded as he gained control of his surprise. “Go on back to the party. I’ll be out in a short while.”

“You’re meeting with us,” Louise said.

“I am now?” He smiled despite the fact he didn’t seem to believe them.

“Yes, we need to talk.” Jillian positioned Nikola by the door. “Watch the door.”

“Watch it do what?” Nikola whispered, apparently unsure if he was supposed to talk in front of Nigel or not.

Jillian covered her face with her hand just as their mother would. “Just warn us if someone is coming in.”

Nigel stood up. “Lassies—”

“We’re Lemon-Lime JEl-Lo,” Louise stated before he could order them out again. “We’re the ones you’re meeting with.”

“You’re. .” he started but trailed off, looking puzzled.

“Lemon-Lime JEl-Lo!” Jillian snapped.

“He was probably expecting someone older,” Louise pointed out.

“Well, yes, and taller.” He came to crouch down in front of them so they were eye to eye. “You’re truly Lemon-Lime?”

He seemed so disappointed.

“We have the gossamer call like we promised you,” Louise cried.

“I’m sure you do.” His voice was heavy with sadness. “It’s just that when I saw your last video, I thought that you must know more than the news we got from Elfhome prior to Startup. I thought you knew that the viceroy survived the attack on him.”

“You can’t tell anyone that we don’t know!” the twins cried.

“We do know who attacked him,” Louise said.

“At least some of the people involved,” Jillian said.

“They’re doing a lot of horrible things like kidnapping children and killing scientists,” Louise continued. “And they want the quarantine zone expanded. They attacked Windwolf, and now they’re using his disappearance to push through the vote.”

Nigel made a surprised, pained sound like someone had punched him in the stomach. “So humans murdered the viceroy?”

“He’s not dead!” Louise felt sure of it, although she knew that she couldn’t prove it. “Everyone has to stop acting like he is.”

“And we’re not sure what they are,” Jillian added. “They might look human, but we don’t think they really are.”

“They might be elves,” Louise said.

“Evil anti-elves,” Jillian cried.

Louise winced. The extremely short version sounded stupid. She wasn’t sure, however, how to condense three years of secretive information gathering. “The Museum of Natural History has an exhibit of things created by elves found on Earth over the last two thousand years. The elves were getting here via natural ‘hyperphase gates’ found in cave systems; basically magic-created fissures between the two universes. These pathways were their equivalent to the Silk Road. Elves used to come to Earth to sell these items. Around two hundred and forty years ago, they had a war with someone. Someone so powerful that they destroyed all the pathways between the worlds to end the war.”

Nigel tilted his head in confusion. “I visited the exhibit yesterday. I noticed that they didn’t explain how the items ended up on Earth. How do you know all this?”

“Some of it is deductive reasoning,” Louise admitted. “Windwolf already knew English when Director Maynard met him during the first Startup. He had copies of maps that King Charles the Second issued to the Hudson Bay Company when he founded their first expedition in 1668. His copy also showed an English trading post where Pittsburgh stands. It dates the map between 1740, when William Trent established that outpost, and 1758, when Fort Duquesne was built by the French.”

“I never heard that about the map before,” Nigel said.

Jillian waved it off as unimportant. “One of the EIA archive videos from Maynard’s first contact with Windwolf has a close-up of the map. The EIA has restricted access to their videos, so no one has actually studied them at length.”

“I see.” Nigel clearly was afraid to ask how they’d gotten hold of it.

It seemed safe to lump the codex in with data they’d seen but didn’t own. “We’ve also found the journal of an elf who was in France during the 1700s. We’re not sure when he arrived, but he was there for several years prior to being killed in the French Revolution in the 1790s. When he attempted to travel back to Elfhome, the way was unexpectedly blocked. He traveled to several points and was dismayed to find all the pathways closed off.”

“Where did you find that?” Nigel asked.

“We can’t say,” Louise said. “There are a lot of things we’ve done that weren’t technically legal.”

“So let’s just not go there — okay?” Jillian gave Louise an annoyed look for bringing up the codex in the first place. “The thing is, there’s no way to know how many elves were trapped on Earth or what side of the war that they were on. But the ones we saw didn’t look like elves. We’re only guessing that they were because they talked about being alive for hundreds of years.”

“The important thing is that they have moles in the EIA and the United Nations and possibly among the police force in Pittsburgh.”

“You have proof of this?” Nigel asked.

“Nothing we can show you,” Louise said. “But this isn’t a guess. We know this for sure.”

Jillian nodded. “It’s why you haven’t been able to go to Elfhome. They’re using the EIA to block visas of anyone that they don’t want in Pittsburgh. But NBC bypassed their normal channels and pushed your paperwork through.”

“We don’t know why they’ve been trying to keep you out, but they don’t want you there. They might try and kill you.”

“But you need to go,” Jillian said. “The people in Pittsburgh have no idea that they’re about to be in the middle of war.”

“A war between. .?”

“The elves and the anti-elves. The anti-elves have been building up an army — someplace — and they’ve been kidnapping scientists to make a gate like the one in orbit, only on land.” Jillian took his tablet and linked it with theirs. “Here’s a list of scientists they’ve kidnapped. We know that everyone on this list is dead, except for Kensbock. We’re not sure they’re the ones that took him; he wasn’t doing the same type of work. We also know that the NSA is looking into the kidnappings, but we don’t think they’ve realized who is behind them.”

“And this is really important.” Louise sent him all the pictures of the Dufae box copied from the AMNH’s server. “This was part of the exhibit. Sparrow took it back to Elfhome. It might look like a block of wood, but it’s a box. And it has eleven of these inside.” They had carefully taken pictures of the nactka inside a light box and erased all GPS tags on it. No one would be able to trace the picture back to their bedroom. “It’s really important that you find the box and get it back to Earth. If you can’t get it back to Earth, get it to the sekasha and have them open them.”

“What are these?”

Jillian opened her mouth, and Louise was suddenly overwhelmed with the sense that she was going to say the worst possible thing.

“We’re not sure!” Louise cried before her twin could reply. “The elf that died in the French Revolution believed that they were linked to a powerful spell. He brought them to Earth where he thought they could be safely studied. We’re not sure yet what the spell does, but it would be very bad if they’re used.”

“Sparrow took this box?” Nigel asked.

Jillian gave Louise another dark look for telling the truth about the nactka. “She’s one of the anti-elves. She’s the one that set the trap for Windwolf.”

“Sparrow? The viceroy’s secretary is the one that tried to kill him?”

“Husepavua,” Louise corrected him. “We don’t have any proof. It would be our word against hers. She’s an elf — or pretending to be an elf — or something — and other elves are going to believe her first.”

“You can’t tell anyone!” Jillian said. “We wouldn’t be telling you except we don’t know anyone already on Elfhome, and someone should be looking for the box and we can’t go ourselves.”

Nigel’s eyes widened with alarm. “Ach, no, ye cannae do that! Ye are just wee lasses.”

Apparently Nigel’s Scottish burr went into overdrive when he was extremely rattled. Louise felt guilty for alarming him. The truth was that if they went to Elfhome, they would be focused on finding Alexander. They couldn’t trust Nigel, though, with all of their secrets. They couldn’t tell him anything about her.

“Here.” Jillian opened up her purse and handed him the whistle. They’d brought two just in case only one of them managed to make the meeting. “This is the gossamer call we promised you.”

“You’ll need it on Elfhome.” Louise showed him how the tones could be changed by pressing his fingertips against the holes.

Jillian pointed out the spell etchings on the call. “We’ve found a spell that works as an amplifier for the ultrasonic frequencies. It needs magic to work, but it will make the call’s range to be. . well, we’re not sure of the range. We haven’t been able to test it, but we think it’s close to a thousand miles, or one mei.”

“You’ll have to be careful on Elfhome not to blow it with anything metal in your hands — that could twist the magic, and the results could be bad,” Louise warned. “Here is a list of gossamer commands we’ve pieced together from analyzing video. It’s kind of like Morse code. We’re guessing on these, so don’t take them as God’s word.”

“Thank you so very much. I never expected Lemon-Lime to be two little girls. You didn’t come here all by yourself, did you? You have someone. .?”

“Our parents,” Louise said.

“They’re here?” Nigel glanced toward the door.

Louise jumped a little. “Someplace.”

“But they don’t know about our videos!” Jillian said.

“They don’t?” Nigel looked concerned.

“They’re super-protective, and they were afraid that if we posted our videos, we’d pick up creepy stalkers. They’re not very computer smart, so they didn’t believe we could stay anonymous. We knew that if we were careful, no one could trace our posts back to us, so we — kind of — went around them.”

Like Anna Desmarais probably would. Louise cringed inwardly.

“So they don’t know how popular you are?” Nigel asked.

“No!” the twins cried.

“We didn’t even know,” Jillian grumbled. “We apparently use the Internet in a much different way than the average person. We know about all the social media, but we don’t hit those sites.” Until recently, they didn’t have anyone to be social with. “We do research.” Hack into secure sites. “And post our videos.”

Embarrassed, Louise turned the conversation back to the whistle. “The elves seemed to be exploiting instinctual behavior with the gossamer call. Elves have stated that the wargs are bioengineered for war. If the elves found a way to make sound trigger certain responses in all animals, then this whistle might effect anything they’ve created.”

“So it works on wargs?” Nigel tried the various finger positions.

“We think it will, but the commands and reactions aren’t going to be the same as for the gossamer. You would have to use trial and error, and that could be dangerous.”

Nigel suddenly lifted the call and blew on it.

“No!” both the girls cried.

Joy appeared perched on Nigel’s shoulder. She was smeared in frosting. “Who’s there?” She leaned in close to peer nose to nose at the man who had gone still with surprise. “Cake?” She held out a fistful of white cake.

“Oh, you bottomless pit!” Louise cried and reached up to pry her carefully from Nigel’s shoulder. “What have you done?”

“So hungry!” Joy crammed the cake into her mouth. “Nom, nom, nom.”

“We fed you before we came.” Jillian tried to wipe the frosting off Nigel’s shoulder but only smeared it more.

“Cake yummy!” Joy licked her hands.

Nikola, who had been watching the door intently, suddenly announced, “Tut, tut, it looks like rain.”

“Nikola!” the twins cried.

“But-but-but mother is coming!” Nikola cried and then grumbled, “Silly old bear.”

Both girls yipped in fear. They hurriedly opened up Tesla’s storage and shoved Joy into it.

Jillian pointed fiercely at Nigel. “You saw nothing!”

Nigel blinked for a moment and then said, “Yes, nothing, nothing at all.”

“She’s using her phone to track me,” Nikola whispered.

“Oh God, did she hear anything we said?” Jillian cried.

“No, I don’t think so.” Nikola was torn between looking at the door and at Nigel, who was watching with eyebrows raised. “She keeps pushing buttons on her phone and swearing. I don’t think she knows she’s already connected to my command system.”

Jillian caught Nikola by the leash. “Come on, let’s head her off. We can’t let her catch us alone in a room with a stranger.”

Louise let Jillian go on ahead. She wanted to say good-bye properly instead of tearing off like a pair of headless chickens. “It was nice to actually meet you. Be careful on Elfhome.” She didn’t know what else to say; she had never had to say good-bye like this before. “Maybe we can get together when you get back.”

“Yes, I would like that.” Nigel calmly pocketed the whistle. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask: what exactly did I just not see?”

He meant Joy.

Louise blushed hotly. “We’re not sure. We — we found her in the box before Sparrow took it to Elfhome. We think there are eleven more like her still inside it. You have to save them.”

Nigel took a deep breath as he realized that saving the baby dragons meant facing down Sparrow with a small army at her bidding. “I will do my best.” He reached out and took both her hands in his. “You should tell your parents.”

“Tell them what?”

“Tell them everything. You two are very intelligent. Your videos — now that I know how young you really are — they’re just breathtakingly clever, but you’re just wee things, and I’m afraid you’re getting in over your heads. These are dangerous people you’ve stumbled into. You two shouldn’t be doing this all by yourself.”