Five Odd Honors (46 page)

She’d made up for that later, and while the pictures weren’t going to win any prizes, they were enough to set her heart fluttering in a way that made her already woozy head uncomfortably light.

Most of the pictures had been taken in the days right before Foster had been repatriated. Brenda had forgotten how different “Foster” and Flying Claw looked. Physically, they were identical, of course, but without his full memory Foster had been somehow out of focus, like those old-style fashion photos, the type popular in the sixties and seventies, where the effect wasn’t realism but something almost painterly.

The underlying edge that would come out when Foster regained his memory showed here and there. In a picture Brenda had taken of Foster and Riprap playing Yahtzee, the hard, competitive light was clear in Foster’s eyes. Yet in another, where he was deliberately losing at Go Fish to Lani, the fond smile on his perfect lips was enough to twist Brenda’s heart in two.

In the weeks after, when Flying Claw had replaced Foster, Brenda had initially struggled to decide if she felt the same about this man. Eventually, she had decided she both did and didn’t. Flying Claw wasn’t Foster, but he still played quite happily with Lani—not as a duty, but with the same genuine fondness. Then there was what had happened when they’d traveled together to the Nine Yellow Springs .

Brenda shivered, remembering the feeling of Flying Claw’s arms around her as the heat of the passing sun crisped their hair. He’d kissed her then. Not passionately, true, but he had done it, and she’d thought the look in his eyes held more than the fondness he’d shown Lani.

Now Brenda studied the pictures, trying to decide. Had her reaction been any different or had it just been relief that they had survived? There’d been so much going on, hardly a moment to think—well, plenty of time for thinking—but very little for anything else. Then, just when that time had come, when there were weeks of routine scouting, time when they might have talked some evening at the edge of a campfire, her dad had pulled her off.

“And sent me to school!” Brenda said aloud. “To school! As if I can concentrate on literature and history and all that . . .”

She took one more look at one of her favorite pictures, Flying Claw in a fencing stance of some sort. He’d been practicing with Riprap, but Brenda had managed to get just him in the shot. He stood there, intent, focused, a little smile playing about his lips in reaction to a joke Riprap had made.

“Damn!” she said, and closed the file, then shut off the computer. She leaned her head back against the wall. “Damn!”

She was drowsing off when a knock on the room’s door roused her.

“Come in,” she called.

The door opened, admitting the dark honey-gold head of Parnell. Fresh from her contemplation of Flying Claw’s pictures, Brenda looked at Parnell with something of the freshness of a first meeting.

He was admittedly handsome, but in a completely different way than Flying Claw—or Foster. Parnell’s wide green eyes seemed innocent of anything but mischief, where Flying Claw’s were so dark and brooding that the slightest laughter came as a surprise. Brenda thought that Flying Claw was the taller, but neither man would draw attention for either his height or lack thereof.

Parnell’s voice, as so often just slightly teasing, broke into Brenda’s reverie. “I saw Shannon at Mass. She’s going to brunch with Dermott, so I came by to see if you’ll be needing anything.”

“No, I’m fine. I could probably have gotten up, but I’m getting used to being lazy.”

Parnell gestured to her laptop. “Catching up on your homework?”

“Probably should, but it’s hard to feel motivated.”

Parnell crossed from the door and stood next to the bunk bed.

“I’m surprised Shannon didn’t switch beds with you. Getting down from that when you were so woozy . . .”

Brenda shrugged. “For the first day or so I didn’t need to. It was like the ch’i depletion burned everything out of my system, not that I had a heck of a lot left after being stranded for hours in the sidhe.”

Parnell didn’t look in the least ashamed. “I fed you first, left you with water. You could have tried to eat something. There were berries and all.”

Brenda shook her head vehemently, rather pleased that the action didn’t make her head throb the way it would have even last night.

“I’ve read too many fairy tales. I wasn’t going to take the risk.”

“Would I have risked you, acushla?”

His tone was so caressing, Brenda felt herself blushing.

“Probably. I haven’t forgotten that you and Leaf have some agenda of your own.”

“Which isn’t to say that it is opposed to yours.”

“Maybe.”

A long silence stretched out, then Parnell sighed.

“I’m getting a crick in my neck from looking up. I don’t suppose I could come up and sit at your feet. There’s room.”

“I don’t suppose,” Brenda agreed. “Sit in my desk chair. It has a high back. You can lean and not risk that precious neck of yours.”

“Like I risked yours? Brenda, would you believe me if I told you that if you didn’t get out through your own actions, I would have come for you?”

Brenda considered. “Probably you would have, but not out of any kindness to me. Shannon would have raised a fuss if I’d gone missing, and you’d have been the likely suspect. Even if you could slip away, there would have been people looking into your background, and some of those might have had the ability to find out what you really are.”

“Hard words, Brenda Morris.”

“Yeah. Hard words. Hard truths. You say you need me—or hope you can use me or something. But you say that there are those who don’t think I can do it, what ever that ‘it’ is. Then you dump me somewhere, and I get back but then I get to spend my weekend being sick. Yeah. Hard words.”

“You’re bitter.”

“Damn right I am.” Horrified, Brenda felt herself choking up, felt tears welling into her eyes. “I’m apparently only good for anything when someone needs me. The rest of the time I get dumped. Dumped here at school by my dad. Dumped in the sidhe lands to drag my sorry butt back—or fail and get hauled back and be discarded all over again.”

Brenda snuffled hard, managing to push most of the tears back, swiping at the rest with her forearm.

“Yeah. I’m bitter,” she repeated. “I think I hate all of you, every damn one of you.”

She’d squinched her eyes shut in an attempt to push back the tears. Now she felt the bed frame shaking. Opening her eyes, she was not surprised to see Parnell standing on the ladder. What did surprise her was that his own eyes were bright with tears.

Leaning into the ladder, he reached out a hand and laid it on her shoulder.

“I’m sorry you’re hurting,” he said softly, “and I’m more than sorry that I

had something to do with it. Let me make amends, Brenda Morris. Let me show you I have more feelings for you than for some useful tool.”

Those tears were real. Brenda was as sure of that as she hadn’t been sure of much else for a while.

“Teach me,” she said impulsively. “Teach me what I’ll need to know to be useful. I feel like I’m doing a dance in the dark, and I don’t know the steps. I was just getting comfortable with the Orphans’ magic when Dad ripped me out of there.”

“I promise,” Parnell said. “I can’t teach you magic, but I can find you a place where you can practice safely. And I’ll teach you a bit more about the shapes the universe can take. It’s going to be my way of seeing things, and that’s going to be different than what you’ve learned in some ways, but if you’re willing to try . . .”

Brenda nodded. “Try to stretch my brain around it? Sure. I’ll try. That’s only fair.”

“Deal then?”

“Deal.”

Brenda thrust out her hand. Parnell shook it vigorously. Then, putting one knee on the edge of the bed, he leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. He had bounced back to the floor before Brenda was quite sure how to react.

The kiss burned on her forehead, but she was pretty sure the sensation was just her own surprise.

Pretty sure.

“Tell me, Loyal Wind, how would you deal with a thief?”

Li Szu’s question hung in the air.

Loyal Wind waited as long as he could, trying to organize his thoughts. He knew that the Ch’in dynasty had been very law-oriented, legalistic as opposed to the more paternalistic attitude of the Confucians. However, although the governments within the Lands had varied even as their rulers had varied, the Confucian model had tended to dominate.

Was this because so many Confucian texts had been burned and fed their energy into the Lands, or was it because it was a better way? And how would Li Szu himself feel? He was presenting himself as the creator of the Lands. Did he approve or disapprove of the path that creation had taken?

Loyal Wind answered the question with a question.

“What did this thief take? Why did he take it?”

“Does this matter?”

Loyal Wind decided to plunge in. He had neither the wit nor the temperament for extended prevarication.

“I think so. If a man steals rice to feed his family, certainly this is different than if he stole the same rice to gorge himself, or to sell to gain money to buy wine.”

“So the motive, not the action, is what you see as important?”

“Yes.”

“But the rice is still stolen. The owner of the rice still must do without what he has fairly earned. Is he to be robbed without recourse simply because there is some slim merit in the actions of the thief?”

Loyal Wind felt momentarily clever. “Lord, you asked me how I would deal with a thief, not how I would compensate the one who had been stolen from.”

“I see. . . .”

Li Szu tapped his chin with his index finger. Loyal Wind noticed that the nail on the finger was long and elegantly manicured. It was not the decadent showpiece the idle rich affected, but certainly it demonstrated that this man had not picked up a writing brush for a long time.

Loyal Wind glanced down at his own hands. Courtesy of the bath attendants, the fingernails were fairly clean and neatly trimmed, but they were short enough that the white moons at the top were invisible. A few days’ imprisonment had not been enough to soften the calluses he had earned from their days of travel.

He dared sip from his freshly filled cup. The tea remained excellent, but could not rinse the sourness of sudden fear from Loyal Wind’s mouth.

“Would you say, then,” Li Szu said after reflection, “that there are times when theft is justified?”

Careful. Careful,
Loyal Wind cautioned himself, but looking at his interlocutor, he did not think he could escape a direct answer this time.

“Yes, my lord. I do.”

A slight inclination of Li Szu’s head encouraged elaboration, and Loyal Wind hurried to provide it.

“Consider a spy for an army.”

“Such as you commanded.”

“Yes, my lord. Now, place that spy within the enemy’s camp. He has managed to overhear what the opposing commander’s plans are, and even to see a map of the proposed battle plan. The enemy commander leaves his quarters. Our spy has the opportunity to steal that map—but not time to make a copy. He must take the map. Shall he not do so because it is stealing? I think not. I think the information, and how it would benefit those he is sworn to serve, is more important.”

Loyal Wind finished, holding back an urge to sigh in relief at having made a somewhat coherent presentation. A minor lackey seemed to approve of his answer, and offered the dumplings once more. Loyal Wind accepted one, but kept his attention wholly on Li Szu.

“Are you indicating then,” Li Szu said, “that it would be better for your spy not to steal the map?”

“Yes, lord, but not because the stealing itself would be wrong. If the original map remained in place, then the enemy commander would not be alerted to the fact that his plans had been compromised.”

“Interesting. So you see theft as justifiable, if it is to serve a greater cause: to feed a starving family, to provide intelligence in a time of war.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Li Szu smiled, and Loyal Wind did not think the expression was in the least pleasant.

“Then you will not feel wronged if I take from you something that is yours, if I do so to serve what I feel is a greater cause?”