“Can I stop you,” Luke muttered.
He could, actually: he could have belted Elliot across the mouth to shut him up, which had been done before, though the idea of Luke doing it was so ridiculous Elliot found it actually funny. Luke could have surrendered like Dale or just given up and walked away. But it had been four years now, and he hadn’t: so Elliot’s priorities were first Luke, then the treaty, and a long, tragic way back, flying girlfriends.
This was not the hilarious situation Elliot had originally believed it was. Luke was upset, in a new and disturbing way. If it meant delivering Dale on a plate, carrying through peace with the harpies singlehanded, or just filling in the time until Serene returned and was able to comfort him in ways Elliot had never learned, they were going to get through this.
“Listen up, moron,” Elliot said tenderly. “There are some things you should know.”
Word seemed to have got out that the humans were friendly.
That evening around their cooking fires, more than a dozen harpies approached Elliot specifically, to tell him details about harpies’ domestic lives and religious beliefs. Nobody made any advances of a sexual nature to Elliot, though.
Not that Elliot expected people to constantly make advances of a sexual nature to him. Podarge’s move had got his hopes up that harpies were into redheads, however, and it was a disappointment when even very attractive harpies his own age treated Elliot in a strangely aunt-or-cousin-like fashion. As if he were one of the family.
“I’m so interested in harpy marriage customs!” Elliot said brightly.
“How lovely,” one harpy with beautiful blond braids told Elliot. “You should wed in high summer and wear one of our oak-leaf coronets in your hair. Celaeno would make you a coronet with her own hands.”
“I’d be delighted,” said Elliot. “Hypothetically. If I get . . . hypothetically married.”
The harpies were weird, but they were nice. They were welcoming, even though too many of the troop remained wary of them. Elliot cast dark glances at Dale and Delia, who both lurked in a terrified clump outside the light of the cooking fires and away from the harpies.
Commander Woodsinger was stiff but perfectly civil, and Serene, naturally, was being an avatar of elven perfection, discussing weaponry and different battle techniques and hot gentlemen. Elliot heard her shyly confiding about her sweetheart back in the elven woods to a few harpy warriors.
Luke was also very good, somewhat to Elliot’s surprise. He stayed close by Elliot, which was absolutely correct behavior because Elliot knew the most about harpy customs, and he drank out of several skull cups and even, at Elliot’s not-really-but-trying-to-be-gentle-nudging, talked about archery and other forms of hunting. Elliot knew enough about archery, to his eternal shame, that he could tell they were talking about it from the perspective of having better eyesight than humans. He wondered if Luke knew that.
The harpies were making a real effort. The harpies wanted Luke. Elliot could not even imagine how it would be, to have two families who wanted you.
He tried not to be angry with Luke, who had always belonged to a family who wanted him, and had not wanted another.
He was angry with the rest of the troop, and expressed this at length later in his and Luke’s tent.
“Elliot,” said Luke. “I know you’re not in warrior training, so you are not as familiar with missions or battles that require sleeping outside. Maybe you’re not familiar with tents. But the thing is, tents are made out of material. Material is not like walls. People can hear you through tents.”
“Oh, really?” said Elliot. “Thank you for that information about tents. Very useful.” He raised his voice. “And another thing about how unacceptably rude the company is being . . .”
Luke gave Elliot a look that suggested he thought Elliot was being unacceptably rude, so Elliot was forced to explain to him at length why the treaty was necessary. He even brought up something that had been worrying him for some time, but which he had never mentioned before.
There were humans living on the other side of the wall who could climb over. There was every chance somebody from Elliot’s world would see something to exploit on the other side of the Border, and come for it. If that day came, the people of the Borderlands had to be ready, and they had to be united.
Luke did not look convinced about any of this, but he listened.
“We’ll have the alliance,” he said, at last, and Elliot thought it was meant to be comforting. “You’re very good at being friendly with the harpies. Maybe too good.”
And what was that supposed to mean? Elliot frowned. Luke grinned.
“Celaeno called you a pretty thing,” he said, and Elliot was flattered for an instant before Luke set fire to the moment by adding, in an unacceptably casual voice: “But don’t worry: I told her you were my boyfriend.”
What? said Elliot, from the depths of his soul. What? What? What?
“You did what?” he asked. He was proud of himself for not shrieking.
Luke frowned, as if he found Elliot’s calm, measured response to insanity unsatisfactory in some way. “You’re welcome.”
Elliot realized, with a sudden burning sense of indignation, why Celaeno had taken Podarge and Elliot’s dead bunny of love away, and why all the harpies had treated him like a member of the family. Because Luke thought this was an appropriate time to torment Elliot with practical jokes.
“Why are you out to ruin my life? Is it your idea of fun? Oh no, no awesome autumn flings for Elliot, his life has to be a never-rounding end of misery because Sunborn says, is why, because that’s hilari—”
“Oh my God,” Luke exploded. “Don’t tell me you would let one of those creatures touch you!”
There was a sudden silence. Luke looked upset, but he did not look as if he realized the depths of disgust and self-hatred he had just revealed. Elliot had no idea how to respond to any of it: to how Luke felt, or what Luke had said, to the argument Luke thought they were having, or the argument they were actually having.
He felt like a child who had wandered off the path into the dark woods. He was not remotely thrilled any more. This was not an adventure. This was just being lost in the dark.
Elliot did not work out a way to respond. He wasn’t the one who could convince Luke he was wrong. He changed the subject awkwardly to the horrific privations of camping, and pretended to go to sleep soon after.
Luke scoffed at his complaints about being cold, uncomfortable, and far from civilization, but once he thought Elliot was asleep, he covered Elliot carefully with his own blanket. Elliot had his eyes closed, but he felt Luke’s breath against his cheek, and Luke’s hand drawing the blanket over Elliot’s shoulder.