“I’m having a crisis,” Elliot told her.
“A crisis where you forget how to use your eating utensils? I noticed,” she said, bandaging with efficiency and no effort to spare him pain.
“Do you know, at lunch there’s one table for kids who like drama, and one table for kids who like sports?”
“Amazing, it’s like you’re going to a school.”
“But this is a school in a magical land!” Elliot protested.
“People are awful everywhere,” she told him. “Not just kids. Everyone. They tell you people outgrow it, but they don’t. Everywhere you go, you see dynamics just like the petty gangs of youth. Which isn’t to say that school is not a very special hell, as people haven’t yet learned to hide how awful they are.”
“I don’t have a special table,” Elliot protested.
“Uh, you, the murderous, man-hating elf girl, and the intense gay kid?” asked the medic. “You’re the weirdo table.”
The infirmary tent was hushed for a moment, with nothing but the sound of the medic humming to herself and clinking through her instruments, as Elliot worked through this awful opinion.
“Well, I just don’t think that’s true.”
“You’re the intense weirdo table. I don’t care what you think is true.”
Elliot gazed at her with admiration. “Will you tell me your name?” he asked. “Can I eat my lunch in here with you from now on?”
“Get out of here. I don’t want to spend time with you.”
Elliot wandered out of the tent feeling vaguely more cheerful.
“Did you do any serious damage to yourself, you idiot?” asked Luke, falling in step with him.
“No,” said Elliot. “But apparently it was a nasty cut. I admit I might have stabbed myself harder than I intended.”
“You what?”
“Nothing,” said Elliot. “I misspoke. I certainly did not intend to stab myself. Who would intend that? I’m not crazy.”
“Debatable,” said Luke.
Elliot’s shoulders sagged. His arm was throbbing. “I just want to sit somewhere and read, please.”
“Well,” said Luke, and frowned. Elliot believed that Luke was allergic to the library. “I could use some javelin practice.”
“Okay,” said Elliot, all the fight stabbed out of him. He brought a book and sat on the sidelines.
“You’re not watching,” Luke said crabbily later.
“You’re not wrong!” Elliot called back. Luke was doing fine.
The next day Elliot, in no mood to stab himself, just went to the intense weirdos table and sat down in a state of gloomy surrender to the inevitable.
“Well, thank God you’ve stopped being so weird,” said Luke, sitting down across the table from him.
“What you just said is very ironic, but you don’t know it,” Elliot observed. “But then there’s so much you do not know, loser. About irony, obviously. Also about literature and art and drama. Also about computers and music.”
“I know about computers,” Luke claimed, which was such a lie that Elliot stared at him openmouthed.
“Really, Sunborn? No, really. All right then. Tell me about computers.”
“Well . . .” Luke said, and looked shifty about the eyes. “They’re boxes . . . but you can write things in them. And read things in them. And there are cats in them who are funny for some reason. They’re like—boxes of infinity. And! You keep the wikipedia in them!”
“Elliot,” Myra said from behind him. “Can I talk to you?”
“Absolutely, and I’m glad you asked. Come to me for any reason whatsoever,” said Elliot, but before he twisted around he pointed at Luke. “And you, hold that thought, because it might be my favorite thing you have ever said. It might be my favorite thing anybody has ever said.”
He jumped off the bench and looked down at Myra, who seemed upset. He wondered if Peter had done something, and wondered exactly how one went about defending one’s soon-to-be lady.
“Everything all right?” he asked. “Tell me what I can do to help you.”
“Are you sure you still want to help with the play?” Myra asked. “Because if you are, we could use you right now. Adara Cornripe is having a diva moment.”
“You can rely on me immediately,” Elliot assured her. “Except give me a minute. I’ll meet you in the hall.”
“Right,” said Myra, looking relieved but still under pressure. She turned and fled.
This was a perfect opportunity to win her heart that should not be missed, and an opportunity to keep himself busy and not thinking about Serene. Elliot rapped on the table to get Luke’s attention. Luke eyed him, unimpressed.
“Gotta go see about this play. Myra needs help and I can’t abandon her.”
“Ugh, okay,” said Luke, and got up.
“So I’m going to go . . .,” Elliot said, as Elliot went and Luke went with him, “to the hall. Where they’re putting on a dramatic production.”
Luke sighed as if incredibly put-upon. “I wish you weren’t making me do this.”
“I don’t know how you think I’m making you do this, Luke. Do you think I’m an evil wizard?”
“Uh,” said Luke. “Obviously not. Wizards are not real.”
“Good,” Elliot told him. “I don’t like wizard stories all that much. Stories about witches are better, because witches are morally ambiguous and traditionally disempowered. And of course my very favorite is—”
“I swear, if I hear one more word about mermaids,” said Luke as they walked into the room and heard Adara Cornripe shouting.
“I will break all the props over your head and then beat you to death with the shards! I’ve waited to play this role since I was a little girl, and now everything is ruined. Tell me, what is my motivation . . . to not kill you?”
The hall where Elliot had once served General Lakelost doctored drinks looked very different from how he remembered it. Someone had removed the table and chairs, and a small stage was in one corner of the room. A sheet was pinned up over the stage, and wooden buckets of paint were lined up like hopeful petitioners beneath the sheet. There were also a huddled group of people, including Captain Whiteleaf, listening to Adara. She had her hands on her hips and murder in her eyes.
“Maybe I could step in and play—” began the captain tremulously.
Adara snorted, which sounded like a horse shooting a bullet out of its nostril. “Can you really see yourself as Jewel? No, wait! You’ve decided to turn this piece into a comedy.” Her eyes narrowed so much they almost slammed shut. “Well, I’m not laughing!”
It was hard to note anyone besides the pillar of flame that had been Adara, but Elliot saw Myra with her arms curled around herself, looking ready to stop, drop, and roll.
He wanted to be her hero, so he stepped forward.