“No,” said Elliot. “No, we’re not.”
“Well, good,” said Luke. “I know how Elliot is, but from what you were saying earlier, you really like Golden, and I still think you have a chance.”
Of course Luke and Serene had caught up before Luke had thought to come find him. Elliot didn’t even know why he was surprised.
“You think so?” Serene asked shyly. She was smiling. “How goes your courtship?”
“Well,” said Luke. “We sat at Dale’s table one day while you were gone. I was planning to go over and sit near him, but then Elliot managed to hurt himself with a butter knife. But I think Dale was glad we were there. He was really welcoming. He’s so nice.”
“He is terribly handsome,” Serene said encouragingly.
Luke coughed. “I’m sure Golden is too.”
“Oh, he is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld! But Dale is very pretty and very agreeable as well,” Serene said consolingly. “Indeed, I am sure more agreeable, because there is no pleasing Golden-Hair-Scented-Like-Summer. Every word he speaks is like being slyly stabbed with a dagger, but everyone thinks he is so virtuous and that it is only right that he should speak harshly to such a rogue as I.”
Serene had been with the elves a longer time than usual, Elliot thought, her speech more formal than it had been when she’d left. She’d spent more time with elvish men, because women were less casual in the presence of gentlemen.
“That’s so unfair,” Luke said sympathetically. “You’re not a rogue.”
And Serene’s speech patterns were completely beside the point, because Elliot was outraged.
“Are you people seriously invading my cabin to drone endlessly at each other about the boys you fancy?” Elliot demanded. “Get out of here, both of you! I cannot believe your tedious faces.”
They left him so he could run both hands through his hair, take a deep breath, and think about the repercussions of what he had done and what he had decided. Maybe he would be alone forever.
It would be a long time before anyone chose him first. If anyone ever did.
They turned the Trigon pitch into a field of combat, smoothing the ground as best they could. Elliot joined Rachel on the bleachers rather than going to Serene and Sure: he loved Serene, but he’d had enough of being called a hussy.
“Sit,” said Rachel, smiling at him beautifully, and Elliot smiled helplessly back. “Tell me who Dale Wavechaser is.”
Elliot’s smile froze. He could feel it trying to sidle off his face and hide behind his ear. “What?”
“My husband told me that little Luke has a crush on someone called Dale Wavechaser,” said Rachel, nodding to the front of the crowd, where Louise and Michael were standing up to cheer. “But he said he wouldn’t point him out because he didn’t want Luke to think he was betraying confidences. So. You point out Dale, or I will tell Luke that you told his dad!”
She kept beaming. Elliot gazed upon her sadly.
“That one,” he said, sighing and subsiding onto the bench beside her.
Rachel leaned forward in her seat and peered at the crowded benches across the pitch. Dale’s bright enthusiastic face was clear, in the very forefront of the audience.
“Whoo, LUKE!” Dale shouted.
“Aw,” said Rachel, and her smile spread. “He seems nice. Do you like him?”
“I do,” said Elliot, deliberately not referencing any boredom-related stabbings, and Rachel patted his hand. It was nice that she cared what Elliot thought.
Rachel looked pleased. “Then I think that will work out very well.”
She seemed perfectly serene on a lovely morning, about to watch her son fight to the death. Elliot leaned into her steady, comforting warmth as they watched: it was Luke up against the elder elf.
“She’s called Cold-Steel-to-Vanquish-the-Foe,” Rachel said. “Very experienced warrior. This’ll be quite a fight.”
Rachel sounded approving. Elliot looked at Cold’s hair, fluttering like a blood-colored banner in the breeze, and Luke’s hair gleaming like a knight’s helm, and both of their weapons shining like big pointy metal objects of death. He slid off the bench onto the floor and sat there with his arms around his knees, looking up at Rachel.
“I don’t want to watch,” he said. “I’m not going to do it.”
Rachel glanced down at him. “Is something the matter?”
Elliot gave her a look of disbelief, and put his head down on his knees. He’d already seen someone die yesterday. He’d seen people killed before, and he could bear it. But he did not want to be made into an audience, as if this were a game. He did not approve of anything that was happening, and he would not accept that it was necessary.
He could hear the clash and clang of weapons, a remorseless din in his ears, and Rachel’s running commentary on the fight. He wished he could not hear either one.
“Scythed her legs right out from under her, that’s my boy! Oooh, nasty. Oh, that’s going to sting later. Nice, duck and roll! Funny face, you’re missing out.”
Elliot resisted the urge to put his hands over his ears like a child. “I don’t think so.”
Clang, clang, crunch, went the noises, like a giant eating breakfast cereal. Elliot knew the last sound was bone breaking.
“And Cold’s down!” Rachel shouted as the crowd roared. “Luke’s got his sword to her throat! That’s Mommy’s little man!”
“Is he going to kill her?” Elliot asked in a small voice, muffled in his own arms.
“No,” said Rachel, after a pause. “No, he’s letting her up. She’s surrendered. You go, champ!”
There was another cheer. Elliot wondered if it was his own terrible personality that made him interpret this cheer as slightly disappointed, as though the crowd had wanted blood.
He did not have long to wonder, because then Luke vaulted over the rail of the pitch—like he had jumped easily down into the deep drop of the pit, and all Elliot had to say was why, gravity, why—and bounded up to his mother.
“Aw, that little feint that broke her arm made me so proud,” said Rachel, jumping to her feet and giving Luke a kiss on the side of his face. His cheek and his blond hair were streaked with blood, but she didn’t seem to mind.
“Is that your blood?” Elliot demanded, scrambling up.
“No,” said Luke. “Don’t worr—”
He was cut off by the descent of the elf contingent, either bestowing congratulations and caresses—Serene—or obviously consigning their souls to the uncaring trees—literally everyone else. Serene was alight with her pride and her vindicated faith, shining like a blade in the sun.
“Now,” Serene said breathlessly. “My turn to prove myself in combat.”
“What?” Sure snapped.
“What?” Elliot echoed, but nobody paid any attention to him.
“Oh, my son can risk his life but your daughter cannot?” Rachel inquired coldly, folding her arms. “Do go on. Someone hand me an axe.”
Luke, dusty and tired and smeared with blood, looked over at Serene and smiled. “How about you send whoever you like, as many people as you like, out into the field against both of us? We’ll take on anyone you choose. We always do things better together.”