Chapter Forty-Five

I didn't push Adam about Jesse and St Louis — I had my own ambivalence — but did spend a while playing with Googlemaps. With the transmission delay we would be three seconds ahead of where anyone watching thought we were. The public would be behind barriers, the motorcade waiting on Walnut Street within its own perimeter, so I walked possible routes, swivelling repeatedly through 360 degrees to consider what was where, and wondering what a vamp might think workable. Backbrain and gut were telling me the open location would be a plus for Bonarata, not the negative it ought to be, because he'd think surprising daywalking translocation plus vamp speed would mean he could blitz us, which he had to do to recover his rep. He couldn't stop vamps being outed, and was choosing defiance, so killing me on national TV was good, not bad. Minus the TV, it was pretty much what Manannán had thought, but as Bonarata knew I had multiple bodyguards he'd need numbers, and if he was aiming to come out right on us, maybe just far enough out for me to see him coming, unstoppably as he thought, and we were ahead of where he thought we'd be … but I couldn't arrange a transmission advance. It was tempting to ask the Secret Service for analysis; instead I sent Adam a very encrypted email, collected Jill and Brent, and went to ask Underhill if she knew how long slow time would take to envelop a designated area.

There was no sign of any duckpond excavations, Audubon-shaped or otherwise, but something in the magical potential I'd sensed in the conjunction of fountain and statue had … not settled, exactly, although the decision made about number three was in there, but become poised. Carnwennan pulsed on my hip. I filed under spannungsbogen and sat quietly, enjoying warm light and fragrance while Jill and Brent wandered around. It wasn't long before Underhill skipped in, nodded to them, and sat beside me, legs swinging.

"Mercedes Elf-friend. You look tired."

"Hello, Underhill. Just strung out after watching Jesse's intranet. She did really well, but it was nerve-racking for Adam and me, and her becoming an adult, choosing what risks she takes, has us … well, humans say conflicted."

"So do fae. And yet time passes, I am told."

I gave her a look, and she grinned.

"So it does, and as it happens my question today is about exactly that."

I asked it, and she cocked her head.

"Interesting. If this happens as you posit, you need slow time to claim all with you very swiftly, yet elide any Undead translocating within your perimeter. That would happen anyway. My blessings avoid them. The speed is a question of energy and strength to bear my magic's passage."

"Can you estimate what I might manage?"

"Perhaps half-a-second, Overhill. But if you pull on me in full fight mode, as you did with my justice, dilation will first be greater for you, so its wider extension may seem slow. The cloak will be able to give you a sense of your ratio to Overhill time. But anything beyond two figures will consume energy very swiftly as it passes through you, so do not maintain it any longer than you must."

"I hear you, Underhill, and am glad. The balance deepens, doesn't it?"

She gave me a very sharp look. "It does, Mercedes Elf-friend. How long have you known?"

"Too much didn't quite add up. Would I be right to think clever Gray Lords don't always listen, even to you?"

"Oh yes. And now I am glad, I believe." Her smile was complicated. " As I am about your completion of the triad. Mr Audubon could draw."

"Couldn't he? Edythe told you about the keepsake idea?"

"She did, Mercedes. I do not mind how anyone thinks of it so long as I get a copy soon."

"Can you get to a computer in Walla Walla?"

"Electricity doesn't much like my magic. Is a copy available via one?"

"It is. Gwynne ap Lugh could do a set of plates to tide you over while Edythe scares up a proper copy."

"Excellent. I wonder why he hasn't done so already."

"Indigestion."

She gave a piping laugh. "It is becoming an oddly common complaint."

"So I should hope. Along those lines, may I bring David Christiansen's five human subordinates through on Friday? All both ways, I devoutly hope. Even if Jesse doesn't come, Adam will want them all on me and flying is a logistical mess however I cut it, given Overhill time. And if Jesse does come, there are her trio of guards."

"Tell me of these humans."

I sketched Adam and David, listing rescues I knew of, and thumbnailed Connor, JJ, Vinnie, Travis, Lincoln, Dan and the Joes, adding that Medicine Wolf had read them all.

"Well enough. All are welcome to pass through the Garden with you on Friday, taking no step aside. It is a two-time only let, though." She gave me a look. "If I tell Gwyn ap Lugh you bypassed him, he will guess you know."

"Then don't tell him."

She considered me. "You are not … unangry."

"With reason. But it's more irritation than rage. I'll tell Gwyn ap Lugh so, if that conversation ever happens."

"I shall look forward to it. Was there anything else?"

"Maybe, but this is no kind of vital, however desirable for me."

She cocked her head again. "Consider me intrigued."

I grinned. "Certainly." I told her what I'd wondered about the evening I'd lain in the Garden while Adam and Jesse stared at the statue, and she gave a long, slow blink that for some reason made me think of dragons. "It was only a thought."

"It was an interesting thought. I cannot see why I should not, but I will let it settle into my mind and magic for a while. Do give Jesse my greeting, and know your destiny yet shines bright." She rose. "Fare you well Overhill, Mercedes Elf-friend. I am not sure I quite understand your distinction between magic and luck, but I wish you the unity of them."

Brent and Jill again got nods, and she vanished among roses as I stood.

"Don't ask."

They did, of course, as soon as we were back, but I held my ground.

"Briefing would do more harm than good. And the rest is no-one's business except mine and the Gray Lords'."

And Bran's, but that could wait, too.

"And Adam's."

"He knows, Brent. And about the other."

"Huh. And Jesse?"

"She's got the clues. Not sure if she's worked it out, but so do you, and you haven't."

"Enough that you think there's … what, bad faith, somewhere?"

"What's a little omission between elves and their friends? SOP with the fae."

Jill shrugged. "She's right about briefing, Brent. So much uncertainty would frazzle everyone. She can stoke up against energy drain, though."

"Can and will."

They weren't happy campers but understood playing odds, and left me as alone as I ever got these days, which wasn't very with the phone constantly chirping. PBS had been running trailers for Jesse's intranet and curiosity was spiking. Washington and Oregon (who'd had feeds) were sharply complimentary in statements and more so in emails. So were volunteers who'd watched with Jenny and Andrea, and I could label them all impressed. When had anyone seen a de facto politician answer every question asked? The flood of requests for interviews was another matter, and I talked with Mary, insisting refusal was an option but agreeing we'd give Jesse the choice of a pool system for, at most, fortnightly pieces.

"Otherwise she'd need her own PA, Mary. Graduating comes first. And not every yapping dog gets a bone." She nodded. "Anything on Christy? I gather media's on her in Eugene."

"They are, but she hasn't been seen, and security people are keeping them in line."

"I'll ask Auriele to call her."

Which I did, before getting back to the inbox. Once I was though the flurry of Jesse-stuff, I reached gubernatorial responses, appreciative of the package I'd sent if more shocked by the data than they should have been, and apprehensive of racial issues. I didn't blame them and had a follow-up offering perspectives I'd be using Saturday, assuming I got so far. There was no way round the weight of history, nor its rawness, and every reason to go there — but had they realised just how much Ol' Manitou River could change the game, not only hydrographically? I helpfully appended ethnic breakdowns of new voter registration in their states, and added a suggestion that, given what everyone would hear Jesse saying this evening, they should also create a Colorado Basin group. Colorado and New Mexico were in both Mississippi and Colorado Basins, Utah and Nevada in both Colorado and Columbia, and Wyoming made all three, so perhaps it would chair a committee of bemanitou'd governors to link the groups? It would be an interesting new role for a state that had very ex-Senator Heuter on Death Row and was still reeling from what Cantrip had done in its backyard. So could some of them please reach out to Arizona and California, where the real water-extraction problem lay, as well as the governors of Sonora and Baja California Norte, to suggest proactivity by a Colorado Basin group might be far more sensible than not? I copied in the Man and fired it off.

Slate people were also asking what Jesse had covered, and I sent a blanket reply with the bullet points. Frank got a longer answer, because I could express mixed feelings about Jesse's success and its consequences, and he deserved a detailed take on the way Jesse dealt with the question about Underhill's magic. Finally I contemplated an email from Penny with an attachment labelled 'Coyote Strikes Again', and sat back to watch him trot up to a KTNW news team covering a burglary in Kennewick and tell the camera that he was as proud of his Graught as any twenty-something-thousand Gramps could be. People should watch her, because they'd learn a bunch of useful stuff, and not to worry about the hair-dye, it'd soon change. The bemused reporter recovered sufficiently to ask if he knew Ol' Manitou River, and Coyote's eyes glinted.

"Of course I do. Since Medicine Wolf tickled it into talking again, bless that old dire wolf's cotton socks, we've been listening to Blues together. There's a crying need for some First People blues, don't you think? And have you noticed the way some things work better as blues titles? You know, Razorwire Blues or Reservation Blues, but really not McNugget Blues or Single-Use Plastic Blues? Amerindian names work really well. Shoshone Blues, Oglala Blues, Buffalo Calf Road Woman Blues, Little Big Horn Blues. You name it. Maybe I'll ask Bob Dylan to come give some lessons, and see if I can get something rolling. Meantime, everyone, watch my splendid Graught this evening on PBS, because Jesse Hauptman rocks. And so do I, because the Path of Mercy is working and today is a good day to live. As most are, but still."

And he'd gone coyote, trotting up the sidewalk with a friendly yip to goggling children. It was one way to avoid follow-ups, and if my heart hurt a little I appreciated the subtleties Jesse would hear, edging Christy aside, tweaking distraction with the hair dye. It was a lot of kindness for Coyote, and an Amerindian Blues programme was a fine idea, though I thought Taj Mahal might be his man, and sent him a message saying so. Penny's email warned me the clip was airing heavily, and by the time Jesse got home she'd seen it and called my disreputable da to thank him and ask him to join the fun one week. They would, she told me grinning, discuss driving, roadkill, and hunting habits.

Jesse was on a relief high, and I let her talk, piecing together an afternoon that had seen classes but also a … precipitating out, I decided, with many elements. A lot more students had known she did serious things than had seen her doing one, and there had been a dose of it's-only-who-her-parents-are, with ambivalent feelings about Dan and the Joes, but Jesse had done some world-stunning of her own. The way I'd been dominating the news cycle had been a building pressure she'd phase-shifted, and her sharp refusal of what she'd called undignified celebrity had generated a wave of respect from all grades. It was balm after events with Christy, for which I was grateful even if I worried about Mascara Bat's response. Then Jesse said she had no wish to watch herself.

"Uh uh. You don't have to watch every week, unless there was an issue, but this time you do. How aware were you of where Dwayne was?"

She stared. "Not so much, Mercy, but Penny said I needn't be."

"Right, because Dwayne's very good, and first time out you don't need the pressure. Plus, classroom, so it's not like you're going walkabout. But, knowing it's all good, watch and note when he had to scramble, learn how to make his job easier. Cameras you're on won't always have friendly operators, and while it's always substance over style, style rarely hurts." I gave a grin. "And Coyote was on about the hair-dye because it looks a bit darker on screen. You might want to lighten it."

That engaged her on a different level, and Adam was back in time to sit her between us as PBS aired her. She was jittery with embarrassment at first, but commentary on playing to camera without being untruthful drew her into a more thoughtful mood. The matter of hair dye was dealt with by narrow-eyed staring, a swift look at a web-page of swatches that made my eyes hurt, and a crisp email to Penny asking for a clear technical summary of why perfectly good Marsh-Sedge Green came out like a bad batch of Forest Foliage, with a URL for the swatch page. As she kept watching while accurately typing at speed, which made my thumbs as well as my eyes ache, I said nothing, enjoying Adam's amusement at military precision, and imagining the look on Penny's face. Messing with Jesse's hair dye did not have a defence of technical unavoidability, and it would do Penny no harm to be reminded Jesse made her own decisions.

Adam had someone pulling together reaction from the Eastern, Central, and Mountain 6 pm slots, and a surprising number of stations hadn't been able to help telling viewers to switch channel if they wanted to see something remarkable. To everyone's amusement, Wolf Blitzer, who scheduled a special Situation Room to cherry-pick excerpts as they happened, Eastern Time, and offer his own drama-queen brand of analysis, found it increasingly hard to cut excerpts off, and was brusquely asked by his guests to let Jesse run until an answer was complete. Getting miffed with your guests was not a good idea, and contrarian protests about rights of farmers and industry to claim water that would only be lost in the sea earned him retorts adding riparicide, murdering a river, to the nation's vocabulary. Even Fox, who clearly wanted talking heads to say it was all a partisan abuse of minors and education, found the talking heads wouldn't oblige. All in all, Jesse was blowing everyone away, and she'd slammed a bunch more things into the news cycle.

As the hour ended Jesse flopped back, and kicked her heels.

"Urk. Point taken. Dwayne is very good, isn't he?"

"He's slick. But you've got the instincts, Jesse. Just let them kick in. I get it coyote-wise, because animals know how to pose. Much as the comparison offends, ask Medea." Jesse grinned. "Yeah, but think of the way she knows exactly how to place herself on a rug. Try explaining the Golden Ratio to her and she'll sniff disdain, but she hits it every last time. And talk to your Dad — he's never taken a bad photo in his life."

"Hey!"

Adam's protest was silenced as my phone pinged, and a message from Leslie popped up.

Re: Jesse's blinding performance today, the line, not its context. "Hot as a pistol but cool inside". AttaJesse!

"Leslie has it right."

Jesse leaned in to read my screen. I tapped forward, and made choices.

"What? Mom, you can't—"

"Oh yes I can. You know the Man's a closet Deadhead, and so's the Director of the CIA. Odds any of them weren't watching? Irpa and Purity deserve a heads-up, too."

She opened and closed her mouth twice. "Right. And you have a unicorn's … an unicorn's? Whatever. Purity's cell number because?"

"Deadheads over Breadheads, Jesse. Unicorns agree."