“I’m not sure I am comfortable with you going to—”
“I wrangled invitations for you, too,” Elgar interrupts.
Pip and I exchange another glance, but this time, her eyebrows are raised. She is thinking it over. “It may give us a chance to scope out everyone in positions of authority,” she says eventually. “And if no one besides the convention committee knows Elgar’s here yet, it might give us an advantage.”
“What advantage?” Elgar asks.
“Warning them,” Pip says, but she does so with that sideways, one-shouldered shrug that means she’s not certain that what she’s saying is really worth considering.
Elgar snorts. “What, we’re going to waltz up to the ConComm and tell them that one of my own characters has slipped his pages and intends to kill me?”
“That you have a maniacal fan who is stalking you,” I correct.
“Yeah. Yeah, they can warn security and . . . I don’t know. I usually have someone from convention security escort me everywhere. Maybe they can get a real cop?”
“Possibly,” I allow. “But I doubt that even Toronto’s finest will be utterly immune to the Viceroy’s influence should he choose to exert it. I would rather it be just us two—more people added to your honor guard means more opportunity for treachery.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Elgar says on a whimper.
“That is what I am here for, Elgar,” I reassure.“When must you go down to the room?”
“Now, if we can,” he says. “Does that work?”
“Yes,” I say. “Just let me fetch Smoke.”
Elgar’s eyes bulge out. “You’re going to just walk around with a real sword?”
Pip grins at him and punches his shoulder gently. “We’re cosplaying, remember?”
“They’ll cable-tie it into the sheath. They’re serious about security.”
“It is a risk I am willing to take,” I say. “I can break the tie with magic later.”
“There’s no guarantee there’ll be magic,” Elgar protests.
“If I need to draw my sword,” I say gravely. “There will be.”
“This is Abby,” Elgar says, about twenty minutes later. He is smiling too widely, and his eyes are too bright—he is in what he calls “Convention Mode”: gregarious, energetic, his jokes flat and desperate, his smile false. As a fellow natural introvert, I can see how exhausting the performance is. He is trying too hard, and he is too over-the-top as a result.
He slings his arm around a young woman with large dark eyes, and long dark hair. She is dressed in a great deal of bubblegum pink and misty mint, from her sneakers to her leggings, to her knee-length skirt, which is patterned with ice-cream cones, and the matching scarf over her long-sleeved shirt. She is terrifically pretty, too, very carefully made up with false lashes and the careful sort of artistically intense makeup that Pip has called “contouring,” and “a massive pain in the ass,” and “a waste of a perfectly good hour of my life.” Bless my wife, but she does reject the traditionally feminine with a vigor that nearly borders on insult to those that embrace it.
However, the young lady before me seems to be the exact opposite of a simpering femme, wearing her pastels and makeup with a sort of warrior-like pride which I admire. She is clearly of Indian descent, not African, but I am reminded so intensely of Captain Isobin for a moment that the déjà vu fills my breast with a brief, intense stab of homesickness. Though, of course, this young woman is neither pirate, nor captain, and unlike Isobin, is not filled with the raucous self-confidence required to push my creator back on his arse for his presumption. She is clearly not comfortable with the way he has taken liberties with her personal space without asking, and he has just as clearly gotten her name wrong. Her badge, which marks her as a guest liaison, says, “Ahbni.”
“Hi,” Pip says, holding her hand out for a shake, and Ahbni uses the excuse to duck out from under Elgar’s arm.
“I’ll be able to tell her apart from the rest of the brown girls because she’s the hot one,” Elgar goes on, sticking his foot further down his throat.
Pip pinches the bridge of her nose and groans. “I honestly can’t tell if it’s the meds talking, or the stress.”
“Actually, I—” Ahbni begins, but Elgar talks over her.
“You can get my friend a coffee or something, right, Abby?”
“I’m the assistant guest liaison, Mr. Reed, and I need to talk to you about—”
Elgar laughs. “Cute. No, no, grab your boss and send him my way, okay, sweetie?” And then he gives her a little shove. She steps away, off-balance, and Elgar’s eyes drop to . . . oh. They drop with the full intention of watching her walk away.
Beside me, my wife makes a noise like a strangling cat.
“Lucy?” Elgar asks, having heard the sound as well, bushy eyebrows knitted with confusion. “Are you okay? Abby, can you—?”
“It’s Ahbni,” the liaison corrects.
“Ahbni,” Elgar repeats, not entirely sure where he misstepped. “That’s a cute fantasy handle.”
“Nope. It’s my name,” she corrects.
“Oh!” Elgar laughs. “Were your parents fantasy fans, then?”
“They’re Telugu,” Ahbni says, and I get the distinct impression that she is considering using her badge lanyard to garrote my creator. I am doing my best to control the urge to laugh.
“I might use it, though, you know? It’s a good name. The beautiful Princess Ahbni, with skin like fresh-roasted cafe latte—”
“No,” Pip snaps, smacking Elgar’s good arm like an errant puppy. “Bad writer. Women of color are not dessert products.”
Elgar jams his hands into his pockets and scowls. “It’s supposed to be a compliment—”
“I swear to fuck, one of these days, I’m going to throttle you myself,” Pip says, deadpan and staring straight at Elgar. She’s got her index finger stretched out and is tapping him right in
