I hugged her against my side. What was done was done. All I could do now was to offer the elves help and information. “Okay.”
I wrote my own note, fed my dog, and gathered my things while Ellie rummaged through the hall closet trying on Maura’s random winter coats and boots. We’d go shopping, but Maura wouldn’t miss a scarf or two in the meantime.
I set a bag full of clothes, my toothbrush, and deodorant, and a second bag with my fully-charged laptop next to the door. Ellie changed boots and picked out a ridiculous bright yellow knit hat with a massive white pompom flopping around on top.
She grinned. “I like it. It’s sunny.”
Sunny was what we needed, right now. I kissed her temple and I returned to the kitchen to get my axe.
Salvation did her version of a waking-up yawn when I lifted her off the top of the kitchen cabinets. I could reach her easily up there, but the kids could not, and Maura had to get the step-stool. Not that any of us thought Akeyla would do something stupid with the magical axe. Sal was pretty darned sharp, though, and without an adult elf around to add a guard spell on her blade, Maura thought the high-up resting place was a good idea.
Sal liked it, too. She had “a view.” She did have a straight line through the doors to the deck and lake, not that she could see anything, but it made her happy.
Except for me leaving her with the elves last night. That did not make her happy.
“I had other business,” I said.
My other business was not important.
She hadn’t noticed Ellie when we came in, or anything out of the ordinary, though she was well aware of fae magic in the area. She was much more annoyed that I had not come home last night. Normally, I wouldn’t care, but this edging toward a more possessive version of being “hers” was not sitting well with me.
“I have a girlfriend now,” I said.
Sal had never met this mythical girlfriend and demanded an opportunity to magically vet the mystery woman. She wanted me to remember I needed to be careful. I had Akeyla to consider. Sophia and Jax, as well. The entire town. What if some harpy tried to mimic a real woman and used her entrancing wiles on me? Brother had been bad enough. My axe was not going to tolerate anyone else causing me damage.
I stood in the middle of my kitchen, Sal in one hand and my truck keys in the other, with my usually not-so-chatty magical artifact huffing and puffing about how mean I was for not considering her feelings when entering into a situation with a possibly menacing and dangerous other woman.
Ellie leaned against the wall into the hallway. She sniffed and shook her head. “I was hoping you breaking the concealments would extend to your axe.” She waved her hand. “Since a lot of her sensing of the world is done through you.”
I shrugged.
Sal thought I shrugged at her, and tossed me yet another jolt of huffiness.
“This is the first time I’ve ever been glad you can’t actually talk,” I said.
I got the distinct impression that she was working on the whole talking thing.
“What?” I asked.
Her talking was not important right now. My unwanted and unnecessary girlfriend was.
“Did you just push into my head that my girlfriend is unnecessary?”
Ellie chuckled. “At least your dog likes me.”
Sal responded with more huffing.
“You’ve met her, Sal,” I said. “She’s here, right now.”
Sal insisted she had not met any new female friend, romantic or otherwise, and that she and I were the only two standing in the kitchen.
“Do you remember the fae magic in Vampland?” I asked. “The fae magic that helped you get back to me?” Without Ellie and Sal, I would have died in a pocket land full of vampires.
She did.
“Well?” I asked.
If my axe had eyes, she would have narrowed them at me.
“Her name is—” And I couldn’t get it out. Helpful fae magic somehow managed to circumvent the concealments, as did referring to Ellie as her and my girlfriend, but her name was still not allowed.
“Did she sense the dryads?” Ellie asked.
“Have you sensed any other fae magic?” I asked Sal. “There were two dryads sniffing around.”
She had noticed fae magic outside just before I came in and she would like to make a report to King Odinsson. The fae were dangerous. Even helpful fae. I was to be careful. She did her version of a frown. You’re mine, she tossed into my head.
“Yes, yes, my dear,” I said. “But if this all works out, that helpful fae magic will introduce you to another helpful magical artifact.” I held her out in front of me and twirled her a few times, an activity that caused both her and Akeyla the same amount of enjoyment. “Don’t you want to make friends?”
Why would she want friends? All the other artifacts were stupid.
I chuckled. “She says she doesn’t care to make friends because everyone else is stupid,” I said to Ellie.
My girlfriend shook her head. “You have no idea how happy I am that my camera isn’t showing signs of jealousy.”
My axe was like some sort of maturing magical artificial intelligence. “You really have grown, haven’t you?” I asked.
I walked toward Ellie and the front door. “The elves,” I said to Sal, “seem busy.”
A sense of miffed flowed off my axe. She sensed the so-called helpful fae magic again, and she would not talk of elven secrets when a fae might steal a golden and tender morsel of knowledge.
I stopped just into the hallway, probably more shocked by Sal’s poetics than I was by those of the dryads.
Ellie walked to the front door and shouldered her backpack. “What?” she asked.
You may be enthralled manifested in my head. The words, the intent, the unease. “Sal…” I could hand her over
