We don’t understand, they said.
Human reasons for things had always been beyond them, she thought, and actually almost chuckled at some of the misunderstandings. That huge storm which had blown their ship right across the Inland Sea to Farness because Olga had told them that Olaf had refused to let her dress as a boy any longer. They had been trying to blow Olaf overboard, they said. At least that postponed the change of clothes. You couldn’t buy anything on Farness, let alone skirts.
The door by the chimney opened, and Lukin climbed out. “Oh dear,” he said, seeing Olga’s swollen face and tear-drenched hair. “I’m sorry.” He was, as he spoke, almost sure that he could see long, transparent creatures spiraling about her. Next moment he was utterly sure. The things dived upward and streamed around his head until his eyes watered and he thought his hair would blow off. “Hey!” he said. “You can talk to air elementals again! That’s marvelous. Call them off.”
“Why are you here?” Olga said. “Can you see them, too?”
“Of course I can,” Lukin said, batting at the creatures, which made no difference at all. “They’re making themselves rather obvious. Call them off. I came—well—because I love you.”
“They don’t always do what I—What did you say?” said Olga.
“I love you,” Lukin repeated. It seemed truer than ever the second time he said it. “I don’t care whether your father’s one of the Emperor’s elephants or chief bullfrog in the Marshes, I’d still love you. You’re Olga. And I brought you your cloak. Here.” He dragged the heavy fur out through the trapdoor and draped it around her. Somehow, while doing so, Lukin himself became wrapped around Olga, too. They stayed that way for quite some time, while the air elementals wreathed a joyous, windy, open pattern around the pair of them. Eventually Lukin said, with his chin on Olga’s smooth fair head, “Mind you, if he ran across the roof at this moment, I’d stamp on him.”
Olga shuddered. “Don’t. I still, well, love him, in a twisty sort of way.”
“I can understand that,” Lukin said, because he had his own father in mind, too, and he did not mention his plans for a mousetrap.
News. Visitors. Excitement! the elementals began crying out, swooping between the chimney and the parapet.
“They always know when something unusual is going on,” Olga said, disentangling herself. “Let’s look.”
“If it’s more senators or another batch of dwarfs, I don’t want to know,” Lukin said, following her to the parapet.
Down in the courtyard the first thing they saw was Melissa, racing past the statue, pursued by a little mob of mice and screaming, “Oh, save me!” The response was immediate. Students, not all of them male, hurried out of doorways all around the courtyard and stamped and shouted to scare the mice off. One student threw fire at them. Another rather spoiled that by trying to douse the mice in water. Lukin watched hopefully, but all the mice got away.
“That girl is such a wimp,” he said.
“No, she’s not,” said Olga. “Just stupid, and it’s not her fault she was born that way. She knows she was, and she’s trying to do something about it. I respect that. Those other girls helping her respect her for it, too.”
This sounded like the Olga Lukin knew. He turned to grin at her, then ducked as an enormous shadow boomed overhead. Wing feathers clattered as great wings cupped themselves to brake and a crowd of air elementals spilled out from under, screaming with the fun of it.
“See? They did know,” Olga said as she and Lukin leaned over the parapet to watch a great brown griffin come gently to the ground beside Wizard Policant’s statue and fold her cream-barred wings down on her lion’s back. She towered above the statue.
“That,” Lukin said, awed, “must be quite the biggest griffin ever. I think her name’s Callette.”
Next moment there were violent griffin shrieks from the concert hall. Its door banged open, and Elda streaked across the courtyard, shrieking, “Callette! Callette, you’re back! Are the others back, too? This is my sister Callette!” she screamed at Ruskin, who was coming after her at a bowling run on his short legs, followed by Felim at an awed trot.
The students who had come out to help Melissa stopped on their way back indoors and stared. Windows and doorways filled with more interested faces.
“I’m going down,” said Olga. “I want to mee
t her. Coming?”
By the time they had clattered down the stairs and into the courtyard, both griffins were inside a crowd and Elda was saying happily to everyone, “She’s ever so clever. She’s rich. She makes beautiful, artistic things called gizmos, and people buy them for ever so much money, don’t they, Callette? Thieves Guild bought nine last year, and before that the dragons bought twenty and—Oh, here are Olga and Lukin! Well, you’ve met Lukin once, I know, but this is Olga, Callette.”
Elda, Lukin was rather bemused to see, only looked like a small-medium size beside Callette. “You probably don’t remember me,” he said diffidently to Callette.
Callette’s large brown nearest eye inspected him. “Yes, I do. You were small, and your knees were black. You’d fallen down a pit.” The eye went on to inspect Olga, and then Callette’s head turned so that both eyes could look at her. “What a very beautiful human you are. Can I paint you sometime?”
“Olga’s—” Elda began.
“Shut up.” Callette pushed her face and beak affectionately along Elda’s feathery neck. “You do talk so. You haven’t let me tell you why I came.”
“To see me,” Elda guessed happily.
“Well, I did miss you.” Callette sounded a little surprised, saying this. “Quite a bit. But I really came to tell you that Lydda’s married.”
“What?” screamed Elda. “Who to? When?”