…or, People Who Live In Glass Houses…
Iolana rose out of the hot tub water like an angry volcano goddess rising up out of the sea. I think I heard all seven languages she spoke in the space of about three seconds.
Not the entire languages, of course.
The highlights, as it were.
I thought she was going to lunge at me for a moment. Instead she pushed past me, taking the shortest route to the deck railing. It was kind of startling how easily she was able to reach up and vault up over it. Kind of breathtaking.
There were other verbs in there, too.
I felt a twinge of doubt about the fairness of setting an athletic young woman like that against Marlot. But then, turnabout was fair play. I’d gotten my ass kicked enough times when we were younger for my smart mouth, when she’d just said or done something worse. Might not have been the worst example of gender inequality ever, but it wouldn’t kill her if she got a little uppance coming her way once in a while.
Still, I found my shirt and my boxers—I wasn’t keen on getting my jeans soaked so I left them off—and hurried around to the stairs. I wanted to be there so I could help if things got really out of hand.
And so I could watch if they only got a little out of hand.
I saw Iolana disappear into the house through the open sliding door. I heard her yelling something. It sounded like her native tongue. The words were lyrical. Her tone wasn’t exactly music to my ears.
Shit.
For a moment, I hoped that Bobby would be able to protect Marlot from Iolana’s wrath.
Then there was an almighty crash, as Iolana came flying back out through the door—the closed part of it. Broken glass showered the deck, peppering the people nearest the commotion. People screamed and yelled in confusion from all over the yard.
Iolana had landed in a heap. Her arms were lined and spotted with red. There had to be worse cuts on her back. I felt sick when I realized she was probably laying in broken glass.
I figured—I hoped—there had to be somebody with some healing magic at the party. I started to turn towards the deck rail, to call out for help, but movement from the fallen form stopped me.
I wasn’t Iolana moving. The sidhe spirit rose up out of her body, like Iolana was an illusion that had been hiding her. The cuts and blood all came up with her, leaving Iolana’s body perfect and clean. The sidhe girl didn’t seem bothered by them.
“Oh, wow,” she said, looking down at Iolana. “She knows all sorts of fun words, but she doesn’t know better than to piss off a powerful wizard.”
“Marlot’s not a wizard,” I said. “She’s a first year magic student with some AP classes.”
“Right, at the university,” the sidhe girl said, nodding. “Where they grow new wizards just like rows of corn.” She looked at me. “This is kind of your fault, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, kind of,” I said. “I didn’t do it, but—”
She kneed me in the groin. Hard. Probably harder than I deserved. I gasped and went down.
“Oh, what the fuck?” I said.
“Sorry, I just get a little protective of the people I get attached to,” she said. She really sounded apologetic. “It’s not strictly voluntary.”
“Why aren’t you going after the one who threw her through the window?” I asked.
“Well, it isn’t strictly involuntary, either,” she said. “Given the choice between taking it out on you or taking it out on her? I know better than to mess with a wizard.”
She vanished before I could say anything else. I lurched my way back up onto my knees and shuffled closer to Iolana to check on her. She wasn’t conscious, but she was breathing.
“What the fuck,” Bobby said from the ruins of the doorway.
“It’s okay, Jamie can pay for it,” Marlot said. She pushed past him and stumped her way towards me, where she held out a hand. “His boyfriend’s a rich elf kid.”
“I’m not paying for the door you broke,” I said. I got to my feet without her help.
“I broke? It wasn’t my wet dream that went flying through it,” Marlot said. “She might have banked off my cane, but that was your shot.”
“Look, I don’t care about whatever the hell’s going on between you two,” Bobby said. “Marlot, that door needs to not be broken when my parents get back on Sunday.”
“Relax,” Marlot said. “I’ll find someone who does repair spells and offer them a case of beer.”
“I think it’s beyond a repair spell,” Bobby said.
“Fabrication spells, then,” she said.
“It takes more than a case of beer to pay for a fabrication,” Bobby said.
“Yeah, it takes a girl offering beer,” Marlot said. “I’ve practically lived in a bar since I was four, Bobby, and I have yet to discover the upper limit of what that can accomplish.”
He made a frustrated grunt, then turned and disappeared back inside his house.
“You seem awfully sanguine about having put another girl through a door,” I said to Marlot.
“Reflex,” she said with a shrug. “You take a defensive magic class, you learn how to get a self-defense spell like that off as fast as possible when you need to. Besides, why shouldn’t I be sanguine? It looks like she’s still got all her blood. I think I’m entitled to mine.”
“Yeah, you got lucky there,” I said.
“She got lucky,” Marlot said. “That’s the thing about a self-defense spell. They’re generally used in self-defense. What exactly got under her skin, anyway?”
“What, you don’t know?” I asked.
“I’m going to guess from the general hairiness of your eyeballs that it was you,” she said. “But I’m not sure what you said, or why.”
“A few little tall tales that made their way back to Iolana,” I said. “I felt constrained to tell her who exactly started them.”
“But your honesty didn’t constrain you into sharing your role in that little bout of storytelling, it seems,” Marlot said.
“Well, it only seemed fair, since you decided to sic a satyr on me,” I said.
“Yeah, that was a stupid mistake,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’m still pissed, but thank you for admitting that.”
“I didn’t think he was going to go and ask, much less tell you why he was asking,” she said. “He wasn’t nearly that conversational with me.”
“What, he was supposed to rape me?” I asked. “And here I thought telling Iolana you started the rumors about her was crossing the line.”
“Not rape,” she said. “Just, not conversation. I was going for ravishment, not ravaging. I figured he’d grab you and you’d reciprocate your brains out without giving it another thought.”
“Except for one little thing: my boyfriend,” I said.
“You said it, not me,” Marlot said.
“That’s funny,” I said. “That’s freaking hilarious, Marlot. You know what else is funny? Earlier, you were all ‘I’m not going to tell you what to do’, but it’s pretty obvious you have some freaking specific ideas on how I should be living my life.”
“Not terribly specific,” Marlot said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Marlot looked around, and I realized that we’d drawn a crowd. There were people standing and kneeling around Iolana, too, but even more eyes were on the two of us than were on her.
“Do you really want to talk about this right now?” she asked me.
“I’m not sure I’ll want to talk to you at all later,” I said.
“Come on inside, then,” she said. She turned and headed back into the house. I followed. Bobby was pacing the living room in frustration. He looked at us like the two of us were from another plane. “Bobby, would you mind giving us some privacy?”
“Sure,” he said, after a second’s pause. “I guess I’ll go check on that girl.”
“Thanks, hon,” Marlot said placidly. Bobby headed out, and Marlot headed deeper into the house. I followed her into another room, a little den. She closed the door. I waited while she got herself settled down in a reading chair.
“What the hell were you thinking?” I asked. “What do you mean, ‘not terribly specific’? You obviously lured me here to set me up—in multiple sense—with Jay. That seems pretty damned specific to me, Mar.”
“It’s not like I planned for him to be here and you to be here so this could happen. I wanted you to come to the party on your own instead of just following me. Then when I realized that he was here, I wanted you to fuck Jay on your own, and then realize the truth on your own. I nudged the circumstances, Jamie, but I meant what I said. I can’t live your life for you.”
“What truth was I supposed to realize, that I’ve got a manipulative bitch for a best friend?”
“That you don’t even like Iason,” she said. “You like guys, you like cock, and you’re not used to the idea that you can get them outside the elven community. You’re part of a wider world, Jamie. Not that there weren’t any gay kids in Agora, too. I’m sure there were. If you’d been more open, maybe they’d have been open with you. Why do you think I mentioned so often that I would support you if you were gay?”
“I figured that was you being pushy and nosey,” I said. I rolled my eyes. “I have no idea how I imagined you’d be capable of something like that, honestly. Anyway, I don’t know if I like Iason or not, Marlot. I honestly don’t.”
“If you can’t tell by now, then something is seriously wrong.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe I’ve just got to get him to drop the facade and open up.”
“What if it’s not a facade?” Marlot asked. “What if there isn’t anything behind it?”
“Well, maybe I want to find out,” I said.
“Is that the only reason you’re with him?”
“No,” I said. “Not the only reason. Look, you’re the one who wanted me to figure out if he was worth it or not. I’m doing that. I just want to make sure I have all the information.”
“And in the meantime, you’re just going to let him string you along?” Marlot asked.
“No,” I said. “Look, I came here without him, didn’t I? I’m not just giving him the automatic benefit of the doubt. But I’m going to make a real decision, I’m not going to just let it be settled by default because I jumped into bed with someone else.”
They weren’t angry words, but I felt angry saying them. Angrier with each one. I was justifying myself to Marlot and I didn’t have to.
She sat very still even after I was finished. Her face had gone very white. Marlot’s cheeks were naturally ruddy. They got redder when she was having a good time. The only times I’d seen her go pale, she had been pretty ticked off.
Those times had been few and memorable. Marlot was an easygoing girl, generally. Her response to things that would leave others shaking was to get snarky. She didn’t do it to mask anger. She did it instead of getting angry. Easily amused, hard to anger. That was Marlot.
I braced myself for what was to come. She’d never been that angry at me before. I had no idea what she’d do or say.
It was sure to be memorable, though.
“I underestimated you,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
Next Time: Some resolutions are made. Little resolution is achieved.
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