“It’s amazing how many people actually liked Ladamus, but were too scared of the AHH to say so,” Sandi whispered as they watched their Elf friend accept her diploma, a dozen people cheering for her.

Puffin patted her hand. “I knew we would save Ladamus’ social life, if nothing else.”

They continued talking and in their seats even though the ceremony was over, and all around them people dispersed. Both liked to wait out rushes for the exit. “We destroyed a gang, too,” Sandi pointed out.

“Rowan did a lot of that.”

“I solved the mystery of who killed Professor Swift.”

“One second before he revealed himself in a very obvious and dramatic way – ow, ow, okay, dear, you did everything; you are a crime-fighting extraordinare.”

To apologize for hurting him, Sandi kissed her husband for a few minutes. When she pulled away, her blue eyes met his silver. They both crinkled with connection. “You did just as much as I.”

Pulling Sandi to her feet, Puffin headed to find Ladamus. Her gown seemed lost among the others, and her bony figure seemed lost amidst the gown. She waved.

“Congratulations!” Puffin called. “Could we have a word?”

With an expansive gesture, Ladamus indicated her cohorts who were dragging her away. “They are demanding that I go to their party. I would stop with you two and thank you, but the host has a boa constrictor. It is six feet! I simply must see it.”

“Come on,” a bespectacled, scientific-looking young man, also newly graduated, said.

“Yes, sweetie.” Ladamus waved again and disappeared.

“Sweetie?” Sandi asked Puffin.

“We have served her well, and it is good that she has other people in her life. Let us go home, for Rowan is coming in an hour.” After a pause, Puffin said, “I must say, I was surprised too. She struck me as the type to go live in a women’s commune in Bulgaria and make little troll dolls for sale to international companies.”

“What?”

“She told me that was her backup plan, were everything in her life to fail.”

“We know interesting people.”

Puffin pulled at his pointy ear. “We are interesting people.”

They walked home, holding hands. A young man with pale shadows around his face, eyes hollow with hidden hands, strode purposefully towards them. Sandi growled at him with a flash of wolf eyes, and he kept striding purposefully, but in a different direction and much faster. For a while she grinned, but then she sighed.

“What is wrong, puppy child?”

“It might look like I enjoy hurting or destroying people.”

“No, it never looks that way.”

“I actually want to protect people, but I have no one to protect.”

Puffin gave a wounded gasp, and Sandi swatted him – but only to tease. “I can protect you physically, but emotionally you’re the strong one. It’s just that – Ladamus doesn’t need me any more, right? She’s got her own shelter and food and entertainment. I’m happy for her, but I’m sad for me.”

“You want a child.”

“I hate to say it, but yes.” She expressed this before, with all the myriad reasons that Puffin knew by heart.

She didn’t want the line that started with her grandfather Ferdinand to end. She wanted to see if telling a small child about the dangers of scurvy actually would get the child to eat vegetables. She wanted to read Dr. Seuss books over and over with funny voices – she did that already, after swearing her husband to secrecy, but she wanted to have a good excuse. She wanted to have someone else share in the deer hunt, since her mother couldn’t do it with her any more.

And she wanted proof that she really was a woman, and not just a clever wolf that could walk upright. She’d spent so much of her life being sardonic and brutal that she needed to see if she could be tender and nurturing.

Puffin thought it would be nice, but his dual species nature had made him without any hormonal urges to propagate, because he was physically incapable. He enjoyed sex because he loved Sandi, but the thing in itself meant nothing to him. Music, for example, meant a lot more.

They went over all these things again, with many a squeezing of the hand or patting of the back. “I realize all these things, but you are not having another male’s child, even if he never meets you.”

“I don’t really want that either.” Sandi leaned her head on his shoulder. “I tried looking at some adoption websites, but they all said they would not consider nonhuman foster parents for humans. I asked them what they considered me, but that seemed to shut down their synapses, so they said no automatically. The OMHI has been fighting that in the courts since the Fantasy Coup.”

“I know, puppy child. We shall work something out.”

They reached their apartment and found Rowan standing asleep at the door. When Sandi touched her, those eyes of emerald’s blood opened, and Rowan curtsied. She always wore a green, clinging dress, yet it was always clean except for a little soil in the creases. It now had a little red patch where one of the AHH members shot her. “Convey to Ladamus how pleased I am for her, though only to the extent that I can be pleased –“

“Now that you have lost your tree,” Sandi completed. The trick to being friends with a dryad was to realize that she had only two purposes in life: her tree, and helping people. Actually, her tree was paramount, which meant that not having one was akin to a starving bohemian artist lacking a loft in Paris or New York.

“Am I predictable?”

“Only very,” Puffin joked, unlocking the door. Then he noticed her hands shook. “What happened?”

Rowan glided over to a cushion, breathing deeply, her brown face like cut amber. “I passed a construction site on my bicycle ride here. There was – there was –“ She buried her face in her hands.

Sandi sat on the floor next to her and put an arm around her. “It’s okay, Rowan. We love you.”

“Cordwood…stacked like bodies…” She sobbed a little, but then composed herself. With regained regality, she said, “I thank you, but that is not why I am here. You are aware that dryads are called into being by the tears of a person falling upon a tree trunk, correct?”

“Of course,” they chorused.

“Could I have some water, please?” As Puffin rushed to fetch her a glass, Rowan clasped Sandi’s hands in hers. They felt rough and weathered. “Most people do not know that the dryad is tied to that person for as long as both live. My summoner is an Elf named Delbinet, which means ‘perfect, unselfish love, with no passion but compassion, and that transcends the physical’. Is there an English equivalent?”

“Charity,” Sandi said. “Is she in danger?”

“Yes. Her family has contacted me and told me she no longer may live with them.”

Eyes wide at the idea, Puffin sat next to Sandi and handed Rowan her drink. “She must have done something terrible to be turned out like that.”

Rowan shook her head. “It tears all of them apart, for she has never erred enough to deserve such a thing. They love her dearly, and she loves them. You have heard of Elves being born lacking the Thought-Music, being like humans in that they can only sense emotions by facial expressions, body language, and vocal cadences. They have some difficulty, but eventually adapt. Delbinet – Charity, I should say – has the most rare condition of all, rarer than such an affliction. She has the opposite problem.”

“Repeat that, please,” Puffin said. “Sandi, why do you look so horrified?”

“I do?” Sandi closed her mouth with slight embarrassment. A sudden wave of understanding, a sudden conception washed over her.

She imagined knowing what everyone not separated from her by a wall felt. All anger and hatred from others would be acute as the sound of drills or the sight of blinding flashes of light. Being around the joyful, even, would be dizzying, drunkening, and maddening.

This was life for an ordinary Elf. This is what Professor Swift meant to solve. To protect the good side, the love and sharing, and a basic sense of identity, Whyllit killed him. Elves quite literally lived and died by the Thought-Music.

Then she imagined amplifying it, making it strong enough to feel the same things others felt, to have her own emotions drowned in a tide. And remember, Elves lived with other Elves, so everyone would pick up these emotions, which she would then reabsorb, which they would then sense again.

Reverberating –

Amplifying –

Crying laughing shouting swearing shivering trembling screaming….

“Is she sane?” Sandi asked. “How much more sensitive is she than the average Elf?”

“It has become more acute as she has grown. She is now an adolescent, and other Elves cannot come within ten feet of her without intense agony. If action is not taken, she will probably commit suicide. She needs to be with humans, because she will not hurt them. One only hopes that humans will not hurt her too much. I did not wish to bother you when you were trying to save the other Elves and dealing with the death of your friend, but the need is quite urgent.” Rowan drank deeply until all the water vanished.

“We’ll take her in,” Puffin said. “Of course. Does she need a psychiatrist? We can find one for her.”

Sandi hugged a startled Rowan. “Thank you. You needed to bring us together.”

“We will need a bigger place, with at least two rooms,” Puffin said.

Rowan carefully unwrapped herself from Sandi’s arms. “That, at least, I may solve for you. Are you allowed to make improvements to this place?”

Puffin went to refill her glass and called out from the sink, “Yes, but what do you intend to do?”

Rowan reached into her dress and pulled out a handful of seeds, spreading them in a line that cut off the bed from the rest of the apartment. She put her hands on the line, and there sprang up a wall of bamboo. Unfortunately, she was now on the other side of a thick green barrier. There was a pause, and enough bamboo crumbled into dust to let her back through.

Sandi and Puffin both stared.

Rowan shrugged. “Did you think I could only destroy? I am a builder. I spend a lot of my time with Habitat for Humanity.”

“Like Jimmy Carter,” Sandi mumbled. “What about sound?”

“You may hear shouts, but nothing else. I hope your romantic noises do not go beyond –“

“Thank you, Rowan,” Puffin cut in, bowing. “You are excessively kind.”

“I also have flowers for Whyllit’s grave. How often do you visit it?” The couple tried to look away from Rowan as she pulled lilies out of her ear There were certain hazards to being friends with a dryad, such as trying not to laugh at someone who had no sense of humor, and whose body was built extremely differently.

“Once a week,” Sandi said.

“Why so often?”

“For the same reason I now write to Demetrius.” Besides, Sandi thought, in his lucid moments he might be a good consultant on the workings of the criminal mind. He didn’t want money or freedom – just some human contact. He kept sending them origami Christmas tree ornaments.

Puffin clarified, “No one else does. He lacked nonmagical friends, and Elves do not honor murderers or suicides, much less both.”

“He was very idealistic for the wrong ideals,” Rowan agreed. “Would you rather that this case never happened; and then Professor Swift and Whyllit would both be alive?”

Sandi nodded. “Of course.”

Puffin pulled out his new ID carrier. The badge inside said, “Puffin Fletcher: Private Elf Investigator.” It wasn’t the little laminated mock-up he made, but an actual card issued by the actual Official Magics-Humans Institute. On the flip side was the same card, but with a photo of him manifesting his demon side, and “Demon” instead of “Elf”. “Maybe.”

“You can’t be serious!” Sandi admonished.

“Well, I am sorry that people died, but this is a very, very cool occupation.”

“You’re such a dork sometimes.” Sandi squeezed his hand.

“I love you too, puppy child.”