Zero. Louise had stolen the heroine in the videos from her dream of Nigel; she was Valkyrie-tall, blonde and seemingly able to produce guns from thin air. At least Louise had the comfort of knowing that Nigel would find a heavily armed ally on Elfhome.
Louise tried to push the conversation past the videos. “How long will it take to get our order in? Today? Next Shutdown?”
“We phoned the manufacturer as soon as we heard about the news this morning. People always go gaga over royal weddings; every woman in the city has fantasized about Prince Windwolf at least once. It’s a small furniture company but they assured us that they could have another set ready in two months.”
Jillian ducked her head to hide her grin. Louise felt her stomach drop. Two months for anyone else, but Anna had the family trait of plowing through everything in her way to get what she wanted. She wanted to get them out of Esme’s bedroom as quickly as possible. She wasn’t going to let anything slow her down.
“I’ll take the display model then,” Anna stated firmly.
The salesman visibly jerked to a full halt. “What?”
“I came to this store to buy quality furniture, not wait for two months for a knockoff copy.”
“This furniture is handmade on Elfhome.”
“It’s made in Pittsburgh by a human, who you called on the phone. You implied that it’s made by elves. ‘Spells and magically sharp tools.’ I have no way of knowing if the set that the human is capable of creating in two months is anywhere near this level of quality.”
“I-I-I never said that elves…” The salesman flailed as Anna plowed through him.
“We want this set,” Anna said firmly. “Now. I would suggest you don’t offer anything else or I’ll have my lawyers draw up a bait and switch lawsuit.”
The salesman blinked at her for a minute and a half, gears spinning wildly as he considered all the ramifications. Without a sample, he couldn’t sell more sets, but there was a chance that no one else would be willing to pay for such expensive furniture. Or that another salesperson might close the future sales. His eyes went to the confirmation of payment from Anna’s bank. The amount could have bought their house in Astoria. He winced, obviously thinking of the commission he would lose if Anna backed out of the sale.
Anna relented and sweetened the deal. “Deliver it within the week and we’ll take a second identical set.”
“Identical?” The salesman’s voice broke. “Okay. How does tomorrow sound?”
35: OF COURSE YOU REALIZE THIS MEANS WAR
Another night, another nightmare.
Louise jerked awake, breaking free of the bad dream. She’d gone to sleep feeling safe in the high loft bed, but the nightmare had stripped away all sense of being protected by Esme’s spirit. Panting with fear, Louise touched each of her family members to make sure they were all safely huddled around her. Jillian was curled into a tight ball, her back pressing against Louise. Joy slept tucked between them. Nikola lay carefully beside her so his weight wouldn’t crush them.
Nikola lifted his head as she sat up. “What’s wrong?”
“I had a bad dream. Bad, bad dream!” She hugged him tight, using his solid presence to drive away the horrible visions. Since arriving at the mansion, every night she had a nightmare, but this one was the worst. Ming had locked the twins in a birdcage, deep in caves under the mansion. All the babies had been killed when Nikola tried to free the twins. “Promise me, you won’t fight. Please, whatever happens, don’t ever try to protect me or Jillian.”
“But—but—but that’s my function.”
“No, that was Tesla’s function, but you’re not Tesla. You’re Nikola and I love you so much and I couldn’t stand to lose you. You have to be made into real babies and get to do everything real people do. You need to laugh and eat and sleep.”
“I don’t know. Sleep doesn’t seem to be very interesting. You just lay there.”
“Please, promise me. You’re really just a little fragile egg inside of Tesla. If that egg breaks, you’ll die. Tesla has to protect you.”
“If someone is hurting you…”
“Jillian and I can get ourselves out of any problem we get into. We’ve been doing it for a long, long time. If someone grabs one or both of us, or locks us up, or even if they seem to hurt us, you can’t do anything to try and save us. Promise me that you won’t.”
“Lou!” he whimpered.
“You have to trust us, Nikola. We can take care of ourselves. You need to trust us to do that.”
“Sometimes I feel so useless.”