In Other Lands

by Sarah Rees Brennan

“I think Culaine could have a real future as a sexual harassment preventing dog.”

“I never liked him,” Elliot said uncertainly. “I always made that very clear.” “Oh, you always do,” Luke said. His voice was savage. “What?” Elliot asked. “I should have taken it as a compliment?”

“Ah,” Serene said. “But not the male company I prefer.” Luke, Elliot supposed, and glanced bitterly over at her. Serene was looking at him, her face pale in the moonlight, her eyes grave. She looked remote as the moon, but she was very close. She leaned in. His breath left him in a shocked rush, replaced by a feeling of light-headed disbelief, and the brief sweet warmth of her lips meeting his.

Elliot was slow to learn, that was all: he always had been, well before he ever came to the Border camp, when he kept hoping that his dad would start liking him and kept doing everything wrong so his dad never did.

“In my world there’s this beautiful thing called running water,” sighed Elliot. The boy looked at him as if he was crazy. “We have running water here too,” he said. “In rivers and streams. Where water runs.”

“Sexually please her, I mean,” he clarified. “Very specific instructions, please. Do you know of a book like that?” Bright drew in a deep breath. “How dare you?” “The library is meant to be a place of learning, not of judgment,” said Elliot. “I suppose you think that just because I am unmarried and in employment I am no better than a hussy peddling pornographic literature!” “What?” Elliot said. “No. What?”

“Okay, cool, good for you,” said Elliot. “But what if . . . just for instance. . . a guy didn’t aspire to come pure to his marriage bed? Like, if he was no true gentleman, but a hussy? Is there any advice for hussies in this library? I need advice for hussies.” Bright-Eyes-Gladden-the-Hearts-of-Women made it clear the only thing hussies were going to get in his library was detention.

Luke didn’t like women, but Serene could still like him. Maybe the only reason she’d gone after Elliot at all was because she couldn’t have who she truly wanted. Maybe she had realized that Elliot was no substitute, and never could be.

“I come on a mission of peace,” said Elliot, and got backhanded with a chainmail fist. Elliot tasted blood and saw stars in a gray daytime sky. “Did I stutter?” Elliot asked, feeling his mouth fill with blood. “I said I come on a mission of peace, moron.”

His friends always seemed to be fighting different battles than the ones Elliot was fighting, and Serene was always fighting on the war-training side. But Elliot liked to think Serene had used her council-training skills when she convinced the vast majority of the camp to keep faith with their commander.