Page 17 of Practical Boots

"No," Cat said wearily. "I suppose not." Humans didn't generally go digging through their own bodies in search of specific bones or organs. An elemental couldn't search out the shining rocks that most appealed to it, either, not from within its own living parts.

That was what trolls were for.

"You still can't keep her," Cat said. "And if I thought there was a way to get you to let her go without threatening your entire existence, I would, but since you'd really prefer to burn and suffocate us for being here, I kind of think I'm taking the right tactic here. So which is it? Do I open this breach all the way, or are you going to let Savos go?"

The elemental, vibrating with anger, twisted to reach behind itself, seized something in the far distance, and flung it to the ground near Cat.

Savos bounced once, rolled to her feet, and threw herself safely into Davos's arms while Rick continued a constant, quiet litany of "what thefuck"s. Davos's sister was almost as tall as he was, and equally strong of build, but had an air of otherness about her, something more fey than Davos’s presence. She looked exhausted now, and ill-used, but she would, Cat thought, recover.

"She was mine," the elemental said petulantly. "She came into me without permission. I was not wrong to make her find the lovely stones."

"You were," Cat said. "Even if she could do it easily, you had no right to trap her here, to force her to do it. You might have asked, and seen where that got you."

The elemental shifted, its near-expressionless face somehow conveying inconceivable horror at the idea. Despite herself, Cat chuckled quietly, and carefully, with concentration, slid her foot back from the breach. The Waste shuddered and twitched, clinging to the Torn, but without Cat holding it open, it couldn't maintain the hole. Bit by bit it faded, until to her eyes, there seemed to be no breach at all. She glanced up at the elemental, which had gone so still that all the life might have left it. "Do you feel anything from it anymore? Are you in danger?"

She edged back, reaching for Rick's hand, as the elemental's avatar melted back into the cavern's surface, and a slow, rumbling answer shivered from the walls.No…

Cat, hoping like hell Rick had Davos and Davos had Savos,steppedjust before the cavern roof came tumbling down on where they'd been.

* * *

They came out in the World, because Cat wasn't about to risk the Waste or any part of the Torn again, not if she could help it. Especially not with Savos, who could traverse the Waste herself, and might well decide to—

Cat didn't know what, really. Decide to do something stupid, basically. Cat had had enough of stupid for one day.

They landed in Cat's apartment, all four of them, two human-sized people and two who could be mistaken for small, angry mountains on a bad day. Kallie was there, and let out a god-awful scream at their arrival, which seemed fair enough. Her second scream was one of relief as she threw herself through the sudden crowd to hug Rick, who collapsed under her enthusiasm. So did the chair they fell into, with a shatteringthudthat begot another shriek from Kallie, then silence.

Cat said, "Everybody okay?" into that silence, and a few non-verbal sounds of agreement rose, as if no one was quite willing to speak.

Davos, though, clutched his sister in a hug and said, "Whathappened?" before Kallie could ask the same of anyone else.

Savos shrugged. "The passage to the Torn was blocked. I took another one, and ended up in the elemental's cave. It knew me for what I was, and refused to let me leave."

"What are you?" Rick demanded, not politely, but with heartfelt passion. "And whatwasthat thing? If you say an elemental I'll—" He stopped, obviously unable to think of a threat he could actually enact.

The siblings exchanged a glance, clearly not planning to answer the first of his questions, and Cat answered the second. "Elementals are areas of land—or earth or air or almost anything, really—that are invested with a spirit. There are some houses in the Torn that are elementals, and, like, individual trees, or a pond, sometimes. That particular one was an earth elemental, and it wanted Savos's ability to find and extract stones it admired, so it could look at them."

"If it was made of the stone why couldn't it look at them?"

"For the same reason you can't look at your own bones, with the advantage that if they're extracted from an elemental's area, it doesn't hurt them the way it would hurt you to have a bone taken out. Especially if someone with a particular skill set does the extraction."

Rick's voice shot up. "Whatskill set?"

Savos ignored him. "How long was I gone?" Her voice sounded like honey over rock, smooth and rough all at once. She was dark, like Davos, but where his skin had—to Cat's eyes—that faintly bark-like texture, Savos's was more like deep brown quartz, almost translucent if the light caught it right, and her eyes had golden streaks in their depths, like tiger's eye. Cat wondered what part of her parentage let her travel between the World and the Torn, but doubted she would ever know.

"Ten days," Davos said.

"How long wasIgone?" Cat asked Kallie, who had gotten out of the broken chair and who now threw her hands upward.

"Four days. Rick's been gone over a week. What the hell is going on?"

"Four days." Coldness bunched in Cat's belly and sank. Four days was enough for her father to decide she'd backed out of their deal. Not that shecould, having sworn an oath, but he would lay it at the feet of her very human ability to lie. Four days was enough time for him to decide to take matters into his own hands.

"You two." She pointed at Davos and Savos. "You two, out. Davos, if you ever try to pull that kind of shit again, I will drop your punk ass in the Waste and let you rot. And before you say I'll never find you, remember I've got a syringe full of your essence and can use it to find you beyond the ends of the goddamn World."

"What kind of shit?" Savos breathed as Davos's face contracted with anger.

Cat didn't give him a chance to answer, though. "And remember if Rick gets sick I'll save enough of that essence to call you to me, and drain every drop of it from your leafy veins, if that's what it takes."

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