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“Anyway, Olga is trying to find his people, but it’s not easy. She said his dialect is really strange. He might be from one of the mountain tribes. With all the fighting, a lot of groups went to the hills over the centuries and some never came down again.”
“So how do we find them?”
Claire didn’t immediately answer, being busy staring at my rumpled mess of a bed. And a few bloodstains here and there, from where I guess I’d bled through my dressing. I felt around under it now, and found a ridge of puckered skin, but no bullet hole.
Sometimes I love dhampir metabolism.
“I can do that,” I said, as Claire started stripping sheets, but she just shook her head. Housework is how Claire works off excess energy. She sometimes complains about it, but if you try to take over, as I have plenty of times, she gets upset.
Unless she gets to boss you doing it, of course.
“Pillowcases,” she instructed.
I blinked at her.
“They’re in the bathroom closet, third shelf.”
Really? Who knew? I put down some old jeans and moved to oblige.
“I’m not sure,” she told me, answering my previous question. “Olga has been talking to the other slaves, trying to find out about her nephew. And she’s also been asking about the boy—” She stopped abruptly. “What do you think about Kjeld?”
“Kjeld?”
“As a name.”
I handed over pillowcases. “It’s . . . all right. Why?”
“Well, Bulsi needs a new one, and there’s not a lot to choose from. Most of the fey names, boys’ ones anyway, are all about war. It’s all ‘Fighter with Helmet’ or ‘Warrior in Armor’ or ‘Spear of God.’ And Olga says he’ll probably never be a fighter, so a name like that would just make people laugh at him.”
“There’s other things in life than fighting,” I pointed out.
And got an incredulous look from Claire.
“I do other things!”
“Name one.”
“I paint. I play a mean hand of poker.” I thought about it. “I know how to tango.”
“Well, maybe you should teach the fey,” Claire said, dumping my rumpled sheets into her now-empty basket and putting on new ones. “They’re obsessed. Even the stuff that isn’t war related is usually designed to strike fear into their enemies by reminding them of scary stuff. I like Calder, for example, but it means harsh and cold waters. Who would want to be called that?”
I agreed that Calder was a no go.
“And then there’s nicknames, although they aren’t any better.”
“Nicknames?”
“You know how the fey are; everybody has a dozen different names. But, apparently, other people are supposed to give them to you. You aren’t allowed to just name yourself.”
I shrugged. “So name him.”
“I would, but there’s all these rules. Even nicknames are supposed to say something about you. I asked the guards for recommendations, and you know what they came up with?”
“No idea.”
“Inn magri: the thin one. Or óþveginn: the unwashed.” Claire looked indignant. “He’s not unwashed! I bathed him just yesterday! Or—even worse—rotinn, the broken. I mean, can you imagine?”
“Some of the guards are pricks,” I agreed.
