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for?"
    That being one of the sekasha 's pistols. While the gun itself was of human make, the black tooled leather holster and belt were elfin. Pony laid it on the bed, a coil of dangerous black on the sea of cream.
    "Wolf Who Rules wished you to have it."
    Oh, yeah, I asked for a gun .
    "It is specially made for the sekasha ." Pony settled on the bed beside her. "Only parts of it are metal, and those are insulated with plastic, so they don't interfere with our shields. Once you learn magic, it will be important that you don't wear metal."
    There was an elaborate system of wood buckles, D-rings, and ties to support the weight of the pistol on the hip without metal. In place of a metal snap, the belt maker had used a heavy plastic substitute.
    "Is it loaded?"
    "Not yet. I thought you would like to get comfortable with it first."
    So they played with the gun. Taking it apart. Putting it together. Strapping on the holster (although it had a tendency to slide on her long silky nightgown.) Drawing the pistol smoothly. Holding it with both hands to keep it steady. Aiming it. And finally, loading and unloading it.
    "Wolf Who Rules wants you to start the basics of the sword fighting," Pony said. "It would be unwise for Page 46
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    you to wear a sword until you are able to use it. Guns are simple. Point and pull the trigger."
    "I'm fine with that." She had no interest in swords. They relied too much on brute force. At five foot nothing, it didn't matter how smart she was, she wasn't going to win a sword fight with an elf. "Okay. I think I'm ready to face the day."
    "In that?" Pony indicated her current nightgown and holster outfit.
    "I thought I'd start a new fashion statement." Nevertheless, she started to look for the clothes she'd had on the day before. She was going to have to do something about clothes. After being kidnapped twice, she was left with only one T-shirt and one pair of shorts. Everything else in her closet was elfin gowns.
    Pony guessed what she was looking for. "They took your clothes to be cleaned."
    "Oh no." She went to the window and looked out. Beyond the orchard wall was the kitchen garden and the clothes lines. Windwolf's household staff was hanging up the laundry. Her jeans dangled between several pairs of longer legged pants. Her T-shirt? Oh yes, that had been cut to ribbons by the dragon.
    "Oh pooh."
    Well, she could wear a dress and just go clothes shopping. Of course she didn't have any cash in hand, nor did she ever receive the promised replacements for the ID that the oni stole the night she saved Windwolf's life. It could be sitting in her mailbox back at her loft—if the EIA had been so stupid as to mail it out after she was kidnapped by the oni. Oh gods, what if she'd been declared legally dead after the oni "staged" her death?
    She did have Windwolf's entire household at hand. Surely one of the elves was savvy enough to go to the store and buy her clothes. She considered the elves in the garden washing clothes—by hand—in large wooden tubs. Okay, she had clothes at her loft.
    Was it a good thing or a bad thing that she was now fashion aware enough to know that those clothes were too scruffy?
    Tinker sighed. "I really don't want to run around Turtle Creek in a dress."
    " Domi , I would rather wait until we could gather a Hand. It would not be wise for us to go alone."
    Tinker wasn't getting the hang of the elfin "we" despite having had Pony at her side every moment for nearly two months. She was thinking of just trotting over by herself and seeing how much the Ghostlands had shrunk. Well, she supposed that could wait.
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    She used her walk-in closet as a dressing room, stripping out of the gun belt and her nightgown. She considered her informal gowns, called day dresses. She had bullied the staff into taking off the long sleeves, but the