Darkness & Light (War of the Fae: Book 3) (8 page)

Someone knocked at my door, interrupting my fussing over Tim.
 
I opened the door to find Gregale standing there alone.
 
I grabbed his arm and pulled him in, shutting the door quickly behind him.

“Hello, Jayne,” he said, flustered by my casual attack on his person.
 
He was a gray elf, very intellectual, and not used to having much physical contact with other fae.
 
Plus, I had once purposely burned him with my weapon, The Dark of Blackthorn – otherwise known to me as Blackie – the dragon fang that was currently strapped to my leg, so he was always a little distrustful around me.
 
I couldn’t blame him, even if I did end up giving him the notoriety of being the only gray elf ever to be burned by The Dark of Blackthorn and then healed by The Green.

“Hey, Gregale.
 
I need your help.
 
Desperately.”

“So I gathered,” he said wryly.

“I’m in big trouble, and you’re the only one I know with the brains to get me out of it.”

I could tell he was trying not to preen, but his attempts were mostly unsuccessful.
 
“That must be some pretty big trouble you’re in.”

“I don’t have time to give you the long version.
 
I’m going in front of the council in about five minutes.
 
They’re going to accuse me, I think, of breaking some fae laws.
 
I’m not even sure what they are, but I need you to help me get off, number one, and number two, get the council to see reason and allow my friend Tony to become a changeling.”

“Wow.
 
That’s quite a tall order, especially when I have only five minutes to prepare.
 
Perhaps you’d like me to work out a plan for world peace over dinner?”

“Stop screwing around, Gregale, I’m serious.”

“So what exactly have you done that needs my help so emergently?”

“Geez, is that even a word, Gregale?
 
Shit, never mind.
 
What happened is I took the private jet and went to my hometown and stopped a Dark Fae from taking my friend Tony, and then I brought him back with me.
 
In the process, the pixie, Tim, got his wing burned off by that Dark Fae.
 
He’s recuperating now.”
 
I gestured to his tiny bed.

“What Dark Fae did this to him?”
 
He was bending over, looking at Tim’s white face.
 

I pulled back the quilt so he could see the burned nub.
 
Gregale caught sight of it and flinched, his face showing disgust.

“A guy named Ben.
 
He was able to pull Fire into his hands and use it against us.
 
I think he rode the wind too.
 
He appeared in a breeze that blew through the window.
 
I think he’s some kind of demon.
 
He mesmerizes people too.”
 
I nodded to convey the seriousness of my accusations.
 
I was pretty sure about that mesmerizing part.

Gregale got a scared look on his face.
 
“This is serious.
 
Very serious.
 
I need to involve the other gray elves.”

“Okay, but first you have to help me!
 
I don’t want to go to prison and Tony can’t be sent back.
 
Ben will take him.”

“What was Ben doing there?
 
Do you know?”

“I’m not sure.
 
I thought he’d just recently moved to town, but I saw a picture I had from a year ago and I think he was in the picture.
 
If I’m right, then he’s been hanging around my hometown for over a year, watching Tony and me.
 
As soon as I was gone, he moved in and became Tony’s best friend.
 
He said stuff to try and turn Tony against me.
 
He took over his life.”

“Did he attempt to make him a changeling?”

“No.
 
That’s the weird part.”

“Do you know anything about his motivations?
 
Did you speak to him?”

“Yes, I actually had a sit-down with him in a restaurant.
 
He told us a few things about his plans and his philosophies about humans.
 
I don’t know.
 
I’m too freaked out to remember all of it now; but my friends were there too.
 
They can tell you more.”

“So, it’s not just you who needs my help; it’s all of them.
 
All of your friends joined in this little escapade of yours.”

“Well, yeah,” I said, suddenly flustered, “but this whole thing was my fault, my plan.
 
I’m not going to let them take the fall for it.”

Gregale nodded as he thought.
 
Then without a word, he turned to leave.
 

“Where are you going?”

“I must look into some things and speak to some colleagues.
 
I will see you at the assembly that’s been called.”

He walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

I stood there in the middle of my bedroom, wondering if involving Gregale was a wise move.
 
We had started out as enemies when I’d first arrived, when I had called him a traitor after overhearing part of a conversation he was having with another fae.
 
He didn’t appreciate me almost letting Tim, the very dangerous pixie, out of the bell jar where Dardennes had him imprisoned.
 
At the time I didn’t know that pixies could take out an entire community of fae with their
slap-happy
pixying
stuff, but neither Gregale nor any of the other fae seemed to know that Tim didn’t realize his
pixying
wasn’t appreciated.
 
So after we got our differences ironed out and were assigned to train together, we’d reached a form of friendship, mostly based on mutual admiration of the other’s talents.
 
I had shown Gregale the power of The Green.
 
Gregale had shown me that gray elves were not only very intellectual and very involved in planning the strategies of the impending fae conflict, but they were also able to travel into the Gray, the space between our world and the Otherworlds – known to humans as Heaven and Hell, but known to us fae as the
Overworld
and the Underworld.

Another knock came at my door.
 
I opened it to find all of my friends waiting there, Jared out in front.
 

“Come on.
 
Anton is getting the council together.
 
We need to go.”

I took one last look back at Tim, adjusted Blackie on my leg, and joined them in the hallway.
 
“Let’s go then.”
 
I nodded at Spike, Finn, and Chase.
 
Becky smiled at me and blew me a friendly kiss.
 
She was always so damn happy, even when I was practically being led to the gallows.

I followed Jared’s lead, walking next to Tony.
 
He kept wiping his hands on his jeans and stealing glances at me.
 
I grabbed his hand and squeezed it.
 
I didn’t trust myself to talk then; I was nervous too.

Jared led us to the big doors that I knew were for the assembly hall.
 
This was the biggest room in the compound that I’d been in
;
big enough to hold most of the fae who lived in and around the place.
 
There was one elevated head table in the front that was now occupied by members of the council.
 
All of the other tables were arranged in semi-circular fashion, facing the head table and the space in front of it.
 

I had stood in that space before, when I first arrived at the compound. That was just after I had caused nearly thirty elves to go temporarily into la-la land after zapping them with the energy I had called up from The Green.
 
I had done it in self-defense when the elves began to attack me – under the influence of some Dark Fae witch we never successfully identified – so ultimately my time in front of the assembly of fae didn’t end up with me going to jail or whatever.
 
But from that day forward, a lot more fae got involved in my training and the questions about who I was and
who
I might be began swirling around.
 

These questions remained unanswered though.
 
I was either just another fae girl, an elemental with a supernatural connection to the elements of Earth and Water, or I was
The
Elemental, the one they call Mother – the one I had always referred to in my human life as Mother Nature.
 
Someone they’d been waiting for, for like two thousand years or something.
 
This idea – that I, of all people, could be this amazing, long lost fae goddess – was pretty unbelievable and ridiculous if you asked me; so I just functioned under the assumption that I wasn’t her.
 
I was just
me
.
 
A girl who needed to help her best friend Tony
find
his place in the whole fae mix.

The horn that tells everyone in the assembly hall to shut the hell up started blowing and so they all quickly found their seats and came to order.
 
My friends and I walked up to the back row of seats, standing in the center aisle.
 
The chamber was packed with no places left to sit.
 
There was no point in sitting down anyway – I knew we were going to be called to the front.

Dardennes gestured with his hand for us to come forward.
 
For now, it was just Tony, Chase and
me
.
 
Chase was good like that – never letting me go in front of an angry mob without him.
 
Until today, I had just assumed that was part of his job, since he was my daemon – my warrior protector.
 
But when Maggie said that was a lie, and she’s pretty much never wrong, it caused me to have some doubts.
 
Right now, though, I had bigger problems to deal with, so I put that out of my head as stress to unglue over later.

Tony and I stood in front of the council, Chase behind us.
 
The crowd became silent, with only the little sounds of people moving in their seats left to be heard.

Dardennes began speaking, loud enough so everyone in the room could hear.
 
“The council and fae have gathered for this general assembly to hear the charges against you, changeling Jayne Sparks.
 
The council has been informed that at some point in the days prior to this, you left the compound with Jared
Bloodworth
and returned with Tony, a former changeling candidate who previously refused the change.”

“Yes,” I said, my voice ringing out around the room.
 
The acoustics in this place made it possible for sounds to move in circles or something, because I could even hear my voice behind me now.

An old man on the council who I didn’t know spoke next.
 
“Who gave you permission to do this?”

I glanced at Dardennes whose face revealed nothing.
 
He hadn’t technically given us permission to do anything, but he’d been pretty clear he wanted it done.
 
But I wasn’t going to throw him under the bus; he’d made it possible for me to rescue my friend.
 

“No one.
 
I did it myself.”

“You did
not
do this yourself.
 
You had help!” he accused angrily, banging his fist on the table.

“Well, someone flew the plane and drove the cars for me, but they weren’t involved in my plan to get Tony.
 
I used them.”

There was some grumbling behind me from the gathered fae, but I ignored them.
 
I had done what was right and I wasn’t going to apologize for it.
 
Even Ivar, the fae I liked least in this room, was getting a pass from me.
 
No one was going down for this one, but me.

“You willingly dragged other fae into your scheme to take an action that this council has forbidden.”

“I wasn’t aware that I’d broken any laws.”

At that moment there was a disturbance by the doors.
 
Several fae were moving around, angry looks on their faces.
 

“What is the meaning of this interruption
?!
” demanded my questioner, his face now assuming a mottled red color.

I saw Gregale’s face emerging from the crowd at the door and breathed a sigh of relief.
 
If I was going to have any help at all, it had arrived.
 
I was hoping he had good news.
 
I took Tony’s hand in mine and squeezed it, not letting go.
 
He squeezed mine back; I noticed it was cool and clammy.

“Excuse me, council members, fae community,” said
Gregale,
pausing to nod in their respective directions, “I am Gregale, of the gray elves.
 
I have come to stand as Reasoner for the changeling, Jayne.”

There was a bit of grumbling at the head table, the old man who was questioning me obviously not happy about this.
 
I took that as a good sign.
 
The fae in the audience also began to whisper among
themselves
.