Through Time-Slamming (19 page)

Trevor chewed his bottom lip and said, “Tell him, we will think about it.”

“Only you and the Sluagh,” Graely said. “Think about why Pestale would choose just the two of you?”

“And how does he want us to contact him?” Trevor asked as a sneer came over his face.

“When you have an answer, send it with the wind and
I
shall hear it.” He saw their look of surprise and said, “Father, the Dark King, known to you as Daoine gave me some abilities linked with the earth, wind and fire.” So saying, he was gone.

Chapter Nineteen

WHEN DEIMNE, TREVOR and Jazz returned to Queen Aaibhe’s palace, everyone began speaking at the same time.

The Queen’s chamber was alive with individuals who, although had strong beliefs, were at odds with each other.

A few steps from the far end of the room brought Morgan LeBlanc to his lady’s side where she had quietly retreated to the balcony. She felt his arms go around her and she sighed as she gazed up at his face, “I came out here to think. Graely’s words must not be taken lightly. I do believe his warning and find that to be the only thing that was not meant to manipulate.”

Queen Mab stepped up to the balcony looked at Aaibhe and raised her brow, then advised her that she and Deimne would be returning to her castle in Daoine.

“Now?” Aaibhe was surprised.

“Yes, I recalled a personal artifact that was given to me when I had just become Queen. It is stored somewhere in my weapons room and I believe it will be of great use to us. Deimne is very good at finding these things. We shouldn’t be too long.”

A soft smile passed between them and Aaibhe returned her attention to Morgan who had taken a seat on the garden bench overlooking the Queen’s roses.

He patted a place beside him and spoke softly, “Sound it off me, lass. Say it out loud and I won’t have at ye. Sometimes ye need to hear yerself think. Come now, sit beside me and hear yerself think.”

He was good for her. She went to him and squeezed the hand he put over hers, “I am worried. Whatever I decide will be pivotal. If I am wrong then the consequences of my decisions will be felt around the world. I can’t help but feel that I am not wrong.”

“And what is not wrong, m’darlin’?”

“Something other than our approaching battle with Pestale has me out of sync. I am surprised that Mab does not feel it. She is always in tune with changes in nature.” She clicked her tongue, “Morgan, something has entered the atmosphere we share with the Human Realm. I feel it, I almost hear it and yet… I can’t put my finger on what it.”

“You will,” he said as she pressed up close to him.

“Will I? I hope so before it is too late.” She shook her head. “And this proposed meeting with Pestale is something I do not like at all. It is a trap.”

“I quite agree m’darlin’. What do you propose to do about it?”

“I have to find a way of stopping both Trevor and Deimne from meeting with the scoundrel, for if I know my prince and I do, I think he has already made up his mind and Deimne will accompany him if only to give him some protection. There will be no protection. Pestale has set this up and it is a trap.”

“They wilna go without your approval,” Morgan replied. “I canna believe they would do such a thing.”

“Will they not?” she looked at him with great concern. “You can’t believe that?”

He sighed heavily, “Aye then, I raised a son and I am a male m’self, so then, what do I believe? I do believe you are right in this.”

“Even so, I shall order them to stand down.”

“You can, and as your loyal prince he will agree. In the end, the male in him will do what he has to do. He will see this through if only to test Pestale’s limits.”

“Why can’t he see that it is a trap?” Aaibhe was deeply concerned.

“He does see it, but he thinks he can turn the table on Pestale. I doona think so, but we must arm Prince Trevor accordingly.”

“Yes, Morgan,” she said pyramiding her hands even as he bent to kiss her lips. She looked up into his loving eyes. She was stymied. Pestale kept managing to come back stronger than before. Softly she murmured, “But how dearest?”

~*~

At the long table, his fists hammering on its polished oak, Breslyn shouted, “Enough!” He eyed the gathered group standing around the table and shook his handsome head and Jazz smiled to herself. He had such presence.

“From what I can make out over the din, we seem to be in agreement everyone believes that this is being set up as a trap. I vote we do not allow this meeting to go forward,” Breslyn said with authority.

Most of the gathered Royals all nodded, though each appeared to Jazz as being deep in thought. She looked at Z, who was frowning darkly as she chewed her bottom lip. She saw Z lean into Danté and whisper something she couldn’t make out.

She looked around. No one had anything to say. She looked at Trevor’s face and saw at once that his jaw-line was rigidly set and he was gritting his teeth. He had made up his mind. He wasn’t paying any attention to Breslyn and her heart trembled.

She cleared her throat and offered, “We need to consider that Pestale wants something that must be meaningful to him. He isn’t setting a trap just to kill two powerful Seelie Fae. No, it has to go beyond that. So we have to ask ourselves what that could be. What does Pestale hope to achieve by this so called meeting? We also have to find the answer to why he chose Trevor and Deimne. That just doesn’t make any sense. Pestale killed Lana LeBlanc. Why would he want to negotiate with Trevor when he knows how much Trevor wants him dead? Why Deimne? This meeting he has proposed is most definitely a trap”.

“Well as to his choice of Fae, he knows we would never allow our Queen to be exposed. He has seen that both Danté and Breslyn have years of experience and can’t be fooled,” Z answered and looked at Trevor. “No offense Trev. He knows you would take him apart and put him in the earth to suffer eternity in agony. He also knows if your Queen sends you to hear his offer you will do so and respect the moment without violence. As to why Deimne, I haven’t a clue.”

“How can it be a trap when I can shift in and out at will. I have a Death Sword with one of its crowning properties being that it can’t miss its target when thrown,” Trevor said and shook his head. “He may be planning a trap of some sort, but he hasn’t a chance in hell of accomplishing it with Deimne at my side. A Sluagh? He can’t beat a Sluagh!”

Morgan, who had come back into the chamber with the Queen said, “Pestale killed my baby girl! I shall forever ache for her and doona think anyone wants him dead more than I. However, there are larger matters than revenge at stake here. There are countless humans that will die if we doona contain the Unseelie. If there is a chance of negotiating we must do so. But here is the rub. He isn’t calling for this meeting to negotiate.”

Aaibhe regarded him quietly and said, “I quite agree.”

“Trevor and Chance bested Pestale not so long ago,” Z said thoughtfully. He was sent to the Dark Realm. “Maybe he chose Trevor because of that?”

“Deimne is his wild card,” Jazz said. “He means to lull us perhaps by choosing an all powerful Daoine to watch Trevor’s back.”

“A point,” Danté said and nodded.

Jazz eyed him. “Point or no.” She stepped up to her mate and looked right into his golden eyes. “Where Trev goes, I go.”

“Maybe that is it. Maybe
you
are who he wants. You have been pretty up front and personal, taking down Unseelie twenty at a time,” Z answered. “Maybe he is trying to draw
you
out.”

“No, you are not going to this meeting. Not this time, Jazmine Decker. But don’t you worry, I am bloody well ready for the devil,” Trev said with a sneer.

“You are ready?” Jazz stomped her foot and glared at him. “No one can be ready for him. You don’t think like him and you won’t react the way he would react. I have one thing up on you, my human gut! It is telling me that you will need me on the scene. He is plotting something and
you
are a means to it. The best thing we can do is keep you far away from him.” She looked at the Queen. “With all due respect, Queen Aaibhe I am not meaning to tell you what to do, but I do wish you would order Trevor to stand down. If you wish to negotiate with the devil, do it on paper and not in person.”

Danté said, “It is clear that he won’t negotiate with anyone but a Royal. I shall go because I think that Jazmine Decker is correct and this has something to do with Trevor.”

“You will do no such thing, not without me anyway,” Z said angrily.

“Indeed,” Queen Aaibhe said softly as she gazed at them. “I understand everything you all have said and I quite agree. Trevor you will stand down. There shall not be any meeting with any of us, at least not until Pestale withdraws his monsters and keeps them in check. He must first show good faith.”

Jazz sighed, but looking at Trevor she knew this command would only serve to delay the inevitable. Trevor seemed bent on meeting with Pestale, no doubt to kill him.

“The answer we need lies with
Twalla,
” Jazz stuck in taking a step forward. The answer has been there ever since Trevor told us what Crystal told him. What we need to do is wait until we have it in our possession before we negotiate with Pestale. We are all agreed that Pestale is planning something, so why don’t we gather our forces and do the same?”

“Knowing
that
Twalla
is the solution to many problems, is not quite the same as having the Magical Thread, my sweet Jazmine Decker,” Trevor said on a low note. Looking at him she knew he had not been convinced.

~*~

Frankie hugged her knees as she rocked back and forth on her butt. She had shifted to Killarney Upper Lake in Ireland and sat high on the foothill overlooking the glistening water.

No one was telling her anything, but she knew the situation was about to unravel.

She was twelve years old and felt as though she had already lived a lifetime. She was tired of training. She was sick of jousting with a fake sword. She was ready to help. She was confident that she could help. She was quickly learning on her own.

She hadn’t reached the pinnacle of her powers. She knew she wouldn’t attain them until her majority, but she was probably more powerful than any Fae alive including the Royals. She knew this was more than a feeling and she was ready to test herself..

She held back all the time during her training sessions. She was afraid that if she gave in to the swirling magic building up inside of her, the human would be lost. She didn’t want to lose her human side. She wasn’t ready to let go of that part of her life.

Her life? She had been ripped out of her century, and thrown into Faery. She sighed and thought of Nuad.

Nuad had been training her to fight. Symba the Seelie Art director had been training her to adapt to the present human world and to the Seelie world. She believed she had assimilated everything they had taught her…..and more.

Still, no one took her seriously.

No one except Jazz treated her like a thinking person. She should tell Jazz what was happening and what was happening to her body magically, but Jazz was presently closeted in the War Room.

There was a slightly different breeze with the scent of pine and heather as she turned around. In spite of the fact that the Dark Ones were their sworn enemies, she smiled and said softly, “Graely.”

“Frankie,” he said and she saw him actually really smile for the first time since she had encountered him.

He dropped down beside her and sighed heavily, “Frankie, I know the Sluagh is your father.”

“Y—es?”

“He and Trevor will be meeting with my brother Pestale, and I cannot say for sure, but I believe it is a trap. I don’t want you to think I had anything to do with it although it was I who delivered the message.”

Frankie felt her heart skip a beat and her hazel eyes glittered suddenly with amber fire. “Graely, ye can’t let him hurt my da. Ye can’t.”

“They don’t trust me. I am not privy to their plans and if I intervene they will combine their powers and kill me. I am not certain why they haven’t done so yet, because I am sure Pestale knows I am not one of them…
not really
.”

“I must go to m’da and to Trevor…I must stop this meeting,” she said getting to her feet in a rush.

He took her hand as he jumped up and stood looking at her., “No. They won’t pay any mind to you, child. You may feel all grown up, but the truth is you aren’t. He won’t listen to you. You are just too young.”

“Too young? I don’t think so! I am a part of this and have been from the day we encountered Hordly in my time. Graely, you know that I have been to the Dark Realm and back, and you must also know that I feel things beyond my kin…and…,” she was about to tell him more and stopped herself.

He saw it at once. “Ah, you don’t quite trust me.” He sighed heavily. “I understand, but know this, Frankie of Sluagh, you can. I mean for you to trust me and I will never let you down.”

She looked into his black eyes. Some would call them dark as charcoal, but she knew better. Like charcoal, they could be ignited.

“Friendship is earned,” she said quietly.

“Then so it shall be,” he said.

“Help me protect Trevor and m’da.”

“I wish that I could, but I don’t see how,” he said and shifted off.

She was aware of a feeling of loss when he left. She was in many ways quite lonely in this new world so full with impending dangers. He was the only adult that seemed to listen to her.

“Now da,” she said out loud. “You are not leaving to meet Pestale without me.”

She shifted uninvited into the Queen’s War Room and looked around. “Where is da?”

Aaibhe came to her to put an arm around her, but Frankie was now upset and forgot herself as she shrugged the Queen’s hand off and stepped away, “
Da
! Where is Da?” She turned to Jazz whose eyes were tear-filled and whose cheeks were wet. She knew. She ran to Jazz and hugged her tightly and whispered, “Don’t let anything happen to m’da and Trevor.”