Long was hidden between Brad and Mike, who’d both put their arms around her at the same time. They jumped back when they realized they were no longer embracing and protecting a human girl. The blue-black wyvern pushed them aside with her wings and flapped them a few times, snapping her jaws to the left and right. She shook her massive, horned head and then sniffed the air in my direction.
Dardennes and Céline were staring at the magical reptile who’d just appeared in our midst. I was getting the impression they didn’t see these kinds of fae very often. They both took a wary step back.
I, however, took three steps forward—awkward ones since Tony was still glued to my spine. “Hello, Long. Thank you for coming.” I bowed a little. It only seemed right to show this potential fae-eater some respect. I prayed it would be enough to keep her from gutting me. Her claws were definitely the lethal type.
She huffed out a breath in my face, leaning in close enough that I could smell it. Sulphur. I had come to learn that whenever that stink was around, I was in the presence of great magic. She spoke to me in my head, her mouth never moving. “I am your…friend.” She seemed to have difficulty with that last word.
I nodded vigorously. “Yes. We are friends. Really good ones. The kind that don’t eat one another.”
“You are…Mother.”
“Yes.” I had no idea where this was going, but as far as I was concerned, the mini-dragon was calling the shots. Please don’t eat me or any of my friends.
“You brought me out of the shadows.”
“Well, the elements did, but yeah…I might have asked them to do it.”
“There are more of us. They need your elements.” She turned as if to go.
I reached out and tapped her heavily scaled shoulder. “Uh, Long?”
The wyvern swiveled its head around, its body remaining faced toward the door. “Speak.”
“Later. We’ll do that later…wake up your friends from the dark and stuff. I have something else I need to do first.”
Long snapped her jaws and a puff of steam came out of her nostrils. “I am patient by nature, but there is unrest. The time of the undoing draws nigh.”
“Yes. Tons of unrest. I get it. Undoing and all that. Definitely. The Overworld is in danger. And we need to get there and fix it for sure. But I need the help of these silver elves.” I jabbed my thumbs out at Dardennes and Céline who had walked up to stand on either side of me.
The wyvern turned, forcing Brad to jump over her tail as it came around. “I will wait.”
I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding and faced the silver elves one at a time. I stopped on Dardennes. “Dude…I have so much shit to tell you, it’s not even funny. But I’m afraid the local S.W.A.T. Team is about to bust in here and shoot us between the eyes for setting off a bomb in the hotel, so maybe we should go.”
His expression relaxed and he looked more like a grandpa type than the leader of the Light Fae council. “Not to worry. The sound was contained within this room. But perhaps you would be more comfortable on our jet? We have one waiting at the local airport.”
I pointed at him and grinned. “Not gonna get me with Ivar’s special brew this time, old man.”
He nodded once, a small smile playing on his lips. “So I gathered. Would you like to take a seat and rest first?” He gestured to the chair where the hag had been sitting just minutes earlier.
“Not to be rude or anything, but I don’t want any of her evil dust to get on me. This place is rank with her stank. Let’s go to the jet now. And maybe you should grab Jared on the way.”
Dardennes exchanged a glance with Céline before he nodded. “As you wish. We have a van outside.”
“No need. We have a fast Camaro and a kickass driver.” I gestured to Brad who looked more serious than I’d ever seen him. I wondered if it was the light show or the little dragon that had finally cut through his high school heartthrob exterior. I looked at Long. “Wyvern…you’re not going to fit in the car like that. Can you go back to your human form?”
“It is restrictive.”
“I’m sure it is. But it’s smaller and less pointy, so…”
The wyvern’s form shimmered and faded, and when it started to go solid again, it was in the shape of my former roommate. Once fully there, she blinked a few times and sighed. We were all staring at her when she looked up.
“What’s wrong? Do I smell?” She lifted up her arm and sniffed her pit.
I looked over my shoulder at the monkey on my back. “You okay, Baloney Head?”
He detached himself and shook his arms out. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good. I’m totally fine.” His face was as white as a hotel bed sheet.
I laced my arm through his and led him toward the door. “Everything is going to be cool. I promise.”
We paused at the entrance to the room as the others filed out in front of us. “Can I be honest with you, Jayne?” he asked.
“Sure. Always.” I pulled a little away from him and looked into his eyes.
“I’m not feeling very confident that everything is going to be cool. I just saw and felt the forces of nature so strongly and clearly…and I also think I saw a girl turn into a dragon and heard her talking to you with her mind…and before all that happened, I might have been able to just write this kind of stuff off as your mental problems, but now I’m starting to think there’s more to it than that.”
“My mental problems?” I put my hands on my hips, pissed that he’d suggest I actually had some.
“No, wait, that’s not what I meant.” He reached out and took my hands, holding them between us. “What I’m trying to say is…if you have mental problems, I think I have them too.”
I yanked my hands away. “I don’t have mental problems and neither do you, Tony! Why can’t you get that through your thick skull?”
“Because he’s been spelled,” Ben said. I hadn’t realized he’d been listening in.
“What?” I knew I shouldn’t have felt like shooting the messenger, but I sure did want to blast Ben between the eyes when he said that.
“He has been spelled to think the worst of you. You can remove it from him with your elements. Or I could do it for you.”
I shook my head. “No way. I’ll handle this. And I’m going to do it old school just to be sure there isn’t any interference.”
Ben gestured out into the hallway. “Be my guest.”
I kept a grip on one of Tony’s hands and pulled him out the door.
“Where are we going?” he asked, his toes making funny sounds along the carpet as he dragged his feet. Something inside him was definitely still resisting.
“To find a tree.”
“What are we going to do? Climb it?”
“No. Just wait and see.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE ONLY TREES around that hotel were coconut palms, but they were going to have to do. No branches? No problem. I picked the biggest one I could find, on the back side of the parking lot near a high row of hedges at the edge of the property line. I gestured at it. “Go on over there and hug that mofo.”
Tony frowned at me like he wanted to put me back in that mental hospital. “What?”
I took his hand and pulled him along with me until we were standing with our toes nearly against it. “Like this.” I dropped his hand and wrapped my arms around the trunk. My fingers almost met on the other side, but not quite. “Hug the tree and make sure you’re touching me somewhere at the same time.”
Tony looked around at our friends who were watching us with great interest. Long moved in close, lifting her head a little and closing her eyes. I got the impression that her inner wyvern was smelling my intentions or something.
“Listen…I’m supportive of the Sierra Club and those other green initiatives, but I’m not really into hugging trees personally,” Tony said. “Especially when there might be fire ants involved.” He looked at the trunk suspiciously.
“That’s the spell talking,” Ben said.
>
I rolled my eyes. “I know, geez, would you let it go already? We’ve got it.” Ben being such a know-it-all had always grated on my nerves, but it was especially irritating now because it was like he had to show everyone around us that he knew more than I did. As usual, I was left feeling like a freshman to his senior status.
“Just trying to help.”
I glared at him, trying to send him a telepathic message. Please. Stop trying to pretend you’re a nice guy, you sneaky, devious Dark Fae donkey dong. I turned to look at Tony. “Get on the tree.”
He shook his head. “I don’t really want to.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Brad said, moving so swiftly Tony never saw him coming. He went up behind my friend and shoved him none too gently in the middle of the back, causing him to fall against the tree.
“Oooph.” Tony’s face was pressed up against the smooth bark right next to mine.
I wrapped my arm around his back and held on tight. “Brad! Help!”
Brad jumped into position, hugging the tree and Tony from behind. Tony’s face pressed harder into the bark, his mouth smooshing to the side.
“Uh, Jayne,” Tony tried to say, but his mouth couldn’t cooperate very well. He gave up trying to finish his sentence as his glasses slid up diagonally to his forehead.
“Do what you gotta do, Jayne,” Brad said. “And hurry up. I don’t like hugging guys.”
I smiled and closed my eyes. Time to get the Green love on. I spoke to the tree in the language it understands best…imagining what I wanted in my mind. I pictured the energy of all the living things around us contained in and channeled through this glorious being and into our arms—the warmth, the love, the understanding…the Oneness. We are all a part of one big circle. We are One. Show him. Cleanse his body and mind of any spells that are influencing him.
The response was instantaneous. I knew Tony felt it too, because his eyes widened and then his expression softened. It was like the tree was proud and happy to accommodate my request…honored even. My heart swelled to twice its normal size. It had been way too long since I’d hugged a tree.
“What the hell…,” Brad said, his voice fading out. For a moment he reminded me of Chase—impossibly handsome and protective, willing to do whatever needed to be done to make things right. It seemed totally natural to see him in this light when I was connected to the tree that way. I was reminded once more that miracles can happen. I stared at my two friends, one old, one new, both of them getting their first introduction to the glory that is my world. “Tony and Brad, I want you to meet The Green.”
“The Green,” Tony whispered, his face less squished as Brad let up on the pressure, sliding to the other side of the tree where he gained a spot of his own.
“This is so fucking cool,” Brad said. “Really cool. I never realized something like this could exist. It’s way better than football. Better than school. Better than…anything.”
“Yep,” I said, letting the energy flow through me and into my friends who were linked by touch. Brad’s warm hand was on my left one and Tony’s back was under my right arm. “This energy is coming from the Earth element. It connects all of us, every living creature and plants around the world.”
“How do you do this?” Tony asked, tears welling up in his eyes.
I shrugged. “I really don’t know. I just do it. I’m an elemental. This is my gift.”
“You said I’m an empath?”
“Yes. And a wrathe. You have your gifts and I have mine, and they’re both equally important in the fae world.”
“What about me?” Brad asked in a small voice. “Do I have any?”
My heart beat out a pulse of dread, hoping I wouldn’t have to break the news to him one day that he wasn’t fae. Surely the Fates wouldn’t be that cruel. “You’ll get your chance to wake your fae blood, Brad. I promise. And then we’ll know what your gifts are.” It was the least I could do after all he’d done for me. I still couldn’t believe I was saying that about Brad Powers of all people. But we were going to have to do the changeling thing old school style, with Dardennes running the show and Brad being given a piece of jewelry to wear temporarily. I could probably vouch for him and keep him from having to do the obstacle course through the forest, but I didn’t trust myself and the elements to awaken his fae blood the way we had with Long. That had taken place during a moment of desperation, and I wasn’t feeling nearly as stressed right now as I had been then, so I wouldn’t dare try it. Something would surely go wrong if my history was anything to judge by.
“Cool.”
Someone cleared his throat behind us. I turned to see Mike standing there looking very forlorn.
“Mike, dude, you want in on this?”
He nodded.
“Well, come on over. Don’t be shy. But, hey…don’t put anyone in a coma.”
“I won’t,” he said, walking up behind me and covering my entire body with his. His arms went all the way around the tree and covered every square inch of mine.
“Uh, Mike…no comas, right?”
“No comas.” His voice rumbled through my body.
As soon as he linked in, I could feel it; his energy was as huge as his physical body and then some. It was dark and light at the same time, heavy and not at the same time. It was fluid and it was static. It was…magic.
I twisted my head around to look at him. “Mike, are you by any chance a guardian angel who just so happens to be hanging around in the human world so you can keep an eye on someone important?”
He stood very, very still for a few seconds, but then he slowly turned and looked at Long. “Maybe,” he said softly. “I don’t remember.”
I smiled. All would be revealed eventually, and I had enough crap on my plate that I didn’t need to dig up any more mysteries. I shifted my weight and pulled my arms out from under Mike’s. The connection dropped and the others stepped back away from their tree hugs. We remained silent for a little while, looking up into the palm fronds that swayed in the breeze above us. Thank you, tree, for sharing your light with my friends. I received an answering spark in The Green in response.
“That was the coolest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life,” Brad said. “No exceptions. The absolute coolest.”
“Me too,” added Tony. He looked at me. “I’m sorry I doubted you, Jayne. I kept seeing the evidence right there in front of me, but I just…I don’t know…explained it away. I’m not sure how I was able to do that so convincingly when the proof was so clear.”
Ben came over and patted him on the back. “Don’t worry about it, man. It happens to the best of us.”
I scowled at the assbag who was almost single handedly responsible for every bad spell that had ever been cast against me, but I said nothing. Starting a war with Ben in the parking lot of a hotel was going to send me backward not forward, and I’d done enough time-slipping for one lifetime.
I looked to the silver elves who had remained completely silent as they’d observed my awesomeness in action. “Ready to go to the jet?” I asked.
“Absolutely,” Céline said, all smiles. She shared a glance with Dardennes whose face was expressionless. I wasn’t even going to try to guess what was going on in his crafty mind.
We left the parking lot in two vehicles, Ben riding with Dardennes and Céline, and everyone else in Brad’s car. I expected a thousand questions to pop up during the ten minute drive to the airport, but didn’t get a single one. I figured everyone’s brain was coming to terms with the idea of this whole other world and set of species being in existence, so I didn’t worry about it. I still had only a shit plan in place and no idea how I was going to get back to my friends, so I needed the time to come up with something better.
All I knew for sure was that I did not want to have to re-live the last year of my life all over again. It had been hard enough the first time around, and now that I’d messed with the sequence of events, I was worried it wouldn’t turn out the same—and that eventuality wasn’t something
I wanted to even think about. Talk about a nightmare. I prayed Céline and Dardennes would have some insight into how to fix what Red, Victoria, Judith, and whoever else had done to me.
I wanted my old fae life back with everyone who was supposed be in it there—Spike, Tim, Baby Bee, Abby, Tony, Jared, Finn, Becky, Scrum, Aidan, Niles, Felicia, Robin, Theresa, and all the others. I fought back tears as I realized that my friends lost in Ish’s realm had been forced to survive a not very friendly place for who knew how long—years could have passed in that realm as I spent the last few days fighting to get out of a mental institution. Would I get there in time to save them? The sickness in my gut wasn’t coming from a spell anymore; it was coming from the deep-seated fear that I was going to be too late.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
WE SAT IN the comfortable private jet for a half hour, going over the details of how I’d ended up in Miami and what the possible outcomes might be depending on which steps we took next. I hated that Ben was privy to the entire conversation, but every suggestion I made that he be asked to leave was met with frowns. Apparently, Dardennes and Céline hadn’t gotten the memo yet about how evil Ben’s partner Maléna was, and nothing I was willing to say was going to convince them that she was bent on bringing their house down around their heads. I probably could have convinced them of it if I’d shared all the details of what I knew, but I was worried that giving them that info would change the future and would then alter how my life had ended up in it, and I wasn’t willing to sacrifice any of that. I was very careful about what I shared and what I kept to myself.
“So, basically, we had some conflicts with the Dark Fae, and eventually we came up with a game plan to work together,” I said.
“That sounds like a great plan,” Ben said, all smiles. “Who was the person leading the charge?”
I could see his head swelling from my seat across the table. “Not you, so just relax.”