I couldn’t tell if his smile was happiness over the fact that I was about to bury myself deeper or meant to encourage. Regardless, I had the green light to spill my story, and I wasn’t going to waste the opportunity. For all I knew, Tim was going to come flying into the room any second complaining that I’d interfered in his beauty sleep.
“Like I said, we left for our trip yesterday. Or two days ago, I’m kind of lost on the time.” I reached up to scratch the front of my head and realized that my hair accident was right there for everyone to enjoy.
Goddammit, no wonder they don’t believe me. I probably look like an escaped mental patient.
I fluttered my hands around at my sides, hoping to distract them from my upper body, but it wasn’t working. Everyone was staring at my face and probably my hair too.
I sighed out long and loudly before I continued. “Anyway, we got there in the middle of the night …” I paused, holding up a finger. “No, wait. Other stuff happened on the way, I forgot.” I hated that my mind felt foggy. “On the way, we stopped at a rest stop, and when I went into the bathroom…”
“Are we really here to listen to your story of how you used the toilet on your supposed trip?” Red asked, his eyebrows up in his hairline.
I pointed at him with my sword. “I will
cut
you, old man. I’m serious. This is important. It’s not a joke.”
He blinked once but didn’t say anything. Now I was mad enough to fuel the fire in my brain and the story came in clearer. “We experienced some time slips. Someone tried to drown me in the bathroom, but I got out of it using my elements and this handy dandy dragon scale,” I held it up for them to see. “When I got out, though, no one had noticed anything.” I knew I was telling things out of order, but it didn’t matter. They just needed to know the basics and believe me about it so we could get the hell out of here and over to the portal. “In the car at a rest stop I had the same conversation with Tim twice, but he didn’t notice it.”
“He was probably drunk on dandelion nectar,” Niles said, earning himself a few laughs from the crowd.
“NO! He wasn’t drunk on
anything
!” I knew I was slowly falling down into a rabbit hole with a huge group of fae as witnesses, but I couldn’t seem to stop it from happening. “That’s not what it was! He was sober and he didn’t realize we were re-living the same moment a second time. It was a time slip!”
“What do you know of time slips?” Red asked suspiciously.
“Exactly!” I yelled pointing at him. I started pacing the stage. “I knew nothing about them until they started happening. And then when I explained what had happened to Jared and Tony, that’s what they called it.”
Red and Dardennes exchanged a look that I took as a positive sign.
“So we were on the alert after. We stopped using rest stops. We peed on the side of the road instead.”
Niles shook his head, dropping it into his fat, little hand. I ignored him.
“We arrived at the bed and breakfast and there was a witch there. A Fate. Her name was Judith.”
At that, Red sat straight up in his chair. “You lie!”
I screeched at him. “No! I don’t lie! That’s what I’m trying to tell you!”
Red stood. “You have heard that name before and you are using it now to manipulate us!”
I threw my arms up. “Why in the hell would I do that? What purpose would it serve?”
There was a commotion at the doorway and suddenly Aidan was there. He was out of breath. “The pixie is not there. His wife has not seen him.”
I wanted to cry with relief. I pointed and jumped up and down. “See?! What did I tell you? He’s not there. None of them are.”
Robin came in the door behind Aidan.
I pointed at him and screamed. “Robin!” I might have also hit him with a little blast of The Green. He jumped back and held his chest.
“Yes, Mother,” he finally said.
“Call to Finn! See if you can locate him!”
Robin looked first at Aidan and then at Dardennes. Dardennes merely inclined his head, that cool motherfucker. I totally wanted to brain him with the hilt of my sword, but I resisted.
Robin closed his eyes and remained serene for about ten seconds. Then he looked lost and confused. When his lids opened again, he shook his head. “He is not there.”
“What do you mean he’s not there?” Niles asked. He sounded pissed.
“I mean simply that. He is not there.”
“Not reachable? Not awake?” Niles kept pushing, probably hoping Robin would say Finn’s friggin phone was off the hook, but the elf didn’t comply.
“The only time a green elf cannot be reached is when he is no longer in this realm.”
I ran off the stage toward Robin, my feet on fire. I had to get through to them. I had to make this happen. I came to a halt in front of him as he put his hand on his bow.
“Robin,” I said, gasping for air, “I need you to do something for me.”
“What may I do for you, Mother?” he asked, his eyes full of questions and if I wasn’t mistaken, compassion.
“Call Falco.”
His eyes went dark. “I don’t understand.”
Tears rushed to my eyes and my heart ached. I knew I only had one shot at this thing before someone tried to grab me and the Earth element made them sorry for it. “Just do it, Robin. Call Falco.”
“But he is …”
I shook my head and turned around, facing the fae who I’d seen die once and almost a second time, sitting in the chair in front of us. “Just do it.”
Chapter Forty-Two
ROBIN CLOSED HIS EYES AND took a deep, cleansing breath, letting it out as his face relaxed. Everyone was staring at him, waiting to see what would happen. I sensed that all of them expected him to open his eyes and give the verdict that I was too gone from sanity to be saved.
His eyebrows screwed up. His lips quivered.
“I read you loud and clear,” Falco said so I could hear it, a smile covering his face. It was the first time since I’d discovered him in the afterlife that he looked truly connected to what was going on.
Robin’s hand came up, and I took it. His fingers were trembling, as were mine, so we made quite the pair. We looked like addicts detoxifying together or something.
“I don’t understand,” Robin whispered. A tear slid down his cheek, but he didn’t move to wipe it away.
I let go of his hand and grabbed him, hugging him really hard and not giving a single crap about what the protocol might be for embracing elves as their Mother. “Thank you, Robin. You just saved me, I think.”
His body was stiff at first, but then it softened. I pulled away and his eyes opened. He was sad. “I don’t know what is happening, but it cannot be good.”
“Well, don’t keep us in suspense,” Red said sarcastically. “What happened?”
Robin looked around, confused. “Falco is here. But he is not here.”
I gestured to the chair that held the green elf ghost. “He’s sitting right there. You can’t see him?”
Robin moved closer, staring and staring at the chair. “No. I see nothing but an empty seat.”
I motioned at Falco. “Come over here. Please.”
He stood and walked toward us, stopping next to me. I took him by the hand.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” he asked me. He looked nervous, and seeing a ghost look nervous is really weird. A part of me thought a phantom should be above those very human-like emotions.
I shrugged. “No.”
“What are you doing?” Red demanded, striding over from his spot, his cloak swirling around his legs.
“I’m going to connect them together. Through the Earth element.”
“No!” he yelled, stopping on my other side, next to Robin.
“Why not?”
“Because. You do not know what will happen.” He said it like it should have been obvious, and I was the dumbest girl on the planet not to have realized that.
He had a point there.
Robin’s hand came up to stop the conversation from going further. “I want to do this. Please. Connect me to my brother.”
I had no idea whether he meant literal brother or just brother-in-arms, but I took his hand anyway. Now I had one of each of them and I wasn’t letting them go no matter what Red said. Robin had been nothing but loyal and kind to me since the day I’d met him — except for that one time where he ordered everyone to kill me, but that wasn’t really his fault. I owed him this.
“You got it.”
Red tried to reach for me to karate chop our hands apart or something, but the Green bubble I had around me ended that little plan in a hurry. A spark flew out between us, and he bounced off, falling onto his ass on the floor, his cloak coming up to cover his head.
As several fae rushed to his side, I closed my eyes and started my poem…
“One here, one there, brothers torn apart
Bring them together here and mend their elven hearts…”
A bolt of energy came up from my feet and shot out of my hands into the elves, the one in this realm and the other with a foot still in the other. Their eyes grew wider and then Robin’s nearly bugged out. His form started to fade at the same time Falco’s complexion gained some color. When I realized Red’s warning was turning into one of those I-told-you-so moments, I let go of the connection, forcing The Green to go back into the earth and leave us all without any elements involved.
Robin collapsed on the floor at my feet as everyone stared open-mouthed at the elf who’d just returned from the dead, right before their very eyes.
Chapter Forty-Three
I WAS SITTING IN THE council meeting room, rushed there in a crowd of fae and dumped unceremoniously inside the door by the ones not permitted to enter. The chair that used to be for Ben remained empty, as did the one for Maléna. A sadness descended on me when I realized I was missing the little weight on my shoulder that should have been Tim there taking his rightful place at the council’s table.
“Tell us the story, Jayne,” Céline said, “and please accept our sincerest apologies for not listening to you sooner.”
The old Jayne would have savored that moment a little while longer, but the new Jayne, the girlfriend of Othello and bringer of ghosts into our world from the afterlife had better ideas.
I leaned in. “Okay, here’s the deal. Someone out here wanted to keep me from going to the portal, so they tried some time slips, tried to trap us in the Hotel California up on the Isle of Skye, and then sent us with a troll to another realm.”
Red sighed and banged the table. “Does anyone understand anything she’s saying now?”
“Shush!” I shouted. “Just listen!” I focused my attention on the silver elves and the werewolves in the room. They seemed to be the only ones capable of using their brains today. Red and Niles could just catch up later as far as I was concerned. “There is a witch named Judith at this bed and breakfast. She put spells on us a couple times. They were meant to make us forget why we were there and to keep us from going to the portal. She didn’t want Tim there, so she put a spell to keep him out, which is why I didn’t go in and get caught right away.”
Dardennes nodded and I could tell he was on the edge of his seat. I hated taking precious time explaining everything, but I knew it was the only way I was going to get buy-in for the plan that was forming in my head.
“When I was trying to leave, the witch or fate or whatever she was said a rhyme.”
“A rhyme?” Niles asked gruffly.
“A poem. A prophecy, whatever. Anyway, I didn’t remember all of it, but it sounded to me like she was giving me a choice to either cut the troll open to rescue Tim…” I paused to sigh and explain. “I thought the troll had eaten him, but that didn’t actually happen…” I shifted my gaze to Céline. “Anyway, the other option was to shed my own blood, and since the troll was frozen and hadn’t done anything to me, I felt bad about killing it, so I cut myself instead.”
“You felt bad about killing a troll?” Niles asked, like he thought I was joking. “Have I not taught you anything?”
“Yes, Niles, you have! And thank you for that because I did do pretty well out there, if I do say so myself! But I wasn’t about to gut a giant troll because it was the easy thing to do, now was I?”
He rolled his eyes and hissed out disappointed air, but Céline and the old witch lady were nodding, so I kept going with a little more confidence. “So anyway, I cut myself with my sword and it hurt really bad, so I fell down and then I woke up in another place. Everyone was pulled over with me too, including the troll.”
“What place?” Red asked. Clearly I wasn’t telling the story the way he preferred it be told.
“Another realm. I’ve never heard of it. It’s farther back in time from us. There was a dragon-rider there named Ish. Ishmail, actually, is his whole name and his dragon is Othello.”
Jaws dropped, and you could have heard a pixie fart in there even without the listening amplification spell Maggie was crappy enough to bestow on me.
“Did you say …
dragon-rider
?” Niles asked.
“Ishmail Windwalker?” Red asked, his tone slightly reverent.
“What?” I looked around. “You guys know him?"
Dardennes stood. “Someone get Gregale in here. We need to talk to the gray elves right away.”
Aidan jumped up and ran to the door. He was gone before another word was said.
I sat back in my chair trying to read the expressions around me. My heart calmed down little by little as Dardennes sat and faced me. All traces of exasperation and humor were gone. “Jayne. My humblest apologies for not trusting you or believing you.” He placed his hand on his heart and bowed.
I nodded all regal and shit. “You are forgiven.” I looked over at Red with my eyebrow up.
He bugged his eyes out at me, wiggled his second chin a couple times, and then looked away.
I smiled. “You’re forgiven too, Red.”
Red ignored me, looking at the rest of the fae around the table. “So what are we to do now?”
I held up my hand.
Everyone turned their heads to stare at me.
Dardennes had the tiniest smile on his face. “Jayne? Do you have something you want to say?”
“Yeah, duh, that’s why I had my hand up.” I rested it on the arm of my chair. “Just thought you’d like to know that I haven’t even told you the worst part yet.”