by Jill Nojack
Lizbet threw herself into his arms. "You know you really are kind of amazing, right?"
"Sure. I know." James grinned.
"Can you teach me to do it?"
"I think so. I can probably teach any fae to do it. It's just about hooking into the magic the right way. I can probably even teach the gnomes to do it. Think how popular they'd be then! Who's going to complain about the state of their garden when they're keeping the lights on for you? Tanji's father would be making a living transporting gnomes to people's houses instead of away from them."
Lizbet wrinkled her brow and her tongue worked around in her mouth as the ideas started to flow. "Gnomes, huh?"
CHAPTERTHIRTY-THREE
Something You Forgot
The next evening, Tanji sat in the cold in the Moore's back yard with the porch light off even though James had powered the house and she could have turned it on. Her eyes were red and hurt when she was in the light. Avenall stood solemnly beside her.
"Were they awful, these human Policemen? Are they like Law Dealers? If they are, then I hope you do not have to go to them again."
"No, they're not awful. But just...just leaving him there and sending strangers to take him..."
"I would have brought him here for you, if you'd asked."
"He would have liked that. Being cared for by his friends before burial. He prepared the body of the fae queen Morgan in the old way when she died after being separated from Lizbet. But Thomas was one hundred percent human. His magic came from wisps, and it's not the human way anymore—at least not in middle class America—to be prepared for death by your friends. I don't think I could bear it. Even if I wanted to, I don't think I could live as fae."
"And even though I am elf, I will no longer be allowed to live as one. Elves are communal. It's not our way to be alone, yet I am outcast forever. But then..." He stopped, pensive. "...it has been so long since I felt I had any family among the elves."
Tanji took his hand, just being friendly. Nothing flirty. The very thought that she might be flirting made her remember the first few times she'd talked to Thomas, and he'd blushed at her innuendo even though he was way older than she was. And that made her want to cry again. "Look in there—do you see those people?"
Avenall turned to look at the scene in the house. Around the table, Mona, Sheila, Steve, and her own father played a game of cards—the game was often solemn, but they were there for each other all the same. Bobby stood behind his mother, then ran behind Ron to peek at his cards, and a big grin broke out on his face. James sat on the couch with Lizbet, her head on his shoulder, listening to music on his phone.
When he turned back to her, she said, "Those people, those amazing people, are determined to have just one last normal evening before the Faepocalypse really hits and everybody realizes that this is not just going away. Most of them aren't related to me, but those people are my family. And I'm pretty sure they'd be happy to be your family, too. Because this family is going to need all the help it can get."
"I recognize your father. Is your mother among them?"
Tanji's dark skin turned pale. "Ohmigod, my mom. I spent so much time feeling sorry for myself that I forgot about her! She left for New York yesterday. She's going to be in the city without electricity. It's going to be bad there! I have to..."
Tanji bolted off the picnic table and ran for the house, pushing the sliding glass door too hard, so that it made a jarring sound when it hit the end of the track.
"Lizbet, you have to take me to New York. Moms will be alone there!"
Lizbet looked up and immediately understood. "We'll bring her back here right now. Come on." She poured pixie dust into her hand from a pouch she wore on her belt. "James, will you come, too? New York might be a little scary right now."
It only took a minute before Lizbet tossed the pixie dust and the trio disappeared.
***
It was dark in the Manhattan apartment. Tanji spread some starweed from the collection of powders and potions she kept in her purse and quickly lit the room. She walked to the bedroom, then to the bathroom and kitchen. It was a small apartment and easy to search. Her mother wasn't there.
Tanji began to tear up. "She left yesterday, so where could she be?"
"Maybe she got caught on the freeway when it all went down." Lizbet offered her hand again. "Look, we'll go back and we'll do a locator spell. Right? It'll be okay."
The three teens disappeared again to the aether.
***
James completed the spell and bound it to the blank sheet of typing paper Lizbet supplied. Nothing. No blue glow to indicate Mrs. Ross's location.
"She's out of range of the spell, Tanj. I'm sorry. But there are stronger spells I can try. Just let me go over to my place and grab my notebooks."
Tanji sat quietly with her father's arm around her while James ducked out to get his books. She tried to stop her tears, but they kept flowing just the same. When James returned, he sat at the table and paged through the notebooks quickly. He made a noise every so often. Sometimes it was an optimistic sound. Other times it was a discouraged one.
"Okay, here's the good news. We have most of the ingredients of one of these spells available, and it has a really long range—like, if she's anywhere in the United States, it'll lead you to her. The bad news is that the main magic is either a narwhal horn or a dragon claw."
Tanji snuck a look at Avenall, but she said nothing and just as quickly looked away. His face clouded, then he made a decision and said, "I can supply a dragon claw."
Between slow breaths to try to keep herself from sobbing, Tanji said, "You said that's all you have of your friend now. You can't."
"Yes, but the claw is not my friend no matter the emotion I attach to it. It is only a reminder. I won't forget my friend if I give this claw so that you can be reunited with your mother. I give it gladly." He took the thong holding the claw from around his neck and handed it to James. "It is my gift to Tanji."
He turned away afterward, to stand looking out at the dark yard through the sliding glass doors.
Tanji started toward him. When she realized his breathing was sharp and shallow, she stopped and just said quietly, "Thank you, Avenall. Thank you." She turned away then. If he didn't want to be seen crying, she wasn't going to push.
***
Avenall kept his eye on the locator spell James had bound to his hand while he simultaneously rode in the minds of both the dragons as they flew. When he glanced to his side, Tanji was holding tight to the pommel on Harul's saddle. She didn't display the excitement she'd shown on her first ride above the barn. Now, she tensed against the cold, her face empty of expression.
The blue dot which had taken two hours of flying to creep toward the center of his hand began to increase in size. Avenall guided the dragons downward. When they landed on a darkened freeway, Tanji scrambled off Harul quickly and ran to Avenall to look at the map on his palm. She darted into the darkness in the direction the dot indicated. Avenall hurried after her and found her at a vehicle, looking in the windows.
"This is her car, but she's not in there."
As she spoke, the blue glow on Avenall's hand winked out. Tanji looked into his eyes with fear.
"No, this is good. The disappearance of the spell means that we've found her." Avenall had to believe this. He'd given up the last thing that bound him to his loved ones. He could not have that be for nothing. He knew his heart would always feel emptier without Durian's claw resting above it.
"Tanji?" The sound came from behind the car.
"Mom?" Tanji ran around the car and into her mother's arms, where her mother was walking up a small embankment. "We found you!"
"Toonkins, how did you get here? How did you even know I was here?"
"I'll explain it when we get home. I hope you don't mind getting there on a dragon."
***
It was well past midnight when Lizbet hugged her friend good night after delivering the Ross family home through the aether
.
When she returned quickly to her family room, her mother was already helping Mona up the stairs, but Avenall stood stiffly near the sliding door, watching Fein doze in a growing pool of melted snow in the backyard. James was cleaning up from both the magic he'd cooked up earlier and the dishes they'd used for dinner.
"Avenall, you're welcome to stay the night. Bobby would love to have a real live elf from a compound crashing in his room. But he'd probably keep you up all night with questions."
"No. I thank you, but I merely wished to tell you good night and wish you a good trip when you travel to meet with your elders."
"Yeah, it'll be an interesting one, that's for sure. Except I hope I'll be seeing you again before then. We're going to be needing help from just about everyone when we get back, so please come for the meeting tomorrow afternoon. It's not just about getting the lights back on in town. We've got to get a system in place to get them going quickly for everyone everywhere. We're going to need a lot of gnomes. I think they're going to become popular little guys pretty quick."
James snapped his fingers and pointed in Avenall's direction. "Oh, by the way, I forgot to give you this back, Avie." He walked across the room and handed Avenall his dragon claw. Avenall looked down at it, confused.
"I thought you needed it for your spell. Did you not need to use it?"
"I mean, yeah, I used it. And it was kind of a mess to get cleaned up again—it had a lot of gunk from the locator potion stuck to it—but I think it cleaned up okay. Not quite as good as new, but close."
"I thought..."
"Sorry guy, I didn't tell you you'd probably get it back because I wasn't sure. In fact, I'm kind of surprised it made it through. If there'd been any flaws in it, it would have broken and dispersed in the spell, but it held up great. I won't ask you for it again. Its usefulness for spell-casting is played out, but it should hang together for you just fine as jewelry."
Lizbet watched Avenall's expression change from somber to beaming. He looked like he wanted to say something, but the words didn't come.
Then Lizbet remembered what she'd meant to tell him before he left. She was so tired from the events of the evening that she was a little woozy and wasn't firing on all pistons. She was never going to make it through all of her responsibilities for the next few days if she didn't work in enough sleep.
"Avie, you and I need to take a quick trip tomorrow morning. Mona communicated with Oriane again while you and Tanji were gone. She asked that I take you to her as soon as possible. She has something for you."
"It cannot be anything as nice as having Durian's gift returned to me, but I will go with you gladly. I miss Oriane. It will cheer me to see her."
"Cool. We'll go before the meeting."
CHAPTERTHIRTY-FOUR
It’s Always Darkest Before The Dawn
Lizbet let loose Avenall's hand as they appeared just outside the Elvin compound in France. She turned when she heard a whisper say, "This way—quickly! The guards have been more active outside the compound since the change and will soon walk their rounds."
They followed swiftly behind Oriane as she entered the forest. When she stopped and turned in a small clearing, she took Avenall's hands and said, "I have missed you, my dear Avie. But I am glad you are now somewhere where you are treated the way that you deserve. Mona tells me you are among friends."
"I am. I have many friends now—Tanji, Gurrdenn, James, and the queen's family. There is little else I would wish for other than to have you closer to where I am."
She reached her hands up to gently frame his face with her hands. "Oh Avie, I cannot be near you. This forest, here, is my home. But there is something I have longed for years to give you, and now I can. You must protect it with your life. Can you, Avie? Can you promise this?"
"I would deny you nothing."
"Good, then close your eyes."
Avie did as he was told. Oriane dropped his hands, and he could hear her moving away, her soft step rustling the forest loam. Then the rustle returned to him, and she took his hands again. It confused him when her voice came from several feet away saying, "Now, open your eyes."
He opened his eyes and was immediately blinded by his own tears. He held his mother's hands, not Oriane's. She looked older, with scars on her face and arms, but it was his mother just the same. They wrapped their arms around each other and she pulled his head to her shoulder to comfort him as she had when he was a child.
"How are you here?" He stood back from her with his arms on her shoulders, looking directly into the loving eyes he remembered so well.
"The dryads found me and healed me after your father left me in the woods. I could not let you know I would never leave you because your father might have found out. I've waited all this time, hungry for every word of you brought by Oriane. But now, if you will take me to this other land where there are no elves..."
Lizbet took that as her cue. "Have pixie dust, will travel..."
"No, wait. Please..." A male voice sounded from the edge of the clearing. Avenall recognized it and looked toward the source. It was him, Durian, coming out of the woods.
They went to each other and crossed their arms in greeting in the elvin way, then grasped each other in a hug—more affection than elvin men should show to another, but Avenall didn't care. Durian said, "It is good to see you, Avenall. I've missed you. Oriane asked me here, but I've been so ashamed, and I did not want to burden you. And yet here you are, and I don't want to live a solitary life anymore. If I could, I would go with you."
Avenall looked toward Lizbet, questioning.
"Hey, the more the merrier. Right?"
***
He thought he was seeing things induced by the strain of trying to read by candlelight when the red-headed girl and her companion materialized in the middle of the Presidential Seal. The armed men posted inside the office door sprang immediately to alert. The tall young man in front of him raised his hand casually in their direction as they sprang into action toward the twosome. Instantly, the guards stopped moving, paralyzed in place.
"Sorry," said the young man, "I figured this would be kind of a beat-up-first-ask-questions-later scenario for you guys. Needed to get in the first shot, so to speak. They'll be fine in a minute. Just as long as they don't take another run at us. I'm pretty quick on the draw."
The girl waved at him in a friendly way. "Hi. My name is Elizabeth Moore. You may have heard of me. I'm Queen of the Fae. And this is James. He's my muscle." She was still tired and a little giddy from lack of sleep. The corners of her mouth turned up in a private joke when she thought of slim James being anyone's "muscle". "We're here to help with the power problem. We could take care of it on our own, but we need to know the best places to start—hospitals, water distribution plants, farms, places where they package food. And you'll need to help us set up distribution that doesn't depend on machines. I'm thinking lots of horses. Maybe bicycles pulling trailers. Whatever works."
She took a breath and smiled charmingly. "So, we'll get all that straightened out for you although we don't think there's anything we can do about the phones and the walkie-talkies and the internet. It looks like any form of modern communication just isn't going to work. And really, don't even think about asking for help with the weapons. Just don't. But the rest of it—although we've already celebrated Thanksgiving, I think most people around the world will have something to give thanks for again by the first of the year if you're willing to work with us."
The President stood, nodded, and motioned them to sit. "I'm listening."
"Okay, so here's the first step," said James, as Lizbet moved to take the chair that was offered. "People are really going to start loving gnomes..."
AFTERWORD
Hello, dear reader. You've made it through book three in the series, and I'm happy to say there will be more! If you'd like to know when I publish a new book, please sign up for the Jill Nojack New Books Notification Newsletter at http://faeunbound.com/newsletter-sign-up. Pleas
e note: I'm not much of a marketer. You won't get huge numbers of emails from me. I do post news and previews on theFaeUnbound.com website for interested parties, and you can also contact me any time you feel like it from the contact form on the site. I like hearing from readers. It makes all the time spent at the computer worthwhile.
If you enjoyed the book and also like writing reviews, please consider writing a sentence or two to help other readers decide whether or not they might like it, too. Reviews are a big help to writers who are independently published--we can't even buy ad space in the popular newsletters without them! You can leave a review on the Dragon Tender page at Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00P8WRHHY/.
The next book in the series is tentatively titled Wizard's Wrath. I intentionally didn't put a cliffhanger into Dragon Tender because it may be up to 6 months before I can start working on the next book due to other projects. However, there's plenty of material to work with. Freoric's still out there somewhere, the elves are still up to no good, and what's all this talk of Bacchus? Plus, wow! Big changes for the entire world, right? Start looking for book four in the summer of 2015.
I'm currently writing a second series called Bad Tom. This one is written for adults (I'd rate it PG16 for more adult themes and some mild cursing), but it's still Urban Fantasy with a smirk. I'll release all three books in the Bad Tom series very close to each other in early 2015.
