Darkness and Light

by Elle Casey

  “Well, they ain’t gonna be short just one fae, I can tell you that,” said Finn. “The green elves do not abandon Mother.”

  I glared at Finn. “Don’t fucking start with that shit again, Finn.”

  “I’m jus’ sayin’ ... ”

  “What’s he talking about?” asked Tony, perking up. “Did he just call you a mother?”

  “Never mind. Just focus on looking either adorable or badass, so the council will say yes to my request to change the law.” The thought of me standing in front of that table full of council members, who sat there like arrogant judges in a courtroom, caused an idea to pop up into my head. I was technically asking for a change in the law or an exception to be made – and there was one person who might be able to help me.

  “Finn, can you contact one of your elf buddies from here?”

  “Dunno. Never tried. Whatcha got in mind?”

  “I need to talk to Gregale right away, as soon as we land. I know he’s a gray elf, but maybe one of the green elves can get a message to him.”

  “I’m willin’ to try. Hold on a sec.” Finn closed his eyes and sat quietly for a few minutes.

  Spike leaned over and talked in a hushed voice. “So, what are you thinking Gregale can do?”

  I noticed Finn’s eyes opening.

  “You’ll see.” I looked at Finn. “So? Did it work?”

  “Yeah. I’m able to reach Robin. He has the strongest abilities, being our leader. What do you want me to tell him?”

  “Tell him I need to speak to Gregale as soon as we land and that it’s a top priority. Tell him I’m calling in my favor. He’ll know what that means.”

  “Okay. Just hang on a sec.” Finn closed his eyes again and came back to us a minute later. “It’s done. Robin is going to find him and deliver the message.”

  “Awesome.”

  “Well that’s about as good as texting,” said Tony, smiling in wonder.

  “Yeah, but way cooler.” I smiled back at him. The more times we were able to show him the benefits of being fae, the better chance I had of making him more comfortable with his choice of coming with me. I’d decided to ignore Tony’s statement earlier that he was still thinking about it. I knew once he had the whole story, he would want to be a changeling. I just had to convince the council that it was a good idea.

  Chapter 5

  I tried not to freak myself out thinking about the council’s angry reaction, choosing instead to focus on Tim and his more immediate need. Just before we got off the plane, I pulled Jared and Chase aside.

  “Guys, I need to get Tim to the witch before I do anything else. Jared, when we get to the compound, can you keep an eye on Tony and make sure he stays away from the council until I get back? It’ll be less than an hour.”

  Jared nodded. “But hurry up. I won’t be able to keep them in the dark much longer than that.”

  I nodded my agreement. “Chase, you want to go with me?”

  “Of course.” He took my bag from me so I was left holding just Tim’s box in my hand.

  We got into the van that was waiting to drive us back to the Light Fae compound. Niles – or the commando dwarf as I liked to call him – was in the driver’s seat. Usually wherever you found Ivar, you could find Niles close by, but he was never on the plane. Maybe he was afraid of flying. I noticed for the first time that this van was equipped with special pedals so he could reach the accelerator and brakes. Sweet.

  After driving for an hour on a mostly empty highway, several smaller country roads and eventually dirt roads through the forest, we arrived at the compound. Chase and I rushed out of the van ahead of the others and darted through the trees on the pathway that led to the compound doors.

  Standing at the door was Becky, my best water sprite friend and only girl I hung out with at the Light Fae compound. There were a lot more male than female fae around here. I learned from Becky that many of the females lived outside the compound, choosing the forest as their home instead. I guess the compound was more like some sort of headquarters – few fae resided within its walls, aside from us changelings, the council members and some of the leaders of the different fae races or warrior groups who frequently stopped by to visit with Dardennes or deal with fae business.

  “Hey, guys! I see you brought Tony with you.” She ran up and gave him a hug, not even caring that he stood there as stiff as a board not recognizing her. “How did it go? I figured it was going okay since no one contacted me and asked for intel on what the old dudes were up to.” She grinned at all of us, waiting for our story.

  She was supposed to keep an eye on the council and teleport over to warn us if necessary. She can do that since she’s a water sprite fae and they use the moisture in the air to travel from place to place. Becky wasn’t sure how far she could go, so I was kinda glad we hadn’t needed her. Last thing I needed was my fae friend floating out in the ocean somewhere because she’d overestimated her abilities.

  “It went okay, but we had a little problem with a Dark Fae that was there. He hit Tim pretty bad. I need to get him over to Maggie ASAP.”

  I went through the door to the compound, Chase holding it open for Becky and me.

  “Can I go with?” she asked, obviously excited about the idea. She’d never actually met Maggie before.

  “Sure, but we need to hurry. I don’t want the council seeing Tony until I’m back.” I turned to Tony, walking backwards. “Tony, hang with Jared. I’ll be back soon.”

  I waited until he agreed and then turned back, walking quickly down the hallways and pulling ahead of the rest of them, imagining the door with the gargoyle on the center of it the entire way. All of the hallways in our compound were spelled with witch magic so that it seemed as if they were just one long corridor. You had to imagine the door you wanted for the pathway and the right door to appear. Someone who hadn’t been to the compound before would never be able to find things, simply because they couldn’t imagine what they looked like. It wasn’t a perfect security system, but it was pretty good. It impressed the hell out of me, anyway. It had taken me a couple days to figure out how to use it correctly.

  Soon we were in front of the door with the gargoyle symbol, and Chase opened it for us. We ran through the woods as fast as we could, while I tried like hell not to jostle Tim too much. We finally reached the base of the super huge tree with a door on the front of it that was Maggie’s house.

  Tim had introduced me to this crazy witch a month or so ago. He knew Maggie very well, but he refused to tell me how he knew her. When Chase had been struck by the black magic spelled arrow that was meant for me, she was the only one who knew the right brew to bring him out of his coma. Ever since our first meeting, which had culminated in Tim sacrificing one of his tiny, green wings as a trade for Chase’s remedy and me eating a spelled leaf that enabled me to hear Tim talk, snore, and fart, I’d been going out to see her and work on my training, learning how to better manage my power over The Green.

  Maggie had this nutball idea that in order for any of her brews to work, they had to have something green in them. Whenever Tim and I came across green mushrooms or other nasty green things in the forest, we collected them for her and then brought them over. She and I had an odd friendship. She yelled and growled at me the entire time I was there, and then always managed to offer me cool and insightful advice. I never really knew if she was Dark or Light Fae, but it didn’t stop her from teaching me a lot about my power and how to use ley lines to tap into it. She had a ley line running in the earth beneath her house – she used it to amp up her spells.

  Even though she was ugly as sin and mean as a snake, I still liked her. She did her own thing and didn’t give a shit what anyone thought, and that was something I could admire. Tim liked to tease me and say that she and I were a lot alike, but only when he was far out of arm’s reach. Tim knows I’d never hurt him, but I’m not above messing with him by doing things like holding his wings still so he couldn’t fly, blowing raspberries at him – which tended
to drench him in spit since he was so small, or breathing heavy-duty garlic breath in his face. Imagine bad breath of dragon-sized proportions so as to fully appreciate the noxious torture I was capable of meting out against my little friend. Did I feel bad about this now, as he sat there all burned up and suffering? No. Well ... okay ... maybe a little.

  I knocked on the door three times. That seemed to be the magic number around here for doors. No more, no less. In Maggie’s case, if you knocked more than three times, it made her cranky as hell. More cranky than usual, in other words.

  “What?!” a voice yelled from within.

  “Open up, old lady! I have an injured pixie out here who needs your help.”

  The door opened a crack and a cloudy eye peeked out. Then her head moved and a black eye peeked out.

  “That’s better. Who is that with you?”

  “Chase, my daemon, and Becky, my friend.”

  “Lie!” spat Maggie. She’s like a fae lie detector or something. She detests lies.

  “Bullshit! She’s my friend.”

  “Truth! But the other part ... lie!”

  “Chase being my daemon?”

  “Yes!”

  I was confused by that. Of course he was my daemon, my protector. That was his job and he took it seriously. That’s how he ended up with an arrow in his back in the first place. But I didn’t have time to argue semantics with her right now.

  “Whatever. Just let us in. I have Tim with me.” I held up the box for her to see.

  The door opened and she beckoned us in, croaking out, “So? What else did you bring me, hmmmm? Anything green perchance?”

  “No. I’ve already brought you a buttload of that stuff. I need your help this time with nothing in return.”

  “Nothing in life comes for free. You must offer me a trade to fix your friend.” She peered into the box I had opened for her. “Hmmmm. A pixie wing, perhaps ... ” She smiled her nearly toothless grin at me, making me cringe. The few teeth she had left were brown and rotten-looking. I hated making her happy because her smile was truly nauseating.

  I looked at her in disgust. “He’s practically dead from having one wing burned off, and you want to take his only good one? Are you sick in the head?” I kind of already knew the answer to that question, but it didn’t hurt to point it out, even though she didn’t take the hint now and never had in all the other hundred times I’d mentioned it.

  Maggie shrugged her shoulders, shuffling away. “Up to you ... ” Then she started humming her favorite tune, breaking out in lyrics I knew only too well, but now enhanced with an extra line she came up with just for the occasion. “Green things, green things, beautiful lovely green things; pixie wings, green and sparkly things, oh my lovely green things.”

  “You’re batshit crazy, Maggie, you know that?” I turned to my friends, speaking quietly as she puttered behind me. “I don’t know what to do.”

  Becky peered into the box. “Oh, ouch. That looks so painful.” She looked at me, concern marring her features. “She’s going to take the bad one off, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “So will he be able to fly with just one?”

  “No, he has to wait for it to grow back.”

  She shrugged slowly at me, a questioning look on her face that was shared by Chase. “Well, if she took both of them off, would it make a difference to Tim? I mean, him being able to fly and do the stuff ... I don’t know ... that pixies do?”

  I thought about it for a second, Maggie cackling behind me. Old bitch was probably listening to everything we said.

  “I guess not. But how pissed is he going to be when he wakes up and finds himself wingless? And realizes it was me who gave his wing away?”

  “He did it for you once before,” reminded Becky, gently.

  “Yeah, but that was different. He volunteered. This would be me taking it.”

  “To save his life,” said Chase. “He will understand.”

  I thought of going out into the forest to try and find something else green to trade, but I knew she had scoured this part of the forest and picked it clean. I was only able to find her green things in Light Fae territory, far from here. And Tim didn’t have enough time for me to go looking; his breathing was getting shallower by the hour.

  I turned to her, frustrated. “Fine, you old bat. His good pixie wing for a complete healing. Deal or not?”

  “Deal!”

  “And you have to promise they’ll both grow back – that’s part of the definition of complete healing.”

  “I said deal!” she screeched at me.

  “Shit, okay, okay – don’t get your undies in a bunch.” Good lord, I hoped she wore undies. I shuddered as I fought to get those horrific images out of my head.

  She shuffled over and grabbed at the box. I held it up above her head. “Easy now. This is my friend. I expect you to treat him carefully.” I gave her my most threatening look. “Hurt him, and you have me to deal with.”

  She cackled at me. “Truth!”

  I rolled my eyes, shaking my head. “What is with you and the lie detector shit, anyway?” I lowered the box and gently handed it to her.

  “Wait outside.”

  The other two didn’t argue. They got out of there in a hurry, the door slamming behind them.

  Maggie didn’t even look up at me. “What do you want?” she demanded in a softer voice.

  I wasn’t sure exactly. I just looked at the box with Tim in it.

  “Get out,” she said in gentle tone. “I’m not going to hurt your precious pixie, even though he deserves it, believe me.” She walked over to her kitchen table, setting the box down next to her black brew pot.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She raised her eyebrow at me as she threw pinches of various things from nearby canisters into the black pot on top of her table.

  “Tim has not told you of our previous ... liaisons?”

  “No. He doesn’t like talking about whatever relationship you used to have.”

  “Guilt!” she barked out.

  “What did he do?”

  She snorted. “Do you mean, what did he try to do?”

  “Okay, sure. What did he try to do then?”

  She began stirring her concoction, eyeing it carefully.

  “He tried to pixie me.” She shouted the word pixie as if it was totally unbelievable that he’d try something like that. But I could totally see his reasoning. If anyone needed a good cheering up, it was Maggie.

  I raised my eyebrows at the news, though. I know pixies liked it when other fae were happy and dancing all over the place, which is why they pixied them if they weren’t – sort of in a misdirected sense of giving the gift of happiness – only it eventually drives the person mad and they end up dying from it, so it’s more a curse than a gift. The pixies didn’t quite get that part, but I’d convinced Tim it was true.

  “Actually, I can see why he’d do it.”

  She scowled at me. “Truth. Explain yourself.”

  “Well, you seem kinda grouchy all the time, even when you’re happy. I’m sure he was just trying to cheer you up.”

  “You truly believe this, I can see. But that was neither his purpose nor his motivation. He was trying to steal from me.”

  That didn’t really sound like Tim. He was mischievous, sure, but he wasn’t a thief. “What was he trying to steal?”

  “A pixie.”

  “A pixie?”

  “I do not repeat myself.”

  “You had a pixie ... and he was trying to free the pixie ... is that it?”

  “The pixie was my willing captive. And yes, he was trying to steal her.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ll have to ask him. I don’t read pixie minds. Wouldn’t want to ... ” She went over to her shelves, pulling down two canisters and setting them down on the table, muttering, “... empty-headed pests.”

  “Did he know the pixie?”

  “Of course.” She opened one of
the jars and pulled out a pinch of something that went into the pot, causing a poof of smoke to rise up.

  “Why ‘of course’?”

  “I suppose most people know their mates.”

  And that’s when I found out for the first time that Tim had a girlfriend or maybe even a wife. But who was she and where the hell had she been for the past month? And why hadn’t Tim mentioned her before?

  Chapter 6

  I went outside and joined the others while Maggie did her thing on Tim. After about a half hour, she came out of the door holding the box in her hand. Tony’s pillowcase was still in there; Tim was now lying on top of it, wingless.

  The sight of him with no wings and two mangled stumps where they should be made me feel sick to my stomach. He looked like a regular man who’d been shrunk down to dragonfly size and then struck with a horrible illness. His skin was white, not its normal pink. He didn’t look like Tim at all.

  “Is he going to be okay?” I asked hesitantly, trying not to show the weepiness I felt inside, as I looked at him. He was obviously still very sick.

  “We had a deal. He will live.”

  “What are you gonna do with his wing?” asked Becky, before she realized she was actually talking to a crazy witch about using body parts in weirdass magic. Her eyes bugged out, and she snuck a scared look at me, probably searching for assurance that she wasn’t about to be cursed.

  The old witch leaned in towards Becky with a sly grin on her face. “Would you like to see?”

  Becky tittered nervously as she answered. “Uh, heh heh, no, that’s okay. No thanks. But it’s so nice of you to offer ... ”

  “Humph,” said Maggie as she turned, shuffling towards her door.

  Becky breathed a sigh of relief, her eyes crossing with the stress of what might have happened.

  “Thank you, Maggie,” I called out.

  All I received was a cackle in response.

  We got back to the compound as fast as we could, luckily encountering no one on the way. We split up at my door, promising to meet outside my room in ten minutes. I put Tim in our room, gently laying him face down on his bed with his head to the side so he wouldn’t suffocate in his pillow. I covered him with his tiny quilt, doing my best to spare the spot on his back where his wings used to be from suffering any additional pain. It was so weird touching his tiny body like that. I was worried I was going to break him.