Jorel looked like she'd seen death in the face as she staggered into the sitting room; Hope sprang to her feet and gathered the stricken pixie in her arms, while Chika yelled down the hallway for the Queen. By the time Tanila arrived, Jorel was laid on the couch, covered in a baby blanket that all but swallowed her, her face pale, her lips grey. Her breathing was short and shallow, and Tanila went as pale as the stricken pixie. "What happened?" she demanded, shocked.
"I have no idea," Hope said, white to the lips. "Chika and I were talking, and then Jorel staggered in here, looking like the walking dead."
"I've got a better idea," Chika said, still shaking. "She placed some wards on Bethany's mind to make her look like a pliable servant ready to do the council's bidding, while secretly undermining them from the inside out. Judging by Jorel's state, those wards were broken, and brutally."103Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzchLFBcvpE
"H-he said th-that... those b-b-bindings were... ones he-he'd taught ... us," Jorel whispered. "Th-that was ... wh-why he ... was a-able t-to..." Her words dissolved in a fit of coughing that left her whiter than before, her grey lips now red with blood. Hope dabbed her lips with a cloth, while the Queen uttered the randiest oath anyone had ever heard her use during her seventeen-year-long stay in Felalnor.
"That's gone and screwed things up," Chika said flatly.
Tanila gave her a flat stare. "Use your words," she said, her voice frosty. "But yes, it has done untold damage." Her face softened as she gently stroked Jorel's hair. "Jorel is the most powerful pixie mage we have here," the Queen said, her cold voice at odds with the gentle touch. "She knows spells I would never dare touch, not even at the risk of all I hold dear. Jorel and her kind are not bound by those rules, since they were living here first when my people came to this land many thousands of years ago. Jorel can do things that would chill your blood to hear talk of, and I told her once that, so long as I never heard what those things were, I was perfectly happy for her to use those methods to achieve the ends she desired."
"Without the restraining bolt of good manners," Hope said with a faint grin.
Tanila unbent enough to give her a brief smile, but the chill soon returned to her face as she regarded the ill pixie. "Jorel has been broken, brutally. Severing someone's spells is painful under normal circumstances, and outright fatal if done in as brutal as fashion as has been shown today. Whoever did this was lying about those spells having first been taught to pixies, but he - or she - wasn't lying when they broke the spells Jorel had placed on Bethany. Jorel is, in all likelihood, dying, and she is the last pixie with the age and skill to use the spells we so desperately need. None of her kind are as old or experienced as her, and should she die, our most powerful line of defence in the hidden city will be broken in an instant."103Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPetINvhK0A
Chika and Hope shared a horrified look. "Is there nothing that can be done?" the former demanded.
"No," Tanila said, sadly. "I don't have the skills needed to save her, and as I said, none of her kind are as old or skilled as she."
"Surely they can band together and do something," Hope insisted. Her despair of the day before had been swallowed up by determination, and Chika was both gladdened and heartbroken as she watched her friend confront the Queen. "We can't just give up," Hope added, clenching her fists. "I'll go to the pixies myself if that's what it takes to at least try and save Jorel."
The Queen stared at her for a very long time, but though she was a bit shaken by that unblinking regard, Hope held firm, until at last Tanila lifted her shoulders. "I will call for their most gifted to come here," she said, her voice cold as she studied the two women - one human, the other feline - with a look that suggested she would not be pleased with the outcome should Hope's gamble fail. Chika shivered, ears going back as she realised the Queen was on a knife's edge. If Jorel died despite the best efforts of her fellow pixies, Hope was going to come in for some very harsh words. "However," the Queen added, breaking into Chika's reverie, "you two will vacate this room. I will not have this healing muddied by your misguided passions."103Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzVxTYCqVpL
Thus dismissed, Hope and Chika left the room, feeling as if they'd been dismissed by a very stern headmistress. Hope had a speculative look on her face that sent alarm bells ringing in Chika's head as they walked towards the former's rooms. "What are you planning?" Chika demanded of her friend.
"I'm not planning anything," Hope said tartly, but her heart wasn't in it as her eyes, unseeing, passed over the gorgeous tapestries and vases lining the hall. "But the Queen seemed a bit more ... hostile than usual. In all the time I've known her, she's never been that rude to us before. I know she's upset at what happened to Jorel, and I don't blame her one bit, but something is seriously off."103Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK4TavSoBFU
Chika frowned as she went over their tense meeting with Tanila. "She was pissed," she agreed, as they reached Hope's rooms. Inside, Saanvi and Eldon were playing with Winter, and despite her dour mood, Hope smiled. "You'd better not be teaching him anything innappropriate," she told Eldon, who gasped and put a hand threatrically to his heart.
"You wound me," he said, looking like a kicked puppy. "I'm saving the really dirty talk for when he's one."
"Two," Hope countered.
"Two and a half," Eldon insisted.
"Three, and that's my final offer," Hope said archly. "Take it or leave it."
Eldon grumbled, but conceded the point. "You win," he said sourly, but before the playful spat could continue, Saanvi interrupted with a frown. 103Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbaNUniGecm
"You two look like you ate something that disagreed with you," she said, concern robbing the words of any jest. She shot a sharp look at Eldon as he opened his mouth, and he raised his hands in defeat as Saanvi turned back to the two older women. "What the hell happened?"
Chika and Hope filled them in, and when the women's story had concluded, Saanvi and Eldon traded concerned looks. "That's not like the Queen at all," the latter said, all humour gone from him as he scooped Winter up and popped him in his biological grandmother's arms. He'd learned Winter was a good distraction, and Hope summoned a smile as she gently rocked her grandson. She still ached over her daughter's loss, but Winter had brought back a measure of hope to her, and she kissed her grandson's hair as Eldon resumed. "I've known her to get righteously angry," the feline male said, "but never have I heard of her being so rude before."103Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY7IqIXzcvJ
"What do you suppose it is, besides grief over what happened to Jorel?" Saanvi asked.
"Hell if I know," Chika said with a tired sigh as she sat down. "I did expect upset, but I did not expect to get a dressing down, as if this whole mess was our fault! Jorel volunteered last I looked, so it's not as if her arm was twisted. But this gives us problems - whoever broke her spell is immensely powerful, and I'll wager it was one of the council."
"Or Navi," Hope interjected, her face going pale.
"Jorel did tell us that the magic of the elves had grown stronger over the years," Saanvi said, shivering. "Which means their breeding program has progressively turned into a campaign to make them into mages capable of besting and beating anything the pixies throw at them."
"We're fucked," Eldon said gloomily. "And they didn't even buy us dinner first."103Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp1Bn7yrzqb
Hope smothered a whoop of laughter in Winter's hair, while Saanvi and Chika shared an affectionate eye roll. Eldon's capacity for wisecracking could sometimes be inappropriate, but he was very good at knowing when the situation did call for it - this was one of those times. "So what the hell do we do to prevent this fucking over?" Saanvi asked, a faint smile on her lips. "Do we get them to buy us dinner first...?"103Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNCnuodz2QL
Eldon tapped his chin thoughtfully. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news," he said, looking at Hope with a grimace.
"But you're going to do it anyway," she said with a faint smile. "I agree."
Saanvi shared a mystified look with her foster mother, but that soon became comprehension as she turned to stare at Hope. "You're going to send Winter there," she said. "I don't know if it's courageous or bloody stupid - you only just got him back!"103Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZSSZ6LkE2Z
"I know it's a gamble," Hope said defensively, "but hear me out. Night elf magic is the one type of magic not even the most powerful elven magic can overcome. It draws from the darkness, and darkness, like light, doesn't run out or dry up. And darkness can absorb light faster than light can absorb darkness. It's practically a win-win situation."
Eldon's eyes widened. "Pass him here," he said. Hope handed her grandson over without protest, already gauging his intent from the look in his eyes. As he hurried out, Saanvi's eyebrows went up. "He's going to tap into that innate magic to cancel Jorel's injuries," she guessed.
"And cancel her hostility," Chika gasped. "How the hell did I not see it for what it was?"103Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3igOy2wSTC
"Like I said, not even the most powerful elven magic can overcome night elf magic," Hope said firmly. "I didn't suspect it either at first, but when Eldon asked for Winter, I was able to put two and two together. Whoever wounded Jorel added a nasty package to latch onto the first elf to come within spitting distance of her. That elf happened to be the Queen, and she's still rubbed raw over those five children that were kidnapped. I'll lay you ten to one it was a geas that made her relive that pain all over again."
'And it probably temporarily made her see Jorel as one of those lost children," Saanvi surmised.
Hope nodded. "I just hope we're right," she said.
"I'll brew us some tea while we wait," Chika suggested. That won her a grateful smile from the other women, and Chika prayed, as she got busy, that Eldon and Hope's guess was borne out. Otherwise, there was no telling what would happen.
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