After the Fall

  "So, what's your brilliant plan now?" she asked me, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

  "Shut the hell up, witch." I wasn't going to grab the bait she was dangling in front of me. She might be limited with her power in here, but I wasn't; and I wanted to save any demonstrations of it for when we were finally alone, without any dwarves to see me. Maybe then I could bust us out of here. I could feel The Green just buzzing around me, waiting for me to link up. I'd avoided using it up until now because I got the distinct impression that it was going to act differently than it did in the Here and Now, and I wasn't sure I'd be able to handle it. But if I got desperate, well, shit was just going to have to happen however it was going to happen.

  "Was that your plan, to have Jared stand up there like an idiot and order them to let us go?"

  I refused to answer her, staring across the room at the cage that held Tony, Spike, and Ben. Tony was sitting down with his legs crossed, not really looking at Ben much and saying nothing. I wondered what Tony was thinking, if he believed he was stuck inside a cage with a traitor, or if he still held out hope that Ben was a good guy and a friend. Spike was hanging from the bars at the top of the cage doing pull-ups to pass the time. I sighed, wishing his tunic was off so I could really enjoy the show. He caught me looking and winked at me, dropping to the floor of the cage and sitting down next to Tony, nudging him and leaning in to talk in his ear.

  Jared was with Niles and Finn. Niles had his regular scowl going, and Finn paced back and forth, his hair sticking out in all directions. He was madder than a wet hen.

  A movement down in the room caught my eye. I stood up when I realized who it was. "Hey! Triden! Let us out of these things, would ya?"

  "I cannot, lass. I am sorry." He bent down and picked up a few mugs off the floor, setting them down on a nearby table, not even taking a second to look up at me.

  "Why not? You know we're not here to do you any harm."

  "Maybe ya weren't, but yer friends were. Guilt by association, I'm afraid." He shook his head in disappointment, and I didn't know if it was directed at us or his family who'd made the decision to lock us in here when Jared got a little too bossy, demanding we be led to the dragons. Either way, it didn't matter, since his pity wasn't helping us at all.

  "You can't keep me in here!" yelled Niles. "It goes against the Code!"

  Triden frowned up at him, throwing his hands onto his hips and abandoning his clean-up of the messy room. "The Code forbids dwarves from fraternizing with witches! You broke the Code, so the Code no longer protects you!"

  "Since when?!" yelled Niles back, all in a rage now. "The Code forbids no such thing!"

  "Maybe not where you're from, but here, it does!" Triden went back to his cleaning up, moving onto another section of the room.

  I nodded my head in appreciation of their code. I was totally down with not fraternizing with witches. They all sucked in my experience. I ignored the tiny nagging in the back of my mind that told me the Overworld was a lot less forgiving and understanding than I had expected it to be.

  "What ... are you agreeing with him?" asked Samantha, sounding offended.

  "Hell yeah, I am," I said, looking at her for a second over my shoulder, just long enough to shoot her the evil eye. I turned my back to her again before finishing my thought. "Witches suck ass. As far as I'm concerned, they could all just disappear and we'd be fine." No more effed up spells to screw with our lives or our heads.

  "Some fae say the same thing about elementals."

  I shrugged. "Whatever. I'm not interested in our bullshit, Samantha, so why don't you just sit down and shut up."

  She huffed out a breath, mumbling, "What'd I ever do to you to make you hate me so much?"

  I laughed in utter amazement at her ignorance, twisting around to face her again. "Are you friggin kidding me?"

  "No, I'm not," she said, jutting out her chin. "You get all passionate about something, and it's all fine and good. Yay, Jayne, the elemental kicks some butt. But anyone else does, and suddenly they're the bad guys in your book, someone you need to end or put down. Who gave you the right to judge me?"

  I shook my head at her ridiculousness. "Let's get a few things straight, okay, Samantha? First of all, you spelled an arrow and tried to have someone shoot me in the back with it when I first got to the Light Fae compound, hitting Chase instead and putting him into a friggin coma. You staged battles outside the doors of my home and the home of my friends - and in the process, killed a friend of mine. Falco was his name, but I'm sure that doesn't matter at all to you. You helped Ben take me prisoner and torture me in the Dark Fae compound. Then you put spells on Ben's room to trap me in there, didn't put a spell on the garden to keep me grounded like you were supposed to, and ... oh yeah ... spelled the shit out of Spike to keep him in demon form. And the icing on my Samantha-shit-on-me-once-again-cake was the fact that you spelled my guardian angel and tricked him into binding me to Ben, making us all think it was meant to be for the sake of saving our fae race." I shook my head in sickened wonder. "How in the hell that adds up in your mind as being just passionate and not more like a serial killer, I'll never know." I turned back around, not interested at all in hearing her excuses or lame attempts at honesty. She wouldn't know the truth if it crapped on her shoes.

  "Are you serious? Do you really believe all that?" she asked, laughing through her words in what sounded like disbelief.

  It was the tone of her voice that made me face her. If she had brought any attitude at all, I would have just ignored her; but she genuinely sounded confused and like I was the nutter and not her.

  "Yes," I said. "I'm dead serious. This isn't exactly a joking matter."

  "But I didn't do that stuff ... well, most of it anyway." Her face was all screwed up in confusion, her eyes going back and forth looking at nothing, as if she were doing calculations in her head.

  I raised a doubting eyebrow at her. "Please, Samantha. It's just the two of us up here in a friggin bird cage. Enough with the lies."

  "No, really. I agree that I helped Ben take you, but not that there was any torture involved. And that fae you mentioned, Falco ... I didn't mean to hurt him. All of your elves were shooting arrows at us - one of them even hit me. I was just fighting back."

  "But you conveniently forget that you were the one who brought that fight to our door, trying to get into our compound."

  "Yes, but Ben said that it was meant to be ... that we were meant to gain entry ... ," she finished lamely. She didn't seem very sure right now. Not like she had just a minute before when she was mocking Jared's plan to try and talk to our captors.

  I pounced on her words. "Ben said? Ben? And he's ... what? Your master? King of the fae? What? Why would you listen to him and hurt fae like that?" I was disgusted by the weakness I sensed in her now. She'd always seemed so strong and determined before.

  "No, he's ... he took me out of Miami and gave me my new life. He told me he'd take care of me, that he'd make sure I got good training and lived up to the expectations everyone had of me." She had been staring at the floor of the cage, but now she looked at me, tears in her eyes. Her face trembled with trapped emotion. "He told me I was special. He was my friend. Like Tony is for you."

  I shook my head. "No fucking way, Samantha. Ben is nothing like Tony. Ben uses people and lies to them, and will do anything it takes to get his way. He's no friend of yours, and I don't believe for a second that you're so stupid to think that. Nice try."

  I turned back around, severely bothered by the fact that I could sense no lying in her voice - only desperation. It made me sick to my stomach to think that a girl could be so lost and so lonely, that she'd latch on to false promises and bullshit like Ben had to offer. It reminded me so much of my own mother and Rick-the-dick it caused angry tears to burn my eyes. I refused to let them fall, though. Samantha didn't deserve my pity. She'd made her stupid choices, and now she was going to have to deal with them, just like I did, just like everyone did.

  "It
wasn't a trick, Jayne. I was there. I saw it," said Samantha, now sounding like she really wanted to convince me. "The binding was real. It was meant to be."

  I sighed angrily, turning once more. "You saw what, exactly? Ben kissing me, Spirit blessing the union? Please ..." I rolled my eyes.

  "No, not that. Well, yes, that. But I saw the scrying. I was there and witnessed it with my own eyes."

  She could have said anything but that, and I probably would have blown her off; but now she had my undivided attention. "You did a scrying? Are you nuts?"

  She lowered her voice, glancing over briefly at Ben before sitting down and facing me. "Not me. Ben and Maggie."

  "Say what?! No way ... you're totally shitting me right now."

  "No," whispered Samantha, "I'm not. They did it a couple times."

  "And Maggie just went along with all this crap?"

  Samantha looked off to the side once before answering, as if she was embarrassed. "Not exactly."

  "He threatened her, didn't he?"

  She nodded.

  "With what?" My curiosity was burning a hole in my gut. What could Ben possibly offer Maggie or hold over her nappy old head to get her to do a scrying?

  "He swore he'd reveal the arrangement she had with someone named Céline."

  The blood began pounding in my ears. I could hear the rushing noise as my pulse pushed it through my veins double-time. "Céline, the silver elf?" I asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

  "I think so. She's on the council, right?"

  I nodded, my body numb, my fingertips and toes tingling. I'd never heard of any deal between Céline and Maggie, but if it was something that Ben could hold over the witch's head and threaten her with, it had to be one hell of a nasty secret.

  "What was it? The arrangement?"

  "I'm not sure," she said, looking down at her hands as she picked at her cuticles.

  "Bullshit. Tell me now, Samantha, or I'll start yelling that you're casting spells up here."

  She smiled bitterly. "They won't believe you. I have no power here. They took it from me at the entrance."

  "How'd they do that?" I asked.

  "I have no idea. I cast one last spell, and all hell broke loose."

  "And whose idea was that brilliant maneuver?" I knew the answer already, but I just had to hear it.

  "Ben's."

  I rolled my eyes, but before I could say anything, Samantha cut me off.

  "Yeah, I know it was stupid, but I didn't know what else to do. What am I going to say to him?"

  "How about no? Or go fuck yourself? Those would have worked for me."

  "Well, I'm not you," she said softly, "and he's Ben."

  "Yeah, so what? You're Samantha, kickass witch, fated Fate whatever the hell that means."

  "Don't say that," she said, sounding almost desperate now.

  "Say what?"

  "That I'm fated to be a Fate. I don't want that!" She looked seriously freaked out now.

  I frowned at her strong reaction. "Why? What the hell is it, anyway?"

  "You don't know?"

  "Would I ask if I did?" I shook my head at her denseness, which was so not like her. Usually she was just a short, sweet, cut through the bullcrap kind of girl. Now she wanted to practically girl-talk. It was crazy.

  "Well, how did you know about being a Fate if you don't know what it is?"

  "A pixie told me. So what is it?"

  "It's a witch who messes with people's lives. I'm not interested."

  I laughed bitterly. "You could have fooled me. You've already messed up mine enough, and I don't see you apologizing for any of it."

  Her nostrils flared and her lips thinned. She stared at me for a full ten, silent seconds before she finally cleared her throat and said, "Jayne, I'm sorry. For everything."

  Truth. The word came to me like a bolt of lightning out of the blue. A sizzle of The Green came with it, making me feel instantly lighter. What the hell?

  A gasp escaped Samantha's lips. "Jayne! You're touching your elements right now!"

  I shrugged. "Yeah. So?"

  "So, you have your powers in here!"

  I thought about it for a second, not sure how that was going to help us. "Okay ..."

  "Ben doesn't. His were taken too."

  I turned my head to look over at him. He was staring holes into my head. I quickly whipped back to face Samantha. "He saw me."

  She looked down at the floor of the cage. "Don't look at him anymore. He'll know we're talking about him."

  "So what? I couldn't give two shits about what he thinks. He's dog meat when I get out of here and get my hands on him."

  Samantha reached out as if to touch me, but then pulled her hand back quickly when she saw my death stare aimed in her direction. "Don't. Please just ... don't."

  I shook my head in disgust. "You are so pitiful. Even after all the crap he's made you do and all the bullshit lies, you still love him, don't you?"

  She shook her head vehemently. "No, it's not that. I might have thought I liked him before, but I just don't want you to bring that kind of bad karma down on yourself. I've seen what it can do." She fixed me with such an intense stare, I thought she was losing it a little.

  "Yeah, like what?"

  "Like Maggie. Like ... others."

  I nodded. "Maggie is pretty hideous, now that you mention it. Are you saying she's dag-nasty because she has a lot of bad karma?"

  "You've been to her house, haven't you?"

  "Yeah. It's pretty gross, I'll give you that. But I've seen worse."

  "What about her pantry? Have you been in there?"

  I felt like Samantha was leading me down a path I should stay way the hell away from, but my morbid curiosity won out in the end. "You mean the one filled with boxes of mimickers?" I whispered.

  "So you know, then. You know about Fates."

  "All I know is she has a bunch of soul pieces in there and that she uses them from time to time to make horrible spells that bring demons up from the Underworld."

  "They're also sometimes used to trick fae into bonding with other fae against their wills."

  "What?!" I screeched, my voice echoing off the stone walls.

  "Shhhh!" whisper-yelled Samantha. "Do you want to bring all of them back in here? And don't let Ben know I'm telling you this stuff, either. Now you know why I don't want that for myself. It's bad magic, Jayne. Black. Dark. I'm not like that."

  It took all my strength not to look at Ben right now. I leaned in closer to her. "That really wasn't you who did that? Tricked me into binding with Ben?"

  "Hell no, I can't cast like that. Not yet, anyway."

  I shook my head. "I cannot believe that old hag Maggie sold me out like that. The next time I see her she is so going down to ass-kicking town."

  "She's just trying to fix things, she didn't mean any harm."

  My nostrils flared with barely controlled anger. "How could binding me to Ben possibly be fixing anything or not be meaning me any harm? How is that even possible?"

  Samantha dropped her face into her hands, rubbing them up and down a few times before lifting her head again. "I don't know all the details, but I know who's involved. And I know it was something that started a long, long time ago before we were ever in the picture or even born. Somebody fell in love. Somebody messed with fate. Somebody screwed up, and now we're all paying for it."

  "Who? Who fell in love, who screwed up? Give me the names." I was thinking that maybe with the guilty group identified, I could put some pieces together. For the first time in the last hour I was glad that I was being held captive; otherwise, I never would have gotten this close to Samantha without strangling her.

  "Céline, like I said ... Dardennes, Maléna, Torrie, Maggie of course ... Ben, Leck ... maybe some others. I don't remember all of their names."

  "You've remembered enough," I said absently, trying to figure out how they were all connected. "Fuckers have been playing me from the beginning." I looked up. "But Céline? Her I have a
very hard time believing."

  Samantha shrugged. "I heard her name a lot from Maggie and Maléna. Neither were happy with her."

  I felt a glimmer of hope. "That's a good sign as far as I'm concerned. Any enemy of Maléna's is a friend of mine."

  "Don't be so sure about that," she said. "Any of us can be fooled. I've learned my lesson; I suggest you learn it too."

  "Did you know we're supposed to be related?" I asked her, venturing into territory I had sworn I'd never go to voluntarily.

  "I heard something like that," she said, a guarded expression on her face.

  "What do you think? Is it true?"

  She shrugged. "Could be possible. Everything I thought was impossible before is suddenly part of my reality, so I never say never anymore."

  I half-smiled at how that sounded exactly like something I'd said before about my own new life. "What is your family name, from like, way back?"

  "I have no idea. I was in foster care most of my life. I was left abandoned at a hospital when I was, like, two years old. Too old to be adopted, I guess." She shrugged.

  "Oh. Shit. Sorry." Her anger at life was starting to make sense, and my past anger at her was starting to make me feel uncomfortable. Maybe I hadn't exactly been fair.

  "Whatever." She shrugged again. "That's the breaks, right?"

  I nodded, but I really didn't agree. That shouldn't be how life goes for any kid, especially a two-year-old. I looked down at the sleeping pixie next to me, glad he was always going to have someone around who wanted him, even when he was stuffing pollen balls up people's noses.

  "So ... what are we going to do now?" Samantha asked, looking not quite as depressed as she had earlier.

  I searched the room for answers. All I saw were my friends hanging in cages and a dirty, empty room beneath us. Triden had left during our conversation, and no one else had come in to take over, making me wonder if a group of brownies would be descending on the place soon to work their magic.

  "We have to get out of these cages and back to finding the dragons," I said, not sure how that was going to happen.

  "They're here, you know," she said. "The dragons."