Discovering Fae

Mal

I glared at the hellcat that was laying on the couch like he owned it. He and Nana had showed up out of the pantry, which had looked like the inside of her house instead of the shelves of food I knew was in there. After Jacob had said that Fae was both here and there, which still made no sense to me, she and the cat had gone into seclusion while she hunted down the answers we all wanted.

Now, they were back. Jacob looked like the haughty feline that he was, but Nana looked worse for wear, even with her being older than dirt.

“So, where is she?” I asked, still glaring at the cat, Blaine growling softly, beside me. I don’t even think he knew he was doing it.

“That’s a difficult answer to explain,” Nana said with a weary sigh.

“Try,” I crossed my arms.

“So impatient,” Nana chuckled. “You Bonded souls are all alike when separated.”

“I just got her back before the cat sends her gods know where,” I snapped. “Get your furry ass off the sofa. Animals sit on the floor.”

“Malachi,” Mary said in that tone that I had come to learn meant she was no longer Mary. She was Queen Justine. “What did you find, Nana?”

“I don’t know how, but it would seem that Fae has been taken to a place that exists between this world, the Sidhe, and the afterlife,” she sighed.

“She’s not dead,” I almost shouted.

“No, she’s not dead,” Nana nodded. “She’s also not alive, either. This place is everything and nothing; there and not; coming and going. It’s real and a dream.”

“That still makes no sense,” Ben said.

“It never will,” Jacob said, and Blaine snarled at him, making him hiss. “I did nothing to harm Fae, pup.”

“Then why is she not here?” Ben growled, his face flashing fur and pointed teeth.

“She was taken to this other place by some force no one can understand,” Nana spoke as Jacob got up and stretched before jumping to the floor. “They are a type of gate keeper, bringing those that need it to this other place.”

“And what happens there that she needs so much?” I asked. “What is so special about this other place? She can’t even be alone for twenty minutes without reliving what that bastard did to her. It’s been a week!”

“Then maybe that’s the reason,” Nana shrugged. “We won’t know unless she comes back and tells us.”

“Wait. What do you mean “unless”?” Blaine asked, his eyes turning black as he lost control of the hellhound within. “She’s coming back, right?”

“The Gatekeepers that took her have to decide if, and when, she returns,” Nana said. “It all depends on which keepers took her. Unfortunately, there are many to choose from so it’ll be difficult, nearly impossible to tell.”

“But you can tell?” Mary asked, holding on to Quinn’s hands tight enough for her knuckles to go white. “Can you find her?”

“I can look two, maybe three times,” she shook her head. “Each Gatekeeper has a caretaker, a Guardian. They are incredibly powerful, and I am not as strong as I used to be.”

“You’ll exhaust yourself, Nana,” Jacob scowled, his tail thumping the floor in front of his feet.

“Don’t lecture me, Phineas,” she snapped.

“My name is Jacob,” he sighed.

“And if you hadn’t had been pushing her, this likely wouldn’t have happened,” Nana spat. “I suggest you keep quiet unless you have something important to add to the conversation, otherwise, you’ll have another curse to worry about and it will be far less pleasant than hacking up a hairball on occasion.”

He huffed and laid his ears back but kept quiet. I almost wished he didn’t, since I would love to see Blaine lay into him again. I wouldn’t even care about getting in trouble for the wreckage in the house, should it come to it.

“So, the question we need to answer is, do we hope for the best or fear the worst?” Nana said, returning to the more important topic.

“It’s better to eliminate the worst case and hold on to hope than the other way around,” Quinn said after a moment of silence.

We all agreed, and Nana nodded before leaving through the pantry again, taking the damned cat with her. I stared at the door long after they were gone, my mind racing.

“What if she doesn’t come back?” Ben whispered.

“Then we find a way to go get her,” Blaine said. “Mal’s right. She was barely holding on with us next to her to keep her rooted in reality. Fae’s strong. We all know that. But how long can she hold on when she’s constantly reliving the worst thing that has ever happened to her?”

“We have got to be the worst Bonds in the history of ever,” Ben scoffed and ran his hands through his hair. “We’ve literally lost Fae twice and it hasn’t even been a year since she Called us.”

“You’re too hard on yourselves,” Mary chuckled. “Being Bonded means more than protecting the one that Called for you.”

“Protecting her is only a small part of your purpose,” Quinn nodded. “You all have something special, something about who you are that Fae needs. Witty jokes, ferocious protection, a safe place for her to heal.”

“Sometimes, what she needs is for you to just wait,” Mary sighed. “Some things just have to be done alone.”

“That doesn’t mean we have to like it,” Quinn muttered, earning an elbow to the side.

“As long as Mal can be sure she’s okay, the only thing we can do is be ready for when she comes back,” Mary said.

“If she comes back,” Ben said bitterly, earning a growl from Blaine and glares from the rest of us. “Face it, we barely made it last time. We got lucky, and that was when she was in a place we could actually get to. But according to Nana, she’s in some kind of halfway point we can only get to if some mysterious Gatekeeper lets us in. How in the hell do we just go get her from a place that exists and doesn’t at the same time? Where do you even look for a place like that?”

“If you want to give up on her, fine, but I am going to get her back,” I said, trying to resist the urge to punch his stupid face in. “I don’t care what I have to do or how long it’ll take. She’s coming back, with or without some blow hard Gatekeeper telling me I can’t.”

“I would never give up on Fae, Mal,” Ben shot back. “But I’m not going to ignore the facts of reality, either. She barely survived being rescued once, and that was with all of us here. Zane is gone and Nando is dead now. How do you expect this rescue will be better?”

“Enough!” Blaine shouted, standing up. “Fae is stronger than any of us are giving her credit for right now. Whatever happens, she can handle it, and if she knew you two were sitting here arguing about this, she’d have you both strung up by your balls. We don’t know what’s going on, but unlike last time, Mal can feel her still, right?”

I nodded. I couldn’t feel her emotions, not yet, but I could feel that she wasn’t in pain. That was some small comfort, at least.

“As long as nothing in that area changes, we just have to suck it up and wait, like Mary says,” he glared at both of us.

“I can’t do nothing,” I said.

“No one of us can,” Quinn said, holding Mary closer to his side as silent tears went don’t her face. “We need to keep busy or we’ll end up losing our minds. You three are young and freshly Awakened as adults. I can bet my wings that none of you have any real training in what it is exactly, you’re capable of. So, that’s what we’re going to do.”

“That’s all well and good, but what about Fae?” I asked.

“Blaine is right,” Mary wiped at her face. “As long as you can feel that she isn’t hurt or... gone, there’s nothing we can do right now aside from being here when she comes back. Not “if”, Benjamin.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ben hung his head as the venom in her voice.

“She is your Bonded, but don’t ever forget she’s my daughter, and this family?” she pointed between her and Quinn. “We don’t break easily. She’s coming back, even if she has to burn that place to dust to do it.”