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Fey chuckled.
“And now? Now I have them staging a coup alongside Demons, of all things. It wasn’t hard to find people dissatisfied with the Queen, you know. Things are… bad here, for most citizens. It hurts to think I never saw it, before, that I never noticed …”
They were silent for a few minutes, each taking a moment to struggle with their own emotions. It’s easy to be blinded to suffering. But once you see it, once you open your eyes to the less fortunate around you, there’s no turning back.
After a while, Alice stood, shrugging off their conversation and motioning for Fey to follow her.
“Come on, it’s time you met everyone.”
Everyone, it turned out, was only three people.
“Fey, this is Karla, Sam, and Rex,” Alice said, pointing to them each in turn. “Everyone, this is Fey.”
Alice had walked her from the nook where Fey had been held captive, back through the huge basement laboratory and up to an office on the second floor of the factory. Sunlight poured in through the factory windows, and the assembly line floor was now filled with workers. However long she’d been held down there, at least it seemed like the world hadn’t stopped spinning in her absence. There was a strange comfort in that.
“Is she the one who killed David?” The big, heavy-set Shifter—Rex—asked Alice, ignoring Fey entirely.
“The Shifter boy who was in the warehouse,” Alice explained, all four of them watching Fey for her reaction.
Staring back at the Shifter who had asked, Fey shook her head slowly. “No,” she said, honestly. “But I was there when he was killed. We had no idea who he was, or why he was there, and he pulled a knife on us.”
Rex snorted, crossing his arms, and looking away. A Bull Shifter, maybe, Fey guessed. His face certainly had a distinct bovine look to it, with that long drawn-out face and small deep-set, wet eyes.
The smaller Shifter at Rex’s side sighed. “That does sound like David,” he said, in a light delicate voice, edged in pain. “He always wanted to play the hero.” He gave Fey a small but inviting smile. “I’m Sam. I’d welcome you to my building, but Alice tells me you’ve actually been with us for a few days now.”
Chained in the basement, Fey thought sourly, shooting Alice a glare. She just shrugged.
“I had to be sure she was safe,” Alice explained.
“And?” Rex asked gruffly.
“And she’s anything but safe, but she’s on our side, at least.”
“Is it true?” the Demon, Karla, asked, leaning forward over the table to get a closer look at Fey. She had delicate, curved horns that circled her ears. “That the antidote worked, I mean? And you have control over all four elements?”
Fey glanced at Alice, waiting for her nod before she spoke. “Yeah,” Fey said. “I do.”
Karla whistled, impressed, leaning back in her chair.
“Well, we’re really glad you’re here, Fey,” Sam said. His eyes were just a fraction too large for his face, the color like molten chocolate. Hare Shifter. “We have been giving Alice all the help we can, but… we aren’t warriors, you see. I have helped by providing this space, my equipment, and whatever she has needed to make that, that potion of hers, but when the fighting comes…” Sam looked uncomfortable. “I can’t, in good conscience, send my brothers and sisters to die for our cause. I can’t put them in harm’s way.”
“I could,” Karla said quickly. “But it’s a fifty-fifty chance they’d turn right around and kill you first if the fighting turned against us.”
Rex just snorted.
“You’ve done plenty,” Alice assured Sam. “Thanks to you we have more than enough antidote to go around. And thanks to Fey, we now know that it works. I won’t need to ask any of you to sacrifice anymore of your friends and loved ones.” She turned to Fey and gave her a wide smile. “Not if Fey agrees to help me, at least.”
Fey shook her head. “No. Not until you tell me exactly what it is you’re planning, Alice. No more secrets, no more surprises. Tell me the plan. Then we’ll see if I agree to do what you ask.”
And, with a huge smile, Alice told her.
For years, Fey had said that Joy was the most brilliant Witch she’d ever known. She would stand by that, even decades later. But today, listening to Alice’s plan, Fey couldn’t help but think that even Joy couldn’t have come up with something so clever.
“When?” was all Fey asked her, after Alice had finished explaining everything. Sam and Rex had kept quiet throughout most of her explanation, only jumping in a few times to clarify some of the finer aspects of the plan. Karla had been sent from the room, with even she herself admitting that it was best not to let her know too many details just in case she decided to turn them in for some sort of reward.
“Three days from now,” Alice told her. “We get this one chance, Fey. And if we don’t get it exactly right, this could be a bloodbath.”
Fey nodded. One chance.
