"By all means. Do you think you might have something for us tomorrow, say after lunch?"

"We will stay up all night, Anton, to help the council. I am quite confident by that time, yes, we will have what you seek."

Dardennes nodded. "Thank you. I leave you to your work, then. Please see yourselves out."

Gregale and Tony didn't even spare me a goodbye, so involved they already were with discussing the possible endgame in front of us. The door closed gently behind them and their voices faded into nothingness as the seal was once again in place.

"Very well ... unless anyone has anything to add, I suggest we break for dinner and agree to meet again at lunch tomorrow. We can have our food here while we await the gray elves' information."

I was exhausted from listening to all these heavy things and trying not to mess up or say something wrong, so I was glad for the break.

Tim jumped onto my shoulder as I stood to go.

"Where to now?" he asked.

"Off to dinner and then Jared's."

"Oooo, secret meetings. Cool. I hope they have strawberries on the buffet tonight. I'm feeling a little antsy."

I smiled, picturing him stabbing the poor fruit over and over, making it bleed its red juices onto the table.

"Come on, Ripper. Let's go."

"Hey, Jayne, mind if I tag along?" asked Aidan, walking up next to me.

"Not at all." I smiled as I left the room, ignoring the smoldering look Ben was shooting at me from the doorway.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

DINNER WAS UNEVENTFUL, UNLESS I counted the nearly suffocating presence of Aidan at my side. He insisted on sitting next to me at the table, even asking Becky to move over. She frowned at him but did as he asked. I rolled my eyes at her and she shrugged back. Guys.

I noticed Ben was nowhere to be seen. I wondered where he was, but was secretly glad it wasn't here. I'd had about as much of him as I could stand for a day. Regardless, though, I was going to see him tonight and have it out. He was going to either fess up or get messed up, courtesy of me.

When we were finished, all of us headed over to Jared's, goofing around in the hallway on the way. Aidan said nothing, he just trailed behind. I could almost feel his stare drilling into my back, but I ignored it. Something had happened in that meeting that had freaked him out, so if this is what he needed to do to feel better about it, I wasn't going to fight him on it. At least not right now.

"I heard y'all were down in the Underworld. That's pretty freaky," said Finn. "What'd ya see? Any cool demons?"

"Freaky is the best word for it," I said. He wasn't going to get any argument from me on that. "We saw a demon or two and a couple dragons. I heard a troll, but I didn't actually see that much of him."

"What do you mean, not that much of him?" asked Becky. "Or do I not want to know?"

"I saw its arm when it grabbed me, but that's it. Luckily, Tony pulled me out of there and saved my sorry b.u.t.t before I could get much more of a look."

"How'd you end up there, though? That's the part I don't get," said Becky. "It's not like you're a bad person or anything."

"It was my mistake. I anch.o.r.ed everyone on our side to the Here and Now but myself and Tim."

"Ooooh, rough luck for the pixie," said Finn. "Tim, you ready to move out yet?"

"Tell your hillbilly friend that I'm strongly considering it."

"He says maybe," I explained, smiling. As if. He was stuck with me, like it or not.

"So what's at Jared's?" asked Scrum. "Why are we meeting over there?"

"We have some serious s.h.i.t to discuss, and we need to do it not around all the old farts," I explained.

"But he's an old fart, isn't he?" asked Scrum. He turned to look behind us, at Aidan, but didn't say what I knew he was thinking. I had no idea how old Aidan was, but you normally didn't end up on the council as a young fae.

"Yeah. But he's the youngest old fart of them all. Plus, he's more teenager-like than the rest of them," I said.

"He sure had me fooled back in Miami," said Finn. "Man, I still can't get over that, either. He sold me a pack-a-lies, and I bought every last one of 'em."

"We all did," said Becky, taking his hand. "Don't feel bad. Besides, aren't you glad you bought that pack of lies? I know I am." She was gazing at him with love-sick eyes.

He turned red and smiled back at her, all goofy-ish. "Yeah. I guess it ain't all bad how things turned out."

"Oh my G.o.d, you guys are so adorable it's gonna make me puke," I said.

"I'd like to second that emotion," said Tim, flying up ahead of us.

"Shush, Jayne. Don't be jealous," said Becky, still staring at her boyfriend.

It was very possible that I was envious of them, so I kept my next comments to myself, not sure they wouldn't come out tainted by the green monster. Finn and Becky were lucky to have found each other over here. I'd found my guy, and he'd ended up being an angel I couldn't have; and the one I'd gotten tied to was a royal pain in my a.s.s. I couldn't even think about where and if Spike fit into all this nonsense. Life was so unfair sometimes.

We arrived at Jared's room before I could get too involved in feeling sorry for myself. Finn stepped up to the door and knocked, and Jared opened it, gesturing for us to come in.

I took a seat on the floor in the far corner so I could have a good view of the room around me. Aidan sat on one side of me and Scrum on the other. I could sense the strained atmosphere between the two, but I did my best to ignore it. This s.p.a.ce was too small for a werewolf-on-daemon fight, so I was determined to do nothing to make them want to kill each other.

Tim sat on Jared's dresser, immediately busying himself with fixing his hair.

"Thanks for coming, guys." Jared shut his door and walked over to his bed, sitting at the head of it, one leg bent up and the other dangling off the edge. He wrapped his arm around the leg near his chest and nodded at everyone in the room.

"So what's the deal?" I asked. "You have intel?"

"More or less. First, though, I'm interested to know what happened to you in the Underworld and the Gray. There's a puzzle here and we just need to have all the pieces so we can put it together."

I groaned inwardly at the idea of sharing all the details of the events he was referring to, wondering what the chances were that I could avoid some of them. But if it was going to help us figure out what we could do to save humanity and find out what Ben's deal really was, then I guess I was going to have to bare the humiliation of sharing my spell-breaking skills.

"Alright, I'll tell you what happened, and I'm sure Tim will chime in to fill in the details I might forget; but first, I want to share some concerns I have so if any of you have any thoughts on this stuff, you can stop me and tell me what's up."

Jared nodded his head and my friends seemed okay with it too, so I started.

"First of all, I'm just going to come right out and say it: I don't trust Ben."

"Me neither," said Tim. He'd finished with his hair and now he was pushing up his cuticles.

Becky opened her mouth to protest, but I held up a hand to stop her. "Hear me out, Becks. If you still want to scold me and tell me all about relationships and love and all that c.r.a.p, you can do it after."

Her lips pressed into a line, but she sat back, leaning against Finn's side saying nothing.

"As I was saying, I don't trust him."

"Tell us why; you must have reasons," said Jared.

"Yes, I do. First of all, why does he have a tapestry in his room that keeps the dragons trapped or somehow present in the Here and Now? He's also got the absinthe, the drug or whatever that makes them come alive." I looked around at the now very curious faces in front of me. "Second, he carries the Hawthorne dragon fang as his weapon. He looks just like the vampire Garrett. What is his connection to that vampire slayer and why does he keep the information from me?"

"Is he keeping it from you or just not thinking to tell you?" asked Jared.

"I ask and he avoids answering, so it's not innocent. And third, today at the meeting - I'm not sure if you noticed or not, Jared and Aidan - but when someone asked if anyone had talked to or seen Malena or Leck, he didn't answer. Everyone else said no, but he said nothing."

"I did notice that," said Jared.

"As did I," said Aidan.

"I did too," said Tim. "Very suspicious. And he was very angry at someone for the whole meeting."

"Tim noticed too, and he points out another issue. Ben is absolutely furious with me, like, all the time now."

Finn said, "Maybe it has somethin' to do with getting nearly killed by you 'n all." He shrugged, causing his comment to lose some of its accusatory tone.

I let it slide because he did have a point. "Maybe. But today his anger reached new heights. I swear he was ready to strangle me, and it was only Aidan here who stopped it." I gestured with my thumb to the guy sitting next to me.

"She speaks the truth," said Aidan, the hair on his arms fluffing up and his voice going a little deeper. "He is a risk to her. There is no denying that, by him or anyone else here."

"You sense this? A risk to her wellbeing?" asked Jared.

"Yes, I do. I will not leave her side so long as it remains."

His sudden attachment to me was starting to make sense. "You think Ben wants to off me or something?" I asked him.

"I am not sure of his intent, but I do know he is a threat to you at this time."

"We didn't sense that," said Scrum, getting agitated, seeking confirmation from Jared that he obviously expected to get. He looked like he was about to stand up, so I grabbed his forearm and pulled him towards me.

"Not so fast, gnome-head. Let's talk, not fight."

Jared smiled. "I guess there's a first for everything."

I grinned back at him. "Shut up. I'm not saying we aren't going to fight. Just not now. We can wrestle over stuff later if you still want to."

Everyone laughed.

"Scrum is right," said Jared, "we don't sense that danger. But it's entirely possible the bond between you and Ben is interfering in that."

"How so?" asked Becky, now sitting forward again. She was a total sucker for anything having to do with relationships.

"Our daemon sense is different than the instinctual sense of the werewolves. They feel and smell things on a much more basic, elemental level than we do. Their brains don't think about it - it's all automatic. But daemon sense things in a more cerebral way; I'm sorry that sounds so rude, but it's the only way I can think to describe it."

Scrum was nodding his head. "So we look at the whole picture and selectively ignore certain things, but also without thinking about it too much."

"Exactly," continued Jared. "Scrum and I, and probably the rest of the daemon, are taking into account that you and Ben are bound, and are therefore writing off any strange vibes we might be getting as relationship issues that don't pose a threat to your personal safety. Perhaps they do to your heart, but that's another issue."

"Daemon are not there to protect against broken hearts, I take it," I said.

Jared and Scrum shook their heads.

b.u.mmer. Not that I'd listen to any daemon trying to give me relationship advice, but it might be nice to have a heads up that I was about to get dumped or cheated on.

I looked at my self-appointed protector. "Aidan, I appreciate you watching my back. But just so you know, you aren't sleeping with me."

He smiled. "I'll be right at your door, though."

I nodded. "Good enough."

"So back to the puzzle," said Jared. "We'll add Ben acting suspiciously to the pile of clues. I'm not going to say he's a problem yet, but it bears keeping in mind that he's acting strangely and doesn't seem to be accepting this bonding any more than you are."

"Hey!" I said, annoyed that my attempts weren't even being recognized.

Becky rolled her eyes. "Come on, Jayne, give us a break. You aren't even trying."

That made me mad. "You are so full of c.r.a.p, Becky, you know that? You have no idea what I've been doing or trying to do. You never even see me anymore."

"All I know is every time he makes some sort of effort, you throw it back in his face."

"Oh, yeah? Like when?"

"Like in the dining hall."

I nearly choked on that one. "Are you friggin kidding me?" I looked around the room. "Does anyone else not get seriously p.i.s.sed off when a person orders them around like a servant?"

Finn looked at Becky, a little fear in his eyes. He turned his attention back to me, at a loss for what to do.

I just shook my head at him. The boy was good and whipped. But the rest of my friends were at least shrugging their shoulders.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," I continued. "It's all well and good when it's not you - Yeah, Jayne, just do what he says. But if it were you being bossed around, trust me, you wouldn't be just following orders. It'd p.i.s.s you off too."

"I would agree that Ben has a lot to learn when it comes to dealing with women," said Jared. "But he's used to getting his way. Maybe he just lacks finesse."

"Lacks finesse, my a.s.s. He's an arrogant jerk. And he might have made some effort the first day, but that's it. Since then he's been on an a-hole hair trigger."

Becky wisely stayed silent, but her expression softened. I wanted to detect an apology in her eyes, but since she didn't say it out loud, I refused to let it happen.