The chamber was entirely silent. I looked over at the fae king. His copper hair and relatively youthful features gave no indication of his true age, but his eyes betrayed an old, weary soul. He turned his head, his gaze meeting mine for the briefest moment. In that look I saw compassion, and perhaps pity, but also resolve. I didn’t think he would change his mind on this matter…I only hoped that he wouldn’t manage to sway any of the other GASP members.
Sherus stood up. I heard the creak and groan of wood as every single person in the council turned to get a good look at him.
“My concern is with the stones,” he announced. “The jinn locked deadly creatures into those prisons so they would not escape. We have no way of knowing what is contained within that portal, but if it is a land full of these creatures, then giving them a way to access Earth could be fatal.”
The GASP members started to mutter, and my mother leaned over and squeezed my hand. Whether it was in warning or reassurance, I wasn’t sure.
“We don’t even know what these creatures are,” Claudia retorted. “Plus, it’s our kids in there! How can we not open it?”
“Are you so willing to risk sacrificing all to save a few?” Sherus asked. Removing my hand from my mom’s grasp, I clenched my fists. It was all very well for him to be so high-minded about it, and of course, if we were all thinking pure battle tactics with willing soldiers, I would have agreed with him. But we weren’t. We were talking about kids. Our kids.
“How DARE you!” Claudia raged. “We can’t treat it like that—”
“Enough, Claudia,” my father scolded her. “We need everyone’s point of view shared, whether or not they differ from yours.”
Sherus’s sister shot Claudia an evil scowl. I suspected that perhaps the female fae was just as fiery as the blonde vampire. It was going to be interesting watching that relationship unravel if we had to spend more time with their kind.
Standing up, I addressed both my father and Sherus.
“I understand the concerns of the fae, but I also believe that if we were to gain access to the portal, we could lock it behind us, preventing what we find within from getting out. Once we’ve neutralized the threat, then we can reopen the portal.”
Murmurs of agreement erupted from around the room.
“And what if you can’t neutralize this threat?” Sherus glowered at me. “What then?”
“Then what chance do we have anyway?” I shot back. I realized as the words came out of my mouth it was true. We had no alternative other than to open the portal. If the danger that Sherus had been warned about in his visions was on the other side of the portal, then it was going to emerge anyway—with or without our help.
“Rose is right.” My brother’s voice came from the back of the room. I hadn’t seen him sitting with River—he normally took center stage with Dad at these proceedings. “We can’t just leave it locked and wait for whatever’s in there to escape. If we enter the portal, we might have the upper hand. We don’t know who threw that stone out—it could be someone wanting our help, someone on our side…”
“Or it could be a trap!” Sherus countered.
“It could be a land where jinn reside,” I argued. “Maybe some settlement other than The Dunes. They created the stones in the first place, it might be a group that we don’t know about—but an enemy that could potentially be reasoned with, especially with the jinn we have on our side.”
“I very much doubt I would have had an omen about a land of jinn,” Sherus spluttered. “The threat that we’re talking about is going to be much greater than that.”
I sat down. I had said my part. Now it was up to my dad and Ben to decide what the right course of action was going to be.
“What’s happening with the portal now?” My father directed his question at Mona.
“We have left a few witches and jinn watching it. They will inform us if anything changes, but so far the portal has been left partway open. Nothing has emerged other than the stone,” she replied. “But the lock is now weakened. If we do decide that we’re not going to go and investigate, we need to shut it back up completely.”
“Can you do that?” my father asked.
“We can, but I don’t advise it. I agree with Rose—better to face the danger head on, rather than hoping it will go away if we keep it locked up.”
“And what of the rest of the stones, the ones collected from the In-Between? Where are they now?”
The witch glanced over at Queen Nuriya, who nodded quickly from the back of the room.