Chapter 5

Eyes narrowing, Ellie steadied Stiles and pushed him away from her. He flailed back and hit one of the walls hard, eyes wide. Growling, Scott stepped forward, feeling the change begin to show through his skin, when the troll rushed by him so fast it was nothing more than a blur. One minute it was standing in the doorway, the next it was standing at the kitchen, lifting Ellie into the air by her throat.

"Holy sh-" Stiles fumbled backwards until he hit the kitchen counter, propping himself up with his hands. Lydia lurched up as well, knocking her chair backwards, and went to join him. Finally catching her footing, Kira whirled and unbuckled her sword from around her waist, snapping it open with a growl.

What? Scott stared at the troll and Ellie, unable to move, unable to think. The men said they would detain her. He waited tensely, unsure what to expect. In the interim, as time seemed to slow, Scott looked to Ellie.

The floor seemed to drop out from underneath him.

The air around the small girl shimmered like drops of water, transforming her features. Previously, Ellie had been fair skinned. Now, her skin shimmered a pale jade, like the fresh color of spring. Previously, Ellie had normal ears hidden by folds of hair. Now, sharp points protruded from her chestnut curls. Previously, Ellie had wide, doe-like eyes. Now, Ellie had the same wide eyes and thick lashes, but they gleamed bright and feral. Previously, she had smiled normally. Now, when her lips curled back, they revealed sharp, pointed little teeth. Previously, she had been slender. Now, her limbs seemed longer, surreal in their shape and length.

Ellie was a faerie. The iron had confirmed it, but to see it with his own eyes...

Ellie muttered something under her breath, something Scott couldn't hear, and to his shock, the troll responded. It didn't speak human words. Instead, it sounded like rocks grating together, or an avalanche. Either way, Ellie somehow understood. She clucked her tongue in annoyance, her predatory eyes skimming over the room to fall and rest on Stiles. Claws punched out from Scott's hands, and he felt his features shifting into those of a werewolf.

"Stop!" Scott had no idea what he was trying to stop, only that he didn't like the way Ellie was looking at Stiles. Scott had watched his best friend suffer one too many times for his liking. If Ellie had put him under a glamour, Scott would do everything in his power to free Stiles. Lunging forward, he raised his claws and bared his teeth in a threat. Ellie's eyes snapped towards him in alarm. The troll released a shrill bellow like a bull and swung a huge fist at him.

Scott prepared to duck out of the way, but at the last second the troll froze. Its meaty fist trembled in midair like it struggled to move, muscles bulging. Still clutched by the throat in its other fist, Ellie had lifted no more than a long, slim green finger, and crooked it like a hook. Her glowing hazel eyes were focused on the troll with almost painful intensity, her expression fierce.

"Stay here," Ellie murmured quietly. Scott stared at her in shock. Ellie lifted her free hand and flicked the troll in the forehead. That was it. Just a flick of her fingers, like a scolding parent. And it sent the huge creature rocketing from the room and out through the front door, taking Ellie right along with it. Scott gaped at the empty air, but Stiles barreled past him and lunged through the front door.

"Stiles, wait!" Scott ran after him, trotting down the steps. The troll lay in a huge, wrinkly puddle nearly fifteen feet down the road. A smaller form with thin green limbs lay a shorter distance away on the asphalt, and struggled to rise.

Without hesitation, Stiles started in Ellie's direction. Scott grabbed his elbow, swinging him to a halt.

"Stiles, stop!" Scott shouted. His best friend turned to him with wide eyes, but he looked more angry than confused. "You said so yourself, we don't know if we can trust her."

"She was protecting us, Scott," Stiles shouted back and grabbed his wrist. "If she wanted to kill us, wouldn't that have been the perfect opportunity, huh?" Scott stared at Stiles speechlessly. Scott had had the same momentary doubts, but hearing them reflected by his best friend made them more real. "Don't you get it? Those men tricked us. I knew I shouldn't have trusted them." Scott blinked.

"But they were right, she's a faerie-" The troll released a shrill shriek. Scott whirled, one hand still gripping Stiles. The troll writhed on the ground as if some invisible force were torturing it from the inside out, its body heaving and its limbs flailing. Ellie rose to her feet and swayed, stumbling a step before she caught her balance. She had one hand thrust out towards it, fingers arched like claws.

Then, translucent purple wings sprouted from Ellie's back, glimmering like crystal and shedding pale puffs that could have been mist or could have been dust. The butterfly like wings splayed wide from her back and lifted her a foot off the ground. The troll rose with it. In the next instant, both Ellie and the troll vanished in a blinding flash of light, leaving the neighborhood silent and empty.

When Scott released Stiles and turned, the broken door had been repaired as well like nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Stupid. Stiles berated himself endlessly throughout the night of the troll attack and the following morning. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He remembered Ellie being there before the agents had spoken to him in the guidance counselor's office, and he remembered her strange warning, that if he didn't like what the men said he didn't have to answer. When Scott spilled the news about those men and their true purpose in seeking him out – to help them defeat the Unseelie Court, which included Ellie – Stiles had been suspicious, but it made sense in a way. What if Ellie's words had been some sort of charm to keep him from talking? What if those men had been trying to help, and Ellie had been trying to keep him trapped?

It wasn't until after the troll appeared, and Ellie practically threw him to safety, that Stiles remembered one crucial detail.

When it became clear the agents would not get answers out of Stiles in the guidance counselor's office, the men had said one thing: Seelie. Not Unseelie, but Seelie. After Ellie and the troll vanished, Stiles searched for the Seelie Court in the Beastiary, and what he found made him numb. The Seelie Court was as different from the Unseelie Court as night and day. The Unseelie Court hated humans, wanted to enslave them. The Seelie Court respected humans, and wanted to coexist with them peacefully.

With the iron, the pack had indeed determined that Ellie was a faerie. With Stiles' forgotten memory, they had now determined that Ellie may not in fact be Unseelie, but was most likely a faerie from the Seelie Court. And, to add regret to guilt, they may have just antagonized their only ally in the current mess of the royal faerie courts.

The other fact that nagged Stiles was this: if those two agents knew about Scott and the pack - which was obvious by the way they approached Scott so openly - then what information had they been trying to blackmail out of him? What more could they possibly need to know?

These were the thoughts that swirled through Stiles' head and kept him up for most of the night. These were the thoughts that fueled him as he drove to school in his blue jeep the next day, parked, and instantly searched for Ellie. She was everywhere he looked. He caught brief glimpses of her at her locker, which happened to be across the hall from his. When he whirled, she was gone. He saw a flicker of her out of the corner of his eye in their classes, out of which they shared four. When the bell rang, he turned, only to see her slip out the door. He saw the briefest look of her chestnut hair vanishing around a corner between classes. When he ran down the hall, she vanished in the sea of bodies.

Ellie was everywhere and nowhere. Close enough to touch yet always out of reach.

In the most ironic way, Ellie had been right on that first day outside the counselor's office; she had always been there, and he just hadn't realized it.

Stupid.

At lunch, Stiles paced next to the outside table where the rest of the pack sat. He placed one hand and on his hip and cracked his knuckles with the other, thoughts whirling.

"So here's a question," he muttered into the silence. "If Lydia sensed death around Ellie, was that the death of the troll?"

"We don't know for sure that it's dead," Liam offered helpfully but Lydia shook her head.

"No," she breathed. "I'm almost positive that it's dead." Scott stared down at his palms somberly. Stiles paused and studied his best friend. He knew Scott blamed himself for the events that happened – the troll, Ellie – but Stiles wished he didn't. How many times had they been tricked by one or another supernatural creature? How many times had they been tricked by humans no less? Scott was always shouldering the responsibility for everyone, and Stiles wished, like always, that his best friend would let him help lighten the load. It's like Scott constantly had to be reminded that his pack was there to support him, rather than just be protected all the time.

"Do we know for sure she's Seelie, and not Unseelie?" Kira asked uncertainly, but guilt stretched her features taut. Last night, after the incident, Kira finally confessed her reluctance to implicate Ellie. "What if she's like me?" Kira had said. "What if she's just new, and trying to figure everything out, and we just threw her to the wolves?" Stiles had found the pun hilarious, but no one else had shared that sentiment.

"No," Scott admitted tensely. "But she didn't kill us, so there's that." More silence.

"What are we going to do now?" Liam asked, voicing the question none of them wanted to face. Lydia massaged her temples. Kira reached out and laced her fingers with Scott, who smiled at her with wan reassurance. Stiles paused and planted his hands on his hips, gazing off into the distance.

"Isn't that the question of the century," said Stiles. Police sirens blared deafeningly loud. Stiles winced, and Scott was on his feet in an instant, eyes wide.

"Stiles," he ground out, "it's your dad." Stiles took off towards the parking lot, leaving his backpack and books on the table. He heard Scott, Liam, and Kira running after him, and assumed Lydia had stayed behind to collect their things.

When they reached the asphalt, three squad cars pulled up, their lights spilling red and blue across the parking lot.

"Dad!" Sheriff Stilinski opened the front door of his cruiser and stepped out, his expression grim.

"Not now, Stiles." Sheriff Stilinski tried to brush past his son, but Stiles stepped in his way.

"What happened?" Stiles asked firmly. Sheriff Stilinski sighed, took one look at his son's set jaw and keen eyes, and visibly relented.

"There's been another murder," he explained. For a split second, fear gripped Stiles' chest with unrelenting claws, until he realized he'd seen Ellie that day which meant it couldn't be her. Scott stepped up to Stiles' side.

"Who?" Scott breathed, arms rigid.

"Ryan Healey," Sheriff Stilinski grumbled and ran a hand across the back of his neck. "A junior here at Beacon Hills High. The body was found early this morning in the woods outside of Hillcrest Farms." Farms. Stiles' mind snatched the piece of information, shook it free, and fit into the ever-growing puzzle of the murders. Ellie said her father owned a farm. Was she involved in this? Lydia had predicted the death would occur around Ellie…maybe it meant in the literal vicinity of her home. Or was Ellie directly involved in the death? The thought turned Stiles cold.

"I doubt this is going to do any good," Sheriff Stilinski grumbled, "but there's a mandatory curfew. I expect you at home by six p.m. sharp, do you hear me Stiles?" Stiles nodded absently and grabbed Scott's arm, pulling him away as the deputes strode past.

"Do you have your phone on you?" Stiles murmured. He'd forgotten his at the table with his backpack. Frowning, Scott reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. Liam wandered closer with a curious frown. "Look up Hillcrest Farms."

"Why?" Liam asked in confusion.

"I have a hankering for milk," Stiles said dryly. He glowered at Liam when the boy's eyes widened. "I want to see who owns it, idiot," Stiles muttered impatiently and waved a hand to shoo off the beta. Liam snorted and remained exactly where he stood. Understanding brightened Kira's face.

"Ellie said her dad owned a farm," she breathed, and Stiles nodded vigorously. After a few seconds of concentration and clicking keys, Scott pulled up the website search on his phone.

"Hillcrest Farms is owned and operated by Ethan Thistle," Scott read aloud, his eyebrows arching towards his hairline. Stiles snapped his fingers and clapped his hands together, the tension beneath his skin easing.

"Then that's where we're headed next."