I went with something tried and true that I’d already seen them react to. After the first few words of the enchanted extended dance mix of “I Will Survive,” most of the elves on the dance floor were singing along. When the tempo picked up, they started dancing, oblivious to anything going on around them.
Up on the balcony, Sylvester hadn’t noticed that he’d entirely lost his audience. I saw it dawn on him. He tried shouting louder, but the little gargoyle adjusted the volume, making the music even louder. Florence and her friends fell into the dancing like everyone else, and Owen took my hand and spun me around.
“You’re not under the spell, are you?” I asked him.
“No, I think it’s elf-specific. But we might as well enjoy ourselves a little.”
When the song ended, I swapped out players and put on “How Deep Is Your Love?” The elves might not have been under a literal spell, but they all swayed and sang along, creating harmonies that the Bee Gees only dreamed of. Even Sylvester seemed to get caught up in the moment.
During the song, I searched around the table and found a microphone connected to the stereo, then I figured out how to switch over to that input. I let the song fade out when it ended, turned on the microphone, and handed it to Florence. “Give it your best shot,” I whispered to her.
“All of this is a lie!” she shouted, her voice echoing throughout the warehouse. “The only invasion here was to support the Elf Lord. He was the one to open the portal. He was the one who created the prison in the elven realms. I was a guard there, and he was the one who gave us our assignments. He was the one having people kidnapped and sent there if they had any inkling of the plan. He was the one who stranded his own people there so no word would leak out, and he was the one kidnapping elves from the other realm and bringing them here as an army.”
She handed the microphone over to one of her colleagues, who backed up her story with an additional tale of Sylvester being present when a prisoner was sent through the portal. Soon, there was a line forming for the microphone, each elf with a story to tell.
We’d broken Sylvester’s spell on the crowd. Enough elves were listening to the testimony that I didn’t think his innocent victim act would survive. However, Sylvester wasn’t about to roll over and play dead, even as angry elves headed up the stairs toward him.
He turned to run, right toward the staircase that led to the roof.
Chapter Twenty-One