her head had completely stopped spinning. She followed him almost blindly, her hand tight in his as he wound around the back of the apartment building.
They paused when the squeal of splintering wood filled the air, accompanied by a sudden rush of wind. “Circle’s broken,” Tamani growled. The sound continued as they rounded the corner of the building, where Tamani immediately back-stepped, flattening Laurel against the wall. “It’s crawling with trolls out front,” he whispered, his mouth so close to her ear his lips brushed her skin. “We can’t get to my car; we’re going to have to run. You ready?”
Laurel nodded, the sound of snarling trolls reaching her ears over the deafening storm of splintering wood. Tamani gripped her hand tighter and pulled her along with him. She tried to look back, but Tamani stopped her with a finger on her chin and pointed her gaze forwards again. “Don’t,” he said softly, sprinting across the open ground, slowing only slightly once they reached the relative safety of the trees.
“Will Shar be all right?” Laurel asked, her voice shaking as they ran through woods. Tamani was loping ungracefully, helping her along with one hand, the other clutched at his side.
“He’ll handle Klea,” said Tamani. “We need to get you to safety.”
“Why did he call her Callista?” Laurel asked through heaving breaths. Nothing that had happened in the last few minutes made any sense to her.
“That’s the name he knew her by,” Tamani answered. “Callista’s practically a legend among sentries. She was an Academy-trained Mixer. Exiled before you even sprouted. She was supposed to have died in a fire. On Shar’s watch, back in Japan.”
“But she faked it?”
“Apparently. Must have done a good job, too. Shar was thorough.”
“What was she exiled for?” Laurel gasped.
Tamani’s words were shaky as he picked his way through the trees and Laurel struggled to catch them. “Shar once told me she experimented with unnatural magic, faerie poisons . . . botanical weapons, basically.”
Hadn’t Katya told her, two summers ago, about a faerie who had taken things too far? It must be her – Laurel’s stomach knotted at the thought of an Academy-trained Mixer who created poisons so evil she’d been exiled for it. Klea was scary enough without magic.
They ran silently for a few minutes, finally finding the faint path Laurel knew Tamani must have taken a hundred times over the last few months.
“Are you sure he’ll be OK?” Laurel asked.
Tamani hesitated. “Shar is . . . a master Enticer. Like the Pied Piper I told you about a few weeks ago. He can control humans from a distance, and his control is far greater than most Ticers. Way better than mine,” he added quietly. “He – he can use them. To help him fight her.”
“So he’s going to . . . control them?” Laurel asked, not quite understanding.
“Let’s just say that fighting Shar in a building full of humans is a very, very bad idea.”
Sacrifices, Laurel realised. Human barriers to lie in Klea’s path, or soldiers attacking against their will. She swallowed and tried not to dwell on that, concentrating on not tripping as Tamani continued to run almost too fast for her to keep up.
Soon she started recognising the trees – they were nearing the back of her house. As he ran into the yard Tamani let out a high-pitched, warbling whistle. Aaron’s second-in-command, a tall, dark-skinned faerie named Silve, came bursting from the tree line.
“Tam, they’re everywhere!”
“That’s not the worst of it,” Tamani replied, gasping for air.
Laurel stopped, resting her hands on her knees and trying to catch her breath as Tamani explained the situation – with sputtering protests from Silve at the details Tamani and Shar had kept secret.
“There’s no time for explanations,” Tamani said, cutting Silve off. “Shar needs backup and he needs it now.” The two sentries took only a few precious seconds to outline a plan for dividing forces, and Silve sprang into the tree shouting orders.
Tamani put a protective hand at Laurel’s waist and guided her to the back door, his gaze returning to the trees the whole way.
Laurel’s mom was in the kitchen, a light cotton robe tied loosely at her waist, concern in her eyes. “Laurel? Where have you been? And what . . . ?” She gestured wordlessly at Tamani’s wet, torn shirt.
“Is Chelsea here?” Laurel asked, avoiding her mom’s question. For the moment.
“I don’t know. I thought you were in bed.” Her eyes flitted to Tamani and his pained expression made her face go white. “Trolls again?” she whispered.
“I’ll go check for Chelsea,” Laurel said, pushing Tamani on to a barstool as gently as she could manage.
She hurried up the stairs and cracked open her bedroom door just wide enough to see Chelsea’s unmistakable curly hair spilling across the pillow. She pulled the door shut and heaved a sigh, relief washing over her, melting her down onto the carpet.
She looked up at the sound of footsteps, but it was just her dad stumbling blearily down the hall. “Laurel, what’s the matter? Are you OK?”
The avalanche of events that had buried her life in less than twenty-four hours forced her to blink back tears. “No,” she whispered. “No, I’m not.”
Like water seeping through a dam, first as a trickle, then a torrent, Laurel found herself stumbling over her words as she explained everything to her parents, including the events of the past week that she’d been avoiding telling them. The words came more slowly as she wound down, explaining how Klea had attacked and that Shar was still in danger, and then at last she was done, feeling purged and empty – except for the smouldering memory of the one thing she could never let her parents find out.
“I . . . I didn’t know how to tell you earlier,” she finished.
“A Winter faerie?” her dad asked.
Laurel nodded.
“The kind who can pretty much do anything?”
She rubbed her eyes. “You have no idea.”
Laurel’s mom glanced up at Tamani, who had remained silent through Laurel’s explanation. “Is my daughter in danger?”
“I don’t know,” Tamani admitted. “Despite being a Winter faerie, I don’t think Yuki is a threat to Laurel personally. Klea, however, is another story. She does things that aren’t even remotely legal in Avalon, and we still don’t know what her end goal is.”
“It’s a shame we couldn’t have just hit Klea on the head and dragged her away when she was here at our house last month,” Laurel’s dad said, only half joking.
“Do we need to take you somewhere, Laurel?” her mom asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Would you be safer if we took you and went away? We can be gone in an hour.” She was on her feet, staring down at Laurel with an expression of such fierce protectiveness that Laurel wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.
“I can’t leave,” Laurel said softly. “This is my responsibility. If Klea was going to hurt me, she’s had plenty of opportunities. I don’t think that’s what she wants from me.”
“What does she want from you?”
Laurel shrugged. “The land, probably. The gate to Avalon. Like Tamani said, we just don’t know.”
“And we won’t know much of anything else until Shar comes back,” Tamani added.