He slowed to a walk, and she lifted her head. She saw the manicured flower beds of Prospect Gardens as the tiger padded across the grass to the fountain at the center of the tulips. He lapped up water as Lily slid off his back. Grass curled around her feet and cooed at her. Late afternoon shadows covered the garden.
'You came for me,' she said.
The tiger's fur rippled, and the air smudged around him like summer heat. The orange and black tiger fur melted away, and Tye in jeans and a black T-shirt crouched in front of her. 'Always,' he said, rising to his feet.
Lily threw her arms around his neck and pressed her face against his shoulder. His arms curled around her back. After a second, he stroked her hair.
'I screwed up,' she said into his shirt. 'Really screwed up.' She shouldn't have trusted Mr. Mayfair. She should have gone directly to Vineyard Club and ... then what? She should have quit the Legacy Test. She should have picked another damn college.
Tye didn't reply with a platitude like 'it will be okay' or 'it's not your fault.' He simply held her and continued to stroke her hair. She tilted her face up to look into his tawny eyes. His lips were inches from hers.
Lily pressed her lips against his. His eyes fluttered wide for a moment, and then he kissed her back. When they drew breath, Lily noticed that the petals of the closest buds had opened and exposed their hearts to the sky. Her lips tingled.
She began to pull away, but he kept his arms around her. 'Did the Feeder hurt you?' he asked.
Lily thought of the man who'd been drained, and she shuddered. 'Not me,' she said. 'Tye, what are we going to do?'
Tye smiled.
'What?' she asked.
'You said 'we,'' he said. 'I didn't think you knew that word.'
'I studied it for the SATs,' she said. 'I don't understand how there were so many creatures. It was like they were waiting on the other side of the gate.'
'I saw it happen,' he said. 'The dryad queen had us all wait at the forest edge, watching the gate for your return.' He tangled his fingers in her hair. 'As soon as the fairy appeared, two trolls disabled the eagles, and the Feeders guarded one another as they crossed. They were ready.'
'But how?' Lily asked. 'It's not like she could have called ahead to warn them....' She remembered how the fairy had greeted the goblin. 'She sent word with the goblin?'
Closing his eyes, he said, 'See, you're not the only one who screwed up. I took the goblin through. He used the time to contact criminals, former addicts, and anyone so unhappy with their lives that they'd be willing to leave their world and live in the human one, to feed. Once the fairy appeared, dozens were able to pass before anyone could react.'
'You reacted,' she said, lifting her head to look at him. Her knight in shining fur.
This time, he kissed her first. Her fingers wove up into his soft hair, and his arms held her against him. For an instant, she stopped thinking about her mother, about the Feeders, about the knights.
'Clearly, I should rescue you more often,' he said when they broke apart.
'Clearly,' she agreed.
He rested his forehead on hers. For an instant more, she tried to keep from thinking about everything that had gone wrong. But she couldn't. Fifty or so wannabe serial killers were spreading across campus and beyond, dispersing and vanishing into her world, and it was her fault. 'How do we send the Feeders home?' she asked.
'We can't convince them to leave; they'll have to be stopped by force,' he said. 'This is what the knights are for.'
'The knights ...' She told him about Mr. Mayfair.
He was silent for a moment, and then he said, 'At least now I know why the knights never accepted me. Mr. Mayfair has been poisoning them against me from the start. Because of my mother. Because of his son. Because I'm a Key.' He shook his head. 'Jake won't take this well.'
Funny that Tye thought of Jake's feelings. That was a switch. 'Is Jake okay?' She wondered what they'd talked about in the dryads' forest. She wondered what it felt like to discover a sibling, to suddenly be less alone than you thought you were. She thought of Mom's family and wished she'd gone straight to Vineyard Club.
Tye hesitated. 'He's conscious. And he's an idiot. He should never have come when he knew he was already full of magic.'
'Mr. Mayfair is willing to let Jake die to protect his secret,' Lily said. 'He'll never let us close enough to the knights to warn them about the new Feeders.' If she could just tell someone what she'd learned about him! She'd uncovered the kind of secret that should be broadcast by CNN, shouted from the tops of towers across alpine mountains, taught to every child. ...
'The more time that passes, the harder it will be to find and catch the Feeders,' Tye said. 'We need someone the knights will listen to, someone they won't automatically skewer on sight.'
Lily realized whom he meant. 'The gargoyles.'
Tye nodded and took her hand.
Together, they ran out of Prospect Gardens toward Dillon Gym.
On the street in front of Dillon Gym, orange-and-black-clad alumni cheered for P-rade. As the Class of 1985 marched by, the younger alums on either side of the street chanted, 'Hip-hip, tiger-tiger-tiger, sis-sis-sis, boom- boom-boom, bah! Eighty-five! Eighty-five! Eighty-five!'
Lily clutched Tye's hand, determined not to be separated from him. 'Excuse me, excuse me,' she repeated as they wove among alums.
Breaking through, they darted into the street. A band bore down on them, and they dodged trumpeters and tuba players. Reaching the opposite sidewalk, they squeezed through the crowd and then ran hand in hand to the entrance of Dillon Gym.
'Professor Ape!' Tye called.
'Literate Ape, please, wake up! We need you!' Lily shouted.
Tye cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted over the trumpets, 'It's an emergency!' Behind them, the crowd cheered as drummers marched past.
She turned to Tye. 'Can you lift—'
Before she finished the sentence, Tye dropped to one knee, wrapped his arms around her legs, and hefted her up into the air. She reached up and knocked on the gargoyle's chin. 'Feeders are here.'
In a soft voice, the gargoyle said, 'Feeders are always here. Call the knights.'
'Can't,' she said. Quickly, she explained about Mr. Mayfair and the fairy.
With the sound of shifting gravel, Professor Ape tilted his head to look down at Lily and Tye. 'Grave accusations,' he said disapprovingly. 'You cannot be serious.'
'Come to Vineyard Club.' Tye said. 'See how serious we are. Make them show you the hidden room. Ask Mr. Mayfair where his grandson is. But first, warn them about the Feeders.'
Without altering a single stone feature, the ape looked appalled. 'Leave my post?'
'If the knights don't rally fast, the Feeders will disappear into the world,' Tye said. 'You want to be responsible for that?'
'Joseph Mayfair cannot be a traitor,' the ape said. 'I trained him myself. He has passion, yes, but he would never—'
'Remember when you asked me to skip the I-can't-believe-it speech?' Lily said. 'Can we skip it now? We have to warn the knights!'
'You can ride me,' Tye said. 'We'll blend in with all the P-rade costumes.' He lowered Lily onto the sidewalk, and then he stepped back, shook out his shoulders and arms, and changed into a tiger. Lily could hear the crowd cheer as a new class marched past.
'Tye!' The ape's stone eyes bulged. Uttering a string of curses, only a third of which Lily recognized, he pried himself away from the wall. Legs, paws, and a tail emerged from the stone. He scurried down the arch. 'Unprecedented,' he muttered. 'Rash.' He grasped Tye's fur with his paws and clambered onto his back. 'You had best be correct, prefrosh. If all you saw was a pack of squirrels—'
'I wish they were squirrels,' Lily said. She climbed onto the tiger's back behind the gargoyle and wrapped her arms around his stone waist. It felt like hugging a rock.
'Wave like you're in the parade,' the ape instructed.
