Destined

not going to help Laurel, especially since he had sent Chelsea there. Had he made the wrong decision? Should they have tried to make it to the Academy in spite of the danger? Shar had warned him often against self-doubt, especially in the middle of a battle, but he had to wonder if his fears for the safety of Spring had influenced his feeling that Jamison was safest here.

“I hope we make it,” he finished at last.

Then he turned and ran straight into Laurel.

“I’m coming with you.”

“Not a chance.”

“You can’t stop me.”

A surge of helplessness washed through him. He could stop her, but she knew he wouldn’t. “You’re safer here. And you can explain the situation if Jamison wakes up.”

“I already told your mom everything. It’s more important that I come with you and tell the other Mixers what’s going on in his system. It’s his best shot,” Laurel said, her gaze steady.

Tamani hated that she was right.

Chapter 13

At first, they kept to the trees. The foliage shielded them from view and almost made Laurel feel safe, even if it was just an illusion. Tamani waved Laurel and David forwards pointing through the lacy gaps in the leaves. “We can dash straight up the hill and probably get there faster — though the climb will be hard,” he said. “Or we can take the road through Summer, where the trolls are almost certainly attacking in force.” His brow furrowed like he wanted to say something else, but he was silent.

“We should go through Summer,” David said, his voice firm. “We can help. Clean out some trolls as we pass.”

Tamani nodded and his entire face relaxed. “Thank you,” he said, and Laurel realised he had forced himself not to make the request, putting it in David’s hands instead. “The Sparklers, they aren’t warriors and they don’t even have the strength of the Academy walls to help; their houses are mostly made out of glass.”

“What about weapons?” Laurel asked. “They’ve got to have some, right?”

“Stage weapons,” Tamani said dryly. “The kind specifically made not to hurt you.”

“Is… is Rowen there?” Laurel asked.

Tamani nodded, looking at the ground. “And Dahlia, and Jade,” he added. Laurel vaguely remembered the names of Tamani’s sister and her companion, though she’d never met them.

It didn’t take them long to reach the outskirts of Summer, but they heard noise before they saw anything. There were explosions, the ring of glass breaking, and a lot of screaming. Laurel braced herself for the gruesome sight as they approached the top of the rise.

They crested the hill and Laurel slowed in shock; Tamani paused as well. They were standing in front of an enormous stone castle with a moat full of fiery lava. By the time David realised they weren’t with him, he was six metres ahead.

“You guys coming?” he asked warily.

“This isn’t what Summer is supposed to look like,” Laurel said.

“Not even remotely,” Tamani said in awe.

“It’s an illusion!” Laurel realised. “To intimidate the trolls.”

As they looked at the huge structure one of the walls flickered and faded. For a moment, she could see a bright red silk covering, the kind used to cover the glass houses at night. Then the wall flickered back into existence, though it didn’t look quite the same.

Had someone just lost their concentration… or died?

“OK,” Tamani said. “Illusions are completely substanceless, so we have to walk through anything that we know isn’t actually Summer.”

“That’s helpful,” David muttered.

“How about this,” Tamani said. “If it’s made of stone, it’s probably not real. Almost everything in Summer is made out of sugar glass.”

“We’re still going to run into things,” Laurel said, “because there are real structures in there. So be careful.”

They walked up to the moat and David hesitated. “Is there actually a dip here of any kind?”

Tamani shook his head.

“Looks real to me,” David said, edging closer and looking over the edge.

Steeling herself, Laurel stepped forward and reached a toe into what appeared to be thin air, but her feet felt the soft earth of the main path, right where she remembered it being. She took a few more steps until it looked like she was walking on nothing over the steaming molten rock below. “It’s OK,” she said, beckoning to David. “You can just walk—” her voice cut off as something slammed into her, knocking the wind out of her and throwing her through the illusionary castle wall. She couldn’t breathe enough to scream and when she connected with a cool, smooth surface, it shattered beneath her weight.

“Laurel!” She wasn’t sure who yelled it, but as soon as she could move she scrambled to her feet, feeling sugar glass sharp against her palms as she pushed herself upright — only to trip on something she guessed was a low stool, rendered invisible by the illusory cobblestone floor.

“I’m OK!” she yelled blindly to Tamani and David, hoping they could hear her over the roar of battle. She was suddenly painfully aware of just how vulnerable she was — she had no weapons, and even if she’d had her kit, her potions would be useless against these trolls. Gingerly she made her way to a crumbling bit of wall she could see but couldn’t touch, then crouched behind it.

Peering over the faux wall, Laurel realised that the inside of the Summer “castle” was even scarier than the outside. Creatures straight out of legend were running all over the place, but Laurel knew most of them couldn’t be real — or, at the very least, not the creatures they appeared to be. There were fire-breathing dragons, armour-clad unicorns, even an enormous cyclops. There were also trolls and faeries, some of them exact copies of others Laurel could see, and a rather large number of boulders Laurel knew hadn’t been there before. It was impossible to tell which were bespelled fae and which were illusions made from nothing.

They’re trying to get the trolls to kill one another, Laurel realised.

And for the most part, it seemed to be working. Laurel winced in horror as a black-clad troll gunned down an orange-haired faerie — only to breathe a sigh of relief as the “faerie” shimmered and shifted, taking the form of a tusk-mouthed lower troll. Across the imaginary courtyard, trolls were tripping over hidden fences and running into invisible houses and fae, all the while being blinded by sudden flashes of light. It was chaos, but Laurel had to admit, it was effective.

Still, it couldn’t last forever. Some of the faeries that dropped didn’t turn into trolls, and illusions were winking out where the trolls swung blindly and got lucky. And as each faerie fell, whatever the unfortunate Summer had been hiding was suddenly exposed and vulnerable for as long as it took for someone else to take up the illusion.

When Tamani and David failed to appear, Laurel tried to make her way back to where she thought she’d come in, her sense of direction skewed by the chaos around her. Taking care to avoid being seen, she carefully felt her way from faux boulder to faux boulder.

She realised she must be going the wrong way when she touched the curve of another bubble house, disguised as a half-destroyed stable. Swallowing her fear and wondering if she could risk calling out for David and Tamani again, Laurel tried to turn back, but the landscape had changed — the shifting illusion made navigation by sight impossible.

Suddenly the bubble house at her fingertips flickered and became visible, its translucent shell draped three- quarters with brilliant purple silk, a conspicuous target in a sea of artificial grey stone. A troll Laurel hadn’t seen lurking behind the mirage turned and swung his axe at the glass, smashing through it — then went after the faeries huddled within.