chord and it sounds right, but I know it’s wrong because it’s not, you know, what I was
Tamani was smiling helplessly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Laurel laughed. “Me either! And that’s kind of the problem. I think Katya’s right, that different kinds of faeries must process light differently. Like, I like sunlight, but I don’t really use it in my Mixing. And Spring faeries… I think you guys are adaptable. I mean, you stay up all night sometimes, right?”
“Frequently,” Tamani said, in a weary tone that suggested that he’d been staying up a lot of nights lately.
“And the sentries in Hokkaido can withstand enormous amounts of cold.”
Tamani hesitated. “Well, yes, but they have help from the Fall faeries with that. They make them a special tea from—”
“White Bryony, I remember,” Laurel said. “But still, the energy has to come from somewhere. And the Winter faeries use a ton of energy when they… what?” she demanded, when Tamani got a strange brightness in his eyes.
“Listen to you,” he said, pride creeping into his tone. “You’re amazing. You totally get this stuff. I knew you would slip right back into being a Fall faerie.”
Laurel hid a smile as she cleared her throat and busied herself meaninglessly with an already-powdered mixture at the bottom of her mortar.
“So what do we do?” Tamani asked.
“I don’t know. I still don’t think we should drink this stuff. I wondered if it might have an effect on our skin —”
Immediately, Tamani offered her his forearm.
“—but I’m not about to start trying stuff at random. Mixing is pretty hands-on,” Laurel said. “I mean touch- dependent,” she amended. “I mean — before I try anything, I want to get a feel for your cellular makeup, which means I need to touch… you.”
“Okay,” he said, again holding out his hand, which was sparkling with pollen and looking more than a little magical.
“Actually,” Laurel said slowly, “what I’d really like to do is have you—” Pause. “Take your shirt off and then go to the window and sit in the sunlight. That way your cells can start actively photosynthesizing after having been at rest and I can hopefully feel that activity.”
“That almost makes sense,” Tamani said with a smirk. He walked over to her window seat and sat, then waited for her to come sit behind him. She was careful not to actually let any part of them touch. Not just because it wasn’t a good idea and severely hampered her concentration, but she had learned that if she could keep the rest of her body away from any kind of plant material, her fingers seemed more receptive.
“You ready?” Tamani asked, his voice soft and vaguely suggestive.
Laurel glanced out the window. The sun had just popped out from behind a cloud. “Perfect,” she said quietly. “Go ahead.”
Tamani stretched his long arms over his head, pulling off his T-shirt.
Laurel struggled for focus. She moved her hands to Tamani’s back and splayed her fingers over his skin. Her fingertips pressed in just a little as she closed her eyes and tried to feel, not Tamani in particular, but his cellular dynamics.
She cocked her head to the side as the sun warmed the back of her hands. It took her only a moment to realize her mistake. She was now blocking Tamani’s skin from the sun’s rays. With a frustrated sigh, she lifted her hands, and placed them back down, this time lower and along one side of his ribs where the sun had just been shining. She felt him shift a little, but she was in concentration mode now, and even Tamani couldn’t affect her.
Much.
Laurel had learned from Yeardley how to feel the essential nature of any plant she touched. He assured her that, with study and practice, this feeling would eventually tell her everything she needed to know about a plant — particularly, what it could do if mixed with other plants. She should be able to do the same with Tamani. And if she could find some way to feel the differences between the two of them…
But every time she thought she’d felt something, it faded. She wasn’t sure whether it was because she kept blocking the sunlight, or because the differences she was looking for simply didn’t exist. And the harder she tried, the less she seemed to find. By the time she realized she was squeezing Tamani so hard her fingers were aching, she couldn’t feel any difference at all.
She let go of Tamani and tried not to notice the subtle divots her fingers had left in his back.
“Well?” Tamani asked, turning to her and leaning against the window without making any move to put his shirt back on.
Laurel sighed, frustration washing over her again. “There was… something, but it’s like it went away.”
“Do you want to do it again?” Tamani leaned forward, bringing his face close to hers. He spoke softly, genuinely. No trace of flirting or teasing.
“I don’t think it would help.” She was still trying to sort out the sensations she felt in her fingertips. Like a word on the tip of her tongue, or an interrupted sneeze, so close that staring at it would only chase it away. She closed her eyes and placed her fingers against her temples, massaging them slowly, sensing the life in her own cells. It was as familiar as ever.
“I wish… I wish that I could… feel you better,” she said, wishing she knew a better way to say it. “I just, I can’t quite get at what I’m trying to reach. It’s like your skin is in the way. At the Academy I would slice my sample open, but obviously that’s not an option right now,” she said with a laugh.
“What else do you do when you can’t figure out what a plant does? Besides cut it open, I mean,” Tamani asked.
“Smell it,” Laurel responded automatically. “I can taste the ones that aren’t poisonous.”
“Taste?”
She looked up at Tamani, at his half smile. “No,” she said, instantly knowing what he had in mind. “No, no, no, n—”
Her words were cut off as two pollen-dusted hands cupped Laurel’s cheeks and Tamani pressed his mouth against hers, parting her lips with his own.
Stars exploded in Laurel’s head, their rainbow ashes coalescing into a torrential pastiche, a rapid-fire flipbook of flower parades and crazy. Through her head, unbidden, fleeting, and difficult to grasp, poured thoughts that made her giddy and queasy at once.
“Laurel? Laurel, are you all right?”
Laurel slumped back into her chair and brought her fingers to her lips.
“Laurel, I—”
“I asked you not to.” Laurel could tell that her tone was flat. Distant. But her mind was reeling. She knew she should be furious, but Tamani’s presence barely registered at all, blocked out by the sensations that had assaulted her mind.
“You weren’t going to do it. I had to at least try. I didn’t mean anything by it—”
“Yes, you did,” Laurel said. Research was a convenient excuse, but Tamani had seen an opportunity and taken it. Fortunately for him, it had worked. Sort of. She looked up, numbly, at Tamani. Gradually it dawned on her that he had no idea what just happened.
“You want me to apologize? I will, if it’s that important to you. I’m—”
Laurel put one finger to his lips, silencing him. At the touch of him the overwhelming flow of information didn’t return, but the images were fresh in her memory.
Her expression must have been perplexing, because Tamani stepped backward, out of Laurel’s reach, and held his hands up, palms out, pleading. “Look, I just thought—”
