Illusions

After a long look Tamani cleared his throat and turned back to the window. “So we know I didn’t give Ryan anything,” Tamani said, a little stiffly. “And I’ll make sure none of the other sentries did either. But if that’s the case, what are we left with?”

“Yuki seems like the most obvious answer.” Laurel went over to her bed and sat with her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands. “And if she can make memory elixirs, she must be a Fall.”

“Yes. If.” Tamani paused thoughtfully. “But why give him the memory elixir at all? He didn’t remember anything.”

“But he did see the trolls, at least for a second. Maybe it was a precaution? In case he remembered later?”

“It just seems… sloppy. She had to know we’d notice his memory loss.”

“Unless…” Laurel hesitated. “Unless she doesn’t think we would notice. If she doesn’t realize I’m a faerie, she might assume I wouldn’t know about things like this.”

“Which takes us back to ‘if Klea’s actually telling the truth,’ which none of us really believe,” Tamani said, shaking his head.

“I don’t trust Klea, but other than giving us guns and showing up at convenient moments, she’s never done anything suspicious. She’s saved my life almost as often as you have. Maybe we should stop being paranoid and just… trust her,” Laurel said, trying to put some enthusiasm behind it.

Tamani shrugged. “Maybe. But I doubt it.” Circumstantial evidence wasn’t enough — if only they could know for certain that Yuki was a Mixer. “What about your experiment this weekend? Did it work?”

Laurel flopped backward onto her mattress, arms flung wide. “Depends. Did the cells stay alive under the globe long enough to process the phosphorescent? Yes. Did I learn anything useful? No.”

“What happened?”

Laurel stood and walked over to the experiment she still had set up at her desk — two small glass dishes with clear, sticky residue in them and a closed light globe sitting nearby. “This is Yuki’s sap. This is a little of mine. I didn’t want to dilute it in sugar water… I wasn’t even sure it would work with the phosphorescent. But it did, and both samples glowed. Mine only glowed for half an hour. Yuki’s glowed for forty-five minutes.”

“But Katya said she glowed for a whole night!”

Laurel nodded. “But she also said they would drink whole vials of this stuff, and it makes sense that most photosynthesis would take place in our skin. I’m not sure a difference of fifteen minutes rules out the possibility that Yuki’s a Fall.”

“Did you want to try some of my sap? Maybe there will be a bigger difference.”

“Do you mind?”

Tamani produced his silver knife and made a shallow cut across his thumb before Laurel could protest. He squeezed a few drops of sap into an empty dish. Laurel reopened the golden light globe and set it next to the fresh sample. She hated that he was so willing to hurt himself for her, but now that he had, she should at least do something to make it worthwhile. With a small dropper she added some phosphorescent to Tamani’s sap, which immediately glowed a gentle white.

“I better go,” Tamani said without looking at her, moving toward her bedroom door as he wound a small bit of cloth around his thumb.

“Don’t you want to see how long it takes?” Laurel asked, suddenly hesitant to have him leave her.

“I’m sure you’ll let me know how it turns out.”

“I’ll walk you to the door,” Laurel said, scrambling to her feet, desperate to be some kind of passable hostess.

They walked downstairs to the front door in silence. Tamani laid one hand on the doorknob and opened it a crack before stopping. “Laurel, I… I don’t think I can…” He licked his lips and there was a blazing determination in his eyes that made Laurel’s breath quicken.

But even as she saw that fire, it was gone. “Never mind,” he mumbled, throwing the door all the way open.

David was standing on the porch, looking as surprised as Laurel felt. “I found your notebook in my backpack,” he said, holding up a green spiral-bound book. “I must have grabbed them both. I just wanted to return…” His voice trailed off.

There was a beaten expression on Tamani’s face that even David couldn’t have missed. He ducked his head and slid between David and the door frame without a backward glance.

David watched Tamani disappear around the corner, then turned back to Laurel.

“Thank you,” Laurel said, taking her notebook from him.

He continued to stare silently at her.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Laurel said firmly.

“But—”

“I don’t have the energy to have this conversation — again,” Laurel insisted. “If you’re still bothered by it tomorrow, we can talk about it. But if you come to your senses before then, it would be greatly appreciated,” she said and shot him a tense smile as she closed the door between them.

Chapter Twenty-One

TAMANI WATCHED DAVID RUSH AROUND TO THE driver’s side of Laurel’s car and open the door for her. After they walked hand in hand through the front doors of the school, Tamani grabbed his gloves out of his backpack. He was so tired of them. Still, another week, maybe less, and he could throw them away, hopefully forever.

He fastened the Velcro strip at his wrist and stared at his hand. He could still feel her fingers on his shoulder, her hand beneath his. Maybe he should have pushed for more. Maybe he would have gotten more. But for how long? A day? Maybe a week, before she started feeling guilty and cut things off again — cut him off again?

He followed David and Laurel inside. His eyes found her the instant he passed through the doors. She was standing with David, as usual, and hadn’t noticed him yet. David’s arm was draped casually over her shoulders and Tamani wrangled with his jealousy. He knew that, for humans and faeries alike, romance was often impermanent, especially between young lovers. Laurel had even told him, once, that she wasn’t looking for her “one true love.” Tamani clung to those words, though her behavior since that time seemed at odds with her claim.

A cool hand caught his wrist and pulled Tamani back to reality.

“I called your name, but you didn’t hear me,” Yuki said in her perfect, unaccented American English.

“Sorry.” Being alert was central to Tamani’s job. One moment of distraction could be the end of Laurel. This was why Shar had been reluctant to send Tamani in the first place. Chastising himself for letting his feelings for Laurel endanger her, however slightly, however briefly, Tamani turned and smiled at Yuki, though he kept one ear tuned to Laurel’s conversation.

Yuki returned his smile, then asked if he had watched some television program he’d never heard of before. He shook his head and invited her to tell him about it. After that it was pretty easy. She tended to prattle on about human musicians, internet gossip, and television programs with ludicrous or demeaning premises, but this made it easy to nod amicably at everything she said.

Laurel had turned and was walking toward her first class. Yuki was in the middle of explaining how Japanese aidoru differed from American starlets, so Tamani just shifted a little, to better keep an eye on Laurel as she navigated the sea of students. He didn’t even see David until a shoulder slammed into him, swinging him around and wrenching Yuki’s arm away.

“Watch it!” Tamani said, suppressing the urge to break David’s nose. Or his neck.

But David just looked back with a satisfied grin on his face before continuing down the hall. “Sorry, bro,” he said, mimicking Tamani’s brogue. “My bad.”

“I don’t know what Laurel sees in that guy,” Yuki said disapprovingly. “She seems nice, I guess. But he’s kind of… intense.”

Tamani nodded. His eyes searched for Laurel again as Yuki touched his shoulder tentatively and asked if he was okay. He opened his mouth to reassure her when his eyes found Laurel’s face.

She was looking back, her hands gripping the straps of her backpack, glaring. Tamani had to look twice to make sure, but it was true! She wasn’t glaring at him.