Illusions

and wouldn’t be coming round anymore?”

She looked away, guilt crowding out her hurt feelings.

“How would that have done me any good? You’d have felt better — heroic even — and I’d have looked like a fool going off to the other side of the world to play scorned lover.” He paused, taking a bite of the nectarine and chewing thoughtfully for a moment. “Instead, you had to feel the weight of your choices and I got to keep some of my pride. Just a touch,” he added, “since, regardless, I still had to go off to the other side of the world and play scorned lover. I think my mother would say, ‘Same fruit, different bough.’”

Laurel wasn’t sure she grasped the idiom. Even after two summers in Avalon, faerie culture mostly eluded her. But she got the gist of it.

“What’s done is done,” Tamani said, polishing off the nectarine, “and I suggest we don’t dwell on it.” He concentrated for a second before throwing the pit hard at the trees.

A quiet grunt sounded. “Hecate’s eye, Tamani! Was that really necessary?”

Tamani grinned as a tall sentry with closely cropped hair materialized from between the trees, rubbing his arm. “You were spying,” Tamani said, his tone light.

“I tried to give you some space, but you did ask me to meet you here.”

Tamani spread his hands wide in defeat. “Touche. Who else is coming?”

“The others are watching the house; there’s no reason for them to join us.”

“Great,” Tamani said, sitting up straighter. “Laurel, have you met Aaron?”

“Several times,” Laurel said, smiling her greeting. “Several” was probably stretching it, but she was fairly certain they had met once or twice. Last winter she had tried to go out and talk with the sentries — make friends. But they always simply bowed at the waist, which she despised, and said nothing. Still, Aaron looked familiar.

More importantly, he didn’t correct her. He just nodded — so deeply it was almost a bow — then turned back to Tamani.

“I’m not here as a regular sentry,” Tamani began, looking at Laurel. “I’m here to be what I was always supposed to be: Fear-gleidhidh.”

It took Laurel a moment to remember the word. Last fall, Tamani had told her it meant “escort,” and it resembled a word the Winter faeries used for their bodyguards. But it was somehow more… personal.

“We had too many close calls last year,” Tamani continued. “It’s hard for us to watch you while you’re at school, or protect you well in crowded places. So I went to the Manor for some advanced training. I can’t blend in with humans as well as you do, but I can blend in well enough to stay close no matter what.”

“Is that really necessary?” Laurel interjected.

Both fae turned to look at her blankly.

“There hasn’t been any sign of trolls — or anything else — for months.”

A look passed between the two sentries and Laurel felt a stab of fear as she realized there was something they hadn’t told her. “That’s not… exactly true,” Aaron said.

“They’ve seen signs of trolls,” Tamani said, sitting back down on the fallen log. “Just no actual trolls.”

“Is that bad?” Laurel asked, still thinking that not seeing trolls — for any reason — was a good thing.

“Very,” Tamani said. “We’ve seen footprints, bloody animal corpses, even an occasional fire pit. But the sentries here are using everything they use at the gates — tracking serums, presence traps — and none of them are registering a troll presence at all. Our tried-and-true methods simply aren’t finding the trolls we know are here somewhere.”

“Couldn’t they be… old signs? Like, from last year?” Laurel asked.

Aaron started to say something, but Tamani spoke over him. “Trust me, they’re new.”

Laurel felt a little sick to her stomach. She probably didn’t want to know what Aaron had been about to say.

“But I would have come regardless,” Tamani continued. “Even before you told Shar about the lighthouse, Jamison wanted to send me to find out more about Barnes’s horde,” Tamani said. “His death gave us some peace, but a troll like him would have lieutenants, or commanders. I think it’s safe to assume this is merely the calm before the storm.”

Fear was gnawing at her insides now. It was a feeling Laurel had grown used to living without and she wasn’t happy with its sudden return.

“You also gave Klea four sleeping trolls, and it’s probably too much to hope that they simply woke up, killed her, and got on with their lives. It’s possible she interrogated them and found out about you, maybe about the gate.”

Laurel snapped to attention, feeling panicked. “Interrogated? The way she talked, I figured she would just… kill them. Dissect them. I didn’t even—”

“It’s okay,” Tamani said. “You did the best you knew how, under the circumstances. You’re not a sentry. Maybe Klea did kill them outright; trying to interrogate them would be suicidal for most humans. And we don’t know how much Barnes told his lackeys, either. Still, we have to prepare for the worst. If these troll hunters decide to become faerie hunters, then you could be in more danger than ever. Jamison wanted to address these new developments, so he changed the plan slightly.”

“Slightly,” Laurel echoed, feeling suddenly weary. She closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands. She felt Tamani’s arm slip around her.

“Listen,” Tamani said to Aaron, “I’m going to take her inside. I think we’re done here.”

A soft nudge brought Laurel to her feet and she headed toward her house without saying good-bye. She walked quickly, pulling away from Tamani’s hand, wanting both to put distance between them and exert her independence.

What was left of it, anyway.

She pushed through the back door, leaving it open for Tamani, and walked over to the fridge, grabbing the first piece of fruit she saw.

“Do you mind if I have another one?” Tamani asked. “The one you gave me really helped.”

Wordlessly Laurel handed him the fruit, realizing she had no appetite for it.

“What’s wrong?” Tamani asked at last.

“I’m not really sure,” Laurel said, avoiding his eyes. “Everything is just so… crazy. I mean”—she looked up at him now—“I’m so glad you’re back. I really am.”

“Good,” Tamani said, his smile a little shaky. “I was starting to wonder there.”

“But then you tell me I’m in all this danger and suddenly I’m afraid for my life again. No offense, but it kind of overshadows the happiness.”

“Shar wanted to send someone else and just not tell you, but I thought you’d rather know. Even if it meant… well, all of this,” he said, gesturing vaguely.

Laurel considered. Something inside her insisted it was better this way, but she wasn’t so sure. “How much danger am I really in?”

“We’re not sure.” Tamani hesitated. “There’s definitely something going on. I’ve been here only a few days, but the things I’ve seen… Are you familiar with tracking serums?”

“Sure. They change color, right? To show how old a trail is? I can’t make them yet—”

“No need. We have batches specially made for tracking trolls and humans. I poured some in a fresh track and it didn’t react at all.”

“So, none of your magic works?” Laurel asked, her throat tightening.

“It appears that way,” Tamani admitted.

“You’re not making me feel any safer,” Laurel said, trying to inject some humor with a smile. But the quiver in her voice betrayed her.

“Please don’t be afraid,” Tamani insisted. “We don’t need magic — it just makes things easier. We’re doing everything we can to patrol the area. We’re not taking any chances.” He paused. “The problem is that we don’t actually know what we’re up against. We don’t know how many there are, what they’re up to, nothing.”

“So you’re here to tell me I have to be super-careful again,” Laurel said, knowing she should feel gratitude instead of resentment. “Stay at home, sundown is Cinderella time, all that?”

“No,” Tamani said quietly, surprising her. “I’m not here to tell you anything like that. I don’t do patrols, I don’t