Illusions

Laurel smiled as she told him about her vastly improved scores and the possibilities they brought with them. And for a few moments, it was like nothing had changed — because, Laurel realized, David had always been her friend first. And maybe that was the biggest difference between him and Tamani. With David the friendship had come first — with Tamani, it had always been the heat. She wasn’t sure she could imagine life without either extreme. Did choosing between them mean leaving one of those behind forever? It wasn’t a thought that made her happy, so for the moment she pushed it to the side and enjoyed the one she had here in front of her.

“You want to come in?”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

TAMANI SAT VERY STILL, HIS EYES SCANNING THE forest for movement as the sun disappeared behind the horizon. This was the ideal time to spot trolls — as their “day” was just beginning and the long shadows offered plenty of places to lurk. Wherever they were hiding, it had to be nearby — the trolls they’d wounded always seemed to head in this direction. But the few square miles of forest sandwiched between two human neighborhoods had yielded nothing but frustration. Tamani ground his teeth. He had promised Aaron he would make things right and, eye of the Goddess, he was going to!

“Please, Tam, for all your training in stealth, even a half-deaf troll would hear those teeth grinding,” came a flat, almost bored-sounding voice from lower down the conifer Tamani had climbed for a better view.

Tamani sighed.

“You’re spreading yourself too thin,” Shar added, sounding more concerned now. “Three nights in a row. I worry for you.”

“I don’t normally go for so long,” Tamani said. “I just want to make use of you while you’re here. Normally I do one night on, one night off.”

“That still has you not sleeping half of your nights.”

“I sleep a little while on watch.”

“Very little, I imagine. You know catching trolls isn’t your job,” Shar went on, his voice so low Tamani could barely hear him. He’d said the same thing the last two nights as well.

“How better to protect Laurel?” Tamani asked hotly.

“That’s an excellent question,” Shar said. He had climbed almost as high as Tamani now. “Do you intend to harrow yourself to death with it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You had a choice. Follow the trolls, or stay with Laurel. You stayed with Laurel. I don’t know if you made the best possible choice, but you made a defensible choice, particularly with Laurel unconscious and unable to defend herself. If you’d made a different choice, maybe you could have followed those trolls back to their lair. Or maybe the chase would be fruitless, as it has been so far. I’m sorry that Aaron disagreed with your decision, but you can’t let it take root in you like this. You have to move on.”

Tamani shook his head. “Aaron was almost there. Laurel would have made it home fine. And I could have been one step closer to eliminating the ultimate threat against her.”

“It’s easy to think that, because she did make it safely home. But who’s to say there weren’t more trolls waiting for you to leave Laurel alone? Or that Yuki or Klea weren’t waiting for the same thing?”

“That seems remarkably unlikely,” Tamani muttered.

“Aye. But you’re Fear-gleidhidh. Your job is to anticipate even the most unlikely threat. Above all else, your job is to keep Laurel alive and on task.”

“I would leave everything and join the World Tree tomorrow if she died,” Tamani said.

“I know,” Shar whispered through the darkness.

An hour passed, then two, and the fae said nothing as they scanned the forest. Tamani felt his eyes start to droop, a weariness settling into him that seemed to reach all the way to his core. He’d stayed out two nights in a row often enough, but three was pushing it. Shar had slept during the day, but aside from a brief nap at school while Mr. Robison was out of the room, and a few short stints in the tree, Tamani had not slept since the night he’d forced himself to leave Laurel’s bed — obeying her request even though he knew that as long as he left before dawn, she would never know. He closed his eyes now, thinking of that last sight of her, her blond hair spilling out over her pillowcase like the softest of corn silk, her mouth, even in sleep, turned up ever so slightly at the corners.

His eyes fluttered open at the crunch of dry leaves. At first he thought it was only another deer. But the sound came again, and again. Those footsteps were too heavy to be made by anything so graceful.

Tamani held his breath, willing it to happen, almost doubting his own eyes when two trolls came lumbering into sight, reeking of blood, one dragging a full-grown buck. If they kept going straight, they would pass right under the tree where he and Shar were perched.

Quickly and silently, Tamani and Shar descended. The trolls didn’t seem to be in any hurry, so it was easy to keep them in view. Tamani was tempted to ambush them, to finish them off, but tonight’s mission was far more important than simply eliminating a few trolls. It was time to find out where they were hiding. All of them.

He and Shar tracked them at an almost leisurely pace, traveling alongside the path in short sprints. The trolls paused, and Tamani crouched low, knowing Shar was doing the same behind him. He knew they couldn’t smell him — he carried neither blood nor brimstone to tickle their noses. But some trolls could sense danger, or so Shar claimed from time to time.

The troll with the deer carcass lifted it off the ground, as though to examine the quality of the meal. Then, both trolls vanished.

Tamani suppressed a gasp. They had disappeared right in front of his eyes! Forcing himself to remain hidden, Tamani held his breath, listening. There was a distant shuffling, a creak, the slam of wood against wood. Then silence. A minute passed. Two. Three. There were no more sounds. Tamani rose to his feet, every stem in his body ready to run, to fight.

“Did you see that?” Shar whispered.

“Aye,” Tamani said, half expecting the trolls to jump out from behind a tree. But the forest remained quiet and empty. He stared at the place where the trolls had just been standing. The messy one had left several drops of blood from his kill-trophy splattered on the fallen leaves. Tamani followed the blood droplets to where the trolls had paused, at the edge of a smallish clearing. The crimson trail ended where they had disappeared.

Crouching to get a closer look, Tamani studied the blood. He stood over it and walked forward, fixing his eyes on the tree in front of him. When he had reached about half the distance to the tree, he turned.

The blood drop was not behind him. It was off to his left.

But he’d walked a direct route.

“What are you doing?” Shar asked.

“Just a second,” Tamani said, confused. He went back to the blood drop and tried it again. He focused on another tree and walked halfway to it. When he turned, the drop was behind him and to his right.

Tamani knelt down, studying the trees that appeared to be in front of him, but apparently weren’t. “Shar,” Tamani said, making sure he was standing over the blood drop, his back to the trail he had followed. “Come stand in front of me.”

As he stepped forward, Shar’s feet seemed to reset themselves on a diagonal path. He took two more steps, then stopped and turned, eyes wide.

“Understand now?” Tamani asked, the confusion on his mentor’s face making him smile a little in spite of their predicament.

As Shar stood staring at the spot where he had just been standing, Tamani braced his feet and reached out with his hands. He didn’t feel anything, but the farther out he reached, the farther apart his hands spread. When he tried to bring his hands together, he found himself bringing them back toward his chest. “Shar!” Tamani whispered breathlessly. “Come do what I’m doing.”

It took Shar a few moments, but soon he too stood with his hands held in front of himself, tracing the intangible contours of the barrier that seemed to bend the space around them. It was as though someone had cut a very small circle in the universe. A dome they could not perceive, let alone enter.

But it could be entered, somehow, Tamani was certain. That must be where the trolls had gone.