Aprilynne Pike - Illusions

Yeardley cocked his head to the side. “Really?”

Katya nodded. “When I was younger we sometimes stole the phosphorescing serums for the lamps and… um… drank them. It would make us glow in the dark,” she said, lowering her lashes as she related the childish antic. “I… had a Summer friend, and she did it with us one day. But instead of glowing for one night, she glowed for three days. It took me years to figure out why.”

“Excellent, Katya,” Yeardley said, a distinct note of pleasure in his voice. “I would like to discuss that more fully with you in the classroom sometime this week.”

Katya nodded eagerly.

Yeardley turned back to Laurel. “It’s a start. Focus on plants with phosphorescing qualities that could show evidence of a more efficient thylakoid, and try to repeat the kind of reaction you get with Cyoan powder. I will work personally with Katya, here at the Academy.”

“But what if she’s not a Summer faerie?”

“Then you would be twenty-five percent closer to your goal, would you not?”

Laurel nodded. “I need to write this down,” she said, not wanting to admit to Yeardley that she had no idea what Katya was talking about. But David probably would. Laurel grabbed a few note cards from her desk where — after last summer — the staff always kept them stocked, and sat by Katya. Katya spoke quietly as Laurel wrote down the basics and fervently hoped that the biological terminology was the same in Avalon as the human world.

“Experiment when you can, and we’ll see what Katya and I can come up with here,” Yeardley said. “I’m afraid that’s all I can do for you tonight.” He paused, giving her an approving smile. “Glad to see you again, Laurel.”

Stifling her disappointment, Laurel returned his smile as he left the room, closing the door behind him. After the near-fit she’d thrown getting here, the whole visit felt very unproductive.

“Did you hear that?” Katya said, her voice low but excited. “He’s going to work with me personally. I’m part of your entourage now,” she added, taking Laurel’s hand. “I am going to help with a potion that might be used in the human world. I’m so excited!”

She grabbed Laurel’s shoulder, pulled her in, and kissed both cheeks quickly before darting toward the door. “Next time you’re here,” she said, poking her head back through the doorway, “come see me first, okay?” She clicked the door shut behind her, leaving the room feeling quiet and empty.

“We’d better hurry,” Laurel said to Tamani, walking past him without looking him in the face. She didn’t want him to see her discouragement.

After a short and silent walk back to the gateway, they approached Jamison’s circle of Am fear-faire , all standing at attention, but Jamison did not stir from his quiet conversation with Shar. After a few seconds, both men nodded, then looked up at Laurel and Tamani.

“Did your visit to the Academy bear fruit?” Jamison asked.

“Not yet, but hopefully soon,” Laurel replied.

“Are you ready, then?” Jamison asked.

They nodded and Jamison reached out for the gate. As it swung open he looked first at Shar, then at Tamani. “The Huntress and the Wildflower should be watched closely, but do not let them consume your attention. What remains of Barnes’s horde will surely be looking for an opportunity to strike. If you need anything — reinforcements, supplies, anything —you have but to ask.”

“We will need more sentries. For the Wildflower,” Tamani said. Here, away from the Palace and the Academy, he was confident again, speaking easily and standing tall.

“Of course,” Jamison replied. “Anything you need and more. We will keep Laurel safe, but she needs to remain in Crescent City. Especially if we are to see how these events will play out.”

Laurel was a little uncomfortable with how close that sounded to Laurel is the bait . But Tamani had never failed her before, and she had no reason to believe he would do so now.

AS SOON AS THE GATE CLOSED, TAMANI TURNED TO Shar, hoping — and doubting — that his old friend was okay. “So, did you get what you were after?”

Shar shook his head. “Not really. But I probably got what I deserved.”

Don’t be so hard on yourself , Tamani thought, but he said nothing. Never did. However difficult it was for Shar to visit Japan, Tamani doubted the experience was half as bad as the emotional torment he always put himself through afterward.

“Who did you go to see, Shar?” Laurel asked.

Shar met her question with silence. Tamani placed a hand at the small of Laurel’s back and gently urged her to walk a little faster. Now was not the time to be asking Shar about Hokkaido.

They stopped at the edge of the woods and a grin played at the corners of Shar’s mouth. “Hurry,” he teased Tamani. “The sun will be setting soon and you have school tomorrow.”

Tamani swallowed his frustration. He hated his stupid classes and Shar knew it. “Just answer your blighting phone next time, okay?” Tamani said, getting in a parting shot.

Shar’s hand flitted to the pouch where his phone was stowed, but he said nothing.

Once he and Laurel were in the convertible, Tamani pulled back onto the highway and set his cruise control considerably lower than he had on the way to the land. The sun was still an hour from setting, the breeze was cool, and he had Laurel in the car. No need to hurry.

They traveled a ways in silence before Laurel finally asked, “Where did Shar go?”

Tamani hesitated. It wasn’t really his place to spill Shar’s secrets, and technically he was only supposed to tell Laurel things she needed to know to fulfill her mission. But he preferred to think of that particular order as a strongly worded preference —and besides, it was at least plausible that the Unseelie had something to do with Yuki’s appearance. “He went to go see his mother.”

“In Hokkaido?”

Tamani nodded.

“Why does she live in Japan? Is she a sentry there?”

Tamani shook his head, a tiny, sharp movement. “His mother is Unseelie.”

Laurel sighed. “I don’t even know what that means!”

“She’s been cast out,” Tamani said, trying to figure out a better way to say it — something that sounded less harsh.

“Like, an exile? That’s what Unseelie means?”

“Not… exactly.” Tamani bit his bottom lip and sighed. Where to begin? “Once upon a time,” he began, remembering that humans liked to start their most accurate histories this way, “there were two faerie courts. Their rivalry was… complicated, but it boiled down to human contact. One court was friendly to humans — the humans called them Seelie. The other court sought to dominate humans, enslave them, torment them for amusement, or kill them for sport. They were the Unseelie.

“Somewhere along the way, a rift developed in the Seelie Court. There were some fae who believed that the best thing we could do for the humans was leave them alone. Isolationists, basically.”

“Isn’t that how the fae live now?”

“Yes,” Tamani said. “But they didn’t used to. The Seelie even made treaties with some human kingdoms — including Camelot.”

“But that failed, right?” asked Laurel. “That’s what you said at the festival last year.”

“Well, it worked for a while. In some ways the pact with Camelot was a huge success. With Arthur’s help, the Seelie drove the trolls out of Avalon for good and hunted the Unseelie practically to extinction. But eventually, things… fell apart.”

It pained Tamani to gloss over so much detail, but when it came to the Unseelie, it was hard to decide where one explanation ended and another began. And it would take him hours to explain everything that had gone wrong in Camelot. Especially considering that, even in Avalon, the story was ancient enough for its accuracy to be disputed. Some claimed that the memories collected in the World Tree kept their history pure, but — having conversed with the Silent Ones himself — Tamani did not think it gave answers straight enough to qualify as historical facts.