Illusions

Chapter Thirty-Two

“ARE YOU OKAY?” CHELSEA JOINED LAUREL ON the floor, where she was slumped with her back against her locker, wracking her brain for some way to use the final sample. She’d decided to suspend one of the samples in wax yesterday and turn it into a candle to see what happened when she burned it. She had only succeeded in filling her room with a foul-smelling smoke that lingered in her curtains and bedding even after she’d left the windows open all night.

Which had made for a frigid night. Winter was still technically a week away, but a wet chill had descended on Crescent City and Laurel hadn’t managed to really warm up all day.

“I’m fine,” Laurel said, looking over at her friend. “Just a little tired. And I have a headache.” After several headache-free weeks, they had come back with a vengeance after Thanksgiving break. She hadn’t experienced stress headaches like this since last year, when things had gotten sticky with the trolls.

“Do you need to go outside for lunch?” Chelsea asked.

“It’s raining pretty hard. I don’t really feel like it.” She shrugged. “I should probably just eat something.” She always got a little run-down toward the end of the semester, but dealing with David, Tamani, and Yuki was twice as exhausting as fighting trolls, which — as it was practically a holiday tradition now — might have been preferable.

But Shar wasn’t going to let that happen. No matter how many times she or Tamani suggested they just raid the cabin and be done with it, Shar refused. After three weeks it seemed like a lost cause to Laurel, but Shar insisted it was too dangerous to barge in without knowing more, and would destroy their chance to learn something new besides. So they continued to watch and wait and wind tighter with every passing day.

Laurel tried to shake her gloomy thoughts away and smiled at her friend. “I’ll be fine. It’s just the end of the semester.”

“Yeah, finals. I totally get it.” Chelsea sighed. “I should just give up. I mean, unless David crashes and burns this semester there’s no way I can beat his GPA.” She laughed. “Of course, if I do slack off, this will be the one semester he does crash and burn, and then I’ll know that I could have beaten him, but I was lazy. So, it’s studyville for me,” she said, giving Laurel a sarcastic thumbs-up.

Laurel smiled and shook her head. She was proud of her good grades, but David and Chelsea took it to a whole different level.

The hallways were emptying out. Laurel thought about heading for the cafeteria, but she didn’t want to stand up. She wasn’t normally one for naps, but now seemed like a great time to make an exception.

“Can I ask you a really weird question?”

Laurel stared at her. “You just did. At least for you.”

Chelsea chuckled nervously. “I just… I just wondered. You’ve been broken up with David for a while now. Are you guys done for good?”

Laurel studied the floor. “I don’t know.”

“Still?”

Laurel shrugged.

“So, if — hypothetically — I were to ask him to the winter formal next week, would that be a problem?”

Laurel gaped at Chelsea as a strange feeling settled in her stomach. “Did you break up with Ryan?”

Chelsea rolled her eyes. “No, no. Thus the hypothetical part.”

“That’s a pretty extreme hypothetical,” Laurel said. Her mind was racing. It wasn’t that she actually expected Chelsea to ask David. But… what if she did?

Chelsea shrugged.

“I–I…” Laurel couldn’t even think of anything to say. The idea that David would go to any kind of formal dance with anyone but her was beyond comprehension. Laurel and David hadn’t missed a formal dance since sophomore year.

“Forget it,” Chelsea said. “I can see it bothers you. I’m sorry I said anything. Please don’t be mad.”

“No,” Laurel said, climbing to her feet and extending a hand to help Chelsea up. “It’s okay. I’m glad you said something. Really. Are things that bad between you and Ryan? You haven’t said anything about his scores in a while. I figured that got sorted out.”

“More like swept under the rug,” Chelsea said, shrugging. “Anyway, let’s go get some food in you.”

But suddenly food wasn’t even on the list of things Laurel was thinking about. With the mystery of the trolls’ cabin, the unsolved puzzle of the blue powder, and Yuki’s constant presence, Laurel hadn’t had the time — much less the energy — to think about something like the winter formal. But now that Chelsea had brought it up, it somehow took priority. Laurel wasn’t sure exactly what she was going to do, but her mind was screaming at her to do something.

The noise of the cafeteria assaulted her ears as she studied the tops of the students’ heads, looking for David. He was pretty easy to spot, sitting beside Ryan, the two of them head and shoulders above most of the other kids around them. Chelsea got in the hot lunch line while Laurel strode over and tapped David on the shoulder.

“Hey!” he said, turning to her with a grin. So friendly. David was a model of platonic affection — except for the longing in his eyes. She wasn’t sure she wanted to lose that. Ever.

“Can I talk to you? Somewhere quieter?” she asked.

“Sure,” he said, getting up a little too quickly.

They walked together until they found a somewhat secluded section of the hallway.

“Is everything all right?” David asked, touching her shoulder.

“I—” Now that she had him here she wasn’t sure she’d be able to squeak out any words at all. “I was wondering…” She took a deep breath and blurted, “Have you asked anyone to the winter formal?” Only as the words tumbled out of her mouth did she realize she’d made up her mind.

Surprise was evident on his face. She wondered if it was mirrored on her own.

“I was just thinking… I was hoping maybe we could go. Sorry if it seems awkward, I just think we shouldn’t let this… stuff… totally destroy our social life and I figured maybe—” She forced her mouth shut before she babbled any more.

“What exactly are you asking me, Laurel?” David asked, studying the tops of his shoes.

And with those few words, Laurel realized what she’d just done. She’d asked David on a date. What did that mean for them? What did it mean for Tamani? Her head spun and she was confused again. She looked down, avoiding his eyes. Not that it really mattered; he wasn’t looking at her, either. “I just want to go to the dance with you, David. As… as friends,” she tacked on, thinking of Tamani.

He hesitated and for a moment Laurel thought he might turn her down.

“Okay,” he said at last, nodding. “That would be great.” Then he was smiling and his eyes were shining with hope. Laurel wondered if she’d made a huge mistake.

But part of her was just glad he’d said yes.

“What day do you finish finals?” Tamani asked, flipping idly through Laurel’s Government textbook while she rummaged through the fridge for something to eat.

“Friday,” Laurel said, wondering if Tamani had ever done more than flip randomly through any of his schoolbooks. “Friday morning. After that I get the rest of the day off.”

“Are you going to go to that dance on Saturday — the winter formal?”

Laurel looked up at him, butterflies fluttering in her stomach. “What exactly are you asking me?” She knew they couldn’t go together — it was too dangerous — but she was suddenly feeling a painful sort of déjà vu.

“Well, Yuki sort of… expects that we’re going together. I never asked her, but she’s practically planned the whole thing already. She wanted me to ask if we could go as a group again. I guess she really enjoyed that, in spite of how it ended. I know you’re not with David anymore, so it’s okay if—”

“No, it’s fine,” Laurel said. She wondered how hard it had been for Tamani to even imply that she ought to pair up with David for something. “I actually already talked to David about it. We’re going together. As friends,” she added, before Tamani could read too much into this bit of news. “So a group thing would be nice. But let’s not invite the trolls this time.”

“Don’t worry,” Tamani said. “I’ve got it all figured out. No more troll ambushes. No more last-minute rescues by persons of questionable integrity. We’ll have two squads shadowing us all night, in addition to the ones behind your house, watching the cabin, making rounds through the city, watching traffic on the 101 and the 199, plus reserves standing by.”

Laurel stared at him, mouth agape, eyes wide. “How many sentries are here now?”

“About two hundred.”

Two hundred!

“I’m done playing games,” Tamani said darkly. “We had two squads in Crescent City when Barnes tried to grab you and David last year. We had three behind your house when he lured them off and snatched Chelsea. There were almost a hundred sentries in place two months ago and we still had trolls ambush us within a mile of your house. Any troll that tries to crash this party will be dead before it lays eyes on you.”

“Or Yuki,” Laurel added.

“Or Yuki,” Tamani agreed. “Or Chelsea, or anyone. It doesn’t matter who they’re after. The only thing I want trolls doing in Crescent City is dying.”

“Does that mean Shar is going to raid the cabin?” Laurel didn’t like talking so directly about killing — even trolls — but she had to admit she wasn’t feeling very sympathetic lately. Absently, she picked up a petal — one of her own — from a decorative silver bowl on the counter. Her mother had preserved several with hairspray and left them out where the sun could hit them, lending a hint of their beautiful perfume to the kitchen air.

“He keeps saying we should wait. I hate waiting,” Tamani said, “but I doubt he’ll wait much longer. It’s been almost a month and we haven’t learned anything.”

“Maybe we can start a club,” Laurel said ruefully. “I haven’t learned anything useful about the powder, either.”

“What about the phosphorescent?”

“Honestly? I haven’t tried anything new since I mixed it with your sap. I think individual faeries of the same season might differ as much as faeries of different seasons. I’d probably have to test half of Avalon before I could draw useful conclusions.”

Realizing she was digging her fingernails into the petal, Laurel forced herself to relax. She’d left four little half-moon gouges in the otherwise unblemished field of blue. Dropping it back into the bowl, Laurel rubbed her fingers together, wiping away the tiny droplet of moisture that hadn’t yet dried out of the preserved petal.

She paused for a second, and then rubbed her fingers again.

“No way,” she whispered, almost to herself, half forgetting that Tamani was even in the room.

He started to talk, but she held up one finger and concentrated on the essence that lingered at the tips of her fingers. It had to be. She was amazed she hadn’t figured it out before.

Talk about the answer being right under your nose.

Snatching the petal back out of the bowl, Laurel bounded out of the kitchen and took the stairs two at a time. She pulled her last dish of blue powder forward and forced herself to breathe evenly.

“Is everything all right?” Tamani asked, appearing in her doorway.

“I’m fine,” she said, trying to stop her hands from shaking. She licked her finger and collected a few grains of the blue powder. She rubbed them against the fingers on her other hand. The sensation was almost identical.

“What—”

“The main ingredient of the powder. The one I’ve been looking for. The flowering tree. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner. I even knew it was possible,” she said. “I knew after you kissed me that day, that faeries could be used as ingredients, and I never even considered—”

“Laurel!” Tamani said, placing his hands on her shoulders. “What is it?”

Laurel held up the long, light-blue petal she’d taken from the bowl. “It’s this,” she said, hardly believing the words coming out of her own mouth. “It’s faerie blossom.”

“But… Yuki hasn’t blossomed — at least, not since we started hanging out. If she had…” Tamani wiggled his fingers, where telltale pollen would have exposed Yuki’s secret. “Unless she’s a Spring or Summer, there’s no way that blossom is hers.”

“I don’t know,” Laurel interjected. “There’s something about this powder. I think—” Laurel forced herself to relax, trying to trust her intuition, no matter how it horrified her. “I think the petals have to be fresh. Not dried or wilted…. Tamani, somebody cut these petals off,” she said, the macabre proclamation sending a shiver up her back. Cutting tiny pieces from her own blossom had stung; losing a fourth of it to a troll attack had hurt for days. She couldn’t imagine how badly it would hurt to cut off the entire blossom — but a warding large enough to hide a cabin in the forest would need that many petals.

“Cutting off a blossom would still leave some kind of… texture. I felt Yuki’s back very carefully when we were at the autumn dance and there was nothing but skin there. So even if she is the Fall faerie who made this, the blossom couldn’t have come from her.”

Was that hope in his voice? Laurel tried not to think too hard about that. Hadn’t she, at one point, hoped for Yuki’s innocence herself? “But that doesn’t make any sense. Why would she make a hideout for trolls? I thought they were after her!”

Tamani was quiet for a moment. “What do we know about Klea? For sure, I mean.”

“She likes guns,” Laurel said. “And she’s got those stupid sunglasses she never takes off.”

“Why would anyone wear sunglasses all the time?” Tamani asked.

“To hide your eyes…,” Laurel said, realization dawning.

“And you said there would be no way to hide a blossom under the fitted clothing she wears, but—”

“But if she cut it off, she would have nothing to hide.” Klea. A faerie. Laurel’s mind was racing now. Faerie poison had been used to make her dad sick. Faerie blood had been used to lure Laurel’s sentries away last year. And now there were trolls showing up who were immune to faerie magic. There was evidence of faerie intervention thrust deeply into everything that had happened to her over the last two years. The thought made Laurel’s stomach churn. Everything had been so much simpler when she could tell friend from foe just by looking at them. But when your enemy’s face could practically be the one you looked at in the mirror every day…?

“If she’s working with the trolls, why did she kill Barnes?” Tamani asked, talking as much to himself as to her.

“Barnes said he made a deal with a devil,” Laurel said, recalling the troll’s strange words. “That’s exactly how a troll would see working with a faerie. What if he tried to go back on his deal?”

Tamani nodded. “And if for some reason Klea wanted you alive — which she must, because she’s had plenty of opportunity to kill you—”

“She’d have to protect me by finishing him off,” Laurel said, half in shock. “And if she saved my life, maybe I would be more likely to… what? Help her with something? Barnes was trying to get to Avalon. What kind of faerie would want to get a bunch of trolls into Avalon?”

“The kind with a grudge,” Tamani said darkly, pulling his iPhone out of his pocket. “I think we need to seriously consider the possibility that Yuki is nothing but a distraction, that there are no troll hunters, and that the trolls have been working for Klea all along.”

“But… a distraction from what? What is she after?”

“I don’t know,” said Tamani, putting his phone to his ear. “But I think it’s long past time for us to find out what she’s keeping in that cabin.”