Illusions

Chapter Thirty-Six

TAMANI SLID HIS KEY INTO THE LOCK AND STARTED to turn the handle when Yuki placed her hand over his.

“Tam, wait,” Yuki said softly.

Tamani felt his gloved hands start to shake and he tried not to imagine all the damage a Winter faerie — especially one not bound by the laws and traditions of Avalon — could inflict upon him. The kind of damage that would make death a reward by comparison. He turned to her and touched her arm as tenderly as he could manage. “You okay?”

She nodded shakily. “Yeah, absolutely, I just…” She hesitated. “I need to tell you something.”

Was she trying to come clean? How much was she going to confess? She knew he was a faerie. She must; a Winter faerie could sense plant life at a distance, as well as control it. Did she know he was a sentry too? That he was Laurel’s guide, warden, and protector? How much did she suspect he knew about her?

Tamani smiled casually and ran a hand down her cheek. It was too late for confessions. “Come inside first — you’ve got to be freezing.”

He could almost see her reach out and cling to the excuse to wait just a few more minutes before unveiling her secret. Tamani turned the knob and pushed it open, wondering what Shar had waiting for them inside. Would Yuki be dead before she drew her next breath? To kill a Winter, even a wild one, struck Tamani as a kind of sacrilege. He trusted Shar — trusted him with his life — but this was bigger than anything they had ever encountered and Tamani wasn’t ashamed to admit there was an icy pit of fear in his stomach.

He reached for the light switch and flipped it up.

Nothing happened.

“That’s weird,” Tamani said quietly, but loud enough for both Yuki and anyone who might be lurking in the dark room to hear. “Come on in,” Tamani said. “I’ll go grab the light in the kitchen, see if that one works.” He felt rather than saw Yuki pause, before crossing the threshold. As if she sensed the danger that was lurking.

Tamani felt his way to the kitchen, running his hand along the wall and reaching for the kitchen light switch. A warm hand — a human hand — covered the switch. He felt someone grab his shoulder and a hand cup around his ear. “Tell her to come over to you,” David whispered, as he carefully repositioned him a few steps to the right. “Tell her the electricity must be out.”

“Come this way,” Tamani said. “The electricity must be out.” She was still standing in the doorway, silhouetted by a dim streetlight that scarcely touched the murky blackness.

“I can’t see.” Her voice sounded strange, like a little girl’s. There was something inside her, telling her this was wrong.

“I’ll catch you if you fall,” Tamani said, making his voice purr.

Hesitantly, she took a few steps toward him.

“I’m right here,” Tamani said, as David nudged him just a little more to the right.

He heard a clang and Yuki let out a frightened yowl. There was a flurry of motion and David was gone from his side. He heard a couple of dull thuds, two sets of staccato clicks, then more shrieks from Yuki.

The light overhead burst to life, making Tamani cringe and screw his eyes shut against the onslaught. He blinked and surveyed the scene, his eyes searching for Shar.

But Shar wasn’t there.

It was David, pulling off a pair of night-vision goggles. Chelsea, too, standing at his side, a length of rope in her hands. Some kind of backup plan. It was strange to see them standing in their finery with tools of capture in their hands.

Yuki was gasping as she struggled to escape from a metal chair someone had bolted to the floor, her hands cuffed securely behind her, one set for each wrist, with the other end locked around the back of the chair. Enough slack to throw herself against them pretty hard, but not enough to lean forward more than about a foot.

Tamani’s jaw dropped. “What have you done? She’s going to kill us!” Tamani hissed. But David wasn’t talking. His face had gone white and he was staring at Yuki in horror. Tamani suspected he’d never tied someone up before.

But now was not the time for speculation. He threw himself in front of the humans, bracing himself for whatever was about to come.

Yuki stopped struggling for a moment to glare at him. Her eyes narrowed dangerously, then her head snapped back and she howled, not in anger this time, but pain. And then she was gaping at the floor around her.

It was the first time Tamani had noticed the circle of white powder that surrounded her chair. He took two steps forward and bent to examine it.

“Don’t touch that.” Shar’s breathless voice came floating in through the doorway.

“What is it?” he gasped, drawing his hand back.

Shar stood with his chest heaving — Tamani wondered where he had run from — and Tamani could see him hesitate for a second; something that frightened him even more than the trapped Winter faerie not inches from him. “It’s exactly what you think it is,” Shar finally whispered.

Tamani looked back to the circle, now recognizing the granular crystals as salt. “It’s too simple,” he said, his voice soft.

“It’s hardly foolproof, and difficult to invoke. A Winter faerie must walk into the circle willingly, or it won’t work. If you couldn’t get her to walk in on her own, I guess we’d all be dead.”

“Let me go!” Yuki screamed, her face tight, the sharp angle of her cheekbones standing out.

“I wouldn’t make so much noise if I were you,” Shar said, his voice deadly calm. “I have a roll of duct tape and I’m not afraid to use it. But I promise you, it hurts coming off. A lot.”

“That won’t matter when the cops come,” Yuki said, and she drew in a breath to scream.

“Oh, please,” Shar said, chuckling. The humor in his voice startled her enough to stop her scream before it began. “You mighty Benders always underestimate the power of Enticement. The cops wouldn’t get past the front door even if you were screaming your head off ten feet away. My request for you not to scream is to keep me from wasting memory elixirs on the entire population of this apartment complex, not out of any kind of fear of retribution.”

Yuki growled and glared at Shar, then her head snapped back again and she screamed through clenched teeth. Then she slumped forward and her body shook with sobs.

“Why is it hurting her, Shar?” Tamani said, feeling strangely desperate to stop her pain. “Make it stop!” Tamani was no stranger to pain; in fact, he’d spent a lot of his life learning how to inflict it — but never on another faerie, let alone a female faerie, and so young. He was shocked that he had to suppress an urge to run to her, to comfort her, even though he knew she could kill him with a glance.

“Any magic used within the circle rebounds. As soon as she stops attacking us,” Shar said, raising his voice a little, “the circle will stop attacking her.”

Yuki shot a dirty look at Shar, but she must have gotten the idea, because she didn’t scream again. Tamani was glad. He turned to Shar and pushed him back toward the wall. “This is black magic, Shar. It must be forbidden.”

“Beyond forbidden,” Shar said, his eyes darting to the side. “It’s Forgotten.”

Forgotten. Magic from before memory, too dangerous to be passed down.

“You learned this from your mother, didn’t you?” Tamani didn’t try to hide the accusation in his voice.

“The Unseelie have always remembered things best forgotten.”

“She told you this the day Laurel and I went to Avalon.”

“I thought she was taunting me. I told her about Yuki, and she started babbling on about killing all the Winter fae. I thought she was telling me to assassinate Marion,” Shar said, his voice still deadly calm. “Maybe my mother loves me after all.”

“Shar, you can’t do this. I won’t let you turn Unseelie.”

Shar laughed, a quick bark of disdain. “Please, Tam, you know where my loyalty lies, and it is not with the Seelie or the Unseelie. It is with Avalon. I will do whatever it takes to keep her safe.”

Tamani knew Shar wasn’t referring to Laurel, but his companion, Ariana, and their seedling.

“I will protect them by any means necessary. Think about it, Tamani. The only thing standing between her and Avalon is the fact that the gate is hidden. The moment she knows where it is, there is nothing we can do to keep her out.”

What have I gotten myself into? He felt like someone was strangling him. But what choice did they have? “For Avalon,” he said softly. Then he glanced around. “Where’s Laurel?”

“Home,” Shar said, his attention fixed on Yuki again. “If this didn’t work, I wanted her as far away as possible. The sentries were told to do whatever it takes to not let her leave.” He hesitated. “She put up a bit of a fight.”

Tamani swallowed, trying not to think about that. “Where were you?” Tamani asked.

“You know as well as I — better, I suspect, considering your friendship with Jamison — that a Winter faerie would sense if another faerie was in your apartment. I was waiting less than a kilometer away, just close enough to see the light turn on.” He shook his head. “This was a job for human hands, and I have to admit, they performed admirably.”

But both of the humans seemed deaf to Shar’s praise. David was still pale, and Chelsea looked scared, though not quite so horrified.

“All right,” Shar said, pulling a knife from his pocket. “It’s time to find out once and for all.”

Yuki’s eyes widened and she opened her mouth to scream again, but Shar handed the knife to David. “Go cut open her dress. I need to see her blossom for myself.”

“Let me,” Tamani said, stretching out his hand. But Shar’s wrist closed around his.

“You can’t,” Shar said simply. “If you enter that circle, you will be under her power. No plants enter that circle, or we all die.”

Tamani reluctantly withdrew his hand.

David stared at the knife in his hand, then pursed his lips and shook his head. “No. It’s too much. Cuff her to the chair. That’s all you asked me to do. Cutting clothes off a defenseless girl? Do you have any idea what that sounds like? I won’t do it.” He started to make his way toward the still open door. “Y-you’re insane. She hasn’t done anything. And this circle?” He glared at Shar. “You didn’t tell m-me it would hurt her. Protecting Laurel is one thing, but I–I can’t be a part of this.” David turned and stormed out the door.

Tamani took a step to follow him — to bring him back — but Shar put a hand on his chest. “Let him go. He’s had a rough night.” Then he turned to Chelsea and — after a moment of hesitation — offered her the knife. “Would you…?”

“Men,” Chelsea muttered derisively, ignoring the knife. Carefully, and with remarkably little trepidation, Chelsea stepped over the white line. As soon as she entered the circle, Yuki started to thrash again, but Chelsea stood behind her, hands on hips, and said, “Yuki, hold still.”

To Tamani’s surprise, she did. Maybe it was finding herself so helpless before a human, but something in her broke, and she sat quietly as Chelsea carefully untied the silver obi and lowered the zipper of her dress several inches. Then she folded down a wide ACE bandage that Yuki had wrapped around her torso.

Everyone gasped as Chelsea pulled the bandage away from four broad, white petals. It resembled — and was not much bigger than — an ordinary poinsettia.

Tamani had seen the pollen on his palms, but to see that classic white Winter blossom spread out in front of him filled him with a terror that nearly brought him to his knees.

Shar’s whispered oath was Tamani’s fervent prayer.

“Goddess help us all.”