Laurel nodded stiffly, her eyes fixed firmly on the stack of books.
“I will leave you to your reading then,” he said, turning on his bare heel. “When all the books are read, we can begin regular classes.” He paused in the doorway. “Your staff can summon me when you are finished, but don’t bother until you have read each book completely. There simply isn’t any point.” Without a good-bye he strode through the doorway and pulled the door shut behind him, a loud click filling the deep silence of Laurel’s room.
Taking a long breath, Laurel walked over to the desk and looked at the spines of some of the ancient-looking books: Fundamental Herbology, Origins of Elixirs, The Complete Encyclopedia of Defensive Herbs, and Troll Anatomy. Laurel grimaced at the last one.
She had always enjoyed reading, but these books weren’t exactly light fiction. She looked from the tall stack of books to the picture window across the room and noted that the sun had already begun its descent into the western sky.
She sighed. This was not what she had expected of today.
THREE
LAUREL SAT CROSS-LEGGED ON HER BED WITH A PAIR of scissors, cutting sheets of paper into makeshift note cards. It had taken her less than an hour of reading to realize that the situation demanded note cards. And highlighters. A year of studying biology with David had apparently turned her into a neurotic method-studier. But the next morning she was dismayed to discover that the “staff,” as everyone called the soft-spoken, plainly dressed servants who scurried about the Academy, had no idea what note cards were. They were, however, familiar with scissors, so Laurel was making her own note cards out of a fine card stock. The highlighters, unfortunately, were a lost cause.
A soft rap sounded at the door. “Come in,” Laurel called, worried that she would scatter bits of paper everywhere if she tried to actually get up and open it.
The door swung open and a small, blond head poked in. “Laurel?”
Having given up trying to recognize people, Laurel simply nodded and waited for the stranger to introduce herself.
The short, pixie-style haircut was followed by a bright smile that Laurel found herself automatically returning. It was a relief to see a smile directed at her. Dinner the evening before had been a complete disaster. Laurel had been summoned around seven to come down for the evening meal. She had hurried downstairs behind a faerie who had showed her the way to the dining hall—Laurel should have gotten a clue when she heard dining hall instead of cafeteria—in her sundress and sandals, her hair still pulled back in a ponytail. The moment she entered the room Laurel realized she’d made a mistake. Everyone was dressed in button-down shirts and silk pants, or floor-length skirts and dresses. It was practically a white-tie formal affair, minus shoes. Worse, she’d been pulled to the front of the room by Aurora to be welcomed back and presented to the Fall faeries. Hundreds of Fall faeries with no one better to look at than her.
Note to self: Dress for dinner.
But that was last night, and now here was a genuine smile, aimed at her.
“Come on in,” Laurel said. She didn’t particularly care who this faerie was or why she was here, just that she looked friendly.
And that she represented a reason for Laurel to take a break.
“I’m Katya,” the faerie said.
“Laurel,” she said automatically.
“Well, of course I know that,” Katya said with a little laugh. “Everyone knows who you are.”
Laurel looked self-consciously down at her lap.
“I hope you’ve found the Academy to your liking,” Katya continued, sounding like the perfect hostess. “I know I am always a bit unsettled when I have to travel. I don’t sleep well,” Katya said, coming to sit beside her on the bed.
Laurel avoided her eyes and made a noise of agreement without actually saying anything, wondering how far Katya could really have traveled within Avalon.
In truth, Laurel hadn’t slept well. She hoped it was the new environment, as Katya had suggested. But she’d been ripped awake several times by nightmares, and not just the usual ones of trolls, guns pointed at Tamani, pointing a gun at Barnes, or icy waves closing in over her head. Last night it wasn’t her running from Barnes, her feet in slow motion; it was her parents, David, Chelsea, Shar, and Tamani.
Laurel had risen from her bed and walked to the window, pressed her forehead against the cool glass, and looked down at the twinkling lights scattered throughout the darkness that spread below her. It seemed so contradictory, coming to Avalon to learn how to protect herself and her loved ones, and in so doing, leaving them vulnerable. Though if the trolls were hunting her, maybe her family was safer when she wasn’t around. The whole situation was out of her control, out of her very knowledge. She hated feeling helpless—useless.
“What are you doing?” Katya asked, pulling Laurel from her dreary thoughts.
“Making note cards.”
“Note cards?”
“Um, studying tools I use back at ho—in the human world,” Laurel said.
Katya picked up one of the homemade cards. “Are they just these small pieces of carding or is there something else I’m not seeing?”
“No. Just that. Pretty simple.”
“Then why are you doing it yourself?”
“Uh?” Laurel shook her head, then shrugged. “I needed note cards?”
Katya’s eyes were wide and innocently questioning. “Aren’t you supposed to study like mad while you’re here? That’s what Yeardley told me.”
“Yes, but note cards will help me study better,” Laurel insisted. “It’s worth the time to make them.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Katya laughed then walked over to the silver bell Aurora had pointed out yesterday and rang it. Its clear peal rolled around the room for a few seconds, leaving the air feeling almost alive.
“Wow,” Laurel said, earning a puzzled look from Katya.
A few seconds later a middle-aged faerie woman appeared in the doorway. Katya snatched the scissors out of Laurel’s hand and gathered up the pile of card stock. “We need these all to be cut into rectangles this size,” she said, handing over one of Laurel’s freshly cut cards. “And this is of utmost importance, so it needs to take priority over whatever else you were doing.”
“Of course,” the woman said with a slight curtsy, as if she were speaking to a queen and not a young faerie half her age—maybe less. “Would you like me to do them here so you can have them as they are completed, or take them elsewhere and return them when the entire task is done?”
Katya looked over at Laurel and shrugged. “It’s all right with me if she stays here; she has a point about getting them to us as soon as they’re cut.”
“That’s fine,” Laurel muttered, uncomfortable asking a grown woman to perform such a menial task.
“You can sit there,” Katya said, pointing to Laurel’s long window seat. “The light is good.”
The woman simply nodded, took the card stock to the window, and immediately set about cutting them into crisp, straight rectangles.
Katya settled herself on the bed beside Laurel. “Now show me what you do with these note cards and I’ll see how I can assist you.”
“I can cut my own cards,” Laurel whispered.
“Well, certainly, but there are far better uses of your time.”
“I imagine there are far better uses of her time too,” Laurel retorted, flicking her chin in the woman’s direction.
Katya looked up and stared candidly. “Her? I shouldn’t think so. She’s just a Spring faerie.”
Indignation built up in Laurel’s chest. “What do you mean, just a Spring faerie? She’s still a person, she has feelings.”
Katya looked very confused. “I never said she didn’t. But this is her job.”
“To cut my note cards?”
“To do whatever duties the Fall faeries have need of. Look at it this way,” Katya continued, still in that bright, casual voice, “we probably saved her from sitting around just waitin
g for one of the other Falls to need something. Now come on, or we’ll lose all the time she’s saving us. Let me see which book you’re on.”
Laurel lay sprawled on her stomach, staring at her book. She was beyond reading; she’d been reading most of the morning and the words were starting to swim in front of her eyes, so staring was the best she could do. A light knock sounded on the doorway, where her intricately carved cherrywood door stood open. Laurel looked up at an elderly Spring faerie with kind, pink eyes and those perfectly symmetrical wrinkles she still wasn’t quite used to.
“You have a visitor in the atrium,” the faerie said, scarcely above a whisper. The Spring staff had been instructed to be very quiet around Laurel and avoid bothering her at all times.
The other students, too, apparently. Laurel never saw anyone but Katya, except at dinner, where she was mostly just stared at. But she was almost done with her last book—then it would be classroom time. She wasn’t entirely sure if that was a good thing or not, but at least it was different.
“A visitor?” Laurel asked. It took a few seconds before her study-weary brain put it together. Then it was all she could do not to shout with joy. Tamani!
Laurel walked down a few flights of stairs and took a slightly longer route so she could walk through a rounded, glass hallway lined with flowers in every color of the rainbow. They were beautiful. In the beginning that was all Laurel saw in them—gorgeous colors stretching out in brilliant sheets all across the Academy grounds. But they were more than decoration; they were the tools of the Fall faeries. She knew them now, after almost a week of studying, and named them, instinctively, in her head. The blue delphinium and red ranunculus, yellow freesia and calla lilies, speckled anthurium, and her newest favorite—cymbidium orchids with their soft white petals and dark pink centers. She let her fingers brush the tropical orchids as she passed, reciting automatically its common uses in her head. Cures poisoning from yellow flowers, temporarily blocks photosynthesis, phosphoresces when mixed correctly with sorrel.
She had very little context for the lists of facts in her head, but thanks to her “note cards”—which she wryly admitted the Spring faerie had cut more neatly than she would have—they were memorized.
Leaving the flowery hall, Laurel hurried to the staircase, practically skipping down the steps. She spotted Tamani leaning against a wall near the front entrance and somehow managed not to shriek his name and run to him. Barely.
Instead of the loose shirts and breeches that she was so accustomed to, he was wearing a sleek tunic over black pants. His hair was combed back carefully, and his face looked different without the tousled strands decorating it. As she raised her arms to hug him, a small halting motion of Tamani’s hand stopped her. She stood, confused; then he smiled and bent slightly at the waist, his head inclined in the same gesture of deference the Spring staff insisted on using. “Pleasure to see you, Laurel.” He gestured toward the door. “Shall we?”
She looked at him strangely for a moment, but when he flicked his head toward the exit again, she set her jaw and walked out the Academy doors. They headed down the front path that, instead of being straight like most neighborhood walks at home, meandered through patches of flowers and greenery. And, unfortunately, other Fall students. She could feel their gazes following her, and even though most tried to hide their spying behind their books, some gawked openly.
It was a long, silent walk and Laurel kept sneaking glances back at Tamani, who persisted in walking two steps behind her. She could see a mischievous grin playing at the corners of his mouth, but he said nothing. Once they crossed through the gates he stopped her with a soft hand on her back and inclined his head toward a long line of tall bushes. She walked toward them and as soon as the Academy was blocked from her view by the pokey green stems, strong arms lifted her off her feet and spun her around.
“I have missed you so much,” Tamani said, the grin she loved restored to his face.
Laurel wrapped her arms around him and held on for a long time. He was a reminder of her life outside the Academy, an anchor to her own world. The place she still called home. It was strange to realize that, over the course of a few short days, her most direct link to Avalon had now become her strongest tie to human life.
And, of course, he was himself. There was plenty to be said for that, too.
“Sorry about all that,” he said. “The Academy is very particular about protocol between Spring and Fall faeries and I would hate for you to get in trouble. Well, I guess it’s more likely I’d get in trouble, but regardless…let’s avoid trouble.”
“If we have to.” Laurel grinned and reached both hands up into his hair, mussing it until it fell into its usually chunky strands. She grabbed his hands, exhilarated to be in friendly, familiar company again. “I’m so glad you came. I thought I’d go crazy if I had to spend another night studying.”
Tamani sobered. “It’s hard work, I’m sure, but it’s important.”
She looked down at her bare feet, speckled with dark soil. “It’s not that important.”
“It is. You have no idea how much we use all the things the Fall faeries make.”
“But I can’t really do anything at all! I haven’t even started classroom work yet.” She sighed and shook her head. “I just don’t know how much I can learn in less than two months.”
“Couldn’t you come back…from time to time?”
“I guess so.” Laurel looked up again. “If I’m invited.”
“Oh, you’ll be…invited.” Tamani grinned as he said it, as though he found the word inherently amusing. “Trust me.”
His eyes met hers, and Laurel felt hypnotized. After a nervous moment she turned away and started walking. “So where are we going?” she asked, trying to cover her awkwardness.
“Going?”
“Jamison said you would take me sightseeing. I only get a few hours.”
Tamani seemed completely unprepared for this conversation. “I’m not sure he meant—”
“I have been doing nothing but memorizing plants for,” Laurel paused, “Six. Straight. Days. I want to see Avalon!”
A mischievous grin lit Tamani’s face and he nodded. “Very well, then. Where would you like to go?”
“I—I wouldn’t have any idea.” Laurel turned to him. “What’s the best place in Avalon?”
He took a breath, then hesitated. After another moment he said, “Do you want to do something with other fae or just the two of us?”
Laurel gazed down the hill. Part of her just wanted to be with Tamani, but she scarcely trusted herself to spend that long alone with him. “Can’t we do some of both?”
Tamani grinned. “Sure. Why don’t we—”
She placed one index finger against his lips. “No, don’t tell me, let’s just go.”
In response, Tamani pointed down the hill and said, “Lead on.”
A little shiver of excitement passed through her as the Academy grew smaller and smaller behind them. They passed the high stone walls that enclosed the gate and soon their path diverged into roads that wound through an occasional building—but these roads weren’t paved. Instead, they were made of the same soft, black, nutrient-rich soil that covered the path from the gateway to the Academy. The soil cooled Laurel’s bare feet and energized her steps. It was ten times better than any other walk she’d ever taken.
The farther they got from the Academy, the more crowded the streets became. They entered some kind of open-air fair with hundreds of faeries congregating in doorways, browsing in facade-fronted shops and milling about kiosks hung with sparkling wares. Everything was rainbow-hued and vivid and it took Laurel a few seconds to realize that the bright, multicolored flashes she saw weaving through the crowds were the blossoms of the Summer faeries. One faerie passed close in front of her, carrying some kind of stringed instrument and sporting a stunning blossom that resembled a tropical flower. It was bright red streaked with a sunshiny yellow and had about ten broad petals that ended in sharp angles l
ike the purpurea Laurel had studied only yesterday. But it was enormous! The lower petals floated just inches above the ground while the top petals arched over her head like an enormous crown.
Good thing I’m not a Summer faerie, Laurel thought, recalling the work she had put into concealing her own seasonal blossom less than a year ago. That thing would never have fit under a shirt.
Everywhere she looked she saw more of the vibrant, tropical-looking blossoms, in seemingly infinite variety. The Summer faeries were dressed differently too. They wore clothes of the same light, shimmery fabric that Laurel and all her classmates wore, only cut longer and more loosely, with ruffles and tassels and other adornments that fluttered in the air or trains that swept the ground behind them. Showy, Laurel decided. Like their blossoms.
She looked back to make sure she hadn’t lost Tamani, but he was still there, two steps behind her left shoulder. “I wish you’d just lead the way,” Laurel said, tired of craning her neck to see him.
“It’s not my place.”
Laurel stopped. “Your place?”
“Please don’t make a scene,” Tamani said softly, prodding her forward again with his fingertips. “It’s just the way it is.”
“Is this a Spring faerie thing?” Laurel said, her voice raised a little.
“Laurel, please,” Tamani implored, his eyes darting from side to side. “We’ll talk about it later.”
She glared at him, but he refused to meet her eyes, so she surrendered for the moment and continued walking. She meandered through the kiosks for some time, delighting in the sparkling wind chimes and silky lengths of fabric displayed by shopkeepers who were, in some cases, dressed even more extravagantly than the crowd.
“What’s this?” she asked, picking up a stunning string of sparkling diamonds—probably real ones—intertwined with tiny pearls and delicate glass flowers.
“It’s for your hair,” a tall, crimson-haired faerie offered helpfully. With fingers encased in stark white gloves that seemed far too formal to Laurel, he touched the end where a comb was cleverly hidden behind a cluster of glass blossoms. Naturally, because he was male, he had no blossom, but his clothing suggested that he, too, was a Summer. “May I?”