Illusions (22 page)

“So I see,” Tamani said, gesturing at the powder. “Both this blue powder and whatever you did,” he added. “Why salt?”

“Testing a theory,” Shar said. “So far, I'm encouraged by the results.”

Sensing that Shar was not going to say more on the subject, Tamani knelt and examined the blue powder. “Can I have that pouch?”

Wordlessly, Shar dropped the small burlap sack into Tamani's outstretched hand. Tamani scooped some of the powder onto the blade of his knife and poured it into the pouch. Then, as an afterthought, he used his knife to draw a line in the dirt, breaking the blue circle.

“What are you doing?” asked Shar.

“I'm guessing a broken circle won't work,” Tamani said. “If the trolls inside didn't see us, they may not know the circle is broken—but they might find your salt. If we scatter the salt, and cover this break, maybe they won't notice their lair is exposed.”

“I want this place watched day and night from now on.”

“I'll need to call reinforcements,” Tamani said, the weight of his weariness bearing down on him as the excitement of discovery waned. He ducked behind a thick tree to turn on his iPhone, wishing the screen didn't light up quite so brightly. Hoping Aaron remembered how to use the GPS, Tamani sent his location to the other sentry's phone.

By the time Tamani returned, Shar had eradicated his salt circle and scattered leaves over the break Tamani had made with his knife. There was still no light or sound coming from the cabin, which seemed odd; it wasn't like trolls to sleep at night.

“Maybe we should just storm the place and get it over with,” said Tamani.

“You're in no condition for a fight,” said Shar. “Besides, I'd like to keep them under observation for a bit, get a feel for their numbers. For all we know, there are thirty trolls in there, just waiting for us to knock.”

It wasn't much longer before Tamani heard the telltale whisper of leaves all around him, heralding the arrival of at least ten sentries.

“Can you take it from here?” he asked Shar.

“If you like. Where are you off to?”

Tamani held up Shar's burlap pouch, then tucked it into his pack. “I have to get this back to Laurel. She may be able to figure out what it is.”

“I hope so,” Shar said, staring at the moonlit cabin.

With that, Tamani turned and ran, his bare feet whispering through the blanket of autumn leaves. He felt like he could have made the run with his eyes closed—as though all paths led to Laurel.

Tamani shook his head, realizing it was starting to swim—blackness encroaching on the edges of his vision. He blinked hard and forced himself to run faster, trying to push away the weariness that threatened to overwhelm him. Maybe Shar was right—maybe he
was
spreading himself too thin.
After this
, he told himself.
After I deliver this, I can sleep.

He braced himself against Laurel's back door and knocked, feeling his eyes close even as she came into sight. She opened the door in wordless surprise and he only managed one step into the kitchen before the ground rushed up to meet him.

LAUREL HAD SET HER ALARM FOR HALF AN HOUR
before sunrise so she could go downstairs and check on Tamani, but she was already awake when it sounded. Her whole night had felt more like a restless dream than actual sleep. Once she'd convinced herself he was okay, Laurel draped a blanket over Tamani and went to bed. She considered trying to move him—the kitchen floor didn't look very comfortable—but in the end, decided to leave him in peace. He'd probably slept on worse out at the land.

Glancing at the mirror and finger-combing her hair a little, Laurel crept downstairs as silently as she could. He was still there—he hadn't so much as stirred. The morning light was gray and soft, and Laurel tiptoed over to sit where she could see Tamani's face. It was strange to see him sleeping—completely relaxed, his expression unguarded. In some ways, it was weird to think of him sleeping at all. He was a constant in her life—someone who was always there when she needed him, day or night. She had never seen him when he wasn't alert and ready.

She watched him as the kitchen brightened to purple, then pink. Finally, a square of yellow sunlight started crawling across the kitchen floor. Tamani's eyelashes fluttered, catching the light and casting narrow shadows over his bronze cheeks. Then his eyes snapped open and focused on Laurel. Instantly, he rolled away from her, coming up on his feet, hands held defensively in front of him.

“Tam!” Laurel said.

He looked at her, seeing her clearly for the first time, then straightened, dropping his hands. “Sorry,” he said, his voice rough and scratchy. He looked around the kitchen in confusion. “What happened?”

“You burst in here last night around ten. And then you collapsed. I checked with Aaron out back. All he would say was that I was safe and he didn't know why you were here. Is everything okay?”

Tamani sat carefully on a barstool and rubbed his eyes. “Yeah, more or less. I just pushed myself a little too hard.”

“A
little
?” Laurel said, scolding him with a smile.

“Maybe more than a little,” Tamani admitted, grinning wryly. “I should have just bunked out and waited till morning. Hey, can I steal something to eat, please?”

“Sure,” Laurel said, going to the refrigerator. “What do you want? Peaches? Strawberries? I have some mango.”

“Do you have vegetables? I would kill for some broccoli right now. No,” he amended. “I really shouldn't have broccoli. I eat too much green stuff as it is—don't want my hair to change.”

Laurel scrutinized the fridge. “Jicama?” she asked. “It's white.”

“Actually that sounds really good, thank you.”

Laurel pulled out a dish of jicama her mother had chopped up last night and set the whole thing in front of Tamani. It was way more than she could have eaten, but after last night, Tamani might need it all. Laurel watched him down several slices. “So what happened?” she asked, snagging a piece of the white veggie for herself.

Instead of answering, Tamani pulled a small pouch from his pocket and handed it to her. “Be very careful with that,” he said, curling her fingers around the bag. “I'm not sure I can get more.”

“What is it?”

Between the sunlight and the food, Tamani was growing more animated. He related his adventures from the previous night. “This powder . . . it's like it slices out a piece of space and folds it in on itself. It was the strangest thing I've ever seen.”

Laurel peered into the pouch, unsure she knew how to begin testing such an unusual mixture. “You think this is fae magic?” she asked.

“Possibly. It could be some new troll magic. Or old human magic, for all I know. But we seem to be accumulating a lot of evidence of a rogue Mixer.”

“Are you still thinking it could be Yuki?” Laurel asked quietly.

Tamani hesitated, his brows knit. “I'm not sure. I never, ever discount a possibility, but she's so young. Could
you
make anything like this?”

Laurel shook her head. “I seriously doubt it. It sounds incredibly complicated.”

“But who else could it be?”

They both sat silently, Tamani munching and thinking, Laurel absently sifting through the powder with her fingertips.

“You know, everyone seems to think Yuki is some huge anomaly,” Laurel said. “But if there's one wild faerie, why not two? Or ten? Or a hundred? What if Yuki is just some kind of . . . diversion?”

Tamani pondered this for a moment. “It's something to consider,” he said. “But we didn't chase faeries to that cabin. Just trolls. And we don't even know if they're after you, or Yuki.”

Laurel nodded.

“Speaking of Yuki, I haven't seen her in three days, and since we have a holiday next week, I had better go make amends while I can.”

Laurel suppressed a wave of jealousy. It was his job!

Tamani walked over to the back door and swung it open, taking a deep breath of fresh morning air. “Thank you for the exquisite comfort of your kitchen floor,” he said with a chuckle, though she knew he must be rather chagrined over the whole experience, “and for the excellent breakfast. I'm off.”

Tamani sprinted to his apartment, trying not to be seen. In his handmade breeches and bare feet he would probably look like a wild man to any humans who spied him. After taking a quick shower—an indulgence he was really starting to get used to—and throwing on new clothes for the day, Tamani dashed out of the apartment and toward Yuki's house, hoping to catch her on her way to school.

He speed-walked up her driveway just as she was unlocking her bike from the porch rail. “Hey there,” he said, turning on his flirtatious grin.

Yuki's eyes widened, then sparkled. “Hey, Tam,” she said shyly.

Tamani smiled back. He hated going from Laurel's house to Yuki's house. He felt like a traitor to both of them. He was beginning to understand why Sparklers avoided sentry duty whenever possible. Their abilities made them excellent spies, and Marion's court used them extensively in the United Kingdom and in Egypt, where human proximity made intelligence and espionage almost as important as posting guards at the gates. But pretending to be someone else on the stage could not be nearly so taxing as pretending to be someone else every single day.

Nevertheless, Tamani had his orders. Yuki seemed to have grown quite attached to him, and if he could just get her to lower her defenses, maybe he could find out what he needed to know.

Or better yet, find out that there was nothing to know.

This, unfortunately, seemed unlikely. It was just too big a coincidence for Yuki to show up at Laurel's school, especially when the woman who put her there belonged to an organization that hunted non-humans. Except for picking up Yuki after the troll attack, Klea had not shown her face since delivering the wild faerie to Laurel's doorstep. She
could
be off hunting, as she claimed, but both times sentries sent to follow her had come back empty-handed, having lost her trail within two or three miles of Laurel's house. Just like with the trolls—another “coincidence” that put Tamani's teeth on edge. What was their connection? Klea always wore sunglasses, as though she were sensitive to light, or hiding mismatched eyes, but otherwise she didn't look like a troll. Still, troll clans had been known to squabble over territory, which would explain her killing Barnes. But Tamani was at a loss to explain how Yuki ended up with a group of human troll hunters, never mind a clan of trolls posing as troll hunters. Laurel's suggestion that Yuki might not be the only wild faerie definitely had merit, but what could possibly motivate such creatures to ally with the likes of Klea or Barnes?

There were still too many questions, but whatever the answers, Tamani didn't see any way for Klea to be anything but a threat. She was hiding. Tamani didn't know if she was hiding from him or from Laurel, but she was definitely hiding.

Animals hide when they are guilty—or afraid
. Klea didn't seem the type to cower in fear—so she was guilty. Tamani just needed to figure out what she was guilty
of
.

It wasn't that he didn't like Yuki—over the last few months, as he wormed in close, he'd found her company more than tolerable. She was smarter than she generally let on, and had a quiet confidence he admired. Which made his subterfuge all the more challenging. He was increasingly certain she actually liked him and it made him feel like a villain to be using that against her. If it did turn out that she knew nothing, he was never going to get over the guilt of this moment. But if she was a danger to Laurel in any way, it would be worth it.

“I thought maybe I could walk you to school this morning. Car's in the shop,” he tacked on, scrambling for an excuse. In truth the car was parked at the head of the trail he and Shar had taken last night.

“I thought you ‘knew a guy,'” Yuki said coyly.

Tamani grinned. “I do, that's why it will be done by this afternoon.”

“Sounds good,” Yuki said, snapping her lock shut and dropping the keys into her skirt pocket. “Oh,” she said, stopping, then taking another step forward, then stopping again.

“What is it?” Tamani asked, bemused. She could be so awkward sometimes.

“It's stupid, I . . . I forgot my lunch,” she admitted.

As a fellow faerie Tamani knew how important midday nourishment could be to making it through school hours. He nearly laughed thinking of the mental war she must have waged between not embarrassing herself and trying to make it through a whole day with no food.

“Go ahead,” Tamani said brightly, gesturing toward the house. “I'll wait.”

“You can come in for a sec,” Yuki said, not meeting his eyes. “I'll just be a minute.”

He hesitated. There was something about entering this unknown faerie's lair that felt like walking into a trap, but the tiny house was practically a training exercise in harmlessness. Not to mention the fact that they were surrounded by sentries. Still.

Yuki had swung the door wide open and the crisp autumn air wafted pleasantly through the front room. A small television set rested on a coffee table next to a pile of books, and a plush purple couch adorned one wall, but the rest of the room was wall-to-wall greenery. Potted plants lined the floors and windowsills. At least one variety of creeper had found purchase in the drywall and was crawling up around the window, framing it like curtains.

“Nice . . . plants,” Tamani said lamely, every cell in his body springing to attention. With a good-sized mortar, it could be a Mixer's armory—or simply the natural inclination of a wild faerie who longed for a flowering homeland she'd never heard of, and seen only in her dreams.

“I use them for
ikebana
,” she said, before disappearing into the back of the house.

She'd mentioned the Japanese art of flower arrangement to him before, though he couldn't remember the context. He had thought
ikebana
was more understated, however. This place was practically a jungle. He yanked his phone out of his pocket and hurried to snap a few pictures of the green-laden walls, hoping Laurel could tell him a bit more about the kinds of plants Yuki was growing here. He barely managed to get the phone back in his pocket when she emerged from her room, her backpack in place.

“Sorry; I'm ready now.”

He smiled, forcing himself out of thinking mode and into friendly spy mode. “Great!”

But Yuki didn't turn to go. He watched her take a few nervous breaths before blurting out, “You're welcome here anytime.”

“I'll keep that in mind,” Tamani said, offering her a crooked grin.

Yuki looked like she might say something else, but lost her nerve and walked past him onto the porch, waiting for him to pass through the doorway before pulling it shut.

“I hope it's okay that I just stopped by,” Tamani said as they set off at a leisurely pace toward school.

“I'm glad you did,” Yuki said, lowering her eyes.

The silence was building uncomfortably and Tamani was scrambling for something not-too-stupid to say when Yuki's phone started ringing. She pulled it out of her pocket and rolled her eyes, pressing the button that would send the call to voice mail.

“Do you need to take that?” Tamani asked. “I don't mind.”

“It's just Klea; no biggie.”

“She doesn't care if you don't pick up?”

“I'll just say I was in the shower. Or riding my bike—it's actually tough to ride and talk at the same time. As long as I call her back pretty quickly, she doesn't care.”

“And you really don't mind being alone so often?”

Yuki flipped a lock of hair over her shoulder. “Not at all.” She smiled. “I'm not afraid of the dark.” Tamani cringed inwardly at how obvious it was that she was trying to impress him.

“And your parents don't mind?”

He saw something cross her face. It was wary, then decisive. He leaned closer, trying to look interested instead of eager. “My parents aren't around anymore,” she said in a rush. “It's just me and Klea. And mostly, just me. The whole ‘foreign exchange' thing just . . . eases the transition.” Her eyes kept darting to him, clearly nervous. “I'm sort of here for a fresh start.”

“A fresh start is good. My . . . parents aren't around either. Sometimes I wish everyone didn't know. They look at you, all pitying, and it just—”

“I know what you're saying. Hey, listen,” she said, touching his arm. “Don't tell anyone? Please?”

He didn't push for more. Not today—not on this subject. “Of course I won't,” he said with a smile. Then he leaned over and laid his hand over hers. “You can trust me.”

She beamed at him, but there was something wary around her eyes. “So, how was your suspension?”

Eye of Hecate, now who's awkward?
Tamani shrugged, looking embarrassed. “It was stupid. I'm glad it's over.”