Laurel closed her eyes, took a breath, then opened them and tried to apply every concept she’d ever learned in softball as she threw the knotted material towards David.
Removing one hand from the sword, David reached up and grabbed the material out of the air, pulling it down and against his chest. After taking a moment to catch his balance he leaned over and thrust his foot into the loop.
The trolls, seeing a moment of weakness, surged forward. If they somehow managed to pile on him . . .
“Pull!” Laurel screamed the instant David was ready.
As the sheet-rope went taut, David clung crazily to it, defending not himself but his tenuous escape line.
“We’ve got him!” Laurel called.
Several howling trolls made grabs at David’s legs; each time they did they slid away, unable to touch him. One of them finally got smart and, just before David was out of reach, it jumped up and grabbed the sheet and began swinging its club at David.
The weapon couldn’t hurt David, but it knocked him off balance and threatened his grip. David tried to swing Excalibur at the troll, but he was exhausted and at a bad angle. Laurel could see his white knuckles, the strain in his face as he worked to keep hold of the sheet and Excalibur both. The possibility that David would ever drop the sword had seemed remote, but now it was the thing Laurel feared most. Without Excalibur, David was as good as dead.
Abruptly, the troll released its hold on the sheet, dropped to the ground in a heap, and lay motionless where it fell.
There was no time for Laurel to question this; with more than half of the weight suddenly gone, David practically flew to the railing.
Tamani let go of the rope with one hand and leaned forwards to extend the other to David. But their hands met and then slid away, and David fell back.
David took two breaths, then looked up and swung the sword, releasing it into the air. Laurel heard it clatter against the balcony floor behind her as she reached out to grasp his arm, her hands making contact this time. Tamani had a firm grip on his other arm and together they pulled David up and over the edge of the railing, all three sprawling onto the cool stone.
They lay panting on the balcony floor a moment before David reached instinctively for the fallen sword and pulled it close, cradling it against his chest. As he turned his face to Laurel, she almost didn’t recognise him. Blood-striped sweat streaked from his temples to his chin, and his arms were stained a rusty red. The rest of him was a patternless mess of gore.
“Are you all right?” she asked, pushing up off of her stomach as Chelsea dropped to her knees beside David.
“Tired,” he rasped. “I need some water. And rest,” he added. “I have to rest.”
“Is there some place we can take him?” Tamani asked, turning to Katya as the other faeries resumed barraging the trolls from above.
“The dining hall,” Katya said. “They’ve brought some medical supplies in there for . . . for the faeries the trolls got earlier,” she finished, her lashes lowered.
“I’ll take them,” Laurel said, rising to her feet and helping Chelsea up too. They looked down at David, who had pushed himself up to his knees. He looked too tired to stand on his own, but he was clinging to the sword and neither Chelsea nor Laurel could do anything for him while he held it.
Chelsea leaned close, just a hairsbreadth away from his ear. “David,” she said softly. “Let me carry it for you.”
David blinked at her as though she were speaking a foreign language. Then comprehension dawned. “Thank you,” he whispered, laying the sword down on the floor between them.
Wrapping both hands around the hilt, Chelsea reverently took Excalibur and held it close as Laurel and Tamani helped David stand.
Laurel kept a hand on David’s arm and led him towards the stairs as an Autumn faerie emerged bearing a tray of beakers filled with steaming chartreuse – a solution Laurel recognised as an acid derived from fermented limes. “Let’s get you cleaned up,” she said, pulling David round to put his back to the fighting.
“Do we have time for that?” David asked, his voice weak as he followed her through the doorway off the balcony. “They just keep coming – we’ve got to get Yeardley to Jamison.”
“Let’s think about that later,” Laurel said, casting a concerned glance at Chelsea. It was easy to feel safe barricaded inside the huge stone Academy, but how much longer could they last?
The three of them descended the staircase slowly and Laurel paused at the bottom when she realised Tamani wasn’t with them. He was still standing at the top step, one arm resting on the banister. His shoulders were slumped and he was clutching at the injury on his shoulder that he had refused to let her see at his mother’s house. He seemed to be allowing himself a moment to feel the weariness and pain he’d been pushing aside all day. His eyes were closed and Laurel turned away before he could discover he’d been seen in such a vulnerable moment. She was glad to hear his footsteps catching up with them a few moments later.
“David,” Chelsea asked haltingly, “are you—”
“Man, that thing is heavy,” David said, cutting off her question as he stretched out his weary arms, flexing his wrists one at a time.
Laurel bit her lip and when Chelsea turned to look at her, she shook her head. Now wasn’t the time for questions.
As they entered the dining hall they bumped into a faerie carrying masses of white cloth.
“Watch it,” a cold voice said, and Laurel’s eyes widened. Despite the deep gash across her face and the unruly state of her hair and clothing, it was, unmistakably, Mara. Tamani recognised her as well, judging by his glare. Mara raised her chin, as if to look down on Tamani from her slightly greater height. But he met her eyes unflinchingly and – Laurel noted – without the requisite bow. After a moment, Mara dropped her gaze and shuffled from the room.
“Nice to meet you, too,” Chelsea said dryly.
“Go ahead,” Tamani said stiffly when Laurel looked back at him. “I need to check a few things.”
Laurel stepped away from David and Chelsea. “Come back as soon as you’re done,” she said in a tone meant to cut off any arguments. “I need to take a look at your injuries.”
Tamani started to protest but Laurel interrupted.
“Five minutes.”
Tamani set his jaw, but nodded.
The dining hall was bustling and Laurel saw Yeardley across the room, delivering serums and binding strips to several stations where healthy Autumn faeries were treating the wounded. Laurel wondered how they must feel, using potions they had made and never expected to use for themselves. “Repetition work,” as they called it, when they put their studies aside to make healing solutions and other potions for the Spring faeries, for sentries outside the gates who occasionally tussled with trolls, or Tenders who fumbled their scythes. The worst injury most Autumn faeries got was a paper cut or perhaps an acid burn.
“Sit,” Laurel instructed as soon as she found David an empty chair. Chelsea propped the sword against David’s seat and he immediately picked it up and laid it across his lap.
Leaving him to Chelsea for a moment, Laurel fetched a tall glass of water – “Plain water,” she insisted to the faerie who tried to add pinches of nitrogen and phosphorous – and returned to find Chelsea fretting over how bloodied David was.
“I’m fine,” David insisted. “I just need – oh man, thank you,” he said, taking the glass of water from Laurel and downing it all in one go, except for a few droplets that trickled down his chin. Absently, he wiped them off on his sleeve, leaving a smear of blood beneath his lips.
“Do you want more?” Laurel asked, trying not to look at the new streak as David relaxed in his chair, leaning his head back against the wall and closing his eyes for a few seconds.
“Is he really OK?” Chelsea whispered, staring at David’s blood-flecked face.
“It seems like it,” Laurel said. “But I should get the blood washed off to be sure. Can you go grab something to scrub wi
th and meet me by the fountain?” She pointed to a table full of folded fabric where people were grabbing bandages and towels. Chelsea nodded and hurried off.
“Come on,” Laurel said, gesturing to David. “Let’s get you clean.”
At first, David followed her numbly, dragging Excalibur along the ground, surely unaware of the perfect line its tip was scoring across the polished marble floor tiles. But when he realised what Laurel had in mind, he suddenly couldn’t get there fast enough. He sank to his knees at the edge of the marble circle, set Excalibur reverently aside, and thrust his arms into the water, scrubbing vigorously. A murky red cloud spread away from him, giving the water a pinkish hue.
Out the corner of her eye, Laurel caught Caelin – the one male Mixer her age – watching them. Perfect. “Hey,” she said. “Do me a favour? I need a clean shirt. For him,” she added – pointing to David – lest Caelin return with a fluffy blouse.
Caelin eyed the strange new male – he’d always been comically territorial – and nodded, heading toward the dorms. Chelsea appeared a moment later with a small pile of clean handkerchiefs.
“Thank you,” Laurel said, grabbing the top one. She looked at the sullied water David was still scrubbing his arms in and wrinkled her nose. Chilly, crystal-clear water was spilling from the top of the fountain, so Laurel reached up and wet the cloth there before scrubbing at the blood decorating David’s face.
“I’ll help,” Chelsea said softly, wetting a cloth and going to work on the other side, tackling a particularly thick stream of blood that ran down his neck.
“Strip,” Laurel said, when most of David’s face was clean. “We’re never going to get the blood out of that shirt. Just take it off and toss it.”
David reached for the tail of his T-shirt and, careful to keep the blood away from his face, pulled it over his head, dropping it unceremoniously onto the ground.
At first Laurel thought she was imagining the hush that seemed to settle around her, but after another minute of scrubbing, she realised that nearly everyone in the room had stopped moving.
The silence was now a buzz of whispers that grew louder every second.
Chelsea had noticed too, and was looking around nervously.
But all eyes were on David. Specifically, on David’s chest, where a small patch of dark hair was clearly visible against his skin.
They hadn’t realised he was human.
They probably hadn’t realised Chelsea was human either, between the fury of the battle and the fact that Chelsea had no obvious giveaways like visible body hair. Some of the faeries were now looking at the sword David had placed at the fountain’s edge and whispering behind their hands.
David noticed them, too, and stopped washing himself. He was glaring at those faeries who were bold enough to look him in the face.
With loud footsteps Tamani stormed across the dining hall, an angry look on his face and holding a white bundle of cloth. Behind him Caelin was looking all too happy to have someone else complete the task he’d been given.
“Here,” Tamani said, handing David the dry, white piece of clothing. “A clean shirt is the least we can do for saving the Academy.” Tamani shot a glare around the room before handing over the shirt. After a long moment of silence, David pulled the fabric over his head, looking like any other faerie boy as the Avalon-style shirt covered his chest.
As soon as he was dressed, the dining hall burst into activity again, though many of the fae continued to eye David with a mix of curiosity, condemnation, or fear.
“How are you feeling, mate?” Tamani asked, dropping into a crouch beside David.
“Better,” David said. “I could use another glass of water, though.”
Chelsea hurried off to fetch it.
“Any chance you might be ready to go back out there?” Tamani’s tone was casual, but Laurel knew he was anxious to get Yeardley to Jamison.
David pursed his lips. There was something haunted in his eyes, but he looked down at the sword and, after a moment, nodded. “I think so,” he said.
“Thank you.”
David closed his eyes for a few breaths, then opened them and reached for his sword.
“Not yet,” Laurel said, leaping to her feet.
“Laurel . . .” Tamani began, desperation in his voice.
“Let me bind your shoulder first.” His grey T-shirt was ragged and the sap on it had dried, but without a handful of binding strips the wound would certainly open again.
“I’m fine,” Tamani said, turning not so subtly so she couldn’t see his shoulder anymore.
“You’re not. You’re in pain, and you will be more . . . effective,” she finally settled on, “if you let me do something about it.”
He hesitated, then looked up at Chelsea, who was returning with more water for David. “If you hurry,” he said, relenting. Then, quieter, “We don’t have much time.”
“I’ll be fast,” Laurel promised.
She went to the nearest station and searched through the medicines that remained. “Can I borrow these real quick?” she asked, grabbing two bottles of clear solution and a handful of binding strips.
The faerie gave Laurel a nod, barely glancing up as he pulled a long cactus-spine needle through a deep cut on a small child’s shoulder, stitching it closed.
Laurel ran back to Tamani. “Take it off,” she said, touching his shirt.
Tamani glanced at David, then groaned as he lifted his arms and shed his T-shirt, pulling the sap-stained spots away from his wounds gingerly. He was oozing sap from a half dozen shallow cuts, and the deep gash across his ribs that Laurel had bound that morning was wet despite her patch job.
The wound on his shoulder wasn’t a single cut as she had thought – there were about five deep holes peppered across his upper arm. He pulled a sharp breath between his teeth as she dabbed at them with a wet cloth. “I’m sorry,” she said, trying not to lose her cool at the depth of the cuts that looked more like stab marks. “I’ll make it feel better in just a second.”
“Don’t,” Tamani said, stopping her hand as she reached for a bottle.
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t make it numb,” he said, his voice still laboured. “I can’t move as well if I can’t feel it. Just put the healing tonic on and bind it. That’s all I can let you do right now.”
Laurel frowned, but nodded. There was no telling how much more fighting Tam would have to do today. “Just . . . just squeeze me if it hurts,” she said, employing the tactic her dad had used when she was little.
But rather than gripping her hand, Tamani wrapped his good arm around her hips, burying his face in her stomach with a muffled groan. Laurel stole a moment to run her fingers through his black hair before reaching for the bottle of healing tonic, determined to get this over for him as quickly as possible.
She tried not to pay attention to his fingers pressing into her leg, his breath soft against the skin at her waistline, his forehead planted just under her ribs. She worked quickly, wishing she could savour the moment, but knowing her indulgence would only cost lives.
“I’m done,” she whispered after a torturously brief span.
He pulled back and looked at his shoulder, covered in binding strips that would grow into his skin over the next week or so. “Thank you,” he said quietly.
Laurel stared resolutely at the floor as she gathered her supplies and ran them back to the station she’d taken them from. By the time she returned, Tamani had taken up his spear again and was standing in front of David. “Ready?”
David hesitated for the barest instant before nodding.
“We’ll need to clear a path – I don’t want to risk anything happening to Yeardley – but I don’t think we should try the doors again. Let’s go out the same way you came in,” Tamani said, his voice focused and emotionless again.
“Over the railing?” David said, one eyebrow raised.
“You got a better idea?” Tamani asked with not a trace of sarcasm.
> David thought for a second and then shook his head. “Let’s go.”
“We’ll help lower you,” Laurel offered, even as her head screamed at her not to let them go.
David and Chelsea were already moving towards the doors, and Laurel made to follow them but paused at the brush of Tamani’s rough fingertips on her arm. As she turned to him Tamani looked at her gravely, and reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear.
He hesitated for an instant, then his hands found the sides of her face, pulling her to him. He didn’t kiss her, just held her face close to his, their foreheads resting together, their noses almost touching.
She hated how much it felt like goodbye.
The four of them left the dining hall and walked down the shadowy corridor, the sounds of the battle growing loud again with each step they took. The Academy was keeping the trolls at bay, but how much longer would the walls hold up against so many? And how many more battles could Tamani live through? Eventually, he would have too many wounds to survive. In spite of Avalon’s advantages, the trolls were winning on numbers alone.
As they emerged onto the balcony, Katya turned to them with panic in her eyes. “Thank the Goddess, you’re back! Something’s happening.”
“What?” Tamani asked, running to lean over the railing beside her.
“They’re falling,” Katya replied, studying the milling trolls beneath them. “I saw it happen a few times over the past hour or so, but I figured they had injuries I couldn’t see. Now they’re starting to do it in groups. Five, six, sometimes as many as ten. Look,” she added, pointing as Laurel, David, and Chelsea stepped forward to see.
The trolls were still banging the felled tree against the front doors and Laurel could see the wood crumbling beneath the assault. But as they backed up to take another run, the tree trunk shifted and began to roll to the side as several of the trolls collapsed onto their knees.
“They just did it over there, too,” Katya said, pointing to a group beneath the balcony.
“That’s what happened to that troll in Spring,” David said. “And on the rope, when you were pulling me up.”