I have to save them! Desperation banished every rational thought from Laurel’s head and she threw herself toward the fallen bodies only to meet Tamani’s chest as he stepped in her way. “Laurel, you can’t.”
She fought against him, trying to get to the helpless, unconscious fae. Tamani’s arms were tight around her waist and dimly she felt David’s fingers on her face, caressing, trying to calm her.
“Laurel,” David whispered. “Stop.” The gentle word was so quiet it made her freeze as though he had yelled it. “We have to think,” he said, and slowly Laurel forced herself to be still.
Everyone who could stand was up on tables, mostly at the edges of the room, wide-eyed with horror. Fire blocked the obvious exits; poison seeped in everywhere the fire failed to reach . . . Laurel could almost feel the contempt Klea had put into every detail of this elaborate assault. These people had been her teachers, her friends – her family, really. But it was clear from her actions today that Klea wanted them all to die, and what was more, she wanted them all to die afraid.
Laurel realised she was shaking with anger. Forget the trolls; the biggest monster in Avalon was Klea.
Laurel shoved David’s arms away and strode to a faerie lying unconscious just a few feet from the creeping smoke. Laurel pushed her arms around the young faerie’s chest and began to drag her backward, away from the danger.
Tamani grabbed her hand, but Laurel yanked it away. He reached out to grasp it again and held it tightly this time. “Laurel, what are you doing? Where are you going to take her?”
“I don’t know!” Laurel shouted, angry tears burning her eyes. “Just . . . away from that!” She went back to her task, pulling another faerie out of immediate reach of the red mist. They would all die anyway, but somehow Laurel couldn’t let them die right now, not when she could at least prolong their lives. She grabbed another faerie’s shoulders and began dragging her back to join the first.
With a nod, Tamani stepped up and did the same thing, lifting another faerie and pulling him away from the smoke that was drawing nearer, inch by slow inch, as it filled the dining hall entrance and crept further into the room. It was pouring from the open skylights in earnest now, and the floor would soon be a deadly crimson swamp.
Chelsea and David pulled another faerie up onto a table and others began joining in, mimicking Laurel’s futile act of service, dragging the wounded and the fallen back until there was a line of bare stone between the smoke and its next victims.
As David started on another faerie, Tamani stopped him with a hand on his chest. “You have to move the sword.” The smoke was only a few inches away from where David had left it, with the blade sunk several inches into the marble tiles. “We cannot lose it.”
David nodded and turned to retrieve it. His eyes widened. “Wait,” he said, reaching out to grab Tamani’s arm. “The sword. Laurel! Where does that wall go?” David yelled pointing to the wall at the back of the dining hall.
“Outside,” Laurel panted, not stopping as she dragged another faerie backward. “Gardens and stuff.”
“Is that it?” he pressed. “No, uh, overhangs or something?”
“The greenhouses are out that way,” offered Caelin, and Laurel was surprised to see he was addressing David directly.
“Perfect,” David murmured, almost to himself. “They’ll hide us from anyone who might be back there.”
“But you can’t get to them from here,” Caelin argued. “There’s no door. They just share a wall.”
“Thanks,” David said, wrapping his fist around Excalibur’s hilt, drawing it from its temporary sheath, “but I make my own doors.”
Laurel watched as he ran to the wall, bowed his head for an instant, as if in prayer, then raised his sword and thrust it into the stone wall. Tears of hope sprang to her eyes as she watched him cut a long, vertical line in the stone. Two more cuts on the side and Laurel could see light bleeding through the wall.
“Help me push!” shouted David, and soon faeries were gathered around him, picking their way carefully over the unconscious fae they’d collected at the edges of the room. They heaved with all their might as David cut at the bottom and, with a loud scraping, the panel gave way and fell to the ground, the light of the setting sun pouring in.
The next fifteen minutes were like a fast-moving nightmare. Laurel’s arms ached as she dragged faerie after faerie through the narrow passage David had opened into one of the greenhouses. Her legs, already weary from a long day fleeing trolls, threatened to collapse. But each faerie they dragged out of the dining hall was one more Mixer who would live.
A moment of chilling fear made all the fae halt in their tracks for a few moments when the red poison began pouring over the edge of the dining hall roof and onto the transparent glass ceiling of the greenhouse. They all seemed to collectively hold their breath as red coated the sloped roof, but the seals held; the faeries were safe.
Sweat poured down the faces of those who worked beside her – almost certainly a new experience for most Autumn fae – but time was running out. In the dining hall the puddling gas had almost completely filled the floor and continued to pour in through the open skylights, no longer in single streams but waves as wide as the skylight itself.
“We have to stop,” Yeardley said at last.
“One more,” Laurel said breathlessly. “I can get one more.”
Yeardley considered for the briefest of instants, then nodded. “Everybody, one more, then we have to find a way to seal this hole or all our work will have been for nothing.”
Laurel ran to the nearest group of fallen fae. She had a good six metres to drag this one. With aching arms, she reached around the chest of the first faerie she came to, hating that there were so many others close enough to touch – so many she couldn’t hope to save.
As she turned, a new line of mist fell from an overhead skylight, cutting off her view of the exit. When it hit the stone floor the ruby poison splashed, tiny wisps swirling so near that Laurel had to throw herself out of the way to avoid getting hit.
Gritting her teeth, Laurel hefted the body higher. She had to get out of here.
She dragged the faerie round the cascade, legs screaming in protest. She looked forwards again and her path was open. Four more metres. Three. She could make it.
Then her legs tangled in something on the floor and she fell, feeling the skin on her elbow split as it hit the stone floor. She looked down at what she had fallen over.
It was Mara.
She’d been working in here before but must have fainted from the heat and smoke before the skylights were opened. Laurel looked back. The creeping gas was inches away from Mara’s feet.
I will not let you die.
With one more glance at the exit, Laurel turned and shoved one arm around Mara – she’d get them both; she had to! Her arms rebelled, shaking with fatigue as she awkwardly dragged them a few metres. A few more. She turned to get a better grip while staggering backwards; other faeries – faeries who hadn’t spent the day hiking and running – slid past her with their burdens. Laurel’s chest and throat ached from the smoke still in the air – she’d been in here too long – and the mist seemed to be following her now, inching forwards as quickly as Laurel could manage to flee.
It’s her or you. The thought came unbidden, and though she suspected it might be true, she shook her head, yanking the two faeries a little further.
I can’t do it. Yes, I can! She glanced back at the exit. It felt so close and yet so very far away. Pulling with all her might, something made her look up just in time to see another cascade of smoke pour down from the skylight, splashing to the floor and sending a wave of poison rippling towards her.
Tamani half threw the unconscious faerie out of the hole in front of him and staggered over the stone lip, gasping for air. The gash in his side was seeping again and it was all he could do not to curl up in a ball and clutch at it. He had never put his body through so much torture before and wasn’t entirely sure h
ow he was still standing.
What doesn’t kill you . . .
Shocked, Tamani stood up straighter and looked around him. The greenhouse was enormous, at least five times bigger than Laurel’s entire house back in California. And through the glass walls he saw more, a long row of them just like the Mixer boy had said. Tamani vaguely remembered the greenhouses from his childhood days of roving the Academy with Laurel and his mother, but he had assumed they had only seemed gigantic in comparison to his tiny sprout self. This was a perfect place to harbour the survivors.
The parade of faeries had stopped emerging from the smoke and Yeardley and some of the older fae were crouched at the hole, calling to the few who must still be in there. Where was Laurel?
His eyes found David, working with several faeries to raise the piece of stone wall upright, ready to push it back where it had been. Chelsea was kneeling beside someone who was on the floor coughing – probably a faerie who had breathed in too much smoke.
But no Laurel. Tamani scanned the crowd, then again, and a third time, but he couldn’t find her.
Fear clutched him as he realised she must still be inside. All thoughts of weariness left him and he ran to the hole David had carved, elbowing through the crowd.
“No more,” an older faerie said, laying a firm hand on his chest.
“I just have to see,” Tamani said, pushing him away. “I have to . . .” But no one was listening. He stopped talking and focused on worming his way closer when he managed to get a quick look over a shorter female’s head.
There she was! Just three metres away from the exit, struggling to save one last faerie, her back to them as she pulled him toward the opening.
“Leave him!” Yeardley was yelling, but that blonde head was shaking furiously.
Tamani cursed Laurel’s stubbornness and tried to push forwards again. “I’ll go get her,” he said. But no one seemed to hear him, the hands pushing back at him growing stronger as they all began to panic.
Why won’t she leave him?
“I have to . . . I have to.” Tamani continued struggling against the faeries, his words no longer coherent, only one thought in his mind. I have to get to her.
Tamani’s breath caught as Laurel stumbled backwards, the bulk of the faerie she’d been dragging dropping on to her legs, pinning her. She was kicking the weight away, but somehow Tamani knew those few precious seconds had tipped the balance against her.
“No!” he screamed, launching himself forwards making little progress in the crowded greenhouse.
She heard him – he could tell; she was scrambling to her hands and knees, turning her face toward his voice. But then she convulsed, silently, as the poisonous tendrils overtook her, her pink shirt seeming to glow in the darkness as the wispy red smoke enveloped it.
Everything inside Tamani shattered, razor-sharp edges that cut every inch of his body from the inside.
“That’s everyone,” Yeardley said mournfully, gesturing David and the faeries forwards with the stone square. “We can save no more. Block it.”
Tamani’s feet seemed to have taken root in the ground. “No!” he screamed again. “Good Goddess, no!”
David heaved against the stone with all his might.
He must not realise; he would never let them leave Laurel like that. Tamani opened his mouth to warn David but his throat closed around his desperate words, blocking off the last rays of hope.
He couldn’t say the words.
Couldn’t say anything.
Couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t see.
Blackness descended around him. He had to get to her – he couldn’t live without her, didn’t know how. Didn’t know how to breathe in and out in a world she wasn’t a part of.
Strong hands slammed him against the wall, the pain of his head hitting the stone bringing back the tiniest modicum of reason. Enough that he was able to blink and clear his vision – to see the face centimetres away from his nose. He didn’t know the faerie – it was just another Mixer – but the pain in his eyes reflected Tamani’s own.
“You have to let her go,” he said. And Tamani knew this faerie had been forced to let someone he loved go too. “This fight isn’t over yet,” the faerie pinning him said. “That rebel faerie’s still out there, and we’re going to need you.”
Klea.
She had taken everything – everything – from him.
She was going to the Winter Palace next. It was the only logical step.
There was no time to wait for the others. He had to go now.
She would kill him this time; he knew that. There would be no Shar to save him.
Maybe he could slow her down. Then she could kill him.
And, Goddess willing, then he would be with Laurel.
He forced himself to nod, to breathe evenly. To stop fighting against this faerie who held him back. He didn’t want to wait for Chelsea to discover Laurel was gone – to see David realise what he’d done. Didn’t think he could stand to share his pain with them.
The faerie in front of him said something – Tamani may as well have been deaf – and Tamani nodded, settling his forehead against the glass wall as if defeated. But his eyes roved the land outside, still just visible in the fading light. The steeply pitched roof of the greenhouse made the red gas slough off to the sides. This left the front door, just under the apex of the ceiling, safe. It wasn’t guarded – who would think to guard it?
Only a crazy fool would want to leave right now.
Tamani edged closer to the door, trying not to draw attention to himself, putting more and more rows of plants between himself and the crowd of Mixers. He was almost there when the one who had spoken to him earlier glanced back. He met Tamani’s eye, but he was too far away. Tamani slipped out the door, the glass frame closing and cutting off the protest.
Then he was running. He felt light, weightless, almost like he could fly as his feet pounded against the mud and grass and he ran for the Academy’s living wall, heedless of any of Klea’s minions who might still be watching.
He was going to kill Klea.
Or Klea was going to kill him.
In that moment, it didn’t matter which.
Laurel’s body ached and she hugged her arms to her chest. She’d barely gotten Mara out before collapsing on the floor in a fit of coughing. Then Chelsea was there, bending over her with concern on her face.
“It’s OK,” Chelsea was saying softly. “You’re all right.”
Several more faeries gathered round her as Laurel drew in a deep breath that filled her chest. “I’m good now,” she said after a couple more coughs. “I’m good.” But she didn’t get up. For a few seconds she needed to just lie there, focusing on breathing in and out. Just for a second.
She heard screaming and shouts from the wall of the Academy, but she clenched her eyes shut and blocked it out. She didn’t want to see them put the cut section of wall back in, or know how many they’d left to die. It was too much to even consider, so she lay with her eyes closed, trying to force her tears back until the commotion died down. Taking one more breath, she braced herself and opened her eyes, letting reality come crashing back.
“Where are David and Tamani?” Laurel said, pushing her sore body up and sweeping her hair out of her face.
“David’s over by the wall,” Chelsea said, pointing. “And I don’t see Tamani right now, but he made it out a couple seconds before you did, I promise,” Chelsea added. She must have seen the panic start to shine in Laurel’s eyes.
“OK,” Laurel said carefully. He’s here – I’ll find him.
At the wall between the dining hall and the greenhouse, they were stuffing thick mud from the planter boxes into the cracks around the cut-out square to seal in the poisonous mist. A couple of faeries had taken off their shirts and were using them to fan the stone, not only to dry the mud, but to dissipate any tendrils of the toxic smoke that might make their way out.
Laurel looked around the garden at the surviving
faeries, more than half of them wounded or unconscious and all coated in soot. She should have felt pride that there were probably about a hundred survivors but all she could think about were the hundreds inside. The hundreds dead. Sprouts, professors, classmates, friends. All gone.
Friends.
“Chelsea, where’s Katya?” Laurel’s eyes darted around the garden, looking for the blonde hair and pink shirt that matched hers. “Where is she?” Laurel climbed to her feet, sure if she could just get a better look, she would find her friend.
“I – I haven’t seen her,” Chelsea said.
“Katya!” Laurel yelled, spinning about. “Katya!”
“Laurel.” Hands were on her arms and Yeardley’s voice was in her ear. “She didn’t make it. I’m sorry.”
Katya. Dead. Laurel vaguely heard David arrive at her side and felt his hand gentle on her arm. “No.” She whispered the word. Saying it too loud would make it true.
“I’m sorry,” Yeardley said again. “I tried . . . I tried to get to her to save herself. But you know Katya; she wouldn’t.”
Laurel had managed to hold back until now, but with Katya’s face still so fresh in her mind – her smile, her determination on the balcony – it was too much. She collapsed against Yeardley and let the tears come raining down on his shoulder as he held her.
“She will be sorely missed,” Yeardley murmured in her ear.
Laurel raised her face from Yeardley’s shirt. “I’m going to kill her,” she said, the bitterness in the voice that escaped her mouth not even sounding like her own. A spark of rage ignited within her and Laurel let it smoulder, growing hotter. First Shar, now Katya . . . for the first time in her life, Laurel realised she genuinely wanted someone to die; wanted it so badly that she would strangle Klea with her bare hands, if necessary—
“Laurel.”
Yeardley’s soft, penetrating voice brought Laurel back to herself. She looked over at the fundamentals instructor.
“Laurel, you are not a warrior.”
That was true. But did it matter? The Academy grounds were practically littered with guns just now – all she had to do was pick one up and shoot Klea in the back. It would be as easy as chasing her down.