Tamani shushed her gently and pulled the phone away from his face, hitting his own speakerphone button, then muting the microphone just in case.
“Where did you find Yuki?” Shar’s voice said clearly.
“Find? Oh, Captain, all it takes is a single seed, if you know what you’re doing. Work was slow when I had to rely on cuttings, but in the past few decades humans have made remarkable strides in cloning. I quickly discovered that every sprout has its own destiny, no matter its lineage. So it was only a matter of time before I got a Winter.”
“Where did you get the seed, then?”
“I really shouldn’t tell you,” Klea said, “but it’s just too good to keep to myself. I stole it from the Unseelie.”
“You’re Unseelie, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Don’t lump me in with those wild-eyed zealots,” she snapped. “I never did find out where the Unseelie got the seed, not that it matters. One of them even saw me take it as I made my escape. Oh, she was so angry,” Klea said in a low whisper. “But then, I think you’re familiar with her, Shar de Misha.”
Tamani closed his eyes, knowing how his friend must be feeling to discover the secret his mother had kept from him – the secret that might have saved so many lives. There was a long pause before Shar responded. “You have a pretty big stack of these vials here. The least you can do is tell me what I’m about to die for. You owe me that.”
“The only thing you’re owed is a bullet in the head.”
“So I should dump these, then,” Shar said. “You’re going to kill me anyway.”
As Shar baited Klea, his voice seemed to blare, filling the room with his careful prompts. Tamani could feel Laurel trying to catch his eye but now was not the time for one of their silent conversations. He forced himself to focus on the phone resting on the palm of his hand and did his best to breathe evenly.
Klea hesitated. “Fine. Don’t think it will spare you. They took me a long time to make and I’d prefer not to waste them, but this is only the final batch. Most of it has already been used.”
“Is this how you make the trolls immune to our poisons?”
“In Avalon, you treat the ill. Here, humans have learned to prevent illnesses before they happen. This is basically the same thing. An inoculation of sorts. So yes, it makes them immune.”
“Immune to faerie magic, you mean. Autumn magic.”
Tamani hadn’t heard the word inoculation before, but its meaning was sickeningly clear. Klea was making an entire horde of trolls immune to Autumn magic. All their troubles over the last few years – the dart that hadn’t worked on Barnes two years ago; Laurel’s serum that had knocked out four trolls in the lighthouse, but not Barnes; the caesafum globe that had no effect on the trolls after the Autumn Hop only a few short months ago; the tracking serums that stopped working. It was all Klea’s doing.
“That upper troll,” Shar said, catching on as quickly as Tamani had.
“Oh, yes. You remember Barnes. He was my guinea pig, way back when. That didn’t pan out so well and he decided to turn on me. But I find it terribly soothing to have a contingency plan or two in place. Don’t you?”
A forced laugh from Shar. “I could do with one of those about now myself.”
“Well said!” Klea chirruped in a tone that made Tamani want to smash the phone. “But we both know you haven’t got one. You’re either stalling because you’re afraid to die – which is dreadfully unbecoming – or you think you’re going to miraculously get this information back to Avalon before I invade, which isn’t going to happen. So if you’d be so kind as to step out here where I can kill you—”
“What do you think you’re going to do?” Shar interrupted, and Tamani forced himself to focus on Shar’s words instead of the terrifying images running through his head of what was about to happen to his best friend. “Torture Laurel until she tells you where the gate is? She won’t. She’s stronger than you think.”
“What the hell do I need Laurel for? I know where the gate is. Yuki plucked that tidbit out of Laurel’s head almost a week ago.”
Startled, Laurel looked up, her eyes pools of shock, but comprehension dawned on her face as Tamani made his own connections. Those headaches. The terrible one after the troll attack – when her mind would have been vulnerable and possibly turned to Avalon. Yuki’s phone call from Klea, the glittering look in her eyes – that must have been Klea’s plan the whole time, her motivation for sending trolls after them that night. And in addition to the smaller ones, Laurel had mentioned another massive headache in front of her locker, the last day of school – had even voiced concerns that Yuki might be the cause. But Tamani had dismissed it because they were about to capture her anyway. No wonder Klea had been so furious when Yuki insisted on staying for the dance – she’d completed her mission. She really had stayed out of misguided affection for Tamani.
Tamani closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe deeply, evenly. Now was not the time to lose control.
“Then I just have one last request.” Tamani’s eyes flew open. There was something in Shar’s voice he didn’t like. An edge.
“Tell Ari and Len I love them,” Shar said, coming through with increased clarity despite the quaver in his voice. “More than anything.”
Icy fear filled Tamani’s chest. “No.” The barely audible plea slipped through Tamani’s lips.
“That’s very sweet, but I’m not running a messaging service, Shar.”
“I know, it’s just . . . ironic.”
“Ironic? I don’t see how.”
An incredible clattering sounded in the background, like a hundred crystal goblets shattering against the floor, and Laurel clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Let’s ask Tamani,” Shar said, and Tamani’s head jerked up at the sound of his own name. “He’s the language expert. Tamani, isn’t this what humans call irony? Because I never expected my last minutes in life would be spent figuring out how to use this damned phone.”
“No!” Tamani yelled. “Shar!” He gripped the phone, helpless. The unmistakable blast of gunfire filled his ears and his stomach lurched as he slumped to his knees. Four shots. Five. Seven. Nine. Then silence as the phone went dead.
“Tam?” Laurel’s voice was barely a whisper, her hands reaching for him.
He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but kneel silently, his hand wrapped around his phone, his eyes begging the screen to light again, for Shar’s name to pop back up on the display, for his biting laugh to sound through the speakers as he tried to convince Tamani that the joke had actually been funny.
But he knew it wasn’t going to happen.
Despite his shaking hands, Tamani managed to slide the phone back into his pocket as he stood. “It’s time,” he said, surprised at how steady his voice sounded. “Let’s go.”
“Go?” Laurel said. She looked as shaky as Tamani felt. “Go where?”
Yes, where? When they were hunting trolls, Shar had lectured him about sticking to his role as Laurel’s Fear-gleidhidh. Should he take Laurel and run away? His head spun as he tried to decide what was right. But the sound of the gunshots – the mental picture of bullets ripping into Shar – it was blocking out everything else.
Tell Ari and Len I love them.
Ariana and Lenore were in Avalon. Those weren’t simply tender last words; they were instructions.
Tamani had received his final orders from Shar.
“To the gate,” he said. “To Jamison. Shar didn’t