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  “Oh, Tam,” Laurel breathed, her hands gripping his shoulder.

  “It was his last request,” Tamani said, one silent tear tracing down his face for an instant before he broke her gaze and rubbed it away with his sleeve.

  Laurel wanted to wrap her arms round him, to offer her shoulder for him to cry on, to soothe away those terrible lines on his forehead, but she didn’t know where to begin. “Tamani, what’s going on?”

  Tamani swallowed, then shook his head. “I’ll get you back to California – you’ll see. You, and Chelsea, and David.”

  “But—”

  “But I’m not coming with you.”

  “You – you have to,” Laurel said, but Tamani was shaking his head.

  “I’ll tell Jamison I can’t keep my life vow. He’ll help me, somehow. I’ll get you the best protector in Avalon, I promise, but . . . it’s not me anymore.”

  “I don’t want another protector,” Laurel said, her chest feeling hollow, panicked.

  “You don’t understand,” Tamani said, not looking at her. “It’s not about us; I can’t be your Fear-gleidhidh . . . effectively. In hindsight, I should probably never even have tried; if I was doing my job right, none of this would have happened. When I – when I thought you were dead, I went crazy. I honestly didn’t know myself. I was afraid of who I had become. I can’t live always knowing that I could lose you at any moment; that I could feel that way again.” He hesitated. “It’s too hard.”

  “No, no, Tam,” she said, smoothing his hair, caressing his cheek. “You can’t, not now, not—”

  “I’m not as good as you think I am, Laurel,” he protested, desperation filling his voice. “I don’t trust myself to protect you anymore.”

  “Then find someone else to fill that role if you have to,” she said, jaw clenched, “but don’t you leave me!” She scooted closer and took his face in her hands, waited while he built up the courage to raise his eyelids and look at her. “Wherever we’re going today, I want you with me, and I never want you to leave my side again.” His ragged breath touched on her face now, her body pulled right against his chest, feeling his essence pull on her like a magnet. “I don’t care if you guard and protect me – all I care is that you love me. I want you to kiss me good night before I go to sleep and bid me good morning the moment I wake up. And not just today; tomorrow and the next day and every day for the rest of my life. Will you come with me, Tamani? Be with me?”

  Laurel lifted his chin until their faces were even. Tamani closed his eyes and she could feel his jaw trembling under her hands. She brushed her lips over his, revelling in the velvety softness of his mouth against hers. When he didn’t pull away, she pressed more firmly, knowing, somehow, that she had to move slowly, convince his tattered soul so carefully that she meant every word.

  “I love you. And I’m asking you . . .” She opened her mouth slightly and gently scraped her teeth along his bottom lip, feeling his whole body shudder. “No,” she amended, “I’m begging you, to come be with me.” And she pressed her mouth against his and murmured against his lips. “Forever.”

  For a few seconds he didn’t respond.

  Then a groan escaped his throat and he thrust his fingers into her hair, pulling her mouth back to his with a fierce hunger.

  “Kiss me,” she whispered. “And don’t stop.”

  His mouth enveloped hers again and their shared sweetness tasted like ambrosia as he caressed her eyelids, her ears, her neck, and Laurel marvelled at the strangeness of the world. She loved him, had always loved him. She had even known it, somehow.

  “Are you sure?” Tamani murmured, his lips softly grazing her ears.

  “I am so sure,” Laurel said, her hands clutching at the front of his shirt.

  “What changed?” He pushed her hair away from her face, his fingers lingering on her temples, just brushing her eyelashes.

  Laurel sobered. “When I brought you the potion, I thought I was too late. And I had just taken it myself. And all I wanted right at that moment was to take my own cure away. To die with you.”

  Tamani pressed his forehead against hers and lifted one hand to stroke her cheek.

  “I’ve loved you for a long time,” she said. “But there was always something holding me back. Maybe it was that I was afraid of an emotion that was so consuming. It still frightens me,” she admitted in a whisper.

  Tamani chuckled. “If it makes you feel any better, it scares the daylights out of me on a regular basis.” He rained kisses on her again, his fingers pressed against her back and her waist, and Laurel realised his chest was shaking convulsively.

  “What?” she asked pulling away. “What’s wrong?”

  But he wasn’t sobbing – he was laughing! “The World Tree,” he said. “It was right all along.”

  “When you got your answer?”

  He nodded.

  “You said you would tell me someday what it said. Will you now?”

  “Commit.”

  “What?”

  “The tree just said, Commit.” He ran his hand through his hair, smiling a little.

  “I don’t understand,” Laurel said.

  “Neither did I. I was already your Fear-gleidhidh; I’d committed my life to protecting you. When the tree told me that, I figured you were as good as mine. Easy.”

  “And then I told you to leave,” Laurel whispered, sorrow at the memory settling deep within her.

  “I understand why you did,” Tamani said, threading his fingers through hers. “And it was probably best for both of us in the long run. But it hurt.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I was listening to the tree, and to my own selfish desires, when I should have been listening to you. I think I know what the tree really meant now,” he said, his voice rumbling against her ear. “I needed to commit my life to you – not to guiding you or protecting you, just to you, completely, in my core. I needed to stop worrying about whether you would ever do the same for me. In a way, I think that’s what coming to the human world did, and why I wasn’t sure I could bear to go back.” He traced his finger down her face. “I was committed to an idea before – to the love I felt for you. But not to you. And I think you sensed that change or you’d have rejected me.”

  “Maybe,” Laurel said, although at this moment she couldn’t fathom rejecting him for any reason.

  His fingers found her chin, lifting it so he could look her in the eyes. “Thank you,” he said softly.

  “No,” she said, running one finger across his bottom lip, “thank you.” Then she pulled his face down, their lips meeting, melting together again. She wished they could stay there all day, all year, all eternity, but reality came creeping slowly back in.

  “You still haven’t told me what you’re up to,” she said at last.

  “One more minute,” Tamani said, smiling against her lips.

  “We don’t need minutes,” Laurel said. “We have forever.”

  Tamani pulled back to look at her, his eyes shining with wonder. “Forever,” he whispered, before pulling her in for another long kiss.

  “So, does this make us entwined?” Laurel asked, a sharp twinge of grief piercing her happiness as she repeated the word Katya had used, so long ago, to describe committed faerie couples.

  “I believe it does,” Tamani said, beaming. He leaned closer, his nose touching hers. “A sentry and a Mixer? We shall be quite the scandal.”

  Laurel smiled. “I love a good scandal.”

  “I love you,” Tamani whispered.

  “I love you, too,” Laurel replied, relishing the words as she said them. And with them, the world was new and bright – there was hope. There were dreams.

  But most of all, there was Tamani.

  Not since Samhain had Laurel seen so many faeries gathered into one place. While she had occupied herself with Tamani, they had crowded their way into the Gate Garden, lined its battlements, clustered around the entrances, and spilled back out into the trees where the troll
s had breached the walls. Most wore the plain, practical garb of Spring faeries, but flashy Summers and even a few Autumns were interspersed through the crowd. In fact, the only group Laurel didn’t see represented in the crowd were the ceremonially garbed sentries whose job it would probably have been to clear the Garden of the rabble. With sadness she wondered if any of the Garden sentries had survived.

  David had not moved from where she’d left him; he rose to his feet as Laurel and Tamani approached and Laurel tried not to see the sadness in his eyes. She couldn’t protect him from that, and it bothered her deeply that she’d inflicted a wound she couldn’t cure. But at least by realising that the time had come to let him go, she wouldn’t make his pain any worse.

  “She should be here by now,” Tamani said softly.

  “Who?”

  “Chelsea – ah! There we go.”

  Laurel turned to see Chelsea coming up the pathway with more Spring and Summer faeries in tow.

  “Tamani,” Laurel asked, feeling a nervous bubble of laughter building up in the back of her throat. “Seriously, you have to tell me! What did you do?”

  “I had Chelsea tell the Ticers and Sparklers that Marion was about to either trap their hero in Avalon forever or execute Jamison, and that they should come . . . Uh . . . watch.”

  “You didn’t!” Laurel cried, delighted.

  “Believe me,” Tamani said ruefully, “what’s about to happen should be witnessed by as many fae as possible.”

  As Chelsea reached them Tamani pulled her close, planting a fond kiss atop her head. “Thank you. And not just for this,” Tamani said, his gesture taking in the crowd round them. “For everything.”

  Chelsea beamed as Laurel turned and beckoned to David. Together, the four of them passed through the destroyed Garden doors; the crowd parted to admit them with smiles and words of thanks, a few adding in a warning whisper that the Winter faeries were waiting at the gateways.

  As they traversed the crowded enclosure, with its rich earth paths and enormous moss-covered trees, Laurel marvelled at just how little it all had changed in spite of yesterday’s battles. The grass was trampled and several of the trees looked like they’d been caught in a nasty hailstorm, but the bodies had been cleared away, the weapons disposed of. Avalon had suffered a serious wound, but like Tamani, it was already healing.

  As Laurel had suspected, all three of Avalon’s Winter faeries were waiting on a marble bench near the gateways, surrounded by a passel of Am Fear-faire – Queen Marion unable to relinquish her tight-fisted control. Remembering her conversation with Jamison Laurel smiled inwardly. It would take time yet, but Laurel looked forward to the inevitable day when she and Yasmine – well, all of Avalon, really – would wrench that control away from her.

  All around them clustered many Springs and Summers, some swathed in bandages or exhibiting cuts and scrapes from the previous day’s battles – and even here, a few Mixers were plying their trade, treating the wounded who were in need of care but who had presumably refused to miss the spectacle anyway. A murmur of conversation that was both excited and angry buzzed through the Gate Garden and electrified the air.

  In the centre of it all glittered the four-sided gates of gold, their tiny flowers twinkling warmly in the morning light.

  “We’re leaving,” Tamani said to Jamison, not even acknowledging his Queen’s presence.

  “I don’t think so,” Marion said, rising to her feet. “I have already made my decree – if Jamison or Yasmine open that gate, it will be an act of treason punishable by death.”

  The milling faeries breathed a collective gasp.

  “You’ve gathered quite a crowd,” Marion added. “Did you think to intimidate me with their presence?”

  “Not at all,” Tamani said. His tone was casual, but Laurel could feel that his body was tense. “I wanted them all to hear for themselves the words of their Queen on this matter.”

  “I am not accustomed to making appearances for your amusement.” Marion scowled. “Gate guards, do your duty. Clear the Garden; this audience is at an end.”

  From somewhere in the crowd, the gate guard’s captain emerged with four other sentries. They looked like they’d crawled through hell on their bellies; they were still in the armour they’d been wearing yesterday and blood caked their hands. Laurel realised it was they who had cleared the fallen trolls – and their fallen friends – from the Garden. They must have been at it all night.

  “I apologise, Your Grace,” said the captain, her voice gravelly. “We are too few.”

  Marion’s eyes were wide with shock. For a moment Laurel wondered whether the Queen could actually be ignorant of the number of sentries who had died protecting the gates.

  “You will do as I command or I will strip you of your duties,” she said at last, and Laurel realised that what had actually surprised her was that someone had told her no.

  With a bow, the gate captain drew a gleaming, long-handled sword from the scabbard at her waist. The sentries behind her did the same, and for a moment Laurel feared they were going to turn their weapons against the gathered audience. She felt her fingers digging into Tamani’s arm; she didn’t think she could handle another day of fighting.

  The captain held up her sword, crossed in front of Laurel’s face and met Tamani’s eyes – steely glare for steely glare.

  Then she threw her sword on to the ground and stretched out her arm, beckoning for them to pass. The rest of the sentries stepped back into a short line and dropped their weapons as well.

  Marion was too angry to speak, but it hardly mattered; anything she might have said would have been drowned out by the cacophonous cheering of the crowd. When at last she found her tongue, she addressed Jamison and Yasmine.

  “Stop them,” she said. “I command you. Take them into custody.”

  “No,” Yasmine said, rising to her feet.

  “Excuse me?” Marion said, turning to face the young faerie whose head barely reached her shoulder.

  Yasmine raised one eyebrow and stepped up on to the stone bench so her eyes were even with the Queen’s. “I said no,” Yasmine repeated, but loud enough that the legions of ‘lower’ fae who had gathered could hear her. “If you want them stopped, you will have to do it yourself – and somehow, I don’t think that will win you any supporters here today.”

  “Tam,” Jamison said, stepping forwards. “Let me do you this final kindness. I don’t mind dying, not for someone as noble as any one of you, much less all four.”

  “No,” Tamani said firmly. “You’ve done enough. More than enough.” He raised his voice and addressed the entire crowd. “There has been far too much death here in Avalon already. No one else is dying for me.” He glared at Marion. “Not today.”

  “You are preserving Jamison’s life in exchange for your freedom?” Marion said, but she sounded suspicious.

  Before Jamison could respond, Tamani bent at the waist in front of the elderly Winter faerie. “I think it’s time I fully take up my role as Laurel’s Fear-gleidhidh and resign my station at the gate and as a sentry.”

  Jamison nodded, but he was eyeing Tamani warily.

  Tamani returned Jamison’s probing gaze for several seconds before gathering the old faerie up in his arms. “I know this is likely goodbye,” Tamani said. “So thank you, for everything.”

  Chelsea was still holding on to David’s arm on one side and Laurel’s on the other, but Laurel pulled away to step forwards and wrap her arms around Jamison too, beginning to believe she really might never see him again – whatever trick Tamani had up his sleeve, he seemed pretty sure of himself. She tried to speak, but words wouldn’t come. It didn’t matter. Jamison understood.

  “As for you,” Tamani said, looking up at Marion, who stood with venom in her eyes, “I suspect your days as Queen are numbered.”

  Marion opened her mouth, but Tamani spun away, leading Laurel, David, and Chelsea to the gate.

  “I wasn’t finished,” Marion said shrilly, her tight co
ntrol broken.

  “Oh, yes, you are,” Tamani said without turning round.

  They had taken three steps when they heard Marion’s growl of rage and Laurel turned to see enormous branches flying at them like deadly spears.

  “Tam!” Laurel yelled, and he threw his arms over both her and Chelsea as they ducked to the ground.

  Dull thuds sounded all around Laurel, and after a few seconds she raised her head. Every gate sentry had raised their shield and stepped in front of the limbs, bearing the brunt of the attack. If it was possible, the cheering from the crowd roared even louder as Tamani stood tall, glaring at Marion, her hands still raised, ready to command nature.

  After a moment her hands fell to her sides.

  But they hadn’t won yet.

  “Can you really get us through without help?” Chelsea asked when they reached the ornate golden gate and eyed the blackness within.

  Tamani nodded. “I believe so.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” David asked.

  Tamani unflinchingly met David’s eyes. “I wanted to see you refuse to destroy the gates – knowing what it would cost you.”

  David swallowed. “Did you doubt me?”

  Tamani shook his head. “Not for a second. Gather round,” he said quietly. “I don’t want anyone else to see this part.”

  Laurel, David, and Chelsea made a semicircle around Tamani, who closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a heavy golden key, studded with minuscule diamonds like those at the centre of the flowers adorning the gates. As he extended it towards the glittering golden bars that stood between them and California, the latch shimmered and shifted like a mirage.

  And where there had never been a keyhole before, one appeared.

  Laurel watched in wonder as Tamani inserted the key and turned it. With hands that were visibly shaking, he pulled on the golden gate.

  It swung open and the entire population of the Garden gasped as one.

  “Where did you get that?” Laurel breathed.

  “Yuki made it for me,” Tamani said simply, pocketing it again and holding the gate open for them all. “Come on. Let’s go home.”