"And one, and two, and jump, and yes, very good. Higher, leaps, Rowen."
Rowen forced herself not to grind her teeth as her instructor corrected her once again. She didn't get noticeably more—or less—attention than anyone else in the corps, but often it seemed she was only called out for critique, and every five minutes at that. Her whole body ached from hours of practice and by the time the shadow of the sundial marked the end, she was ready.
The instructor clapped her hands and gave a few more pointers—none directed specifically at Rowen, this time—before setting them free. Any other day they would only have a short midday break, with sessions to resume in the afternoon, but today classes were cancelled for the ceremony.
Rowen groaned as she loosened the ribbons of her toe shoes and slid them off. She reached into her rucksack for a small pot of the Academy's healing and numbing salve and began rubbing it into her cracked, callused feet. The relief was almost instantaneous, but the massage still felt good. She needed to soak them in a bowl of fertilized water when she got home. Hopefully there'd be enough time. A few of the other dancers bade her farewell when they passed by on their way out of the studio, but Rowen scarcely heard them as she stuffed her shoes and shrugged on the straps of her pack.
Today was the day. She wished she were less nervous.
Opting to carry her sandals rather than wear them, Rowen headed out into the bright summer sunshine on tender bare feet. Her petals had finally fallen out last week, thank the goddess. As a Summer faerie she might have rendered them invisible, but her blossom was enormous and an illusion would only keep others from seeing it. Not feeling it. In the way was the least of what her huge petals would be. Besides, who wanted to spend all day concentrating on keeping their blossom out of sight? The timing was perfect and Rowen couldn't help but think of that as an omen.
The dance studio was in Summer, and despite the slow blending of the seasonal neighborhoods under the new Queen's reign, Rowen's grandmother, Rhoslyn, still lived in her big tree in Spring. So Rowen made the trek up the hill to Summer every day; at least when she was weary and spent she got to go downhill.
Grandmother. One of Tamani's words, borrowed from the humans, given to Rowen to ease her loneliness. Uncle Tamani—another human word. After the trolls had taken her parents, Tamani had given her the words so that she could claim her remaining family by names that marked them as hers. As far as she knew, she was the only faerie who used the human terms, but Tamani had been right—it did help her feel as though she had a place. She had a grandmother and an uncle; and she was a niece, and a granddaughter. It brought her a modicum of peace.
Many of the dancers streaming out of the large studio dispersed immediately to their homes in Summer, but others lined the path down the hill like ants, heading toward Spring. Almost half of the advanced corps were Spring faeries, now. There was even one Mixer who had opted out of her studies at the Academy and continued to pass all of her auditions to qualify as a full-time dancer. There were still many things only a Sparkler like Rowen could do—the Queen's putting an end to compulsory caste employment hadn't changed anyone's natural abilities—but no one was born with the ability to dance. Or, more importantly, the inability.
What surprised many of the Summer faeries, Rowen included, was how quickly some Spring faeries were able to match the skill of the Summer fae who had started training as soon as they were stable on their spindly sprout legs. Two years ago—the same year Rowen made it into the elite corps—the first Spring faerie had also passed. And last year the unimaginable became reality; three Summer faeries had been cut and replaced by Spring faeries. Most Sparklers accepted this as a challenge, a reason to work harder. But Rowen was already working her feet to their stems, trying and mostly failing to preserve the specialness of her personal life that had been slowly leeched away by circumstance. She put in more extra practice hours at open studio than any other elite dancer she knew. She wasn't at the bottom of the corps or anything, but she'd be blighted if she was ever going to let her status as a Summer faerie be torn away from her. Ever. Rowen would do anything—anything—to continue dancing.
At the edge of Spring Rowen caught sight of Lenore, standing in front of a memorial for all the faeries who fell in the war, and ran the last hundred yards to join her. "Hey," Rowen said softly as she approached. Her friend wore a conflicted, lonely expression—one so few people seemed to understand. One Rowen spent a lot of time trying to keep from her own face. It was one of the reasons Len and Rowen were so close—practically sisters. "What's wrong?"
Len looked up, forcing a smile and shaking her head. But Rowen just waited until Len gave a one-shouldered shrug and said, "Tamani's at your house."
"Oh." Rowen was torn, wanting to go to him, wanting to stay and comfort Len.
"I snuck away. I didn't want to see him."
It wasn't that Len didn't like Tamani, in general, but he represented everything Len had lost. Her father, Shar, had been killed by the renegade faerie who started the war. Tamani had done his best to graft himself into Shar's place—and in her more intimate conversations with Rowen, Lenore confessed he'd done a pretty good job—but the main reason he was such a big part of her and her mother's lives was simply that Shar was dead. Rowen's own situation was sufficiently similar that she could empathize. Her uncle seemed, at times, to blame himself for all the damage the trolls had done. And to attempt to atone.
Lenore stared a little too intently up at the rows upon rows of names inscribed in the marble monument. "I don't think I can go to the ceremony today," she whispered.
"It's for your father."
Lenore scoffed.
"Not specifically, obviously. But it's for all of them." Rowen gestured at the rows of stone slab. She knew right where Shar's was—fourth column over, about a third of the way down. One name among hundreds and hundreds, despite the pivotal role he'd played.
"Not really." Lenore's voice was steady enough, but Rowen could tell she was holding back tears. "It's for David. And Laurel. And Tamani. Oh, and all the other honorable mentions."
Rowen closed the distance between them and slipped her arm around Lenore's shoulders, bringing their faces close together. "I know they don't understand," she whispered. "I wish they did. Tamani wishes they did." Much of Shar's role in Jamison's scheme to bring an end to the caste system was still secret, and the parts that weren't were poorly understood by the average citizen of Avalon. Aside from the guardians on the human side of the gates, most fae had never even seen a human until the battle with Klea. They would never understand how close Avalon would have been to total annihilation without Shar. Tamani grew visibly uncomfortable in the glow of honor and adoration often beamed his way, knowing how much of it should have belonged to a faerie whose name almost no one in Avalon would have recognized.
Lenore's father.
"All David did was be human," Lenore said. "For one day."
Rowen didn't say how much of an oversimplification that was. How David's choices, not his humanity, set the tone for what happened after he left. They both knew it. Lenore was the one who listened to Rowen's irrational dissatisfaction with their new world, and today Rowen returned the favor with her silence.
"I should take my dark cloud off somewhere so I don't spoil everyone else's sunshine," Lenore said after a few more minutes of silence. She finally turned to meet Rowen's eyes for the first time, and Rowen didn't hide her own emotions. It was an exchange that required no words, and meant more than hours of conversation. "Will you tell him not to come looking for me?" Lenore asked, one tear escaping, only to be swiftly rubbed away.
"I will," Rowen said, her own voice shaky. This was the moment to say goodbye—if her plan worked, Rowen had no idea when she'd see Lenore again—but in this moment she couldn't bring herself to add to her friend's pain. A note would have to do.
Lenore turned and headed toward the forest surrounding the hill where the World Tree loomed.
Rowen turned and headed for her house, feeling every minute of hard work from the studio that morning. The conversation with Lenore had unearthed her own feelings about having lost her parents. That was appropriate; it was a day of mourning as well as a day of celebration, after all. Still, Tamani was here—and Laurel, she assumed. Of course, they would have other things on their minds. Just like everyone else in Rowen's life.
Rowen opened the front door to a wall of sound, a cacophony of voices coming from the great room. She dumped her bag at the foot of the narrow staircase that led up to her bedroom and peeked her head around the corner.
"There you are, Row, come in, come in!" Her grandmother beckoned warmly and Rowen grinned as Tamani crushed her against his chest in his usual ebullient fashion. Laurel gathered her in more gently—but when Laurel released her, Rowen caught sight of their third guest and couldn't stifle a gasp. The woman was middle-aged, sixty or seventy at least—but no, that wasn't right. Humans aged more quickly, and this was definitely a human.
The woman jumped to her feet, clasping her hands in front of her. "Oh my goodness! Rowen! You were practically a baby last time I was here. You've grown like a weed!"
Rowen's mouth fell open and the cheerful buzz around her fell into silence.
Laurel cleared her throat. "Um, it's perhaps best not to refer to a member of the plant kingdom as a weed."
The woman clapped her hands over her mouth, her eyes widening as the strangest thing happened to her neck and cheeks—they changed color in an instant, from pale peach to cherry red. Rowen took a step back, uncertain of what behavior to expect to follow the animal's display.
"Rowen," Laurel said, catching her by the arm. "This is Chelsea. I don't know if you remember her. You'd have met her very, very briefly, when Tamani brought her to Spring to gather all the fae."
"There's something wrong with her face," Rowen whispered frantically, trying to put more distance between herself and the human, even while not wanting to be rude to Laurel, who wore a concerned expression.
Laurel kept her tight hold on Rowen's arm, but looked back at Chelsea in confusion. "Oh!" she said, then grinned. "She's never seen anyone blush before," she said to the woman.
Then woman let out a hollow laugh. "And I imagine I'm doing even more of it now," she said, pointing at her own face which was, indeed, reddening again.
"Blushing is how humans show embarrassment," Laurel said to Rowen, clearly trying not to smile. "It not harmful. And she'll probably do it again. Chelsea's skin is quite prone to flushing."
Rowen continued to eye the woman warily, but stopped trying to get away. Hopefully, she wouldn't put a thorn in Rowen's plans.
Tamani made a choking sound; when everyone in the room turned to look at him he burst into peals of laughter.
No one joined him.
"Sorry," he said as soon as he had himself back under control. "It's so easy to forget how much I had to learn." He slung an arm around Rowen, which always made her feel a little safer in spite of everything, then pulled one of his incomprehensible human devices out of a pocket. "Not too much longer until the ceremony. You said you wanted to take Chelsea by the Academy, Laurel?" At Laurel's nod he looked toward his mother and said, soberly, "I'm going to Ariana's. It's been too long since I saw them."
Rowen felt a stab of guilt, remembering Lenore. She hated knowing what Tamani's eyes would look like when she told him, but she'd promised Lenore and today, of all days, she couldn't break her word.
Goodbyes were murmured all around and Rowen stepped up onto the first stair to let everyone pass by her in the front entryway. Tamani held the door for Laurel and Chelsea, but before he could leave, Rowen grabbed his sleeve. "Lenore isn't home," she said quietly.
"Pardon?"
"Lenore isn't home." Rowen repeated, then lowered her lashes so she wouldn't have to meet his eyes. "She doesn't want to be home today."
She felt Tamani's shoulder tighten under her fingers. "Not even for me?" he said, his voice a scratchy whisper.
"Maybe especially for you," she said, hating the unfairness of it, but needing to do her duty toward her best friend. She chanced a peek at his face and was unsurprised to see his jaw clenched and sadness deep as the ocean in his eyes.
"It's hard for me too," he whispered, but this time Rowen suspected it was as loud as his emotions would allow him to speak.
"It doesn't have to make sense."
At that his shoulders relaxed and he swallowed visibly, then nodded. "You're right. The point is to help her—not me."
"I'm sorry," Rowen blurted, feeling the need to say something, even something so trite, so inadequate.
Her uncle reached a hand up and squeezed her arm. "We all paid a price for Avalon that day—but some paid a far greater price than others, and got less for their sacrifice. You know that better than most. And Lenore has been paying longer than others—even when she had him, her father was so often absent. He hated leaving them." Tamani's eyes were fixed on another time, another place, and it was several long seconds of silence before he came back. "When you judge it to be helpful, please tell her I send my love."
Rowen, tears gathering in her eyes for these wonderful people whocouldn't seem to help each other in their shared grief, simply nodded. As shewalked upstairs she considered what Tamani had said about sacrifice and hopedhe would remember his own words later, when he was angry with her.