***Special dedication to all of the victims of the Orlando shooting and EVERYONE who loves them***
"I don't like it," Laurel said softly as Tamani closed and locked the door to their master suite. They'd gotten Rowen settled into a guest room and extracted a very serious promise that she wouldn't so much as think about leaving their house until they'd spoken after a good night's sleep.
"I didn't say yes," Tamani replied, pulling his shirt up and over his head for the sole reason that Laurel preferred him that way. Even when her parents were in residence—which was about half the year, as Laurel couldn't persuade them to fully retire from managing their shops in Crescent City—Tamani usually went shirtless, blaming his photosynthesizing needs for the state of dishabille that was apparently unusual to humans. And technically, he enjoyed it for that reason too; he was a member of the plant kingdom, after all. "But I don't know what else I can say."
"How about no?" Laurel said acerbically, one hand resting on their intricately carved bedpost and the other fisted on her hip.
"And then what? She's a Summer faerie who lives with the woman we unlock Avalon's gate for once a week. I'm shocked she hasn't caught on already. How many more queenless unlockings do you think it would take? Honestly, I don't know which would be worse—if the sentries caught her and Yasmine was forced to impose some kind of punishment to maintain credibility, or if they didn't and Rowen ran off alone to do this thing she clearly thinks is simple enough for a sprout to undertake."
"You think Yasmine would punish her?"
"She might not have much choice. Marion's been pretty quiet lately—it would be nice if I could believe she's settled down—but if she got word of fae slipping out unsupervised, I'm sure she'd put pressure on Yasmine. And I don't know the sentries on the Avalon side anymore, any one of them could be feeding information back to Marion."
Laurel shook her head and Tamani could only mirror the sentiment. The idea that anyone might still be loyal to Marion after all they'd been through was not one she understood. Maybe some things were impossible to understand for those who grew up outside Avalon.
"She wouldn't make it ten miles," Laurel said. "You saw how she reacted to my dad."
"How many fae secrets do you think she'd expose along the way?"
That won Tamani a skeptical look, but he could tell he'd gotten to her. Rowen was leagues past confident—she was arrogant and assured and she thought so little of humans that she'd be utterly unprepared for the first one she faced.
Tamani wadded up his shirt and threw it into the hamper in their closet before leaning down to pull a long knife from his boot and slide it into the sheath hanging from the headboard. It had been years since the last time he skinned anything more threatening than a pear, but as a sentry he knew that the best time to prepare for the worst was before you knew the worst was coming. "Even if she doesn't figure out we're opening the gate for my mother, at this point what are the chances she'll just go back to her dance school and behave?" He didn't turn to face Laurel, but stood with hands on his hips, staring into the darkened room where it seemed at least half his thoughts dwelt these days. "I wouldn't put it past her to stop training, get herself cut from the corps, and then come to us and say, 'Look, now my life here really is destroyed.'"
"She'd have no one but herself to blame," Laurel said without conviction.
"Don't you think she's been punished enough?" he whispered. He blinked back tears as Laurel pressed herself to his back and twined her arms around his chest. Crying—well, almost crying—something else he hadn't done in years. Not until today, when every emotion that ever once felled him had come back for a second go. "Goddess above, she saw Dahlia beheaded."
"It wasn't your fault," Laurel murmured, her cheek pressed against his shoulder.
"Five minutes," he rasped. "If I hadn't had that stupid argument with you about whether or not you should come with me to the Academy—it could have made all the difference."
"Or it could have gotten you killed by the same troll," Laurel replied, always too sensible for her own good. "Remember how helpless we were in Summer? A few minutes' difference and maybe we all would've been dead."
He turned to wrap his arms around her and bury his face in her hair. Every moment he had with her, more than a decade later, was immeasurably precious. As though no amount of time could ever make up for those awful years when he was certain she was lost to him forever.
"I know you feel guilty about your sister," Laurel said, her murmured words a buzz against his skin. "And I know I've told you a thousand times that it wasn't your fault, but I'll tell you again. And again tomorrow, and the next day: it wasn't your fault." She looked up into his eyes. "One of these times, maybe you'll believe it."
Tamani sighed, a deep and lasting sound pulled from his very core.
"Have you texted your mother?"
Tamani groaned and ran his hands through his shoulder-length hair—always green at the roots, these days. Once upon a time he'd grown it single-colored to blend in with the humans, but these days no one who gave him a second look was noticing his hair.
"We should at least let her know Rowen's here. She must be worried sick."
"Rowen's seventeen. Mother won't miss her until morning." He dug into his pocket for his phone. "But you're right—we can head off that concern."
"I'll do it," Laurel said. "I know you hate texting." She took the phone from him and retreated a few steps, thumbs already flying. Tamani hadn't been convinced a phone would even work in Avalon, but when Rhoslyn found out they were going to plant a sprout, she'd insisted on either moving in, or coming to their home weekly to Garden for them. Tamani and Laurel would both have enjoyed hosting Rhoslyn, but Tamani had argued that Rowen would feel abandoned.
He took no pleasure in realizing just how right he'd been. Would even be possible to keep Rhoslyn away, now? How many fae was he going to have to smuggle out of Avalon before this was over?
The solar-charged satellite phone they'd managed to get working in Avalon rarely took calls, but texts generally made it through. Rhoslyn's visits weren't a secret, exactly, but Tamani's key was, and keeping it that way was as much Yasmine's problem as it was his. Even now, Tamani didn't want Rowen to know about it, but he wasn't entirely sure how he was going to keep it from her if she was going to be hanging around on this side of the gate.
While Laurel texted, Tamani stepped through the doorway to the conservatory they'd added on a year ago to nurture their sprout. Its stalk was tall, thick, and healthy, nothing at all like the spindly batch of sprouts Shar had found in Klea's laboratory. Tamani still cringed at the thought of growing scores of seedlings so carelessly, their change of survival minimal.
Of course, Klea had never been after healthy faeries.
"Your mom's probably asleep," Laurel said as she joined him, distracting him from his morbid reflections. "But she should see the message as soon as she wakes up."
"Thank you," Tamani whispered. He always spoke softly in this room—it was hallowed ground, as sacred as the World Tree, as energized as the Winter Palace. With the Academy's Gardener for his mother, Tamani had been raised around sprouts, played and laughed among their planter-boxes. But this sprout—his sprout—was something else entirely.
He stared at the bud that held his growing child and a stab of longing jolted him so hard he lifted one hand to rub at his abdomen. "Rowen was only five when she lost them."
Laurel answered only by lacing her fingers through his.
"She has no idea what it's really like out there. She can't even comprehend the number of humans who live in San Francisco, never mind the whole planet. It's too much."
Laurel stood quietly beside him for a long time.
"Is it possible we owe this to her? Not us personally," he added when Laurel made a noise of protestation. "The natural world. A chance to reclaim some of what was taken from her."
"Maybe," she said, but he heard the skepticism in her tone. "But often what we're owed and what's best for us are very different things."
Tamani smiled. "Yeardley's rubbing off on you."
Laurel smiled, too.
"What if we let her stay?" he asked into the dimness.
Silence. Then, "She's really racist, Tam. Or specist, I guess. She thinks humans are naturally beneath her. All humans. I'm not sure how that ends well."
"Nearly everyone in Avalon thinks that way. Not so very long ago, I thought the same thing."
"That's true."
Tamani admired that there wasn't a smidge of condemnation in her tone. It was simply a fact—he'd once been like Rowen, and he'd learned and changed.
"But allowing her to think herself superior and then rewarding her with a chance to prove it seems ... backward."
Her fingers squeezed his tightly, and he suspected she had no idea. "Maybe being among them would help her see them as equals. That's what it took for me. And Avalon can always use more faeries who appreciate humans."
"So send her to the Manor."
"You know they only train spies and sentries over there. And she wouldn't have a goal, like I did. I think ... I think maybe she just wants to dance somewhere that isn't a constant reminder of everything she's lost."
Laurel was quiet again—processing. "Is she good enough to compete here? San Francisco is hardcore."
"Beats the hell out of me. I don't speak ballet."
"Don't curse in front of the sprout," she said, jabbing him with an elbow.
"It can't hear."
"Can't it? Then how does it bloom already talking?"
Tamani opened his mouth to retort, then realized he couldn't refute her logic. "Sorry," he said instead. He considered the training and preparation it would take to get Rowen through an audition in San Francisco. And that was without even considering her dancing, which he knew almost nothing about.
Laurel curled a hand around his arm and snuggled closer to his side. "If it's what she really wants, maybe you're right that she'll find some way to do it anyway. At least with your supervision it would be on our terms. Surely she couldn't do too much harm, with a warden keeping an eye on her."
Tamani shook his head and reached out to swirl a lock of her hair around his finger. Warden was the English word for Tamani's lifelong assignment to keep watch over Laurel, whose human identity protected the land surrounding the gate to Avalon. "Am I convincing you, or are you convincing me?"
Laurel raised one eyebrow in a semi-scold and made a sound that he couldn't even begin to interpret.
But he could laugh.
"You know," Laurel said, when they turned and Tamani began prodding her toward their bed. "Now that I think about it, a Summer faerie would have an easier time passing as human than any other kind."
"Mmm, totally," Tamani said, his mouth brushing the soft skin at her neck.
"No, seriously. Anything weird about her appearance, she could just cover up with an illusion."
Her voice was breathy, but not enough for Tamani. She shrieked when he lifted her to sit on their tall bed but kept saying something about illusions, so he pulled her strap off her shoulder and began kissing his way down her arm.
"Mmm," Laurel said, as his hands found the bottom of her tank top. "I mean, think about the food. She could eat her favorites and just make them look like burgers and fries."
She gasped when Tamani leapt up beside her and straddled her thighs, lifting her face to his.
"Tam! Are you listening?"
"Every word," he growled, his hand traveling to the bottom of her skirt.
"You're not," she said, laughing.
"Then you'll have to tell me again tomorrow," he said before cutting off whatever she was going to say with his mouth over hers. He held her body tight against him, kissing her with the same fervor he felt every time he held her. Like she was sunlight and air, and he simply couldn't survive without her.
She kissed him back eagerly for long minutes before he pulled away to divest them both of a few more articles of clothing. "We are going to talk about this tomorrow," she insisted with a grin as he tossed her sandal to the floor and ran a finger up the ticklish underside of her foot.
"Absolutely," he replied soberly. "And whatever we decided to do, we'll do it together."
"Like everything else," she whispered.
"I love you."
"I love you more."
"Impossible."
"Forever."