Jennet tried not to glance at Tam too often during the drive to her house after school. Something had changed between them. Or at least, she thought it had. Yesterday, after escaping the Hunt, after Tam finally and truly believed her, she had felt so close to him. She had even wanted to kiss him…
Heat crept into her cheeks and she made herself look out the window so he wouldn’t notice. It was just a crush. And no wonder - he was her knight in shining armor. In a virtual sense, anyway. Plus, they were good together. Solid partners in-game. Getting to be friends, out.
She wasn’t getting the same interested vibe from Tam now, though - not like she had yesterday. Which was good. Really it was. Boy-girl stuff would just make things too complicated.
Maybe later, after they had defeated the queen and figured out how to deal with Feyland, she could go thinking about kisses. But right now it was dumb of her to be so aware of Tam sitting quietly beside her in the back seat. Dumb to notice how his leg touched hers when the grav-car took a corner. Dumb to imagine brushing the hair out of his face and getting a good, long look into those guarded green eyes.
“So,” Tam said. She felt him turn to look at her. “What now?”
She hoped her blush had faded. “We finish the game.”
“No. We win the game.”
“Ideally, yes.” She glanced at the front seat, to where George was piloting the grav-car, then raised her eyebrows at Tam in warning. Better they not say too much where he could overhear.
Tam nodded. “So. How’d you do on that surprise quiz in history today?”
They talked about school for the rest of the ride. It wasn’t until they were in the gaming room, with the jammer on, that Jennet felt secure.
“We have the rest of the month to get to Court and defeat the queen,” she said. “It’s going to take three, maybe four game sessions. Provided we succeed at each level, and don’t get in serious trouble.” Like running into the Wild Hunt again.
“Two weeks.” Tam frowned and leaned against one of the gaming chairs. “That’s cutting it close, if what Thomas said is true.”
“And how ‘true’ was your gnawed-on leg, yesterday? Or have you forgotten that part?” Worry circled in her stomach.
“Ok.” He pushed his hair out of his eyes, only to have it fall back down again. “Obviously the game is interfacing with another world. One that can affect our reality, at least a little.”
“More than a little,” she said. “The day I came over to your place and met, um…” She didn’t want to mention his mom, and by the shuttered look on Tam’s face, neither did he. “Anyway, on the way there, two zombed-out guys tried to give me trouble.”
“Hell.” He fisted his hands. “Did you run?”
She tasted her remembered fear. “No, they had me boxed in. But - and this is the weird part - my mage staff appeared.”
“Your staff? As in, a long piece of wood with a crystal on the top?”
“I know. I didn’t believe it either.”
“What did you do, whack them with it?”
“No. I blasted them.”
Tam had a way of drawing his eyebrows slightly together when he was thinking hard. She could just see it behind the scrim of his hair. Abruptly, he straightened. Concentration clear in every line of his body, he held out one hand, fingers curved.
“Are you - ?”
“Shh,” he said, his hand still extended. After another few, silent, moments, he shook his head. “No luck.”
“You were trying to summon your sword?”
“Yeah. Maybe it only works if there’s great need.”
“However it happened, it saved me. I knocked one guy out, and the other one took off. Maybe, like Thomas said, the boundaries between the worlds get thinner around this time of year.”
He let out a low breath. “I’m still trying to get how Thomas - or his spirit, whatever - could be inside the game.”
“He’s not in the game. He’s in the Realm of Faerie, but can interact with us through the game. You read that book I lent you. Faeries are great at enticing humans into their world. And their realm is every bit as real as ours.”
Tam got that thinking look again. “So, Feyland is just an anteroom between our world and the Dark Realm of Faerie?”
“You have to admit, it makes a weird kind of sense.”
He nodded. “Then, after we save you, how do we make sure the door on our side stays locked?”
It was an excellent question.
“Maybe Thomas will have some ideas,” she said. “Because I sure don’t.”
“We’ll figure something out.” He slid into the sim chair. “Come on. We have a game to win.”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
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