She paused for a second, and then rubbed her fingers again.

“No way,” she whispered, almost to herself, half forgetting that Tamani was even in the room.

He started to talk, but she held up one finger and concentrated on the essence that lingered at the tips of her fingers. It had to be. She was amazed she hadn’t figured it out before.

Talk about the answer being right under your nose.

Snatching the petal back out of the bowl, Laurel bounded out of the kitchen and took the stairs two at a time. She pulled her last dish of blue powder forward and forced herself to breathe evenly.

“Is everything all right?” Tamani asked, appearing in her doorway.

“I’m fine,” she said, trying to stop her hands from shaking. She licked her finger and collected a few grains of the blue powder. She rubbed them against the fingers on her other hand. The sensation was almost identical.

“What—”

“The main ingredient of the powder. The one I’ve been looking for. The flowering tree. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner. I even knew it was possible,” she said. “I knew after you kissed me that day, that faeries could be used as ingredients, and I never even considered—”

“Laurel!” Tamani said, placing his hands on her shoulders. “What is it?”

Laurel held up the long, light-blue petal she’d taken from the bowl. “It’s this,” she said, hardly believing the words coming out of her own mouth. “It’s faerie blossom.”

“But . . . Yuki hasn’t blossomed—at least, not since we started hanging out. If she had . . .” Tamani wiggled his fingers, where telltale pollen would have exposed Yuki’s secret. “Unless she’s a Spring or Summer, there’s no way that blossom is hers.”

“I don’t know,” Laurel interjected. “There’s something about this powder. I think—” Laurel forced herself to relax, trying to trust her intuition, no matter how it horrified her. “I think the petals have to be fresh. Not dried or wilted. . . . Tamani, somebody cut these petals off,” she said, the macabre proclamation sending a shiver up her back. Cutting tiny pieces from her own blossom had stung; losing a fourth of it to a troll attack had hurt for days. She couldn’t imagine how badly it would hurt to cut off the entire blossom—but a warding large enough to hide a cabin in the forest would need that many petals.

“Cutting off a blossom would still leave some kind of . . . texture. I felt Yuki’s back very carefully when we were at the autumn dance and there was nothing but skin there. So even if she is the Fall faerie who made this, the blossom couldn’t have come from her.”

Was that hope in his voice? Laurel tried not to think too hard about that. Hadn’t she, at one point, hoped for Yuki’s innocence herself? “But that doesn’t make any sense. Why would she make a hideout for trolls? I thought they were after her!”

Tamani was quiet for a moment. “What do we know about Klea? For sure, I mean.”

“She likes guns,” Laurel said. “And she’s got those stupid sunglasses she never takes off.”

“Why would anyone wear sunglasses all the time?” Tamani asked.

“To hide your eyes . . . ,” Laurel said, realization dawning.

“And you said there would be no way to hide a blossom under the fitted clothing she wears, but—”

“But if she cut it off, she would have nothing to hide.” Klea. A faerie. Laurel’s mind was racing now. Faerie poison had been used to make her dad sick. Faerie blood had been used to lure Laurel’s sentries away last year. And now there were trolls showing up who were immune to faerie magic. There was evidence of faerie intervention thrust deeply into everything that had happened to her over the last two years. The thought made Laurel’s stomach churn. Everything had been so much simpler when she could tell friend from foe just by looking at them. But when your enemy’s face could practically be the one you looked at in the mirror every day . . . ?

“If she’s working with the trolls, why did she kill Barnes?” Tamani asked, talking as much to himself as to her.

“Barnes said he made a deal with a devil,” Laurel said, recalling the troll’s strange words. “That’s exactly how a troll would see working with a faerie. What if he tried to go back on his deal?”

Tamani nodded. “And if for some reason Klea wanted you alive—which she must, because she’s had plenty of opportunity to kill you—”

“She’d have to protect me by finishing him off,” Laurel said, half in shock. “And if she saved my life, maybe I would be more likely to . . . what? Help her with something? Barnes was trying to get to Avalon. What kind of faerie would want to get a bunch of trolls into Avalon?”

“The kind with a grudge,” Tamani said darkly, pulling his iPhone out of his pocket. “I think we need to seriously consider the possibility that Yuki is nothing but a distraction, that there are no troll hunters, and that the trolls have been working for Klea all along.”

“But . . . a distraction from what? What is she after?”

“I don’t know,” said Tamani, putting his phone to his ear. “But I think it’s long past time for us to find out what she’s keeping in that cabin.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

LAUREL KNELT ON THE FLOOR, SCRUBBING OUT THE bottom of her locker with a wet paper towel—something every student had to do before leaving for winter break. Technically she was required to clean it with the can of heavy-duty cleaner, but that stuff wasn’t exactly faerie-friendly. Besides, the teachers didn’t watch very closely. If anything, they were more anxious for winter break than their students.