She hadn’t been here since Tamani had brought her almost a year and a half ago. She’d contemplated a visit this past summer, back when she didn’t know where Tamani was or whether she’d see him again, but the memory of that day had been too painful to face. Now she bowed her head reverently as the power of the tree washed over her.

The time had come to ask her question.

Tamani had told her the tree was made of faeries – the Silent Ones. His own father had joined them not long ago. Their combined wisdom was available to any faerie with the patience to receive it, but getting an answer from the tree could take hours, even days, depending on the questioner. She didn’t have that kind of time.

She thought back to when Tamani had kissed her after biting into his tongue – the sensations that overwhelmed her, the ideas that had flooded her consciousness. It hadn’t worked the way she’d hoped, and instead of figuring out how to test Yuki’s powers, Laurel had learned Klea’s secret: that potions could be made from faeries the same as any other plant. But Yeardley had taught her that she could do more than merely bend components to her will. That she could unlock their potential if she could feel their core.

Picturing Tamani in her mind, the black lines snaking out from his wound, the look on his face that told her he had resigned himself to death, Laurel steeled herself against the sacrilege she was about to commit. She walked up to the trunk of the tree and placed her hand on the rough bark, feeling the current of life that surged through the tree.

“This is gonna hurt me a lot more than it’s gonna hurt you,” she muttered under her breath. Then after a moment she added, “I’m sorry.” She raised her knife and hacked at the trunk of the ancient, gnarled tree until a bit of green wick showed through. Even as she looked at the beads of sap beginning to ooze from the wounded trunk, Laurel knew it wasn’t enough. You give, I give, she thought. Placing the knife’s edge to her open palm, she gritted her teeth as she sliced her own skin.

Laurel pressed her self-inflicted wound to the exposed green treeflesh.

It was like stepping beneath an avalanche of voices, every second a thousand hailstones of whispered knowledge bouncing sharply off her head, drumming on her shoulders, threatening to carry her into the abyss and bury her alive. She staggered beneath the weight of the assault, refusing to be swept away.

Forcing herself to submit her consciousness to the tree, the avalanche became a waterfall, and then a torrent, and then a part of her, running gently through her mind, rifling through her life and her memories. She almost pulled away at the intrusion, but tried to breathe evenly and focus on what she needed to know.

She pictured Tamani, relived the scene that had led to his poisoning. She recalled Klea’s explanation and the impossible choice she had put before Laurel. Into the flow of thought she released Klea’s final threat – that the toxin would destroy all of Avalon, the World Tree included.

Again the river of life became a storm of souls, but this time Laurel was standing in the calm, enveloped in the silence. Warmth spread up her arms and filled her from head to toe.

And then, the tree spoke. Laurel felt, rather than heard, a single voice cut through the numberless, formless silence.

If you can think like the Huntress, you can do as she has done.

What does that mean? Laurel pleaded, even as she committed the words to memory. But the warmth was already receding from her head, gathering in her chest, slipping down her arms.

“No!” Laurel yelled, her voice sounding sharp in the silence. “I don’t know what that means! Please help. I have no one else to turn to!”

The strange presence was draining from her hands and the roar of life beneath her fingers was picking up again, softer now that it wasn’t inside her head. As her fingertips tingled and grew cold, there was a final pulse from the storm, and one almost-familiar whisper somehow made itself heard above the others.

Save my son.

Then the warmth was gone. The whispers were gone.

“No. No, no, no!” Laurel pressed her hand harder against the tree, pain shooting across her palm, but she knew it was pointless. The World Tree had spoken.

Laurel dropped to her knees, scraping them against the rough bark of the tree’s sprawling roots and let the tears come. She had gambled everything, and she had lost. The World Tree – her one last hope – had not worked. Avalon was going to die. Whether from Klea’s toxin or under her rule, it scarcely mattered.

If only Laurel had taken more interest in the viridefaeco potion! One of her classmates had been working on it obsessively for years; why hadn’t Laurel studied with her? She didn’t know where to start now! Couldn’t even remember that faerie’s name.

Klea knew. It was maddening to have the knowledge so close, and yet completely inaccessible. Another dead end. How could she possibly think like Klea? The very idea was revolting; Klea was a murderer. A manipulator. A malicious, sneaky, poisonous . . .

Poisonous. The word drifted through Laurel’s head as her tears traced lines down her face.

It’s only by becoming familiar with poisons that you can make the best antidotes. Klea’s words less than an hour before.

But that was a dead end; Mara, the Academy’s expert on poisons, had been forbidden from studying them further. And what could she teach Laurel in such a short time, even if she would?

Laurel leaned against the World Tree, wondering if there was any point in returning to Klea. To watch Tamani die? She wanted nothing more than to hold him in her arms right now, even if it was for the last time. She wasn’t sure it mattered if the toxin infected her. Was her life worth living without Tamani? Was the risk worth one last kiss? One final embrace? Of course, then she would die alone, poisoned and untouchable. But—