Laurel heard a shout and the clatter of footfalls, and she and Jamison both turned towards the noise.

“I will not wait!” The Queen’s voice sounded clearly above the arguments of her Am Fear-faire as she made her way down the path, Yasmine following more serenely a short distance behind.

Jamison’s hands stiffened beneath Laurel’s at seeing his monarch approach, but a small smile touched his lips when Yasmine caught sight of him and broke into a run.

“Wait!” All eyes turned away from the Queen and her entourage as Chelsea and Fiona burst through the trees in a scatter of leaves.

“Don’t. Touch. Anything,” Fiona said, gasping for breath, her arms cradling a large glass vial.

“Thank goodness!” Chelsea said, stepping round Fiona to sweep Laurel and Jamison into an exuberant embrace. “Doesn’t that Queen listen to anyone?” Chelsea whispered and Jamison chuckled silently. “We saw them coming down the path just as we were finishing up another batch of the potion and we ran as fast as we could.”

“At least the sentries were able to keep her back this long,” Laurel said, one eyebrow raised.

“Wait, Yasmine, please!” Fiona called, trying to stop the young Winter faerie from approaching Jamison.

“It’s OK,” Laurel said. “Jamison’s clean.”

Reluctantly, Fiona let her pass.

Queen Marion stopped at the edge of David’s trench and glowered, her hands crossed over her chest. Laurel ignored her stormy countenance and took Chelsea’s hand, pulling her friend over the shallow trench, leading her to where David knelt, hand clenched around Excalibur, beside Tamani, who had managed to pull himself up to a half recline. His chest was still a smoky grey that looked like extensive bruising, but even that was fading.

“No matter what happens,” Laurel whispered, “we do this together.” She met each of her friends” eyes for several seconds and they all nodded. “And David, don’t you let go of that sword.” She glanced at the Queen. “I’m not sure we’re through fighting the enemy yet,” she finished grimly.

“Come over here, all of you,” Marion commanded.

“Let me neutralise them first,” Fiona said, and Laurel turned to see her duck in front of the Queen, holding the glass vial. She’d attached a spray nozzle to the top. “Just to be safe,” she added, her eyes darting to the shadows that still lingered at Tamani’s chest.

Laurel nodded and Fiona hopped over the moat.

“Hold your breath.” Fiona misted them with a very fine spray of the viridefaeco. “I apologise that you will be a touch damp.”

Laurel waved her concerns away and turned to help Tamani to his feet. “Can you walk?” she whispered.

His jaw flexed several times, but he shook his head. “Not without help,” he admitted.

“Here,” Laurel said. She laid his arm across her shoulders and Chelsea was quick to join her on the other side.

Though the Queen stood only metres away, Laurel and Chelsea took Tamani across to the opposite side of the circle, where Jamison and Yasmine were, and David straddled the gap and carefully helped Tamani over so they could all sit together.

“We’ll talk over here,” Laurel called to the Queen.

Marion pursed her lips and for a moment Laurel thought she would refuse to come. But she must have realised there was nothing more she could do. Flanked by her Am Fear-faire, she picked her way round the circular trench and stood over them, looking down on what might otherwise have appeared to be a cosy group.

The Queen made a show of counting them once, and then twice. “Well, Jamison, two humans and two faeries; an Autumn and a Spring. Where is the Winter faerie you told me about?” Marion asked. “Or did she turn out to be a figment of a certain sentry’s overactive imagination?” Her eyes rested accusatorily on Tamani.

“She’s the younger one you see dead in the circle,” Jamison said, pointing.

Marion looked over and her eyes grew large, realising for the first time that the grotesquely shrivelled black forms in the circle of dead grass were, in fact, fae. “You killed her,” she said softly.

“I did not,” Jamison said. “Yuki betrayed Callista when it was revealed that Yuki was nothing more than a pawn in the Mixer’s plans. Callista killed her.”

“A pawn?” the Queen asked, scoffing, clearly unable to take seriously the idea of a Winter faerie as anyone’s pawn.

“Just like the trolls,” Jamison said, slowly, deliberately.

Momentarily, Queen Marion looked like someone had slapped her in the face – as though she took the comparison as a personal affront. Her expression slowly settled into uncertainty. “I think you had better start from the beginning.”

Slowly, and with many interruptions, Laurel shared with everyone the story of what they had done. When she got to the part about how she had discovered the final ingredient to the viridefaeco potion, Jamison beamed with pride and the Queen looked rather ill.

When Laurel finished, the clearing descended into tense silence. Marion looked over the circle where Klea and Yuki had died. The grass was blackened beyond recovery, but Fiona and two other soot-covered Autumns were spraying the viridefaeco serum, putting a final stop to the poison’s spread.

“Jamison,” Marion spoke at last, sounding tired, “you obviously need to rest. I suggest you retire to the palace and show these two humans to their quarters as well.”