“Give up.” His words sliced though the night air.

The road was silent except for Yuki’s muffled cries. Laurel could hardly breathe.

Klea slumped against Tamani, defeated.

“Drop the knife.”

Klea’s hand twitched, and for a moment Laurel thought she would. But with a wordless yell, Klea drove the knife along the side of her neck, scoring her own skin and putting an inch of the blade through Tamani’s T-shirt and into his wounded shoulder. Tamani released her in surprise and stepped back as Klea staggered away, dropping the knife and pressing a hand against her oozing wound.

A single slender root slithered up from the ground and wrapped around Klea’s ankle, making her fall. Laurel turned to see Yuki’s hand fluttering weakly. She was still alive!

Klea gave a high-pitched, almost mournful laugh from where she lay sprawled in the grass. “Well, now we can all die together.”

“You, perhaps,” Tamani said coldly.

“Look at your cut,” Klea said.

Tamani hesitated, but when Klea’s look sharpened into a glare, he pursed his lips and pulled down the neck of his shirt to expose his shoulder. “Eye of Hecate,” he whispered. The edges of the wound were blackened, with dark tendrils radiating away from the gash.

“Let me see,” Laurel said, rushing to Tamani and reaching out to him.

“Don’t touch him,” Yuki said, her voice soft but commanding. “It’ll spread to you, too.” She was on her hands and knees and black lines streaked out from the centre of her blossom and sap dripped over her petals.

Klea glared at Yuki. “Years of conditioning unravelled by one stupid Ticer.”

Laurel stared in horror at the black tendrils tracing their way around Tamani’s wound. She didn’t know what it was, but it looked incredibly toxic – not unlike the red smoke that Klea had unleashed against the Academy. One more reason to be glad Chelsea was still hidden safely out of reach. Jamison, too, though how safe he was remained uncertain.

“A concoction I’m particularly proud of,” Klea said, seeing Laurel’s dumbfounded expression. “Something of a last resort, but this seemed like a special occasion. You should feel honoured.”

“What is it?” Tamani said, glaring down at Klea.

“Is it like the red stuff in the Academy?” Laurel asked, her voice shaking.

“Please,” Klea said mockingly, “that potion is child’s play compared to this. I wouldn’t get too worked up, if I were you,” she added, her eyebrow raising as she took in Tamani with a hint of a smile. “Sit down and relax, or it’ll just spread faster.”

“You’ve got it, too.” Laurel could see the darkness spreading from the shallow cut on Klea’s neck.

A sly smile spread across Klea’s face. “But unlike you, I have the cure.”

Hope burst to life in Laurel’s chest as Klea held out a hand, two sugar-glass vials of serum on her outstretched palm. Laurel lunged forward, grasping.

“Not so fast,” Klea said, yanking the vials out of Laurel’s reach and closing her fist over them. “I want you to hear me out. And don’t think you can get out of this by making a cure yourself,” she added. “Nothing short of the viridefaeco potion can save them from this toxin. And that is so far beyond you.” Klea chuckled. “So far beyond anyone at the Academy.”

Viridefaeco. It was a word Laurel knew from her very first day in the classroom at the Academy, two summers ago. She had since learned that it was a healing potion no one knew how to make anymore – not even Yeardley.

“What do you want?” Laurel said.

“I want you to join me,” Klea said, her voice almost casual as she spun the vials artfully through her nimble fingers. “Be my ambassador.”

“Why would I do that?” Laurel spat. Klea had lost! She was dying! How could she still be acting as though everything was going according to plan?

“You mean, besides saving him?” Her head tilted scornfully at Tamani. “Because, when it comes right down to it, we both want the same thing.”

Laurel narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t see how that could possibly be true.”

“That’s because you’re a shallow, gullible child,” Klea said, sneering. “You only see what’s on the surface; that’s why it’s been so easy to manipulate you over the years. For me, and for them.” Klea nodded toward Jamison, still prone in the grass at the side of the road.

Laurel pressed her lips together against the insult.

“I, on the other hand, am the most talented Mixer Avalon has ever seen. Even you can’t deny that. I made things beyond the wildest imaginings of those stodgy Academy lapdogs. Sometimes, things they didn’t want to see. Poisons, like this one,” she said, pointing to her own neck.

“What they never understood is that it’s only by becoming familiar with poisons that you can make the best antidotes. It’s true,” Klea said when Laurel raised her eyebrows. “You can say what you want about the poison they had me mix for your mother, but that line of research led me to formulas that could do for humans what we already do for faeries – treat any ailment, heal any wound, even reverse old age! Avalon has forgotten how much humans have to offer and would prefer to forget they exist at all – certainly no one wants to make potions to help them.

“The Council was furious. Told me I was overstepping my bounds. They called me Unseelie and exiled me.” She leaned forwards. “They do this kind of thing all the time. Lies, double standards. Avalon is built on deception – deception, and prejudice.”