It’s only by becoming familiar with poisons that you can make the best antidotes.

An idea began to form in Laurel’s head. She tried to envision a young, enthusiastic Klea – Callista – working by herself in the classroom, in secret. She would have needed test subjects for her poisons as well as her remedies.

Who else would she have used?

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

Laurel was on her feet and running almost before she realised it.

The stars were out in earnest, peeking through the forest canopy, then filling the sky where the path cut through a clearing. The fire seemed to have gone out at the Academy – it was cloaked in murky darkness – but other lights were visible in Spring and Summer; Laurel tried not to wonder how those quarters had weathered the attacks before the trolls had all collapsed. If she failed, it wouldn’t matter.

She stumbled a few times in the darkness, but soon she was approaching the strange, docile soldiers and David was reaching out for her, stopping her from falling into an enormous moat he had dug. She blinked in the darkness and, after a few seconds, realised what he had done for Avalon. Laurel threw her arms around him. “Thank you,” she whispered. Before pulling back she softly asked, “Jamison?” not wanting to bring him to Klea’s attention.

“Alive,” David murmured.

Laurel nodded before bracing herself on the edge of the circle, and then hopped over.

It took her a moment to make out Klea, lying motionless in the shadows, and Tamani, who sat in the middle of the circle with Yuki’s head resting in his lap. He looked up at Laurel with haunted eyes.

Laurel stared down at the unmoving faerie. “Is she . . . ?”

“I don’t see the Queen,” Klea drawled, pulling Laurel’s attention away.

But Laurel gave her only a moment. She turned her back and crouched down next to Tamani and Yuki instead. Yuki looked like she was sleeping, but her features were waxen and she wasn’t breathing. Laurel felt a stab of grief and a flash of panic; if Yuki was already dead, how much time did Tamani have?

“Take your shirt off,” she ordered.

Tamani obeyed.

Laurel nearly gagged at the sight that greeted her. From the tiny scratch near his collar, the black lines reached out across his shoulders and up his neck. The wounds on his abdomen were weeping green-tinged sap – a sure sign Klea’s infectious toxin was spreading through him internally as well. He didn’t have long.

“You failed, didn’t you?” Klea said, still motionless only a few feet away. “You failed, and now all of Avalon is going to die because of you.”

“I didn’t fail,” Laurel spat. “I never went to the palace. Did you really think I was going to help you? Jamison was right to send you to the Unseelie.” Laurel paused, her eyes shooting daggers at Klea. “I would rather die than live in your perfect world.”

Laurel heard a crunching sound as Klea clenched her fist, and oily droplets of serum dripped through her fingers on to her black shirt. “Wish granted. It’s a shame you felt the need to take everyone else with you.”

“Not today,” Laurel whispered under her breath.

It’s now or never.

Her intentions must have been painted on her face, because Tamani pulled back slightly. “Don’t!”

But her palm was already pressed to his blackened skin, fingers splayed, eyes closed. She could feel the life beneath his skin, feel it fighting – could feel the poison it struggled against. Klea’s toxin was like no potion Laurel had ever encountered, even more complicated and alien than the powder Klea had used to conceal the places she’d based her trolls. Laurel had successfully reverse-engineered that powder, but it had taken her a long time and no small amount of luck.

Fortunately, it had been a learning experience.

When she pulled back, Tamani met her gaze with tears in his eyes. “Why did you do that?” he asked, bringing his hands to her cheeks. “I’m supposed to be protecting you.”

“You’re the best protector a girl could wish for,” Laurel said, leaning forward, pressing her lips softly, briefly, to his. “But it’s my turn now.”

She could feel Klea’s poison working in her fingers and her lips, breaking down the chlorophyll and lysing her cell walls, commandeering her energy and turning it against her. She would have to work fast, but it was speaking to her, and she was ready to listen.

“Oh,” she said, rising to her feet. “Your dad says hi.”

Without waiting to see the look on Tamani’s face, Laurel closed her eyes, repeating the World Tree’s words in her mind. If you can think like the Huntress, you can do as she has done. “I’ll be back,” she said, hopping over the trench again.

“Laurel,” David said, stopping her. “Where did you go?”

“I went to the World Tree,” she answered, feeling time ticking away in her head.

“The tree that talks to you?”

Laurel nodded.

“What did it say?”

“It told me to save Avalon.”

The garden behind the Academy was dimly lit as Laurel crested the hill and let herself into the greenhouse. The remaining faeries were sitting among their fallen comrades, who were starting to wake. The sound of coughing and rasping breaths was loud, but so were the murmurs of the Mixers calming and comforting their friends.

Laurel noticed that they had removed the stone panel between the greenhouse and the dining hall, but it looked like few of the Mixers felt confident enough to re-enter the Academy.