Laurel felt awkward, the way she always did when it was time to say good-bye to Tamani. They walked in silence until they reached a spot just barely in sight of the cabin and the long driveway. “No one’s here yet,” Tamani said. “But I suspect it’s only a matter of minutes.”

“I—” Her voice caught, and she started over again. “I’m sorry there’s not more time.”

Tamani smiled softly. “I’m glad you’re sorry.” He leaned against a tree, lifting one leg up to brace himself against the trunk. He didn’t look at her. “How long will you stay away this time?”

Guilt burned in Laurel’s chest as she remembered what Jamison had said. “It’s not what you think.” She said. “I have to—”

“It’s okay,” Tamani interrupted. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I simply wondered, that’s all.”

“Not as long as last time,” she said impulsively.

“When?” Tamani said, and looked at her, his unaffected facade broken, if only for a moment.

“I don’t know,” Laurel said, not meeting his gaze. She couldn’t look into his eyes, not when they were so open and vulnerable. “Can’t I just come sometime?”

Tamani was quiet for a moment. “All right,” he said. “I’ll find a way to make it work. Just come,” he added fervently.

“I will,” she promised.

Both heads turned as they heard a motor turn off the highway and draw near.

“Your chariot,” Tamani said with a grin, but his mouth was tight.

“Thank you,” Laurel said. “For everything.”

He shrugged, his hands jammed into his pockets. “I didn’t do anything special.”

“You—” She tried to find words to articulate how she felt, but nothing seemed right. “I—” This time her words were cut off by a series of short blasts on the horn. “That’s my mom,” she said apologetically. “I have to go.”

Tamani nodded, then stood very still.

The ball was in her court.

She hesitated, then quickly stepped up to him and kissed his cheek, darting away before he could say anything. She hurried up the path and toward the car, which was now parked and silent. She stopped. It wasn’t her mom’s car.

“David.” The name escaped her lips an instant before his arms enfolded her, pulling her to his chest. Her toes left the ground and she was spinning, the same way Tamani had spun her outside the Academy. The sensation of her cheek against his neck brought back memories of snuggling with him on the couch, in the grass at the park, in the car, on his bed. She clung to him realizing—half ashamedly—that she had scarcely thought of him since she’d left. Two months of longing hit her all at once, and tears stung her eyes as her arms twined around his neck.

Gentle fingers lifted her chin and his lips found hers—soft and insistent. She couldn’t do anything but kiss him back, knowing that Tamani must be just out of her sight, watching the reunion with that guarded expression he wore so well.

NINE

“LAUREL?”

The tiny cylinder of sugar glass shattered as she startled. “Up here,” Laurel called wearily.

David strode through her doorway and slung an arm around her, dropping a kiss on her cheek. His eyes shot to the equipment in front of her. “What are you doing?” There was no disguising the excitement in his voice.

Letting the tiny shards of glass tinkle out of her hand and onto the table, Laurel sighed. “Attempting to make sugar-glass vials.”

“Are they seriously made out of sugar?”

Laurel nodded as she rubbed her temples. “You can eat those pieces there, if you want,” she said, not really expecting him to do it.

David looked dubiously at the pile of glass splinters, then picked up one of the larger pieces. He studied it for a moment before licking the flat side—far away from the sharp, pointed end. “Kind of like rock candy,” he said, putting the piece back on the table. “Weird.”

“Frustrating is more like it.”

“What are they for?”

Laurel turned to her kit and removed a glass vial—one Yeardley had made, not her. She hadn’t managed a decent one yet. She handed the vial to David. “Some potions or elixirs or whatever can’t be stored in their final form. So you make them in two parts. As soon as they mix, whatever effect you’re going for happens right away. So you store the different parts in sugar vials so you can mix them at the right time, or crush them in your hand in an emergency.”

“Sounds painful,” David said, handing the delicate vial back to Laurel with care.

Laurel shook her head. “It’s usually not thick enough to cut you. But even if it does, the sugar would dissolve and you wouldn’t have to pick bits of glass out of your hand or anything—that’s why you don’t use regular glass. Ideally you just dump them both into a mortar, or whatever, but you have to be prepared for anything.” I have to be prepared for anything, she added to herself.

“Don’t the potions dissolve the sugar?”

“They don’t seem to.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know, David,” Laurel said tersely. “They just don’t.”

“Sorry,” David said softly. He pulled a pink padded stool over and joined her at her desk. “So how do you do it?”