“Are you ready?” Tamani pressed, sensing Laurel’s hesitation.

Ready? Laurel wasn’t sure if she could ever be more ready for this…or less.

Silently, she followed him through the forest, trees filtering the sunlight and shading their trek. The path was scarcely a path at all, but Laurel knew where it led. Soon they would come to a small, gnarled tree, a unique species in this forest but otherwise ordinary in its appearance. Though she had spent twelve years of her life living here and exploring the land, she had seen this tree only once before — when she brought Tamani back from fighting trolls, wounded and barely conscious. Last time she had witnessed the tree’s transformation and gotten a tiny glimpse of what lay beyond. Today she would go through the gate.

Today, she would see Avalon for herself.

As they walked deeper into the forest, other faeries fell into step behind them, and Laurel forced herself not to crane her neck and stare. She wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to these beautiful, silent guards who never spoke to her and rarely met her eyes. They were always there, even when she couldn’t see them. She knew that now. She wondered briefly how many of them had been watching her since she was just a child, but the mortification was too great. Her parents watching her juvenile antics were one thing; nameless supernatural sentries were quite another. She swallowed, focused forward, and tried to think of something else.

Soon they arrived, emerging through a stand of redwoods clustered protectively around the ancient, twisted tree. The faerie sentries formed a half circle and, after a sharp gesture from Shar — the leader of the sentries — Tamani dislodged his hand from Laurel’s viselike grip to join them. Standing in the middle of the dozen or so sentries, Laurel clutched the straps of her backpack. Her breathing quickened as each sentry laid one hand against the bark of the tree, right where its stout trunk split into two thick limbs. Then the tree began to vibrate as the light of the clearing seemed to gather around its branches.