How It All Goes Down
- David tells Laurel that she was under for at least fifteen minutes, according to his watch. They both lay there shivering for a while.
- They manage to find their way back to David's car, where luckily he has a spare key stashed in one wheel well.
- Now what? David's first suggestion is to go to the police, but Laurel points out how bad an idea it is: Those men clearly weren't human based on how effortlessly they threw them into the river.
- So instead they go to Laurel's family's land, and David stays in the car while Laurel goes to fetch Tamani.
- Laurel breaks down crying due to everything that's happened to her, and she explains it to Tamani. He sees that she's been hurt, so he rubs something on all her cuts and then puts her to sleep to heal.
- When Laurel wakes up, Tamani is saying he's going to take care of the trolls because they can kill Laurel's dad. Laurel gets to meet Shar, who's also a sentry like Tamani.
- Shar cautions Tamani against telling Laurel the truth, but he does anyway: The trolls want to own the land because it contains a gateway to Avalon, the realm of the faeries.
- Warning: Information dump ahead. Trolls are drawn to money (in part because of how easily it lets them control humans), and since Avalon is full of riches, the trolls have always wanted in. King Arthur was a faerie king who helped change all that, along with Oberon and Merlin.
- These legendary dudes did battle with the trolls, and Oberon created the gates to keep the trolls out. If the gates are ever destroyed, though, the trolls can get in again and kill as many faeries as they want.
- Tamani's not sure how this batch of trolls found out about the gates or why they chose to make their move now, but Tamani has to get a move-on to stop them.
- He gives Laurel some moccasins to replace her lost flip flops, and then they head back to David's car.