Page 24 of A Fae’s Guide to Tactical Botany

He didn’t have time to speculate, though. He couldn’t count on her waiting at his decoy crossing point for long, not once he started working, so he packed up everything double time and started lugging at top speed. Or everything that was left. His power tools had vanished into the sand in the night, as had his lantern. Not his food or water, though. She clearly didn’t want him to die. A small favor, indeed.

It didn’t take him long to set up his newest bridge—stepladder, plus a gangplank converted to a ladder extension with two-by-four steps, tied at the top to a second plank that angled down to the sand on the other side of the really fucking tall cholla Mara had transplanted or grown to block him. He started dragging his gear up the ladder and sending it sliding down the makeshift ramp to the other side.

Ethan had just sent the last of his equipment sliding down the plank when the structure began to heave. He looked down in horror at the cholla, which was expanding as he watched, prickly stems curving around the edge of the ladder toward him.

Aiming at where his armor wasn’t.

He let out a shriek—he could be proud later, when the nastiest desert plant in existence wasn’t trying to stick him in the ass—and scrambled up and over the bridge, tumbling down the ramp to land awkwardly in his pile of gear. The makeshift bridge fell sideways just after he landed.

“Jesus fuck, woman!” he snarled when he could breathe again. “What do you have against academia?”

She appeared on top of the cholla. On top of it. Lounging like it was a comfy fainting couch instead of a bed of natural nails. “That was a very clever trick,” she said coolly. “Leaving false plans to distract me.”

“Not as clever as whatever the fuck you’re doing.”

She looked down at the cholla, ran a hand along its spines like she was petting a cat. “How is this clever?”

He shuddered. “It hurts just looking at you. Don’t you ever get stuck?”

“I am of their element,” she said, folding her arms and looking down at him over the edge of the cholla’s crown. “They will not wound me.”

“Well, isn’t that convenient.” Ethan glared down at his legs, which had a few cholla stems stuck atop his armor. At least they’re not in my ass. He picked them off, tossing them to the side, and rolled to his feet. With her here, he couldn’t afford to stop. He stuffed a few protein shakes and cans of mead in his backpack, grabbed his single remaining ladder and an armload of planks, and made his way along the path.

The path which was getting narrower as he went, to the sound of Mara’s mocking laughter.

He bit out an oath when two prickly pears nearly met in front of him, tossed most of his equipment over the obstruction, and used two of his planks to carefully wedge his way through. He ducked under a cholla whose stems were drooping closer and closer to the ground, using the stepladder as a shield. A few minutes later, he sacrificed the stepladder to get over another wall of prickly pear, crawling low on the attached plank to avoid the arms of a saguaro that were stretching downward toward him.

When he landed on the other side, Mara had stopped laughing. He could hear her, though, just ahead of him, panting with exertion.

This is what it was like for Actaeon, he thought with a mix of fury and wonder. This is what it is like to be chased by the hounds of a goddess. To try to catch her.

He’d said all he wanted was tenure. He was doing this for research. Serious research that could be applied to agriculture, to environmental studies. Research that could make the world a better place.

Except as the madly blooming flowers of Mara’s garden finally came in sight, he didn’t think tenure or environment or human scientific advances.

He thought, Mara.

She was standing before the blooming cacti, arms outstretched, as if he were about to barrel his way through her to get to the plants. Somewhere along the line, the cacti had stopped growing as he approached, but they were still a maze, a challenge, and as he lay down each board, his load became lighter, and his heart became lighter, because there she was, she was just past that cactus, and that one, and that one…

And then he was out of boards, but it didn’t matter, because he was past all the barriers, all the cacti but the ones he needed, the ones blooming like they were possessed by the rainbow, and Mara was staring at him with her bright green eyes.

“Stay away,” she said, but her voice was trembling with fatigue. Perhaps with surrender.

“I win,” he replied, striding forward, careful of where he stepped even as he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“You have not won.”

“But here I am.”

“And you have nothing. No tent, no shade—”

He was close to her now, close enough to reach out and touch her. He didn’t. “I have me. I have me, and my notebook, and my camera and kit, and enough mead and protein shakes and water to last me days. I have everything I need to do my job.”

He heaved a deep breath, turned to the side to walk around Mara, his eyes already fixed on a coronet of brilliant violet blossoms with petals like fireworks. A barrel cactus, he catalogued vaguely, though his attention was still fully on the woman beside him, smooth mottled skin and white silk and flowing hair, and then she wasn’t beside him, she was before him again, eyes flashing.

“Not one more step,” she hissed in a voice like a sandstorm.

Ethan raised his eyebrows. “Or what?”