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power.
    But with Mab gone, her guards were restive. They wanted more duties than Maggie had given them. Blast the gods, they wanted to fight.
    True, they had stood sentinel over the palace and the Queen for centuries. But they weren’t warriors and had no business in a real battle. They’d never fought an enemy like the Dullahan. For too long, they’d thought themselves impregnable. Undefeatable. This false sense of importance had clearly gone to their heads, since everyone knew that only males were true fighters.
    Yet, as that thought raced through his mind, he remembered Maggie defeating a Fae queen, and he knew that she’d been as brave as any Fenian warrior. She’d gone into a battle untested, untried, and had managed to snatch victory from the hands of a queen far more experienced than she. Nodding, he admitted that Maggie, at least, was a formidable female.
    But the palace harpies were the least of his troubles at the moment. If the Dullahan were truly readying a strike against the walls of Otherworld in an attempt to breach them, then there was much to do.
    “Have you seen evidence yourself?” he asked, his gaze narrowing on the tall warrior opposite him.
    “No,” McCulloch admitted with a nod. “I thought first to warn you of Mab’s guards and their plans.”
    Culhane set his now-empty glass on the sideboard, folded his arms across his chest and said, “As you should. I’ll deal with them. You take Riley and go to Casia. Find out if the Dullahan are actually planning something or not. We have to know the truth before we act.”
    “It’s done.” McCulloch inclined his head again, in acknowledgment of the order, and an instant later, shifted out of Culhane’s apartments.
    “Maggie Donovan, the palace guard and the Dullahan,” Culhane muttered. It seemed as though the gods were bent on testing his new Queen. But he wouldn’t face Maggie with this news just yet. First he would gather information to make a plan; then, and only then, would he go to Maggie. And he would make her see that giving him leave to act in her stead was the wisest course to take.

    Maggie was late.
    She hated being late.
    Especially when she was picking up Eileen. Somehow, knowing that five million other kids had all been taken home at the appropriate time and only Eileen was left behind made the guilt worse.
    But the stupid window at the stupid art boutique had taken her twice as long as she’d planned. With only one small window fronting the main street, it should have been a half-hour job, tops. But naturally, the new owner had wanted a whole damn Currier and Ives scene painted in, complete with carolers and horse and carriage and, of course, that upped her fee, but had taken twice as long as it otherwise would have. Maggie blew out a frustrated breath, deliberately rolled her shoulders to ease the tension and then turned off the engine of her PT Cruiser.
    Opening the door, she stepped out onto the worn blacktop of the school driveway and let her gaze slide over the familiar territory. Castle Bay wasn’t very big, especially considering that the community’s one elementary school, one middle school and one high school were easily able to accommodate Castle Bay’s students as well as those from the surrounding area. And if you’d lived in town all your life, as Maggie had, you knew each school like the back of your hand.
    The weathered brick facade had faded over the years until it was now a pale rose color and the outside of the principal’s office window was dotted with flyers announcing everything from “Just Say No” campaigns to the coming Christmas party. Although these days it was called the “Holiday Celebration.” Politically correct could get really sad and ugly sometimes.
    “So where are you?” she murmured, looking around and seeing only long, empty outdoor hallways and a custodian pushing a cart loaded with brooms and mops. The rattle of its one bad wheel echoed in the stillness. Eileen should have been