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our Queen and her Court into the Otherworld, a plane that exists alongside and askew from this one, and they built a wall to keep them there. Other Fae remained in this world, imprisoned by the Druids in their mounds to experiment on.”
    “Including you?”
    “Including me. And every Fae you will encounter in the world today. We have all been prisoners, all been tortured. It went on for years, until one Fae managed to escape, and free others. Then we made common cause with new mortal allies—an alliance with the Romans, who were intent on conquering our part of the world—to wipe the Druids out. But some eluded us, and their descendants are fast rediscovering their powers. Worse still, the Queen’s former lover, the Prince Consort, has been seeking out latent Druids and training them to help him bring down the wall between worlds.”
    He watched the emotions play across her face, the horror, the unlooked-for sympathy, and, finally, the understanding. Another woman would have walked away from him then, but not Ann Phillips, and that was when he knew he could not, even for her own good, let this woman go.

Chapter 4

    A nn knew that the chill she felt wasn’t the breeze coming off the water or the temperature dropping with the onset of night. It was pure fear. Her body accepted the truth of what Finn was saying even if her rational mind wanted to reject it as a fairy story. There was no denying what she had just experienced, their terrifying passage from the house to the Training Ground.
    And Finn had no reason to lie. He was not luring her into an elaborate fantasy world. On the contrary: he was warning her off.
    But she couldn’t walk away.
    “I knew you were dangerous before I came here,” she said. “I thought you were just a criminal. Now I know that you’re a criminal and a . . . ” It struck her then that she didn’t really know what to call him.
    “We have always thought of ourselves as the Tuatha Dé Danann . The people beloved of the goddess Dana. After we conquered the Druids, we were often called the Aes Sídhe, the people of the mounds, the Fae.”
    “Okay. You’re a criminal and a Fae. That doesn’t change anything. I still need to talk to you about Davin McTeer.”
    He swore. He did it in a language she didn’t recognize, but the tone made its meaning clear. “What the hell do you know about Davin McTeer?” he asked.
    “He’s one of my second graders,” she said, looking him in the eye. She found it slightly unnerving, knowing he wasn’t human, but she persevered. “His father has had the child’s arms tattooed out of some mad belief that it will toughen him up. Davin’s skin is bloody and scabbed from shoulder to elbow.”
    “All Fae have some ink,” Finn snapped back. She heard evasion in his voice.
    “He’s a seven-year-old boy,” she said. “He loves to run and jump and shout on the playground, and both his arms are so swollen and inflamed he can barely move them.”
    “I know about the tattoos,” he said.
    “What?”
    “His mother came to me.”
    “You knew about this, and you did nothing?”
    “Dial back the righteous indignation a hair. I didn’t know about the ink until earlier this evening. I will put a stop to it as soon as I can, Ann, but understand that Davin is half-Fae. He will heal. And until then he can probably take whatever his father dishes out. In a few years he’ll be able to give almost as good as he gets.”
    “Just because someone is strong, doesn’t mean they should be allowed to be abused.”
    “No, it doesn’t, but I’m not allowing the boy to suffer without a purpose. The tattoos were inscribed by a Druid. I can’t catch this Druid if I remove the boy from danger. He’s Fae. Or half-Fae. He was born into a dangerous race. His mother, on the other hand, is human. I saw her earlier tonight, Ann. And I saw the bruises on her face. I would prefer not to see them on yours.”
    “Are you threatening me?”
    “No. I’m warning you. Sean is