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scene, her throat aching
when she recognized the familiar landscape of home. Like a camera
coming into focus, every blade of grass grew clear as she
watched.
    People began to emerge from the shady
grottoes, clad in the dark, rich shades of bark and loam. They had
the same slender height, the same pale hair as Lila. Each was a
face she knew and held dear. These were the light fey, going about
their nightly rounds before settling down to sleep.
    Two little boys chased a moth, tripping over
their feet and each other in the game. She could hear their piping
voices in her mind. Her sister Arabelle’s sons, the eldest only
four. The sight of them filled her with longing and amusement.
    Lila waved a hand, turning the scene to see
different parts of the forest. The fey dwellings were vibrantly
painted, every surface a rainbow of colors. It was happiness that
gave their magic-built houses their brilliant hues, and none were
white like Lila’s hilltop prison. There was the great meeting hall,
a few young people dancing on the lawn before it, one of them
playing a flute made of bone. Wherever there were fey, there was
always music. Silence was a rare thing when there was someone to
play, and someone to listen.
    She turned the vision again. Ah, there was
her father, standing outside his home and watching the stars. He
did that for a few moments every night, with two or three of his
students waiting patiently nearby. Though the king, her father was
also a teacher of history and fey lore. He hadn’t understood why
Lila wanted to wander the bustling cities. For him, everything one
could ever want was in their private forest home. And yet, he had
made it possible because he loved her, even if she walked a
different path.
    So Lila had given up her magic for twelve
years so that she could explore the human world. That had got her
an education, an apartment, and everything else a young woman could
desire. Most of all, it gave her a chance to find out who she was
without spells and enchantments.
    It also meant she was powerless when she
needed her fey heritage the most. The twelve years weren’t up when
Masterson came on the scene ready to destroy their tribe. Lila knew
the ways of human cunning and was the best equipped do battle, but
she had no magic. Her sisters had come to her rescue, giving her
their strength for the year and a day of the vow—and their battle
for survival.
    Lila wasn’t sure she would have had their
courage. Arabelle had left her little sons behind so that Lila
could fight for their future.
    They are all counting on
me.
Lila pressed her face into her hands.
That is why I must do this. If I don’t, they
will be destroyed. There will be no forest, no fey, no
family.
    But it was so difficult. It wasn’t as if she
could zap Masterson with a spell. Magic couldn’t change a person’s
essential nature. Change an evil man into a bug, and he would strip
the leaves from every tree in the forest. Change him into a leaf,
and he would carry the blight that poisons the land. Kill him, and
his evil would simply be free to find another host.
    But she had come up with a plan. A perfect
one.
    One that now depended on her wits and one
stubborn werewolf. It suddenly seemed too fragile.
    Lila stared at the image of her home,
wishing she could walk into it, back to the secure happiness of her
childhood.
    The only thing missing from the conjured
vision was the shadow that would end it all.

    “ Who’s there?” Rafe demanded of the
darkness.
    A low, chittering laugh was the only
response, followed by footsteps that sounded like claws on stone.
Rafe backed away from the bars, sitting on the end of his narrow
bed. It had been like that since Lila left, hours ago. Rustling
wings. Whispers in a tongue he’d never heard before. Scents he’d
never encountered anywhere. No doubt Lila’s invisible servants were
standing guard, and the two gargoyles were only part of the
crew.
    So what was with the creepy-assed help,
anyway?
    Lila was one