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speaking some strange, incomprehensible language.”
    “You are.” Breanna shook her head. She remembered that night. Remembered extending her hand at the same moment Jenny extended hers so that they stepped out into that storm with their hands linked, feeling the Great Mother’s power swirling around them, rushing into them while they danced. Yes, they had celebrated that storm, had acknowledged its strength, had connected to it in a way that had been so natural it had required no words, no thought. What was so strange about that?
    They are deeply rooted in the Mother’s Hills.
    She remembered overhearing one of the elders say that the morning after the storm. Since she had kin in the hills, she hadn’t thought it odd. But she also remembered that, while Fiona, Rory, and some of her other cousins had come here a few times to visit after that summer, she had never been invited back for a visit to their family homes. Except Jenny’s.
    Confused and self-conscious—and irritated with herself and Fiona for feeling those things—she shrugged dismissively. “Let’s get some target practice.” I’m in the right mood to shoot something .
    Breanna had taken only a couple of steps toward the kitchen gardens when a hawk flew overhead, screaming a warning as it passed by her. At the same moment, a boy from one of the farm families who had escaped with Breanna’s kin burst from the woods, running toward them as fast as he could.
    “There’s a man in the woods!” the boy shouted. “A man wearing a black coat! Coming this way.”
    “What were you doing in the woods?” Breanna snapped as soon as the boy stumbled to a halt in front of her. None of the children were supposed to go into the woods on their own. There were still some of those nighthunter creatures out there somewhere.

    “Jean wanted to look for some plants,” the boy said, panting. “She told me I had to come with her since we weren’t supposed to go into the woods by ourselves and—” He glanced nervously at Breanna, then at Fiona. “And she didn’t want to ask one of the other witches to go with her.”
    There wasn’t time to consider what kinds of plants Jean was looking for that made her not want the company of another witch—or what she intended to do with the plants if she found them.
    “Go—” Breanna looked toward the stables. The men, warned by the hawk’s cries, were already in motion, saddling some horses, stabling others, gathering weapons that were always close at hand these days. “Go to the house. Warn Nuala. Go!”
    As the boy raced for the house, Breanna and Fiona looked at each other.
    “Get the children into the house,” Breanna said.
    Fiona started to protest. Then she noticed Clay and her brother Rory hurrying toward them—and the hawk flying ahead of them. Nodding, she ran toward the children, who had stopped playing and were now anxiously watching the adults.
    Trusting Fiona to take care of the children, Breanna set her quiver on the ground and grabbed a handful of arrows. She pushed the heads of four of them into the ground in front of her to make them easy to snatch if they were needed. The fifth she nocked in her bow, keeping her fingers light on the bowstring.
    Facing the woodland trail, she waited.
    Sensing movement on her left, she started to draw the bow and turn when she realized it was Falco. He had changed from hawk to man, but he’d forgotten to use the glamour to hide the pointed ears and feral quality of the Fae behind the mask of a human face. Or else he had a reason for not hiding what he was.
    “Black Coat?” Breanna asked softly.
    Falco shook his head.
    That would have been reassuring if Falco hadn’t looked uneasy, even nervous. Whoever was in the woods wasn’t an Inquisitor, but also wasn’t a friend.
    She’d just turned back toward the trail when Jean ran out of the woods. The girl looked flustered, exhilarated. But not frightened.
    When she was a few feet away from Breanna, Jean stopped