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mystic hounds. Blix and Taliesin adored him. Bran’s pet crow, Lex, perched nearby, watching everything with his fathomless black eyes. Bran didn’t look up as Gabriel approached, lost in his own world. He seemed to communicate well with fae animals, but not so well with anything or anyone else.
    All of them had been handpicked by unknown forces to be his posse, the Furious Host. Every night they formed the Wild Hunt, the group that tales had been told of in almost every culture of almost every land since time had begun. Every night they met here and did their sacred duty.
    Every night, they rode.
    Melia and Aelfdane’s heads popped up as he strode past them. “Okay, let’s go gather souls.”

THREE
     
     
     
     
    AISLINN gasped and came awake, her white silk sheets a tangle around her legs. She sat up, breathing hard, trying to push away the remnants of the dream that clung to her like a spiderweb. Clutching the soft sheet to her chest, she shuddered.
    It had been a prophetic dream, like other ones she’d had from time to time. There was no mistaking the difference in it, the clearer quality and sense of utter and total reality. That was what made them so terrifying: they seemed real and were usually horrific.
    This one had been more horrific than most.
    With a heavy sense of foreboding clinging to her, she slid from the bedding and found her slippers and bathrobe. She made her way out to the kitchen in the semidarkness and poured herself a tall glass of cold water with shaking hands. The rim of the water jug trembled on the lip of the glass, nearly making her slosh liquid everywhere.
    It was times like these when she hated living alone, when she regretted not keeping a servant like just about everyone else in the Rose. She’d almost taken on Lolly, her friend Bella’s house hobgoblin, when Bella had been banished, just because Lolly felt like part of the family. But Lolly had found employment elsewhere and it was just as well. Because nights like these were also the reason Aislinn couldn’t allow anyone to live with her, not even someone she could trust like Lolly.
    Taking her glass to the couch in the living room, she stood at the window that overlooked Piefferburg Square and took a long, cool swallow, trying not to recall her dream. Of course, that was fruitless. She could probably kiss sleep good-bye for the night.
    The ability she had to occasionally see the future was a fae skill that had been passed down by her forebears. It was a common and respectable Sídhe trait and part of what made her Seelie. But she wasn’t just Seelie. Her bloodline was—at least so far as was documented— pure Tuatha Dé. One needed such a pedigree to be a part of the highest echelons of the Seelie Court.
    Her mother was incredibly proud of her family’s social standing. In fact, their family’s place in the Rose was the only thing she really cared about.
    Aislinn’s mother didn’t know that her daughter possessed another skill besides prophetic dreaming. A much darker one. An ability that would put her on the other side of Piefferburg Square, with the monsters. It was the reason she couldn’t have anyone living with her. They might notice her odd behavior as she dealt with her ability and tell the queen about it.
    Aislinn could communicate with the dead.
    She could see them and talk to them when no one else could. Souls sought her out for exactly that reason. She suspected she could also summon and influence the dead, though she’d never tried it. It just didn’t seem right to use those who came to her for aid as guinea pigs. Even so, she could feel the ability in the center of her. She simply knew she had it. Calling and controlling spirits from the Netherworld was magick that lay in the realm of the necromancer.
    And that was certainly not a respectable Seelie ability.
    It had started when she was young, but Aislinn had learned to conceal her skills quickly. If anyone in the Rose knew that Aislinn had Unseelie magick,