But the folks who live here also call it the Magic Hedge because it's a fairly well-known hangout for men who are hoping to hook up with other men. The ratio of cruisers to bird-watchers (and don't think I didn't consider an ironic joke about binoculars and watching birds) varies depending on the time of the year. When there are tons of birds and bird lovers around, that means lots of people with binoculars and cameras. That kind of thing really cuts down on the romantic mystique.

The place sticks out like a hook, almost totally enclosing Montrose Harbor, which is mostly a place for boats that are a lot less grubby than the Water Beetle. There's a yacht club in there, and a fairly busy beach nearby. So occasionally non-bird-watching, noncruising people wander through the Magic Hedge, too.

People like me.

At the end of October, most of the migrating flocks had already gone by, but the Hedge was still a rendezvous for leftover flocks of sparrows, which would gather together over a few days, then merge and leave in an enormous cloud. I spotted two dozen species on my walk in, without binoculars. I knew most of them, if I had bothered to dig their names out of my memories. I didn't. Ebenezar, when he taught me, had been very serious about making sure I learned the proper names of things.

The park was mostly empty today, under the cold grey drizzling sky. On the way in to where I wanted to go, I passed a man dressed all in black, with a black hat and black sunglasses-sunglasses, for crying out loud-who tracked me with his needlessly cool gaze as I went by.

"Not here for that," I said. "Making a long-distance call. Be gone in half an hour. One way or another."

He didn't say anything, and as I passed he faded back into the brush. There's a community here. Spotters, runners. The police run stings sometimes. Seems like an awful lot of fuss and trouble for everyone involved, to me, especially in the modern world.

Bob wasn't in my shoulder bag anymore, but I'd replaced him with what I'd need. The lake nearby and the falling rain would do for water. Earth was there in plenty, and I used a garden spade to dig a small pit. The fitful cold winds from the northwest would do for air, and once I got the few pounds of kindling I'd brought piled into a small, hollow pyramid, it didn't take me long to get a tiny fire going, even in the rain.

I waited until it had begun to blaze up, building it to make it burn hotter and faster. I didn't want to cook on it. A few minutes were all I needed. I stayed low and moved as little as possible. The song from hundreds of gathered sparrows was enthusiastic, pervasive.

Once the fire was burning, I used the trowel to cut a circle into the soft earth around me. I touched it with my finger and invested a minor effort of will, and the magic of the circle snapped up around me. It was a mystic barrier, not a physical one, something that would contain and focus magical forces, and generally make it easier to do what I was about to do. It couldn't be seen or touched but it was very, very real.

A lot of important things are like that.

I gathered my will, sinking into pure focus. People think wizards use magic words, for some reason. There aren't any magic words, really. Even the ones we use in our spells are just symbols, a way to insulate our minds from the energies coursing through them. Words have a power every bit as terrible and beautiful as magic, and they don't need a special effects budget to do it, either.

What drives magic is, at the end of the day, sheer will. Emotions can help reinforce it, but when you draw on your emotions to fuel magic, even that is simply a different expression of will, a different flavor of your desire to make something happen. Some things you do as a wizard require you to set any emotion you have aside. They're good in a crisis, but in a methodical, deliberate effort they can wreak havoc with your intentions. So I blocked out all my confusion, doubt, and uncertainty, along with my perfectly intelligent terror, until all that remained was my rational self and my need to reach a single goal.

Only then did I lift my head and speak, infusing every word with the power of my need, casting the summoning forth into the universe. The power made my voice sound strange-louder, deeper, richer.

"Lady of Light and Life, hear me. Thou who art Queen of the Ever-Green, Lady of Flowers, hear me. Dire portents are afoot. Hear my voice. Hear my need. I am Harry Dresden, Winter Knight, and I needs must speak with thee." I lifted my joined voice and will and thundered, "Titania, Titania, Titania! I summon thee!"

The last syllable rebounded from every surface in sight with booming echoes. It panicked the sparrows. They flew up in a cloud of thousands of wings and little bodies, gathering in a swarm that raced wildly in circles around the meadow.

"Come on," I breathed to myself. "Come on already." I stood in silence for a long, long minute, and I was starting to think that nothing was going to happen.

And then I saw the clouds begin to rotate, and I knew exactly what it meant.

I've lived in the Midwest for most of my life. Tornadoes are a fact of life out here, part of the background. People think they're scary, and they are, but they're very survivable, provided you follow some fairly simple guidelines: Warn people early, and when you hear the warning, head for the safest space you can reach quickly. That's usually a basement or root cellar. Sometimes it's beneath a staircase. Sometimes it's in an interior bathroom. Sometimes the best you can hope for is the deepest ditch you can find.

But basically it all amounts to "run and hide."

Years of life in the Midwest screamed at me to do exactly that. My heart started speeding up and my mouth went dry, while the clouds overhead-and when I say "overhead" I mean directly over my head-turned faster and faster.

Birds exploded into the sky from all over the Magic Hedge, joining the sparrows in their wild circling. The air suddenly became close, and the drizzling rain cut off as if a valve had been closed. Lightning with no thunder flickered weirdly through the clouds, which turned every shade of white and blue and sea green as the water vapor separated the light into the visible spectrum.

Then I felt it-a warmth like that I'd felt in Lily, only a hundred times hotter and brighter and more intense. The clouds started to lower, and the frantic birds tightened their circle, until they were a wall of shining feathers and glittering eyes around the meadow. Then there was a flash of light, a toll of thunder that sounded weirdly musical, like the after-tone of some vast gong, and a shower of earth and glowing bits of charred autumn grass flew into the air. I threw up an arm to shield my eyes-but I kept my feet planted.

When the dirt settled and the dust and ash cleared, the Lady of Light and Life and Monarch of the Summer Court stood about fifteen feet away from me.