I walked the streets. I watched. I made notes in my journal about the various things I saw.

Even Barrons had abandoned me, off looking into some ancient ritual he believed might help on Samhain.

Christian called and invited me out to MacKeltar-land, somewhere in the hills of Scotland, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave the city. I felt like her vanguard, or maybe just the captain going down with her ship. His uncles, Christian told me grimly, were tolerating Barrons, but barely. Nonetheless, they’d agreed to work together for the duration. His tone made it clear that once the ritual was over, there might be an all-out Druid war. I didn’t care. They could fight all they wanted once the walls were fortified.

Three days before Halloween, I found a plane ticket to Ashford outside my bedroom door. It was one-way. The flight was that afternoon. I stood holding it for a long time, eyes closed, leaning back against the wall, picturing my mom and dad, and my room at home.

October in south Georgia is fall at its finest: trees dressed in ruby, amber, and pumpkin; the air redolent with the scent of leaves and earth, and down-home southern cooking; the nights as clear as you can find only in rural America, far from the sky-dimming lights of city life.

Halloween night, the Brooks would host their annual Ghosts and Ghouls Treasure Hunt. The Brickyard would hold a costume contest, inviting the town to come as they wished they were. It was always a blast. People chose the strangest things. If I wasn’t working and it was warm enough, Alina and I would throw a pool party. Mom and Dad were always cool about it, checking into a local bed-and-breakfast for the night. They’d made no secret of the fact that they rather looked forward to getting away from us all for a romantic night alone.

I lived my trip home while holding that ticket.

Then I called and tried to get Barrons’ money refunded. The best they could do was reassign the funds, for a fee, to a future fare in my name.

“Did you think I’d run?” I asked later that night. Barrons was still wherever he was. I’d rung him up on my cell phone.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did. Would you have gone, if I’d made it round-trip?”

“No. I’m afraid something might follow me. I gave up the idea of going home a long time ago, Barrons. One day I will. When it’s safe.”

“What if it never is again?”

“I have to believe it will be.”

There was a long silence. The bookstore was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. I was lonely. “When are you coming home?” I asked.

“Home, Ms. Lane?”

“I have to call it something.” We’d had this exchange once before, standing in a cemetery. I’d told him if home was where the heart was, mine was six feet under. That was no longer true. My heart was inside me now, with all its hopes and fears and pains.

“I’m nearly done. I’ll be there tomorrow.” The line went dead.

Three o’clock in the morning.

I shot straight up in bed.

Heart hammering. Nerves screaming.

My cell phone was ringing.

“What the feck?” Dani snapped when I answered. “You sleep like the fecking dead up there! I been calling you for five fecking minutes!”

“Are you okay?” I demanded, shivering. I’d been in that cold place again. Shadowy dream remnants slipped away but the chill remained.

“Look out your window, Mac.”

I pushed out of bed, grabbed my spear, and hurried to the window.

My bedroom, like the last one that Barrons trashed, is on the rear of the building, so I can watch the back alley out my window, and keep tabs on the Shades.

Dani was standing down there, in the narrow path of light between the bookstore and Barrons’ garage, cell phone propped between her skinny shoulder and ear, grinning up at me. Shades watched her hungrily from their roost in the shadows.

She was wearing a long black leather coat that was straight out of a vampire movie, and much too big through the shoulders. As I watched, she slid something long and alabaster and shiningly beautiful out from under it.

I gasped. It could only be the Sword of Light.

“Let’s go kick some fairy ass.” Dani laughed, and the look in her eyes was anything but thirteen years old.

“Where’s Rowena?” I dropped my PJ bottoms and thrust a leg into jeans, teeth chattering. I hate my Cold Place dreams.

“Ro’s away. She left on a plane this afternoon. Couldn’t take the sword with her. I snuck out. You wanna talk or you wanna come slay some Unseelie, Mac?”

Was she kidding? This was a sidhe-seer wet dream. Instead of sitting around, thinking, talking, researching—I could get out there and do something! I thumbed off my phone, layered two T-shirts beneath a sweater and a jacket, tugged on boots, grabbed my MacHalo on the way out and strapped it on, wishing I had one for her, too. No matter; if we ended up in the dark somewhere, I’d stick to her like sidhe-seer glue.