“Morning Star, we touch hands in the pale mist
Morning Star, the night is done
The dawning sky is streaked with white and amethyst
The Morning Star shines upon everyone

“We dwell in the balm of ageless summers
The snow-deep cold of winter’s hoary rime
Gathering the flowers of four seasons
We break the bonds of your measured servant, time . . .”

“Is it you?” Tania asked, speaking into a deep, velvet darkness. “It is you, isn’t it? Dream Weaver?” She reached her arms out blindly and stumbled forward as the lilting voice faded away. “Don’t go! I need your help. . . . ”

She broke through a membrane of darkness and found herself suddenly in a familiar room.

It was night—but not the starlit night of Faerie. It was a Mortal night—a London night—and she was standing at the foot of her parents’ bed in their room in Camden. Beyond the curtains she could hear city sounds. Small noises that went almost unheard when she lived among them—but they were sharp now in her mind after so long a time in Faerie. The rising and falling growl of traffic. The snap of heels on the pavement. Voices shouting in the distance. Doors slamming. Police sirens wailing from afar. A thickness gathered in her throat as she listened—who would have thought she’d miss the shriek of police sirens in the night!

The curtains were closed, but yellowy street light seeped through the cracks. The room smelled odd: the air was warm and stuffy and sweet, but sweet in the wrong way—sickly sweet. A single figure lay under the bedcovers, the face lost in shadows.

A sense of unease made Tania’s heart beat a little faster. Tension was growing in her stomach.

A racking cough broke the stillness of the room. The figure moved restlessly under the covers. Breath rattled in a throat.

“Dad?”

Tania stepped forward, her feet coming up against the end of the bed. She moved to the side and padded softly along toward the head.

There was another cough—unpleasant and painful sounding.

“Dad?”

The figure jolted and an arm reached out. A moment later the bedside light snapped on. Tania winced, narrowing her eyes against the sudden light. Her father lay staring up at her.

“Oh, Daddy!” she whispered, kneeling at the bedside. “What’s wrong with you?” His face was gray and sweaty, his jowls unshaved, his hair disordered from the pillow. She took his hand. It was hot and damp.

“Anita?” he breathed.

She didn’t correct him. For sixteen years she had been his daughter Anita—Tania had only existed for him for a few short weeks.

“Yes,” she said gently, pressing the back of his hand to her cheek. “What’s all this, now?” She forced a lightness into her voice that she didn’t feel. “And I thought you were getting better, you silly man.”

He smiled—but it was such a strange smile that it frightened her.

“I’m better now,” he said, his fingers tightening on her hand. He lifted his head but let it fall back again with a sigh. “It’s so real,” he said, gazing at the ceiling for a moment then looking yearningly into her face. “So real. Almost like you’re really here.”

She didn’t know what to say. The smells of the room, the feel of his hand in hers, the sound of his voice: all these were proof to her that she was not dreaming—but how had she come here? How could she possibly be here?

Last memory. Getting into a cool bed in an upstairs room in The Blessèd Queen. A room warmed by mellow firelight that flickered in a small stone hearth. Blowing the candle out. Pulling the covers over her ears. Hearing the creak of Connor’s bed from the next room. The snap and crack of the burning logs. Elias Fulk’s feet on the stairs going down. Then the deep silence of a Faerie night.

And then . . . ?

A high, dulcet voice singing. Opening her eyes to find herself standing upright in a well of pitch darkness.

He thinks he’s dreaming me. Is he? I can’t really be here—the ways between Faerie and the Mortal Realm have been closed down. I can’t be here. And yet . . .

And yet . . . The Dream Weaver had brought her to her sick father’s bedside.

Her father coughed again. He reached for a box of tissues on the bedside table. Wadded-up, used tissues were scattered around on the bed, on the table, and on the carpet.

Tania pulled out a tissue and gave it to him. He coughed and wiped his mouth, balling the tissue in his fist.

“I was told you were getting better,” Tania said coaxingly. “What are you playing at, Dad, getting worse? That’s not how it’s supposed to work.”

“The doctor has seen me,” he replied breathlessly. “I’m on about twenty different kinds of antibiotics, and your mother is watching me like a hawk.”

“I should hope she is!” Tania glanced at the bedside clock. The red digital display showed 1:35. “Where is Mum?”

“She’s sleeping in your room,” her father replied, trying to rise on his elbows. “That way I don’t keep her awake all night with my coughing and spluttering— which means she’s much better able to fuss over me all day the way she likes to!”

“She needs to,” said Tania, pressing him gently back. “You’d never look after yourself if it was left up to you. Honestly, Dad, you must be the world’s worst patient. If it was up to me, I’d whisk you off to hospital and get you properly sorted.”

“Don’t worry, she’s already threatened me with that. If I’m not better in a day or two, she’s getting the doctor back in.” He paused, his breathing loud and ragged in his throat.

Tania was about to say something when he looked at her. “I wish you were really here, Anita,” he said.

She felt tears welling. Oh god, Daddy—so do I! You’ve no idea!

“Let’s pretend I really am,” she said with a smile. “I’ve got some good news. And you really, really have to believe this, Dad!”

“Go on,” he said. “I’ll give it a try.”

“The illness in Faerie—it has absolutely nothing to do with you.”

He gazed blankly at her.

“Dad? Did you get that? You had nothing to do with the baby dying.”

He let out a long breath. “Are you certain of that?”

“Yes.”

A single tear slid from the corner of his eye. “Are other people sick?” he asked.

She bit her lip, fighting back her own tears. How much could she tell him? What should she tell him? “Yes, they are, Dad—but we think we’ve found a way to cure the disease. We’re working on it right now.”

His hand squeezed hers. “And then you can come home. . . .”

No, Daddy. I can’t ever come home. The ways between the worlds have been closed down forever. Oh god, it hurts so much.

“We’ll see,” Tania murmured, her throat constricted with the agony of deceiving her father. “Maybe the King will find a way. . . .”

“Your name is Tania!” her father said suddenly, his eyes widening. “You’re not my Anita—you’re called Tania!” He pulled his hand away, his face full of fear and alarm. “What are you doing here? You can’t be here.”

“No, Dad—it’s me,” Tania said urgently. “It’s really me.”

But a new coughing fit took him. He sat up, pressing tissues to his mouth as he coughed, his shoulders heaving and shaking, the whole bed trembling with the violence of the attack.

Tania got up, trying to put her arms around him, trying to find a way to help, to comfort him. But when she reached for him, her arms went right through him.

“No!” She leaned over him, her hands passing through his body, passing through the pillows and the bedclothes. “No!”

She felt dizzy. Disoriented. The bedroom waltzed around her. She heard the door fly open. Her mother stood there, her back to the hall light—a silhouette in a blue dressing gown.

“Clive?” She ran across the room.

“Mum!”

Tania felt a coldness in her heart as her mother moved through her.

“Mum! I’m here!” Tania shouted in desperation. “Please! You have to see me! You have to be able to hear me! Mum! I’m right here!”

Her mother was leaning over her father, rubbing his back as the coughing subsided. Then he drew the tissues away from his mouth, and Tania saw there was blood on them, ugly and black in the dim light.

“Okay, Clive.” Her mother’s voice was steady and soothing, but it was the voice of panic kept under tight control. “We’re done with this now. Try to keep calm and quiet if you can. I’m going to call for an ambulance. We’ll soon have you feeling better. Just lie back if it’s more comfortable. I won’t be a moment.”

She rearranged his pillows and helped him to lie back on them. His face was ashen, running with sweat. There was blood on his lips and fear in his eyes as he looked for a moment into Tania’s face.

Her mother turned and walked quickly back to the door. Tania followed her, snatching at empty air. “Mum!” Her voice rang in her ears. “Mum!”

Tania lunged forward, desperate to make some kind of contact with her mother. But the floor seemed to turn to smoke under her feet, and she fell forward into a vault of blackness.

She heard a sweet voice singing far, far away. . .