Tania turned away from Connor. She could think of nothing to say to him.

Rathina stood with her eyes cast down and her lips a thin, pale line. Tania guessed she was thinking of her own unrequited love. She knew that black abyss all too well.

Edric looked into Tania’s face. There was sadness in his eyes, and a kind of dull resignation.

She released her horse’s reins and walked up to him.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

“For what?” he whispered.

“For not enjoying what just happened.” She flicked a glance over her shoulder to where Connor crouched under a willow tree.

Edric shook his head. “Everything’s wrong. Connor is wrong—I’m wrong. The whole world is wrong.” Anguish filled his eyes. “I’m going to fail you, Tania. You heard what she said. I’m too weak.”

“She also said someone else would come to your rescue.” She forced a smile. “That’s me.” She touched her fingertips to his chest. “Don’t worry,” she said, her heart swelling in her chest. “When the time comes, I’ll be there for you.” She lifted her hands to his face, tenderly tracing the contours of his lips, his cheeks, his eyebrows, her hands trembling. She could hardly speak now for the emotion that flooded through her. “I love you,” she said breathlessly. “I will save you.”

He gazed intensely at her, and she all but drowned in his eyes. She swallowed, pulling away, afraid of losing herself so completely to him that nothing else would matter.

Rathina had taken the reins of Connor’s and Tania’s horses and she was crooning softly to them. She lifted her head. “We have traveled far after a disturbed night,” she said. “Mayhap we should rest here awhile and continue on the morrow.”

“Yes, that’s a good idea.” Tania looked again at Connor. “I should go and talk to him,” she said. “He must be feeling . . .” But she couldn’t think of words to express how Connor must be feeling. Embarrassed? Devastated? His revelation certainly made her feel desperately awkward.

She walked over to him, crouching and resting her hand on his bent shoulder.

“How are you doing?” she asked as gently as she could.

He looked up at her. “Pathetic,” he said.

She gave the hint of a smile. “I think you’re being a bit harsh on yourself,” she said. He didn’t respond. “Connor? We’re friends, aren’t we? We agreed.”

“I lied.”

“I don’t feel . . . that way about you.” She sighed. “Okay, for a few moments back in the tavern—you know when I mean—I kidded myself that maybe I could feel like that. But it wasn’t real.” Her voice became firm. “No matter what happens between me and Edric, this thing between you and me—it’s never going to happen.” He lifted his head, his eyes liquid and sad. “I need to know you understand.”

He swallowed. “Okay . . .” he said, his voice almost inaudible. “Just friends.”

“That’s right.” Tania sighed and glanced around. Rathina was with the horses; Edric had moved to the forest path and was staring into the darkness. “Maybe you should go now. Seriously. Just let me take you home, Connor. Back to a world that makes sense to you. Back to premed and a high-flying career as one of the UK’s top surgeons or whatever it was you had planned before all this happened.”

He gave a hollow laugh. “That’s funny,” he said. “That’s really funny.”

“Why?”

“Because I was failing,” he said. “I was no good at it. It was too hard. That evening—the evening you turned up out of nowhere—I had finally decided to give it all up. Being a doctor was my dad’s ambition for me; he’s the one who pushed me to go for it. I’ve known for six months I’d never cut it. I was going to drop out of premed, Anita!”

She stared at him, not bothering to correct his use of her name. “You never said . . .”

“It’s not the kind of thing that comes up in casual conversation,” he said with a trace of bitterness. “I’d done a good job of keeping the truth hidden from everyone. No one knows about it. I was going to drop it on my folks that weekend—the weekend after you suddenly turned up. And then there you are . . . and . . . and . . .” He snorted. “Did you never once wonder why I was so totally up for all this?” He gestured to encompass the alien night. “One day I’m so sick of everything that I’m thinking of emptying out my savings and going AWOL for a year—the next I’m being invited to come away to a whole new world. Did it never strike you as odd that I leaped at the chance?”

“I thought it was just you being . . . impulsive.”

“No.” His eyes burned into hers. “It was you, saving me from . . . from . . . everything. Suddenly I wasn’t this dismal failure anymore—I was a hero. I was in the middle of a totally unbelievable adventure. And on top of that there was the chance that I could stroll back home at some point with the secret of Immortality in my back pocket!”

“I never knew . . .”

“You weren’t supposed to.”

“Oh . . . Connor. . . .” It was disturbing to realize she had been deceived. How do you trust someone who’s that good at covering up? And the medical stuff had seemed to come so naturally to him. Was he really the dismal failure he wanted her to think? Or was this just another excuse to stay with her . . . in the hope that . . . maybe . . . somehow . . . ?

Whatever was going on, she couldn’t bring herself to force him to return to London. And maybe if he saw this quest through, he would feel less of a loser when he did get home.

She looked keenly into his face. “I won’t make you go back,” she said. “But the thing between you and Edric—that has got to stop. Right?”

Connor nodded. Then he lifted his head and sniffed. “Can you smell that?” he asked.

“What?” She sniffed, too. Yes—there was an odd smell on the air. Looking over her shoulder, she saw that Rathina and Edric were also alert, staring around themselves as the smell wafted through the trees. “I know it . . . but I can’t place it.” Tania stood up. “What is it?”

Connor also got to his feet. “Well, weird as this is going to sound, it’s the same electric smell you get at . . . fairgrounds! With bumper cars.”

“Yes. You’re right.”

The horses began to whinny and toss their heads, their hooves stamping uneasily, so that Rathina had trouble keeping control of the three sets of reins in her hands.

A soft droning sound filled the air, and Tania saw small points of light moving purposefully through the trees, blinking in and out as they glided behind the trunks and branches.

And then, in a moment, Tania and Connor were surrounded by a swarm of tiny red flames, hovering and dancing all around them.

“They’re insects.” Connor gasped, his face ruddy from the light. “Like . . . like fireflies . . . but actually on fire.” He reached out a hand then drew it back with a shout as one of the creatures touched his fingers.

Another of them brushed the back of Tania’s hand. “Ow!” She snatched her hand away. “They burn!”

“Let us away from here!” shouted Rathina. “The horses are fit to bolt!”

Connor and Tania ran back, the fiery insects all around them. The droning was laced now with a spitting, crackling sound, like wet logs catching fire. And each of the insects trailed a thread of blue smoke, so that their flight left pale ribbons drifting in the air.

The horses were seriously alarmed now, their eyes rolling, their ears back as the burning flies gathered around them. Tania’s horse reared, hooves striking so she had to duck aside to avoid them. The horse dropped onto all fours again, pulling away, dragging her along. She leaped for the horse’s back, just managing to clutch hold of the saddle. Her feet left the ground and her arms were wrenched painfully. But then another horse came up close behind her, and a hand grabbed her and heaved her upward. She managed to get her leg over the animal’s back and crash into the saddle. She turned—seeing Connor’s face right behind her. “Thanks!”

“Don’t mention it. Let’s get out of here!”

Edric and Rathina were also in their saddles now, surrounded by the thronging insects. Tania kicked hard at her horse’s flanks, jerking the reins to turn the frightened animal’s head toward the forest road.

“Go!” she shouted, ducking and twisting to avoid the fierce little flames. “Go!”

Her horse leaped forward under the branches, earth flying high from its hooves as it sped away from the riverbank.

“What were those things?” Connor asked as they rode at a steady pace under the endless trees.

“I think we just saw the first example of a land where magic has run wild,” said Edric. He turned in the saddle and peered away under the tunnel of branches. “We outran them, thankfully.” He sucked his wrist where one of the creatures had burned him. “It could have been worse.”

“I trust this is not a sign of the welcome we are to encounter throughout Erin,” said Rathina. “If flies can cause such consternation, what of greater beasts?”

Tania could still smell a faint tang of scorching on the air where the fireflies had singed their clothing. But Edric was right: It could have been a whole lot worse. Without horses the four of them could have been inundated by the burning insects, and then what? Burned alive?

The roadway led through the forest, the trees arching over them to form a roof; but now and then they would come to a place where the branches drew back, and then they could see the stars in the black velvet sky. They were the same stars and constellations that made their stately way across the Faerie sky—except that the night sky here was also streaked over and over again by shooting stars trailing silvery tails as they curved across the heavens, burning briefly before fading away.

Tania turned to Rathina. “Can you tell what part of the night this is?” she asked. She had lost track of the time, but she had the feeling they must have been following this roadway for several hours.

Rathina frowned. “I cannot, sister,” she said, “and that vexes me. I know the stars, and I have oft times watched their progress across the night. But these stars do not move. I have observed for some time now; here, by my troth, ’tis always the middle of the night—as though we have come to a land caught and suspended in the place where one day ends and another begins.”

“You mean it might be night all the time here?” asked Connor. “I mean—forever?”

“Anything is possible where an enchantress is in control,” said Edric. “But how are we going to find our way through Erin if the stars never move and there is no sun? How will we know which direction we’re heading?”

There was a worried silence, punctured by Connor, speaking in a soft voice. “I bet you wish you hadn’t chucked that compass away now.”

“Indeed, Connor,” murmured Rathina. “Maybe we acted in haste.” Her eyes shone darkly as she looked at Tania. “Mayhap it was ordained by the fates that we would need such a device to fulfill our quest. Maybe it was good spirits that compelled Connor to take it from the Hall of Archives.”

Tania looked at her. “Are you suggesting we go back to try and fish it out of the river?” she asked abruptly. “Bearing in mind what Lord Cillian told us about the water?”

“No, I am not suggesting that,” Rathina said, her voice subdued. “’Twould be pure madness to do so. But it may be that our choices are not so clear as we thought hereto. Perhaps more prudence is called for ere we condemn any of our number for perceived transgressions.”

Tania didn’t reply. What if Rathina was right? What if Connor was meant to have taken that compass? Not by Oberon, necessarily, but by some other benevolent power?

“Let us hope that this land offers more hope to the traveler than we have seen thus far,” Rathina remarked. “Elsewise our quest may be marred by . . .” She stopped, sitting suddenly erect in the saddle. “Do you hear that?” she whispered.