The sun lay on the western horizon, cradled in coral-colored skeins of cloud. The shadows were long in the Royal Gardens—shadows of trees and bushes and of people gathered there in silent reverence.

It seemed to Tania that most of the people from the palace had congregated on the lawns and pathways of the gardens, some grouped together, others standing alone. Children kept close to their parents, their gossamer wings folded, their faces heartbreakingly solemn or wide-eyed with incomprehension. Some men and women held babes in arms, but none of the infants cried out or made a fuss.

Tania was with Edric and Jade and Rathina and Eden. Sancha stood close by, as did the King and Queen, under the shade of a tall rowan.

A stillness came over the land as the sun dipped below the far horizon. Shadows glowed. The eastern sky was rich with the coming night.

Tania’s skin tingled.

“It begins,” murmured Eden.

Tania heard singing. It seemed to come from beneath the ground—a sad, slow song that made the world tremble.

The singing was of hundreds of voices: male voices and female voices, the voices of the old and the very young. As Tania listened, so the song wound through the gardens, the slow melody full of sadness.

But as the sun went down, a new harmony wove its way into the song—and it was full of hope and yearning. A countermelody grew from the original tune, a new theme that was glad and majestic.

Tania felt as if she was surrounded by song—standing deep inside the music of the thousand voices. Edric’s hand slipped into hers.

Faerie stars lit the darkening sky. The white silk sheets that mantled the graves shone like moonlight. The singing rose into the sky like soaring doves.

There was an ache in Tania’s heart as the lovely sound began to fade.

She looked up. From all over the realm, shooting stars were speeding into the west.

The dead of Faerie were going home to the Avalon of Albion.

“Don’t you miss stuff?” Jade asked, leaning up in the large bed and looking at Tania, lying at her side. “When you’re here, I mean? Normal stuff.”

Beyond the open windows of Tania’s bedchamber, the full moon hung low in the night sky. A gentle breeze wafted in, filling the room with the scent of evening primrose and honeysuckle.

Tania looked across at her. Jade’s eyes were almost black in the flickering light of the single candle. “Some things,” she said drowsily. “Mum and Dad, mostly.”

Jade frowned. “What about television and movies and your computer?” She shook her head. “And your mobile phone? Doesn’t it drive you crazy that you can’t text the gang—or call them up—like: ‘Hey, you’ll never guess where I am! I’m in a bedroom in a Faerie palace, and there are these tapestry things on the walls—really nice pictures of the countryside and mountains and the sea. But here’s the thing: they’re alive!’” The same awe came into Jade’s voice as Tania had heard a little while ago when she had first shown her friend the living tapestries that adorned the walls of her bedchamber. “Like, you’re looking at a really cute landscape, and suddenly you notice the trees are moving in the wind. And then a whole flock of birds suddenly goes flying across the needlework sky. You do a double take on the whole lot—and you realize the ship is moving through the water and clouds are going across the sky, and a whole lot of other stuff besides. It’s crazy!”

Tania laughed. “I’ll have to show you some of my sisters’ rooms,” she said. “Rathina’s is full of dancers. Hopie’s is all wooden carvings, like a forest, but the carvings move and you can see animals padding through the grass.”

Then she remembered Zara’s room with its painted seascapes where gulls flew and the waves rolled. And is it still like that now that she’s gone? Does the tide still come in and out? Are there still ships on the water?

She pushed her thoughts away. “I just don’t miss television or movies,” Tania said. “And as for texting and message boards and all that, I don’t even think of those things when I’m here.”

“Y’see?” said Jade, as though Tania’s comment had convinced her of something she’d already suspected. “You totally belong here, Tania.”

“Well, yes. Half of me does. . . .”

“No way!” Jade said. “All of you does! When you told me all about this place—you know, back when I thought you were loony tunes—you made it sound like you didn’t feel you really belonged here. But you so totally do. I’m here craving my iPod and my mobile phone, and you couldn’t care less about stuff like that. I’m lying here thinking, ‘Hey, I could go for a pizza right now. Shame we can’t give the local pizza parlor a call and have one delivered.’”

“If you’re hungry, we can find something to eat,” Tania said.

Jade grinned. “You don’t get it! I’m not hungry. The point I’m trying to get across to you is that I’m already missing stuff from my real life.”

“Look,” said Tania, feeling a twinge of guilt, “I’m certain we’ll be able to get you back home when the Pure Eclipse hits. You have to put up with this for only five days.”

“Again with not getting the point!” said Jade. “I’m not saying I’m not enjoying being here. I am; it rocks my socks! But for me it’s like being on holiday—and I’m having a great time. But for you it’s like this is the place you were always meant to be.” She sat up, warming to her theme. “How long have we known each other? Ten years? Thereabouts, for sure. And there’s always been this thing with you.”

Tania stared at her. “What thing?”

“Always wanting to be someplace other than where you are,” said Jade. “When you’re at school, you want to be home. When you’re home, you want to be out shopping in the market. When you’re there, you want to be somewhere else. It’s always been like you’re never happy anyplace at all. My mum used to say you have itchy feet—you know, never able to stay still in one place for more than five minutes.” Jade spread her arms in an encompassing gesture. “This is why!” she said. “All this is what you wanted! All your life you’ve missed this place and you never even knew it.”

Tania blinked at her. “Oh.” Jade was right—she’d always had that kind of restlessness. That was why her parents had suggested she might want to travel before going to college. That was why the life of an investigative journalist might suit her: always on the hunt for something new, always looking for hidden things.

Jade lay back again, pulling the covers up to her chin. “Me—I’m just totally ticked off I didn’t bring my digital camera.” She put her hands behind her head. “Except even if I showed people pictures of this place, they’d still think I’d put them together in Photoshop. I guess there’s only one way to really believe in this wacky place—and that’s to visit.” She gave Tania a sideways look. “It’s a shame about those barriers the earls put up—we could have made a fortune!”

Tania frowned. “Excuse me?”

“I can see it now,” said Jade with a wide smile. “‘Faerie Tours! Been everywhere? Seen everything? I don’t think so! We offer exclusive luxury tours of a whole other world! Special family rates. Money back if not one hundred percent satisfied.’”

“Jade?” said Tania, licking her fingers and reaching out to snuff the candle. “That is a truly terrible idea!”

Jade sighed in the sudden, deep darkness. “I guess so,” she said. “Will you promise me one thing?”

“If I can.”

“Promise when I go back, when I go home . . .” Jade’s voice was suddenly quite serious. “Promise me you won’t let my mind get wiped, like the thing that happened with Connor. I know I’ll never be able to talk about this place—but I don’t want to forget it, either. Is that a deal?”

Tania looked at her friend. How could she make such a promise? She had not been responsible for Connor’s lost two weeks. And her own mind had been wiped and her Faerie self erased for a time. She had no control over what might happen.

And yet she couldn’t bear to leave Jade swinging in the wind like that.

“If I can, I will,” she said, turning over and drawing the covers up to her ears. “And that’s a promise.”

It was night. There were no stars. In her dream Tania was on the same lofty rooftop where she had stood with Edric that afternoon. Except that Edric was not there and she felt abandoned and horribly alone.

The Dolorous Tower was lit by an eerie, ghastly light, like moonlight but all wrong—like the kind of unhealthy light given off by rotting things, a foul and sickening glow that made her stomach turn. Birds were still swarming on its rooftop and flying circles around its upper levels, crying out in ghastly and forlorn voices. Or at least they seemed to be birds—except that there was something not quite right about them.

Then Tania saw what was wrong. She saw it because suddenly the tower was much closer—as though she had gone to it or it had come hurtling toward her. The birds were all dead. Flying but dead—their feathers rotting and matted with blood, the bones jutting from their plumage, their eyes empty, their voices spectral and horrible.

The crown of the Dolorous Tower was haunted by flocks of dead birds.

Horrible! Horrible! Tania tried to scream, but she had no breath.

A force hurled her through the air toward the birds. The birds surrounded her, squawking and fluttering, their loose feathers darkening the air. She threw her arms over her head as she saw the shuttered window of the tower hurtling toward her.

She smashed through and found herself in a place she knew. . . .

She had been here once before—not in her dreams but in reality. She was standing on a high gallery overlooking a huge hall made entirely of angled slabs of shining black stone.

“The Obsidian Chamber,” she mouthed silently. “In Caer Liel, in Weir . . .”

Torches lined the walls, and the angled stone threw the uneasy light back and forth so that it was almost impossible to tell what was real flame and what was reflection. The center of the room was dominated by a huge throne made of black stone. A man sat on the throne, wrapped in a cloak of black fur.

Lord Aldritch. Tania recognized him in a heartbeat. But a second man knelt before him, doing homage.

Lord Aldritch extended his hand, and the other man lifted his head to kiss the black rings on the wasted old fingers.

The person doing obeisance to the lord of Weir was Edric. No, please no. Not Edric.

His voice echoed through the great black hall. “My liege lord—I am eternally your obedient servant.”

Aldritch rested his long hand on Edric’s head. “Like a son you shall be to me,” he said. “A fitting replacement for the child I lost—my poor Gabriel, destroyed by the half-thing Tania Aurealis!” Aldritch raised his head and his dark, dreadful eyes fixed on Tania. His voice boomed in her head. “You shall be the instrument of her doom,” he cried. “A sword in the heart shall be your gift to her, Edric of Weir—and together we shall drink of her blood!”