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“Ah, the other said you might not know yet. You are like Moirigh. We do not know everything either. Fae see through us and see the secrets, but we never get to see the secrets. It’s okay, you are friend. We will be friends. We will protect your friends.”

“Thanks, Moirigh.” My answer was the burbling bubble-blowing, and I took a steadying breath and began my trek up the small hill.

It curved up, the dusty, long-forgotten road fighting back the siege of silver grasses into a crop of trees that seemed to hold their breath as I passed. Everything about this place seemed like a room full of partygoers hiding behind fans; all their conversation died out the moment I set foot on its shore. It felt like every stone, every tree, every blade of grass was waiting for me to do something.

It was a feeling I didn’t like, especially since I didn’t know what I was going to do.

I pushed through the low bushes that hid what looked like the corner of a helmet, into a plot of silver grass dotted with tiny grave markers of armor pieces slowly being reclaimed by the dirt and plants. The scar was laid out before me, and as I looked up, I stared into the eye of the swirling storm above as it stared back.

It didn’t move. I don’t know what I expected. Perhaps for it to rush at me and try to swallow me, as the other one had. It only spun on its axis, bending its swirling arms to shade me from the heat of the sun above us. At its center, just like the one the last one, was a pulsing white heart. Unlike the that one, though, this one did not call to the inner part of me that longed to fling myself bodily from a cliff. This void did not call out like the last one; this one seemed to welcome me as my mother’s arms had. It did not yank or intrude on my sanctity. It felt like a giant grandmother stretching out overhead with a soft, nostalgic smile and a tray of cookies. And I did my best to ignore the fact that this granny had a fine red mist caught in her hair that looked suspiciously like blood.

I pulled my eyes away from the magic storm, seeing that it would do me no harm at all, and swept my gaze along the open area. There was nothing—no big stones. No rubble. No shattered beams. No crumbling chimneys. No rotted roofs or derelict doorways to hide creepy shadows. There wasn’t even any grass pushing up into the barren area overlooking the lake.

“No clue what I expected from a ruin . . . I guess . . . a whole lot more ruins and less bare dirt?” I asked no one, perhaps the mice that surely hid in the underbrush. I already missed my friends. Violet would have probably shot back something about it being better bare than inhabited. Green Man would have boldly tromped into the center of it and declared it a fixer-upper. Emerald would have danced in the open sunshine. Goose would have gone hunting at the edges of the brush like he was in the habit of doing these days. And Brittle Spear? What would he think of a harmless magic storm, the greatest existential threat to all Faekind, just hovering a good hundred feet above the wound on the land?

The silence around me grew thick, heavy, oppressive, as a thousand expectant eyes watched as I crept along the sparse grass growing on the edges of the wasteland before me, too much of a coward to set foot on it. I’d seen enough in Magh Meall to know what was right in front of me was the best sort of trap.

I had been practicing in the quiet moments when all I had were my thoughts. Not enough to really make magic happen, certainly never pushing enough to create a magic storm again, but just enough to feel the movements and the currents of magic around me. It had been uncomfortable at first, a world enshrouded by cobwebs, all rubbing against every inch of my body; that was what touching magic was like for me. It took a lot of practice just to get used to the feeling of magic. But the moment I did it, I could sense everything, from the subtle way the Fae moved their own magic around their bodies, some I suspected, subconsciously, to the throbbing open vein of magic that was Brittle Spear. He was a flame in the pit of a mineshaft, radiating energy all around him and burning spots into your eyes.

Exhaling, I sought to find any strands left in this place, to find the edges of whatever trap had been laid, but aside from the magic storm slowly following me from above, there was nothing. Beyond the edges of the dirt, there was plenty of magic, plenty of life eating it up and using it for its own purpose, but before me was a perfect void of it. An emptiness that felt wrong, like an injustice.

I sat down in the grass and watched the dirt before me, not even a breeze willing to disturb it, and thought. “I’m supposed to be here. She told me to come here. Everything is supposed to be here. All the answers. All the questions. But . . . but there’s nothing. Just dirt and a magic storm.”

Sunset was threatening the horizon when I heard slow footsteps coming up the path I had taken. No one should be here. No one should have followed me. I crouched, pulling the small shard of iron I had fashioned into a dagger from my boot. It was hard to see the shadow growing in the brush, but when two eyes flashed neon blue in the darkness, I grinned wide.

“Goose!”

The magic storm came awake in a single split second and zeroed in on my friend, my beloved pet, who greeted me with a dopey smile and his thick black tongue hanging out of his mouth. Goose took two steps forward, and the magic storm lashed out a single dusty swirl of an arm headed straight for him.

I didn’t think. I didn’t consider. I had lost him once. I would never lose him again. He was my cricket. He was my shadow. I needed him. He needed me. I loved that slobbery fart machine more than I loved myself. I was between him and the magic storm before I could even blink, before I could even think to move the magic into my blood to make me swift enough to get to him in time.

The arm of the magic storm slid into me, a gentle, snowy hand piercing my stomach. There was no pain. I expected there to be pain. I expected to feel the same level of agony lace through me as having my bond to The Raven ripped out. That had felt like my skeleton was being ripped out of my skin. But this? It was just cold. Not even an unpleasant cold, either. It was the cold right after a snowstorm, peaceful and chilly.

Was this what death was like? Just a little chill and nothing more?

Couldn’t be, because I was still screaming, still daring the magic storm to touch Goose as I snarled and roared my fury at it. The magic storm shivered and recoiled, its arm sliding free of me, and the chill was gone.

I fell to my knees and wrapped my arms around Goose, who rested his head on mine, keeping an eye on the storm behind me. “What are you doing here, big guy? You can’t be here. It’s dangerous! You almost just died! You’re not allowed to die. Pretty sure we had this conversation before, and if we didn’t, I’m telling you now. You’re not allowed to die. Or get hurt. Or grow old. Or I don’t know, be mildly inconvenienced by this shit-ass world. You’re only allowed to be a good, happy boy. Okay?”

Goose peeled his eyes away from the storm and leveled them on me before giving me one of his diesel engine, crashing into a guard rail being driven by a happy tiger purrs, and bumping his head into mine. I chuckled and scratched behind his ear. “That’s my good boy.” I placed an adoring kiss on the top of his shaggy smoke head and stood, turning my wrath on the storm.

“As for you!” The storm shuddered, almost as if quaking in the face of an angry god. “No more of that shit! You hear me? You don’t touch Goose . . . or anyone I like. That’s a short fucking list, so it shouldn’t be too hard. You hear me? Not a single fucking hair. You got it?”

I had lost my marbles again. Here I was, reprimanding a world-ending, all-devouring black hole that could strike fear into any Fae who saw it, like it was nothing more than a naughty child. But what else was I supposed to do? It had almost killed Goose, and I couldn’t have that. Not now. Not ever.

“Wait . . .” The sudden realization that not only was I alive, but I was a Fae who had been touched by a magic storm careened into me. Frantic hands ran over my body, checking for missing pieces and carved out chunks. But I was whole. “What . . . the . . . fuck . . .”

I looked back up to the magic storm that shivered in the early evening purple light, thousands of thousands of tiny stars winking from its body above me. Like a galaxy flashing its true beauty now that night had fallen. Eight larger stars burned in the arms in an S shape.

“Goose . . . are you seeing this shit?” I asked, knowing full well he wouldn’t respond. We both knew he could, and we both knew he wouldn’t because I was too chicken shit to have a talking dog. I’m sure baby me would have loved that, but adult me, the adult me now staring up at her long-lost family’s house crest burning in the event horizon of what was essentially a black hole, could not handle that shit. “That’s . . . that’s the House of Magic’s sigil. Eight stars in a banded S. All that’s missing is the twin stars.”

The dust of the storm spun on its arms, but the stars stayed as fixed points.

“I don’t like this . . . But I don’t know what the fuck it means. Yeah, sure, this checks out. Spooky scary Fae shit at the boogeyman’s house and their crest in the thing that can destroy magic. That checks out. But what does it mean?” I collapsed, my legs crossing under me as I watched it, perplexed and unsure of what to do with this information.

Goose bumped my hip with his head as he joined me in the grass and lay his head in my lap, the crunch of paper accentuating his hefty flop. I frowned, pulling my gaze away and fished out the small roll of paper that was tied to his neck with a strip of black cloth.

Do you still live? We hold, but not for much longer, my Pearl.