His lips were curled into the beginnings of a snarl as he snatched the letters out of my hand. “I’ll see you off. Someone ought to.”

Along the avenue, the lit Hallows’ candles set in windows went out one by one. The coach rolled out of the gloom, the four horses gleaming like moonlight. The coachman tipped his hat in greeting. The eru leaped down from the back of the coach. Clouds scudded over the bright stars and thunder rumbled like the feet of the leashed Hunt troubling the sky as it waited to be released.

I glanced at the heavens, and then at the door as the eru opened it and bumped down the steps so I could climb in. She nodded, a spark of blue flashing on her forehead.

“I take it that a willing sacrifice need not be torn to pieces and have its head thrown down a well,” I remarked as I entered the coach.

“No reason to do that unless they try to escape or fight back.” My sire sat at his ease, one leg crossed elegantly. He looked past me at Rory, on the stoop. “Is that your brother? I do lose track, for there are so many of you.”

The door closing cut off the view, but regardless my gaze had been caught by the large, gleaming object on the bench next to my sire. I had last seen the bronze cauldron in the temple of Carnonos watched over by my grandfather. The face of a horned man shone in the polished surface.

“Not a very good likeness, if you ask me,” said my sire, noticing the direction of my gaze. “Imagine! He had the effrontery to pour water into it and watch me every Hallows’ Night. I put a stop to that!”

“Did you kill him?”

“Kill him? Of course not! On Hallows’ Night, the Hunt gathers up the spirits of those fated to die in the coming year. We don’t kill them. You mortals kill each other, or you die of other causes. I only kill one mortal a year, and I do that because I am commanded to do so by my masters.”

Strangely, the moment the coach arrived, all my fear had melted away like ice under heat. The coachman cracked his whip. I pulled the shutter back in time to wave at Rory as we rolled away down the street.

“Then what did you do in the mortal world all these weeks?” I demanded.