“Did I startle you?” he said. “I was only saying that I—”

“—smelled fire and heard something.”

“Yes.” He looked out at the ruins. “It’s gone now.”

“It was . . .” I gulped for breath, and it felt like inhaling that terrible fire, as it scorched my lungs. Gabriel took my arm again, keeping me upright.

“Before the construction, they trapped the fae in a circle of iron and lit the field with some kind of blue fire. I don’t know what it was, but it was . . .” I shivered. “Awful. The smell and the sound and the screaming. They died. They all died, horribly.”

Still gripping my arm, Gabriel turned. I glanced back to see the girl there. He yanked off his shades with his free hand, staring in her direction.

“Is this really necessary?” he said. Then he shook his head sharply. “No, let me rephrase that. This is not necessary. There is no possible reason she needs to see a hundred-year-old massacre.”

I expected her to smile and answer with some riddle. Or perhaps to solemnly say that it was necessary. Instead, she walked to him and reached out to touch the hand hovering there, holding his sunglasses. The moment her fingers made contact, he yanked his hand back and then covered the reaction with a scowl.

“What have they done to you, Gwynn ap Nudd?” she said.

“Leave Gabriel out of this,” I said.

She smiled at me, wistful. “You protect him as he protects you. And the other, too. The three of you, in a circle of support, as it should be, as it was once, before the circle was torn asunder and the darkness came.”

“The other. What other? I have no idea what—or who—you mean.”

“You know exactly who I mean. Matilda, Gwynn, Arawn. Over and over, until the damage is fixed. Until the two sides”— she held up her hand, a black and a white stone on her palm; she closed her fist, and when she opened it again, there was one stone, two colors swirling through it—“are one again.”

“You realize I have no idea what you’re talking—”

“You will.”

“But this Matilda . . . am I her? Reincarnated or something?”

“Or something.” She pursed her lips as if in thought. “Reimagined. Not reborn, but born anew. As he”—she motioned at Gabriel—“is not Gwynn ap Nudd, nor the other Arawn. You are, and you are not. You are destined to play the roles again. To give us another chance. But when two sides have been at war so long, neither cares for peace. Only victory.”

“Two sides,” I said. “You mean the Tylwyth Teg and the Cwn Annwn, right?”

“There’s more to this story,” she said. “Follow me.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The girl tore off. When I started after her, Gabriel caught my shoulder.

“We’re done here,” he said.

He still had his shades off and was looking toward the house, his gaze distant.

“Gabriel?”