The Black Coats had sent whole armies against the humans in Sylvalan. Why should the Fae care about the humans? The fewer of them, the better. They’d caused nothing but trouble lately. Just like the witches.

It was the Black Coats’fault. All of it. They were the ones who started all the trouble in Sylvalan. At the core of it, they were the reason she was now shunned by her own Clan and cautiously welcomed by others. If they hadn’t come, she wouldn’t have been trapped at Brightwood, wouldn’t have lost the challenge to that usurping bitch.

If you’d listened to Morag, Aiden, and Lyrra a year ago, you could have gathered the huntsmen from the Clans and driven the Black Coats out of Sylvalan. You could have been the one who protected the witches and the Old Places…and Tir Alainn. You would still be the Lady of the Moon, and the Fae would still love you…as they used to love you.

Maybe she had been mistaken about a few things, but she’d done her best for the Fae. For the Fae. They didn’t seem to remember that. They certainly hadn’t wanted to live in the Old Places or deal with humans or do any of the things they were now scurrying to do.

Her pale mare stumbled over something, almost fell. Mist suddenly enclosed them. Dianna slowed the animal to a trot while fear produced jagged spikes to scrape her nerves.

She should have reached the other side of the bridge by now. At the very least, she should be seeing the glow from the arch that indicated the end of the bridge. And…why was she riding through mist? There was no mist on the bridges.

But there had been. Thin wisps of it that swirled around her mare’s knees. She remembered that now.

She dug her heels into the mare’s sides, desperate to get clear of the mist.

A few strides later, the mist thinned. A few strides after that, she was galloping over flat green land—and the Clan house was no more than a few minutes away.

Reining in the mare, she looked back.

Mist. Swirling, spreading, devouring.

When the mare stumbled…She must have stumbled at the end of the bridge, where it connects to this Clan’s territory. Which means I’ve been riding through mist in Tir Alainn.

She wheeled the mare and galloped toward the Clan house, then changed direction to intercept the stream of people hurrying toward the markers that indicated the shining road.

As she reached the markers, she reined in and shouted, “What’s happening?”

A woman holding a baby stared at her with terror-blank eyes. “The road is closing! We have to get away now!”