I was so caught up in the colors Seelie nature provided that I’d dropped behind the fairyflies. It wasn’t until they swarmed around me again that I realized I’d stopped. With a curse, I skipped to chase after my glowy friends around a few more trees until they stopped me just before a narrow trail cut a path through the forest. A line of people raced by me without saying a word. They were all dressed differently but not a single one of them had pointed ears. That’s a red flag, right? These are humans. Humans shouldn’t be in Seelie.

“Hey!” I leapt onto the trail in front of them, expecting the next girl in the line to stop, but instead she walked right through me. Then the next did, and two more after that. My heart sank. “I’m not really here. They can’t see me. Shit.”

I stopped and watched them hurry by me and my bones turned cold. Their eyes were blank. Distant. Completely robotic and not present at all. It was like they’d been hypnotized. I skipped along with the line, waving my hands in front of their faces yet got no reaction whatsoever. A cold chill slid down my spine. This isn’t okay. Something is very wrong here. And then I saw a face I recognized, and my breath caught in my throat. I’d seen this guy’s face on the news when I couldn’t sleep . . . They’d been showing picture after picture of a bunch of missing people and this guy was one of them. I stopped and watched the line of human robots go by only to realize I’d seen many of their faces. There were a few dozen of them and I recognized at least half of the ones I’d seen. These people were all missing. Their families and loved ones had reported them missing . . . and they were somehow here in Seelie.

“This is why you’re missing . . .” My stomach turned as the pieces started to click into place. That first night when Sam had warned us to get to Orlando, I’d spoken to a girl who couldn’t find her boyfriend. I’d sent her away toward the Knights assuming they’d gotten separated in the chaos, but that was him walking toward me still wearing his Harry Potter Hogwarts cloak from Universal Studios. “Oh my God . . . That’s what they were doing. They were stealing people to get here—oh Goddess. Tegan. TEGAN!”

I scrambled away from the line of humans to hide behind a tree. My heart was pounding in my veins. I wrapped my fingers around my rune stone bracelet and pushed with my magic. But nothing happened. No pink or blue mist. No pulse of energy. No flashing lights.

“Shit, shit, shit.” I bounced around and squeezed my eyes shut. “Tegan! Tega,n get me out! Hurry!”