But this she was ready for, this image of an island, small and green, in a lake calm as glass under a just-risen crescent moon. A scene of such surpassing peacefulness that she would have wept a year ago to know the havoc she would wreak when she came.

Not even a year ago, not so much even. But she had changed, and though there was sorrow within her—deep as a stone and as permanent—there was too much need, and the delay had been too long to allow her the luxury of tears.

She rose from her bed. The Warstone flickered with a muted, presaging light. It was going to blaze soon, she knew. She would carry fire on her hand. She saw by the kitchen clock that it was four in the morning. She also saw Jennifer sitting at the table, and the kettle was coming to a boil.

“You cried out,” her roommate said. “I thought something was happening.”

Kim took one of the other chairs. She tightened her robe about her. It was chilly in the house, and this traveling always left her cold. “It did,” she said, wearily.

“You know what you have to do?”

She nodded.

“Is it all right?”

She shrugged. Too hard to explain. She had an understanding, of late, as to why Ysanne had withdrawn in solitude to her lake. There were two lights in the room: one on the ceiling and the other on her hand. “We’d better call the guys,” she said.

“I already have. They’ll be here soon.”

Kim glanced sharply at her. “What did I say in my sleep?”

Jennifer’s eyes were kind again; they had been since Darien was born. “You cried out for forgiveness,” she said. She would drag the dead from their rest and the undead to their doom.

“Fat chance,” said Kimberly.

The doorbell rang. In a moment they were standing all around her, anxious, disheveled, half asleep. She looked up. They were waiting, but the waiting was over; she had seen an island and a lake like glass.

“Who’s coming with me to England?” she asked, with brittle, false brightness in her voice.

All of them went. Even Dave, who’d had to virtually quit his articling job to get away on twenty-four hours’ notice. A year ago he’d carried a packet of Evidence notes into Fionavar with him, so determined was he to succeed in the law. He’d changed so much; they all had. After seeing Rangat throw up that unholy hand, how could anything else seem other than insubstantial?

Yet what could be more insubstantial than a dream? And it was a dream that had the five of them hurtling overseas on a 747 to London and, in a Renault rented at Heathrow and driven erratically and at speed by Kevin Laine, to Amesbury beside Stonehenge.

Kevin was in a fired-up mood. Released at last from the waiting, from months of pretending to take an interest in the tax, real estate, and civil-procedure courses that preceded his call to the Bar, he gunned the car through a roundabout, ignored Dave’s spluttering, and skidded to a stop in front of an ancient hotel and tavern called, of course, the New Inn.