“There were some creatures that went underground,” Soheila said. “That chose to exist without Aelvesgold rather than leave this world.” She looked toward the door as if realizing for the first time that she was in the same predicament. Without Aelvesgold, she would begin to fade – unless she went to the nephilim to get it. I didn’t think Soheila would do that but I wondered how many of the fey left behind would be tempted in the coming years. Frank glanced from Soheila to me, perhaps thinking the same thing.

“Do you think you’d be able to open the door?” he asked.

I stepped toward the smoking ruin where the door had been and knelt down, placing my hands on the charred ground where Bill’s blood, mingled with mine, had been spilled. I tried to feel a remnant of his spirit, but felt nothing. I tried to feel some connection to that other world, but even the memory of Faerie seemed to be draining away from my mind as swiftly as Bill’s blood had soaked into the ground. I had bound my heart to the door and when I finally realized that I loved Bill and watched him die for me, my heart had broken in a million pieces – and so had the door.

“No,” I said. “There’s no door here anymore. It’s gone.”

We walked back through the woods, making our way slowly over the charred smoking ruins of the honeysuckle thicket. Frank and Soheila walked on either side of me, supporting me. The blast had scorched the whole forest. There wasn’t a trace of Faerie left in the woods. I was weaker than I first realized, drained by that explosion of power inside me. Frank and Soheila discussed what they each knew about the nephilim.

“We’ll have to find out all we can about them to defeat them,” Frank said, exchanging a look with Soheila that made me want to disappear and leave them alone. They had a lot to talk about. Still, when we reached Honeysuckle House they both offered to come in with me, but I assured them I was all right and sent them away.

The first thing I noticed when I opened the front door was the cup of tea Bill had made for me sitting on the foyer table. Holding it up to my nose I smelled Earl Grey with honey, just the way Liam had always made it for me. How could I have not known Bill was the incubus?

I leaned against the door and cried until the foyer grew dark around me. Eventually Ralph came downstairs, curled up in my lap, and nudged my hand. When I looked down I saw that he was carrying a torn crumpled piece of paper in his mouth. I uncrumpled the paper and saw that it was an illustration of a nephilim torn out of one of my books.