“You’ll lose yourself in the Aelvesgold,” he told me. “Here.” He took my hand in his and pressed something into it. When I opened the hand I saw that I held the Aelvestone.

“How …?”

“You’d better put it someplace safe,” he told me. “Lock it up. Or you’ll lose it … and lose yourself.”

I felt its pulse in my hand, like the heart of a trapped animal trying to escape. I closed my hand around it, but that only made it beat harder. It was beating so hard, I heard it pounding.

I turned back to Liam, but he was fading, melting into the golden haze of Faerie.

“Don’t go!” I cried, but he was vanishing in a blaze of light so bright I had to close my eyes against the glare. When I was at last able to open them I found myself in my room in Honeysuckle House. Watery green light struggled through the windows. I blinked at it, confused, unable to tell if it was morning or night. I felt as though I’d just gone to sleep. The time I’d spent making love to Liam couldn’t have been more than an hour …

I heard pounding. I opened my hand, looking for the Aelvestone Liam had given me in my dream, but my hand was empty.

The noise was coming from downstairs. For a moment I had the confused impression that the Aelvestone was knocking at my front door, but then realized that was ridiculous.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed. My limbs felt watery and weak. I stood up … and noticed I was naked. Hadn’t I worn a nightgown to bed? Yes, there it was, crumpled in a ball on the floor along with a discarded blanket. I walked to my dresser and pulled on shorts and a t-shirt. Then I walked downstairs, half hoping that my visitor would be gone by the time I got to the door. Who would be bothering me so early in the morning?

A glance at the clock in the foyer told me it was twenty after ten.

Oh.

I swung the door open eagerly and suppressed a sigh of disappointment. A man in a navy blue sweatshirt and baseball cap pulled low over his eyes stood with shoulders hunched, holding a clipboard up to shield himself from a funnel of water cascading through the porch roof.

“Yes?” I asked irritably. He was probably collecting signatures for some local political cause or come to read a meter.

“Cal … Leach Mac Fay?” he said, butchering my name.

“Yes,” I sighed, not bothering to correct his pronunciation. All that navy blue looked vaguely official. Maybe he was here collecting for the policemen’s annual picnic. “That’s me.”

“I’m Bill Carey. You called me about some work you needed done?” He squinted up at the leak coming from the porch roof. “I guess you might want me to start on the roof.”

“Bill Carey? Oh, Handyman Bill! I did call, but I didn’t make an appointment. How …?”