I’d been doing it myself for years, but I couldn’t do it anymore once Saskia was taken. Because, as a direct result of that, I ended up meeting Galfreya and going into the otherworld myself, pretty much losing any chance I’d had of pretending that none of it was real.

“You should get dressed,” I told Siobhan.

She nodded, then lifted her bandaged arm. “Except I can’t do it on my own. I didn’t bring anything that buttons up.”

“I’ll help you,” Andy said. “It’s not like I haven’t seen it all before.”

That made me wonder if they’d been a couple at some point, but the thought was fleeting.

“Look,” Andy said before he followed Siobhan into the bathroom. “Maybe we should check with Con first. I mean, Lizzie wasn’t in there when I went to bed, but who knows? He’s been making eyes at her ever since he joined the band. She could have gone in after I went downstairs.”

“And Jilly is there to make it a threesome?”

“Well, I didn’t mean that . . .”

“They’ve both disappeared wearing only what they went to bed in,” I said. “I don’t think they’re with Con, charming though he is.”

“Not Lizzie, for sure,” Siobhan said from the bathroom door. “Now come help me, Andy. I’m getting the creeps staying in this room.”

I turned away and looked out the window.

When Saskia disappeared, the first person Christy called was me, not that I was much help, because what did I know about that kind of thing? He and Christiana were the experts in the family, not me. But now, when I took out my cell phone, it was Galfreya’s number that I punched in.

She answered on the first ring.

“Hello, Geordie,” she said.

This wasn’t her being a seer. Even fairies have caller ID.

“Does this mean you’re not angry with me?” she added.

“I don’t know that I was ever angry,” I told her. “I’m more confused and a little hurt.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t handle it well, did I? But I didn’t know what else to do. All I knew was that I could keep you from danger by making sure you stayed near the court.”

I so wasn’t ready to get into this right now.

“That isn’t why I called you,” I said. “I’m in the Custom House Hotel in Sweetwater—do you know where that is?”

“Yes.”

“We’re having fairy trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Bogans have kidnapped two women from their beds.”

There was a long moment of silence—not the kind that comes when the person on the other end of the line doesn’t know what to say and you’re just getting ambient noise through the receiver, but utter silence, as though the line had gone dead.