My gaze lingered on the tracks Walker and I had made in the sand, and I realized that there were too many of them. I looked beyond where we’d appeared. The sand there was undisturbed. Turning the other way, I saw a busy trail of footprints leading off into the fog. Their edges were soft from the incoming tide, but still clearly visible.

Shrugging, I decided to follow them. It seemed like a plan, though it turned out to not be a very good one because about thirty yards along, they ended as abruptly as they’d begun.

I moved my hands through the air here as I had at the spot where Walker and I had appeared, not expecting to feel anything. But no sooner had I started, than someone crashed into me, and we were both sent sprawling onto the wet sand. I scrambled to my feet a moment before the strange little man who’d knocked me down did, but I didn’t see that it gave me any particular advantage. The only thing it did was leave me standing with my fiddle case in the sand a half-dozen paces away where it had been thrown when the little man knocked me down—happily, beyond the reach of the incoming tide.

I still wanted to check that it was okay. Instead we just stood there, studying each other warily.

He was an odd little bird, but I’d seen stranger at Galfreya’s court. He had the matted dreadlocks and very bright eyes that so many fairy did, stood no taller than my waist, and wore raggedy clothes in a mottle of earth colours. I could never decide if wearing those kinds of things was a fashion statement, or just that clothing didn’t mean that much to them so they let them get all threadbare and worn.

Mind you, I should talk. I doubted I cut much of a figure myself after having been banged around the way I had been in the past couple of hours.

“So . . .” I said.

The sound of my voice broke whatever spell had been keeping the little man motionless. He took a step back.

“No, wait!” I added, speaking quickly when I realized he might be about to abandon me the way Walker had. “Please don’t go. I won’t hurt you. I . . .” I searched for something that would let him know that I was harmless and settled for, “I’m a musician—at Mother Crone’s court in Newford.”

He nodded. Apparently that was enough for him to hear me out, though he didn’t seem any less wary.

“I don’t much hold with the courts,” he said.

So he was one of the solitary fairies. He probably spent the majority of his time in the otherworld.

“That’s cool,” I told him.

He gave me a confused look.