“I mean, I understand. The courts can be a pain. Even a casual one like Mother Crone’s has all these levels of hierarchy, and it’s a total pain keeping track of them all.”

He nodded.

“My name’s Geordie, by the way,” I went on. “Not that I expect you to tell me your name,” I added quickly, knowing how fairy felt about being asked that kind of thing. “And I’m kind of stuck here. You wouldn’t know a way out of this world, would you?”

“That seems to be a common problem lately.”

“What do you mean?”

But he ignored my question to ask his own. “How did you get here?”

I started to give him the abbreviated version, but as soon as I mentioned Jilly and Lizzie’s names, he interrupted me.

“I know how this story goes,” he said. “I’ve met your friends.”

“You have? Where are they? Can you take me to them?”

“Yes, it’s hard to say, and no.”

It took me a moment to realize he was simply answering each of my questions in turn. I focused on the middle response.

“Why is it hard to say where they are?” I asked.

“Are you familiar with the term croi baile?” he replied. “It means the home of one’s heart.”

I nodded slowly. I’d heard my brother and Christiana talk about them in the past.

“Those are the places in the otherworld where you’re most comfortable or something, isn’t it?”

“It’s a little more thorny than that,” the little man told me. “A better way to put it would be that your croi baile is that part of the otherworld that most closely reflects what lies inside your heart.”

I nodded to show that I understood him so far.

“But your friends are in a place that seems to reflect the opposite of that. The place where they are mirrors Jilly’s darkest and oldest fears and is peopled with those who brought such hurts into her life. What makes it confusing is this place shouldn’t exist. At the heart of each of us, no matter how desperate or bleak our lives might seem to be, is a flicker of light and hope—a small echo of the Grace working its light against the dark. That is what our croi baile reflects, and only the dead are without it.”

I felt my pulse quicken.

“Wait a second,” I said. “You’re not telling me she’s—”

“No, no. She’s not dead.”

“But—”