Then he was gone, and I missed his going in the instant that the sun fell off the edge of the hill, abandoning the world to twilight. I was left standing, a little out of breath, feeling my pulse in the scar above my left ear. I stared after when he had been. I couldn't decide if I wished I had never seen the antlered figure, so that I could just go on as before, or if I wished I had gotten here sooner, so I could figure out why I was seeing creatures like him again.

I turned to go back to the school but before I could, I was hit by something solid, right in my gut. It pushed me off balance; I fought to stay upright.

The owner of the body gasped, "Oh my God, I'm sorry!"

The voice stung, familiar. Deirdre. My best friend. Could I still call her that? I gasped, "It's okay. I only need just the one kidney."

Deirdre spun, her face flushed, and her expression changed so quickly I couldn't tell what it had been originally. I couldn't stop staring at her face. I had seen her--gray eyes dominating the slender shape of her pale face--so many times with my eyes shut that it seemed strange to see her with them open.

"James. James! Did you see Them? They had to have come right by you!"

I struggled to pull myself together. "Who's 'Them'?"

She stepped away from me to look over the hill, eyes narrowed, squinting into the oncoming darkness. "The faeries. I don't know--four of them? Five?"

She was seriously freaking me out; she moved so quickly that her choppy dark ponytail swung in small circles. "Okay, look, Dee, stop moving. You're making me seasick. Now what-faeries? Again?"

Deirdre closed her eyes for a minute. When she opened them again, she looked more like herself. Less frantic. "So stupid. I'm just weirded out, I guess. It's like I'm seeing them everywhere."