Sloane Nelson shivered in her sleep as the plane descended through the clouds. She jerked awake, her hand over her mouth to silence the scream still burning in her throat. She looked around wildly, but the cabin was quiet. No one else seemed the least bit disturbed.

She’d only screamed in the dream then, not out loud. Thank god. What an awful nightmare.

When she reached for just what had made it so awful, though, everything in her mind swirled away like water disappearing down a drain. She was left only with a racing heart, vague images of a terrible storm and a rune-covered rock high on a hill that dripped blood . . . and the awful sound of her own screams.

Sloane shuddered and let out a long breath. She’d had the dream before. Many times, actually. She should be used to the damn thing by now.

Relaxing back into her seat, she lifted the window shade. Sunset was feathering gold over the blue-black expanse of sea below. Nestled midway between Ireland and Scotland, the island was visible on the darkening horizon. Manx—the Isle of Man—had always felt more hers than California ever had, even though she was a Valley girl, born and bred.

It used to surprise her, but after twenty years, she’d learned to accept it.

Now that feeling was justified. Sloane hugged herself with a breathless giddiness she hadn’t felt since she’d published her first book.

She’d taken the leap and left the States, and LA, for good. No more earthquakes, no more smog. No more family who didn’t know the meaning of the word, no more clingy ex-husband. No more lawyers, no more courtrooms. Sloane felt like she could breathe deeply for the first time in years.

She traced the outline of her favorite place in the world as it grew larger in the blurry plane window. If she didn’t want to, she’d never have to leave Manx again.

Everything was going to be just perfect.

Finally.

Maybe perfect didn’t exist, Sloane decided an hour later. Jenny hadn’t met her at the airport as planned. Instead, Sloane found herself stuck in a cab with an unusually loquacious local who was regaling her with tales about his one trip to the States, to some high school in North Carolina, where he’d been impressed with the indoor pool and the ‘sexy’ accents. He seemed disappointed with hers, asking her just how far California was from the Carolinas.

When she told him, he looked at her in the rearview mirror like she was mad. American distances never quite sank into islander heads. Sloane shrugged and looked down as her phone pinged again. The text was from Jenny, cursing her shit luck and apologizing one more time.

Jenny Creer was two years younger than Sloane. Black-haired and blue-eyed, Jenny had a sunny disposition that persisted in spite of the crap life tended to hand her with gleeful regularity. They’d been partners in crime from the first summer Sloane had spent in the Isle. Just now, Jenny was stuck somewhere between the airport and her boyfriend’s place in Peel, her ancient car having taken its last gasp about an hour ago. Gery didn’t have a car of his own, so Jenny was waiting on her dad to pick her and the car up and haul them back to Ramsey.

No worries, Sloane texted back. Best-case scenario, by the time the cab dropped Sloane off, Jenny would already be waiting at the flat. Of course, with Jenny’s luck . . .

Sloane looked out the window into the night that was always so much blacker here and shook her head with a rueful half smile on her lips.

* * *

Far above the beams of Sloane’s cab winding up the narrow coastal roadway, Tir’na N’og swirled in the late summer sky. The city of the gods was nearly abandoned this night. A sickle moon winked faintly, dusting her pale light along the deserted streets.

Lughnasa was nigh at hand, and since most of the preparations for Lugh’s big day were being completed in the Otherworld, this nighttime domain of the gods had been left eerily quiet and still—except for a lone hooded figure moving swiftly through the star gardens. Crimson curls stood out starkly against white velvet, green eyes intent on the rune-etched bowl before them.

Bav, goddess of death, one third of the triumvirate known as the Morrighan, leaned closer to the scrying pool, glad to have the place to herself for this task.

She should leave well enough alone, Bav knew, as she poured water into the shallow basin. But she couldn’t resist one quick peek, just to see what was going on . . .

The face drifting over the water had her lips tightening. So much trouble over one little soul.

“She’s arrived then.”

Bav jumped as Fand’s musical lilt trilled in her ear. She scowled at the figure forming behind her, one impossibly delicate and beautiful, silver-gold hair glimmering to a tiny waist in the moonlight. Bav lifted an eyebrow at the curious look on the fairy queen’s face. Once upon a time, Fand had been her brother Mac’s queen as well. That had ended badly.

A twinge of guilt pinged in Bav’s chest. She frowned, rubbing at it.

She was going soft.

It had started when she’d saved Lugh’s pet werewolf’s love, then there’d been that business with Aidan—Bav swallowed hard—and now, here she was feeling regret over a centuries-old trick that had done everyone a favor in the end.

What in the name of Danu was wrong with her these days?

“This is Aidan’s daughter, Isleen.” Fand trailed a slender fingertip over the human woman’s face, ripples distorting the reflection of golden hair and pale crystal eyes with their hint of green.

“In a matter of speaking,” Bav admitted grudgingly. “Her name is Sloane now.” Reincarnation explained it best, she supposed. The spell she had woven over Isleen’s soul ensured Aidan’s daughter would be born again. It would have been nice if the effect hadn’t taken eleven hundred fucking years to manifest in the woman before them, but such was magic.

Stubborn, willful and as contrary as the Irish themselves.

Behind the face in the pool, a shadow swirled, the glint of teeth flashing in the darkness. A stone rose through the shadows, covered in glyphs. Glyphs to weeping blood.

Fand let out a low gasp, looking up at Bav. The goddess’s lips tightened briefly before she raised a hand to swirl the foreboding images away.

“I’m staying out of this one.” With an imperious finger, Bav ordered the blood-tinged river water from the basin, directing it back into the worn leather pouch at her waist as she prepared to leave the scrying pool.

Blocking her way, Fand raised a thin golden eyebrow. “That’s possible—you staying out of anything?”

Bav blinked. “I wasn’t aware you understood sarcasm.”

“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me. I still care for your brother, despite your scheming. He’s in danger. I know you feel it, too.”

Bav forced a laugh. “Any danger that bastard’s in he can damme well handle his own self. He wouldn’t lift a finger for me when I needed him.”

“Bullshit,” Fand whispered at her back. “He did you a kindness and taught you a lesson at the same time.”

Bav’s shoulders stiffened, bloodred curls quivering, but she didn’t turn. In a cascade of Kelly-green sparks, the goddess of death disappeared, leaving Fand alone in the deepening night.

The fairy queen dropped her eyes to her feet and the translucent floor showing the wink of the sea far, far below.

“Better be careful, Mac,” she whispered before Fand, too, disappeared into the dark.