Elie lay in bed later that night, thoughts of faeries and changelings dancing about the edge of her sleep like phantasmagoria. She tended to remember things visually, as images or colors or streaks of motion. She knew Gordon was different from her in this respect: that he remembered things like words on a page, reliving the day as if he were reading from that blasted journal he carried everywhere.

The problem with being so visual, however, was that sometimes the words people used did not line up with the images she had in her head. That had been a big problem during the conversation at tea. For Elie had always thought of faeries as little sprites who danced atop mushroom caps and flitted in front of the moon. And so when Ygerna talked about snatchings and changelings and the rest, the image in Elie’s...

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