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Dedication

To Deb Coates, who taught me that dog reasons are not our reasons. Also to her dog, Blue, who thinks about rabbits even more than Rook does.

Contents

Dedication

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Books by Sarah Prineas

Back Ads

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

Prologue

Under a full moon, four black horses raced over the hills, their hooves drumming on the grass, their flame-colored eyes flashing. The leader, a tall horse whose mane was braided and knotted with glinting crystals, swerved, finding a new course, and the rest of the horses swerved too and galloped on, following.

Pucks, all of them.

Three of the pucks raced along, reveling in their strength, in the stretch of muscles moving under a smooth coat, in their strong bond with one another, and in the wind blowing through their manes. They were running toward trouble and chaos and fun, and the whole reason for being a puck.

The fourth puck felt all that, but he felt something else, too.

He was a puck, and as a puck he should be true only to his brother-pucks and nobody else. But he had a thread, the merest fragile spider-silk thread, tying his heart to another heart far away. He wasn’t sure what the thread was, exactly. It was just there, and somehow he didn’t quite want to break it, though breaking it would be as easy as taking a breath and letting it out again. So on he ran, free and wild with his brothers, but feeling at the same time the faintest pull toward something else.

Ahead was a forest, dark and thick with pine trees. As they drew near it, the horses slowed. The air around them blurred, and one by one they changed from horse to person-shaped for just a moment, and then another swift, blurring change into dog. And now a small pack of black-furred, yellow-eyed dogs ran shoulder to shoulder through the dark, piney woods.

They flowed like a furry, black river over fallen trunks and piles of stone, winding through the close-growing trees. Above them the wind raced too, making a rush-rush-rush sound in the high branches.

At last the four dogs came to a mossy clearing. They spat out their shifter-tooths and stood panting in their person shapes again. The moon hung directly over the clearing, casting sharp shadows.

“Is this it?” one of the pucks asked. For clothes he wore a wrap made of tattered, yellow silk.

The second puck, this one wearing nothing but red and black paint, answered. His eyes glinted with a redder flame than his brother-pucks’ did. “It is,” he growled. “Quiet. ”

The third puck, the leader with the long braids woven with shiny bits, glanced up at the moon. “Any moment now, and the Way here will open. ” He nodded at the painted puck. “It’s going to be a wonderful trick, this. ”

The painted puck barked out a laugh. “This is maybe the best puck-plan ever made, brothers. It’ll turn everything upside down. ”