“You’re sure they didn’t wear the clothes here?” she asked.

I shook my head. “They wouldn’t have matched perfectly without planning it this way.”

“We were thinking he lured them down here with a promise of an acting part, a short film,” she said.

I thought about it, then shrugged. “Maybe, but they’d have come to the circle anyway.”

“Why?”

“The demi-fey, the small winged fey, have a particular fondness for natural circles.”

“Explain.”

“The stories only tell humans not to step into a ring of toadstools, or a ring of actual dancing fey, but it can be any natural circle. Flowers, stones, hills, or trees, like this circle. They come to dance in the circle.”

“So they came down here to dance and he brought the clothes?” She frowned at me.

“You think that it works better if he lured them down here to film them,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Either that or he watched them,” I said, “so he knew they came down here on certain nights to dance.”

“That would mean he or she was stalking them,” Lucy said.

“It would.”

“If I go after the film angle, I can find the costume rental and the advertisement for actors for his short film.” She made little quote marks in the air for the word film.

“If he’s just a stalker and he made the costumes, then you have fewer leads to follow.”

“Don’t say he. You don’t know that the killer is a he.”

“You’re right, I don’t. Are you assuming that the killer isn’t human?”

“Should we be?” she asked, her voice neutral.

“I don’t know. I can’t imagine a human strong enough or fast enough to grab six demi-fey and slit their throats before the others could escape or attack him.”