Human kids live their lives in sunlight. Staying up late is usually a treat reserved for special occasions. Fae kids live by a different clock. Almost all fae are nocturnal creatures, from Daoine Sidhe like my mother all the way down to the hearth-spirits and pixies. We don’t like the sun; the sun returns the favor. Of Mitch and Stacy’s five kids, only the oldest, Cassandra, was keeping anything like a human schedule. She was a freshman at UC Berkeley, and unfortunately, most of the required courses for a physics degree were held during the day.

The fae disdain for daylight made shopping for Andy’s birthday present an adventure in and of itself. I’d finally managed to make it to a toy store downtown just before closing, where the clerk assured me that no four-year-old boy could ever have enough plastic dinosaurs. Since I’d been out of bed for less than half an hour, I was groggy enough that I would have agreed to buy the kid a box of plastic forks if it meant I could get out of there and go for coffee. The dinosaurs were in the back, in a bag covered with gamboling cartoon clowns. I hate clowns.

I was lucky: it was late enough that the roads between San Francisco and Colma were basically clear, and I pulled up in front of Mitch and Stacy’s house with almost five minutes to spare. From the sidewalk, the house looked dark, silent, and totally deserted. Living in Faerie has taught me a lot about how deceptive appearances can be.

The edges of the lawn glittered as I walked toward the house, betraying the presence of an illusion spell. I stepped across the boundaries, and the house was suddenly blazing with lights, the air sharp with the smells of sugar and finger paint. Braziers were mounted on stakes all around the lot, with pixies fanning the tiny flames that kept the spell alive. Shouts and peals of happy laughter filled the air. The party, it seemed, was still in full force. I grinned and walked on, Barghests and Danny’s attempt to meddle in my social life forgotten.