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back,” she pleaded.
    “You have no choice in the matter,” he said curtly. He turned, lifting his head as if he were listening for something 66

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    she could not hear, and he said, “I wil take you there.”
    And then a tal white stal ion with golden eyes came out of the Wood toward them. In one smooth motion, the man picked her up and lifted her onto the saddle, and then he mounted behind her. She sat stiffly, afraid to lean back against him. The horse beneath her felt powerful and wild, but he moved so smoothly that Ash found herself relaxing against her will. As they glided through the dark trees, the texture of the air seemed to change as if space were being compressed on their journey, and when she inhaled, it was like a gust of wind thrust down her throat. She could smel the scent of night-blooming jasmine and something indefinable perhaps it was the smel of magic. Her head fel back against the man’s shoulder, and soon her eyes drifted shut. She dreamed of gardens ful of white roses, their perfume intoxicating. Above them a city of white stone towers so tal she could not see their roof-tops rose to the blue sky.
    When the horse slowed down she blinked her eyes open, and they were crossing the meadow. She saw Quinn House ahead, a single light burning in Lady Isobel’s window. She sat up, pul ing herself away from the man self-consciously. When they stopped outside the garden gate she tried to dismount hastily and he had to catch her hand, wrenching her arm back painful y, to prevent her from fal ing. When her feet touched the ground her knees almost buckled, and she grabbed at the horse’s mane for balance, her other hand stil held firmly in his grasp. “You must not take that path again,” he said to her. She looked up at him, and here in the ordinary darkness, he seemed to have lost some of his otherworldly glow. “Do you 67

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    hear me?” he demanded.
    “Yes,” she said quickly, afraid to upset him. He dropped her hand then, and she felt momentarily unbalanced. He turned the horse back toward the Wood, and within the blink of an eye they had vanished and Ash was left alone outside the garden gate.
    Feeling as though she were fighting her way back through a fog of some sort, she reached for the gate to steady herself.
    She took a deep breath and realized that she was cold and hungry, for she had not eaten al day. She opened the gate and made her way back inside the house on shaking legs.
    She was looking for the end of a loaf of bread when she heard footsteps come down the stairs and saw a light coming closer to the kitchen door. Lady Isobel soon appeared in the doorway, holding a candle in her hand.
    “So you decided to come back after al , did you?” her stepmother said. “Where have you been al day?”
    Ash turned toward her stepmother, backing up against the edge of the countertop. “I just went for a walk and I got lost,”
    she said, trying to sound unruffled.
    “Who told you that you could leave the house?” Lady Isobel demanded.
    Ash hesitated. “I didn’t think I would be gone for long,” she finally said.
    “You’re a liar,” her stepmother said. “Come here, Aisling.”
    She held out her hand.
    “Can I—can I just go to bed?” she asked as her stomach growled loudly in protest.
    The candlelight beneath Lady Isobel’s face made her look 68

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    like a monster. Her lip curled in anger and she said, “You have been absent al day and you expect no punishment? Come here!”
    “No,” Ash said impulsively, and then she knew she had made a mistake.
    Lady Isobel came toward her and grabbed her upper arm in a fierce grip. Ash let out a gasp of pain as her stepmother propel ed her back toward the kitchen door.
    “You are given entirely too much freedom,” she said as she opened the door and shoved Ash out into the yard. “You shirk your duties on purpose and leave your work for others to do.
    You disrespect me and what I do for you.” Ash stumbled as she was