Prologue

A Prince of Fae invited me out for coffee once. He was handsome and gentlemanly and said all the right things to put me under his spell. Then his pager went off and I woke up and punched him. This is much the pattern of the world in the past five years. Magic returned to the earth in all its splendor and beauty and put the modern world under its spell. We were all under its thrall for nearly a month. Unicorns, Faeries, Werewolves, Centaurs, Sprites, and Dragons…how could we not be dazed and confused, dazzled and attracted? Then, as we were all about to bow to King Arthur’s new reign, he announced that he was running for President.

Apparently when magic things try to conform to the modern world it’s like a slap in the face. Humans don’t like being slapped. It causes redness and bruising. So the bigots rose up in a wave of ignorant violence and anything “Other” than human got smacked down to the level of illegal immigrants. Then, of course, the groups like World Tolerance for Fae (WTF), and their arch nemeses the Association for Slaughtering Leprechauns (ASL) popped up and started battling. Magic became rebelliously fashionable in the media and Divas told stories of experimenting with witchcraft instead of experimenting with other obnoxious Divas.

After a year it very much appeared that the modern world had swallowed the Magical world whole and resumed its day to day business of drinking lattes and instant messaging. Some people, like me, were disappointed. Life was so damn boring and suddenly here was this big exciting thing happening but before we could get involved in heroic deeds and mighty quests, the Dragons were suing Dungeons & Dragons for slander, and the Unicorns were putting out hits on Brittany Spears. The Magic had lost it’s….well…magic.

Life went on and I dated the Prince for a few days before we mutually agreed that I was too disenchanted to be more than friends. So we hung out in coffee shops together and pretended we were witty.

Then the world started to change again. Not as suddenly and violently as before, but slowly and gradually. Sinister creatures began to creep into the night. Random deaths occurred and the magical creatures started to get twitchy.

“The world is balancing itself.” Prince Evlion told me gravely as we watched the news. “You’ve only seen the good side of magic. Now comes the dark…Arthur was called back from Avalon for a reason…” He knew this stuff; The Weird Sisters were his nieces.

A month later the power went out and no matter how much science was applied, it would not come back on.