WINTER SOULSTICE

My eyes flicked around the group gathered at the edge of the frozen pond. I saw the three black-haired and mournful beauties from the diner-now definitely floating above the ground, their filmy dresses fluttering in a nonexistent wind. Banshees? Then there were Nona and Grnlllll, who had that same glowy salamander thing on her arm I'd seen them talking to once. The dragon, because this situation couldn't suck as much without a dragon. A little furry thing that looked sort of like Grnlllll but with massive, luminous orbs for eyes. It was holding up a small lantern-the source of the winking light. Of course. A will-o'-the-wisp, how fabulous that I'd meet one now. At least it hadn't led me to my death in a bog. So far. Kari and Donna, the traitorous seals. And there, floating over the pond, bleep! It was the stupid sylph who had flown off with me. I still had a part of its soul crackling around in me, and neither of us was happy about that.

The lights I'd seen around the pond were obvious now-the glow they each had centered around their hearts, their bright, immortal souls like dim lanterns behind fabric.

No faeries, though. That was something, I suppose. I didn't like my odds against most of these things, but at least I didn't have to worry about being whisked into the Faerie Paths.

"Child," Nona said.

"Stop right there. Enough with this 'child' nonsense. In case you hadn't noticed, I had a birthday. Which makes me seventeen. You are welcome to use my name, but if you're going to ambush me like this, the least you can do is treat me like an adult."

"Happy birthday, Evie!" Donna said, grinning.

I couldn't help but smile, exasperated by her enthusiasm. "Thank you. But somehow I doubt this is another party."

Someone in all black melted out of the woods next to me and I tensed, shocked to see Arianna. I frowned. "You're part of this? Did you set all this up?"

She rolled her eyes. "Please, so not my crowd. I saw you wander off into the woods alone and followed."

A huge crack echoed through the air, and water and ice shot up in a fountain from the middle of the pond, slamming back down and breaking more of the frozen surface. The fissure pushed straight through to the bank in front of me, water spraying up as the ice creaked and groaned and moved to the sides. The pulsing cold in my veins left over from the fossegrim I'd partially drained swirled as if in recognition. It had better not be him in there.

I stepped back, waiting to see what would come out of the water. It bubbled up into the form of a woman, and I let out a surprised breath. Cresseda-Lend's mom. Lend's mom whom no one had seen in months.

"Evelyn," she said in her rushing-water voice. As usual she glowed from the inside, far brighter in the night. Her features were perfect and strange and beautiful, and I could see points of starlight through her.

"Did you want to see Lend?" I asked. He'd be relieved to see her, even if I wasn't.

"I am not here for my son. It is time to take your path."

"You do mean the path back to the house, right? Because that's the only path I'm considering right now." I bit my lip. Maybe I shouldn't mouth off to the elemental I kinda hoped was my future mother-in-law.

"Eyes like streams of melting snow," she said, and it was all I could do not to roll my melting snow eyes. "Cold with-"

"I know the prophecy," I said, holding up a hand to stop her. "I already did that. I let all those souls Vivian trapped go. Just like you told me to."

Cresseda shook her head, droplets of water flying everywhere and turning to ice before they hit the ground with musical plinks. "That was not the end of your journey. You have more to do."

I sighed, clenching my jaw. "What's that?"

Nona stepped forward. "You will send us all home." She smiled gratefully at me, reaching out to take my hand in hers. I folded my arms tightly in front of my chest again and stepped back.

"So you guys want me to open a gate now, too? Is that why you're working with Reth? Did he make you do this?" I scanned the tree line but didn't see him anywhere. Didn't mean he wasn't around, though.

"It is because of the faeries we are all here." Nona's voice was sad.

The three floating banshees drifted closer. They opened their mouths and spoke as one, their voices full of grief and the promise of death, mournful and tired and beautiful. They made me want to cry myself to sleep as they harmonized in chant.

"Greed and desire

Not peace, but fire

Coveting creation

Created damnation

Pulled alongside

A gate thrown too wide

Now our home calls

And darkness falls."

I rubbed my temples, feeling a headache coming on. "A for effort, ladies, but F for clarity. You do realize that your weird poem things never explain anything."

Donna bounced forward. "I can explain! I can explain!"

"Be my guest."

"The faeries didn't like where we were. They wanted more, so they opened a gate! Using all our energy! But it was too big and they couldn't control it, and we all got sucked through, straight here! It was scary, and cold. The faeries wanted to be able to create, because they couldn't before, but here they could. But being here is wrong, and it's killing all of us, slowly, changing us from what we should be. And pretty soon we won't be able to leave, ever! So now you can open up the gate and let everyone go back to where they should be!" She paused, then leaned forward conspiratorially and whispered, "But I like it here. It's more fun."

"So, wait. You're all here because of the faeries?"

Kari and Donna nodded enthusiastically; everyone else nodded somberly.

"All the paranormals in the world, all the elementals, everything supernatural-you were never here to begin with?" That meant Lend wouldn't even exist if it weren't for the faeries. Then again, I wouldn't either. Dangit, maybe I did owe them, after all.

"No, child," Nona said. "We were victims of the faeries' pride and greed."

"Victims? Sorry, but most of you don't seem very victimish to me. What about hags, and fossegrims, and redcaps, and all the other sharp-toothed nasties"-I looked pointedly at the dragon-"in your group? I don't feel very bad for anything that's spent all those centuries preying on innocent people."

"It makes sense," Arianna said, her voice soft but thoughtful.

"What?"

"When you introduce an alien species into a new environment, it has to adapt or die out. And usually the way it adapts is by preying on the native species. Look at the dodo birds. They were fine until people came to their island with cats and dogs and pigs, then they became prey."

"You do realize you just compared our entire race to dodo birds."

She shrugged. "If they were never meant to be here in the first place, it's not their fault they had to become predators."

"Thank you, Animal Planet." I turned back to Nona. "But what about vampires? And werewolves? Even zombies. They started out normal; they didn't come here with you."

"Vampires were created by the Dark Queen in an effort to make an Empty One. You know this. The others I cannot explain, but even without our kind your world has mysteries of its own." She smiled.

"Okay. Fine. So, you were all brought here against your will and now you want to go back. You want me to just throw open a gate and let your little group skip on through?"

Cresseda shook her head. "No. All will have a choice this time. We have already started the Gathering." Paranormals had a way of talking with capitalized letters I still didn't understand. "It is nearly complete. And when we are together, we shall all leave this world."

Arianna drew in a sharp breath next to me.

"All all?" I asked. "Like, every paranormal in the world? Including the faeries? And just how big a gate do you think I can make? Because I don't think I can make another one, period. Last time it was mostly an accident, and it almost killed me." The night felt even colder against my skin as I remembered what it felt like to channel all those souls through a gate in the stars. The burning, the agony: I really thought I wouldn't survive.

It wasn't that I didn't get what they were saying or what they wanted, or even that I thought it was wrong. It wasn't their fault they were here, and I knew they deserved a way home, wherever that might be. But the idea of making another gate terrified me, and I wasn't willing to risk dying to try. They shouldn't expect that of me. They couldn't.

"I tire of this," the dragon said, and when it opened its mouth I could see embers glowing from within. "The wee thing talks too much."

"Evelyn," Cresseda said, drawing my attention back to her. "Come with us now. We will help you do what you were made for, and make you whole."

I looked from glowing paranormal to glowing paranormal, finally settling on Cresseda. They'd been here for thousands of years already; surely they could tough it out a few more. "I wasn't made for anything. The faeries created this problem; they can solve it on their own. And I don't need anyone to fix me."

I turned my back on them and walked away.