We trooped off behind her into waist high bracken, down something that was not so much a path as a statistical variation in the density of the undergrowth.

Tne one where Peter goes to the country.

I wondered just when I’d become “the starling” and why everyone who was anyone in the supernatural community had such a problem with proper nouns.

And he’s so out of his element.

There are two children missing and it just so happens that one of Nightingale’s former colleagues is in the area. So of course Peter has to go check in on him… and gets entirely too involved in what does (of course) end up being something in the Folly’s department.

“What the hell is that?” he asked.

“It’s a magic spell,” I said, and Beverley snorted.

“Show off,” she said.

“I said I was going to do magic,” I said.

“But . . .” Dominic floundered around for a bit before pointing at me accusingly. “You said that there’s weird shit, but it normally turns out to have a rational explanation.”

“It does,” said Beverley. “The explanation is a wizard did it.”

“That’s my line,” I said.

I do like the ‘half in the open’ stance that this series takes to magic. Most people don’t know or care that magic is real, but that doesn’t mean that Peter can’t occasionally show off and actually use his tools for what they are…

There’s nothing quite like Latin for disguising the fact that you’re making it up as you go along.

Such as they are.

Characterwise, I really do like seeing Beverly again. She totally has a point that Peter basically ignored her for a book… well, not this time around. And there are going to be reprecussions of that, just you wait.

But not for the moment.

What we do get is a mystery wrapped up in even more slowly extending worldbuilding. Now we know a bit more about the Rivers and more than the very little we knew about the Fae. And of all the things…

“Mind you,” said Dominic, “when it comes to finding new ways to get themselves killed, sheep are bloody geniuses.”

Didn’t Charles Stross go a similar route in Equoid (spoilers)? There’s about a year between the two.

Overall, I enjoyed the story, it was a neat way to expand the setting. The ending was … weak. It felt like things just suddenly wrapped up right when they were getting interesting, which is a bit annoying. Onward!

Side note:

“Fuck me,” I said out loud, “I’m in fairyland.”