Jacky Rowan didn't believe in trolls and goblins, but she has been marked for destruction--and sent on a quest that only a fool would dare take in order to save both the human and the Faerie worlds from a nightmarish demise.

    However, characters do reoccur, off center stage as it were, and their stories do follow a sequence."When she was younger, Ellen had seen them all the time, bouncing in the wind like tumbleweeds. She called them the Balloon Men. Now she wonders if they really exist...Reece knows he can see things other people can't, and he's running from a nightmare that menaces people with barracuda teeth...Somewhere between Ellen's doubts and Reece's certainties lies Uncle Dobbin's Parrot Fair. Laced with parables, this Nebula nominated story has much to say about the nature of Magic.Cover illustration by Donna Gordon.

    When Dan and his sister Daisy are chosen by the Oak King and the Ash Queen to witness the Rites of the Trees, they find themselves caught up in a struggle against the Winter Trees, who seek to engulf the world in perpetual darkness.