Book excerpt: The first instalment of the highly praised Toby Daye series. The world of Faerie never disappeared; it merely went into hiding, continuing to exist parallel to our own. Secrecy is the key to Faerie's survival: but no secret can be kept forever, and when the fae and mortal worlds collide, changelings are born. Outsiders from birth, these children spend their lives fighting for the respect of their immortal relations. Or in the case of October 'Toby' Daye, rejecting the fae completely. Toby has retreated into a 'normal' life - spending her nights stocking shelves at a San Francisco grocery store and her days asleep in her downtown apartment. But when Countess Evening Winterroseis murdered, Toby finds herself drawn abruptly back into the world she thought she'd left behind. It's going to take everything she's got just to stay alive, and the stakes are higher than anyone has guessed . . .