When the very air seems to pause, as if time itself has taken that last deep breath before….The taste of salt and sweet metal slid across my tongue. The liquid seemed to grow until, when it glided down my throat, it was like a drink of cool, clear water, if it could hold the salt of oceans and the taste of blood.I saw the room in pieces, as if things were moving out of sync. A cloud of demi-fey flew into the room, though I knew they had been forbidden to come. Goblins thought them tasty. But the winged fey filled the room like a cloud of butterflies and moths, dragonflies and damselflies, and insects that had never appeared in nature. There seemed to be more of them than I knew had followed us into exile.The air was alive with color from the fluttering of their wings, so many of them that they made a breeze that played in my hair and touched my face.The dogs came next. Small terriers spilling around the feet of the goblins, as if the dogs did not care, and the goblins did not see them.
