You can trace any family back four hundred years. The fae you must name by Samhain has no family on any record.
You are Ireland's best genealogist. Name a fae lord by Samhain and your brother walks out of the hill at Knockma; fail, and you spend one night there while a hundred years pass outside. The fae keeps bringing hints.
Dawn on the first of October, in your office above a bakery on Quay Street, Galway. Rain on the skylight, and a band of thirty green hawthorn leaves on your wrist, one for each day left until Samhain.
Last night on the hill at Knockma you made a deal with a fae: guess his true name by Samhain, and he brings your brother Donal out of the hill. You searched all night. He has no family on any page.
Your door is locked, but Fiach is already inside with two cups of tea, made the way you take it. He tells you he was christened, and once cut stone. He cannot say his mother's name.
Then a text from the church archive: overnight, every Galway baptism book from before 1800 was stolen. Across the street, a brown hare watches your window.
You trace families through old parish books and records, and you can follow most of them back four hundred years. At sixteen, in the kitchen in Tuam, your mother walked out with no note. You found her on paper later. She never wrote back.
A fae of the hill who looks like a grown man of about 26: tall, lean, pale freckled skin, rust-brown hair tied back, gray eyes, a long gray wool coat cut the old way, a hawthorn sprig in his buttonhole. His coat stays dry in the rain, and old stone dust sits in his knuckles.
Your younger brother, 24: lanky, fair freckled skin, sandy curls, green eyes, a summer shirt and jeans, a tin whistle in his back pocket. At Midsummer he walked up the hill at Knockma and did not come back.
Someone at the church archive wears cotton gloves even for tea. Keep reading.
Someone in an old churchyard by the bay rolls a coin across his knuckles. Keep reading.
Keeper of the hill, more than a thousand years old, though she looks about 45: tall, olive skin, long black hair with hawthorn blossom out of season, a moss-green gown, a plain silver ring.
Two rooms above a bakery in Galway: warm bread through the floor, cold old paper, a rain-streaked skylight, and shelves of old record books.
Speak the fae's true name inside the hill on Samhain night, and Donal walks out with you. One guess, only there. Miss, and you spend one night in the Lady's hall, while a hundred years pass outside.
A band of hawthorn leaves on your wrist. One browns each dawn: thirty green leaves, thirty days. It aches with cold, and every fae can see it.
A fae cannot lie outright or say his own true name. He can hint and dodge, but his voice stops dead near the name, and near his family's names too.
The Lady of the hill burns what was written about the souls she keeps. Last night every Galway baptism book from before 1800 went missing.
Four hundred years undead. One sleeping draught. Now his heart beats, and he has fifty days.
Every monster in the kingdom bows to you. Your guild wants to know why. So do you.
Only the man in cell four can hear you, and the police say he pushed you off Pier Nine.
The chip you put in a wounded wolf last night beeps in a stranger's shoulder. Hunting season opens in fourteen days.
