Follows 'Prospero's Children'.
Set ten years after events in 'Prospero's Children', Fern is now 27 years old and traumatised, unsurprisingly, from those events. She has rejected her Gift, clinging obstinately to prosaic truths and manageable reality. Having built up a successful PR career, she is on the point of marrying Malcolm Grieg, a well-known academic and media personality nearly 20 years her senior. He is a down-to-earth type for whom magic belongs in children's books and myth is merely fairytale. However, he insists on their having the wedding at Yarrowdale: so Fern is forced to return to the scene of her earlier adventures. The Old Spirit - the oldest, most evil one of all - is stirring; and he seeks vengeance, on Fern . . .
