The being that stepped through the door was not what any of them expected.
Arvella had imagined — in the vague, half-formed way that people imagine things they have no reference for — something ethereal. Translucent. The fairy-tale version of fae that human folklore had preserved in diluted, sanitized fragments: delicate wings, pointed ears, a body made of light and gossamer and the kind of beauty that existed only in paintings and dreams.
The being that stepped through the silver doorway was none of those things.
She was solid. Present. Real in a way that made everything around her seem slightly less so — as if her existence was operating at a higher resolution than the rest of the world, every detail sharper, every edge more defined, every surface carrying a depth that the eye couldn'
