The drive to the Sanctuary took us through landscapes that seemed to exist outside normal geography. Roads that should have led to dead ends opened into mountain passes that weren't on any map. GPS signals failed with increasing frequency until we were navigating by Stella's confident mental directions and Raven's instinctive feel for magical currents.
*Left at the singing stones,* our daughter would announce cheerfully. *Right where the trees remember the old wars.*
After eighteen hours of driving through increasingly wild terrain, we crested a ridge and saw it—a valley that took my breath away. Ancient forests carpeted the slopes, their canopy so thick it created a twilight world beneath. A crystal-clear river wound through the center, and scattered throughout the valley were structure
