The first thing she noticed was the screaming. It didn't start quietly, didn't rise into a horrific crescendo. No, it began loudly, as if a million icicles had been dropped on cement from forty feet above.

Astraea quietly slipped out of her dusty sheets. Drancfaeries were supposed to be as silent as the graves they slept in… why was everyone awake now?

Her wings hadn't grown in yet, so she had to shove the mounds of dirt away using only her arms. She couldn't wait until she had wings, then she would have to simply drift to the surface.

Astraea held in her own scream when she emerged.

They had come.

Only now, she was too late to stop them. Their arrival had been different, so different from what was predicted. Her Coven was supposed to have had time to prepare and if they failed, the deaths were supposed to be silent. Not this.

All of the tombstones that her Coven were sleeping under, and not just her Coven, but her friends', everyone she had known... all of the tombstones were gone. And she knew that if she dug up each and every grave, all that she would find would be cobwebs and dust.

The young Drancfaerie knew that now was not the time for tears, she would save them for later. Right now all that mattered was that she leave, leave before they found her. After making sure that she was sufficiently hidden in the shadows, she tiptoed as fast as she could into the place her father had told her to go. She could hear his low voice now, telling her that it would be safe.

Astraea paused by a patch of roses, still moist from yesterday's morning dew. She closed her eyes and brought one to her lips. When she opened them, she was in another world.