meaning


the other pockets are, at least the ones created by other Folk. Always. He might not be able to get into them without invitation, but he knows where they are.”
Sam took a sip of his beer before replying. “So it doesn’t matter if the Folk in that place don’t want to be bothered, they can’t hide themselves. At least not on purpose.”
Tannim nodded. “Right. So with the ones that faded out, the places that have gone missing—well, they’re not there anymore. Maybe they died, maybe they went to still another world, and maybe they just dissolved back into the chaos. Even if there are still Folk alive in there, nobody can reach them, and they can’t find their way back to the rest of us, nor to the real world. Likeliest—according to Keighvin—is that they faded until they were easy prey for the Unseleighe Court critters.”
Sam toyed with a napkin, looking troubled. “You mean—they—”
Right on cue, Terra Nova launched into “Sidhe Beg and Sidhe Mor;” a tune that sounded lighthearted—but was about a war between elves of the Seleighe and Unseleighe Courts. The body count, as Tannim recalled, had been pretty high.
He raised an eyebrow at the band. Sam chewed his lip, as the meaning of the tune came home to him. “The Unseleighe Court plays for keeps, and every time they kill a Seleighe Court creature, or a human, they add his life-energy to their own power. Elves can die; they can be killed. Ever think about where the word ‘banshee’ came from?”
Sam’s eyes widened. “Bane-Sidhe?”
“Right. ‘Bane’ or ‘death’ of elves. And it’s not just a name.” Tannim was just glad he’d not had any personal experiences with one. The descriptions were bad enough.
“The stories my grandmother told me—she said some banshees actually came for people.” Sam looked a little embarrassed, as if he’d been caught believing