From award-winning author Sarah Prineas comes an all-new short story! This original thirty-page fantasy-adventure short story serves as a prequel to Winterling. Finn loves being a puck. He loves causing trouble, hanging out with his puck-brothers, and shifting from boy to dog to horse. There's nothing more fun! However, when Finn learns of the Mór's treacherous plan to get rid of the Lady of the Summerlands, will anyone believe him? And how far will he go to make sure it doesn't happen? Sarah Prineas is the author of the Magic Thief series and the Winterling trilogy (also composed of Summerkin and Moonkind).

“We live here, my girl, because it is close to the Way, and echoes of its magic are felt in our world. The Way is a path leading to another place, where the people are governed by different rules. Magic runs through them and their land.” With her boundless curiosity and wild spirit, Fer has always felt that she doesn’t belong. Not when the forest is calling to her, when the rush of wind through branches feels more real than school or the quiet farms near her house. Then she saves an injured creature—he looks like a boy, but he’s really something else. He knows who Fer truly is, and invites her through the Way, a passage to a strange, dangerous land. Fer feels an instant attachment to this realm, where magic is real and oaths forge bonds stronger than iron. But a powerful huntress named the Mór rules here, and Fer can sense that the land is perilously out of balance. Fer must unlock the secrets about the parents she never knew and claim her true place before the worlds on both sides of the Way descend into endless winter. Sarah Prineas captivates in this fantasy-adventure about a girl who must find within herself the power to set right a terrible evil.

"Down through the Way she fell, feeling the wind and the pressing darkness, the dizzy thump when she landed on the bank. She was through. The air felt softer here, the shadows deeper—and the pull of her connection to the land settled into her bones." In the Summerlands, time moves slowly, roots grow deeply, and change is not welcomed. But change is needed. After defeating the wicked Mor and freeing her kin from deadly oaths made to this false ruler, Fer is now the rightful Lady of the land. Yet her people don't know what to make of their new Lady's strange ways, and neither do the High Ones, the rulers of the magical realm, for Fer is an outsider—half human. To prove herself worthy of the Summerlands crown, Fer is summoned to compete in an epic contest where her strengths and skills will be tested and her loyalties challenged. Can she trust Rook, the puck she calls friend? Can she trust herself? If Fer fails, she will lose her land and the Way will be closed to her forever.

Fer must save her realm from the Forsworn, a group destroying the land with their broken oaths, in Moonkind, the conclusion to award-winning author Sarah Prineas' fantasy-adventure series, which includes Winterling, Summerkin, and the short story Thrice Sworn. As the Lady of the Summerlands, Fer has vowed to serve her people without the deception of the glamorie, and she had trusted other leaders to fulfill the same promise. But not all of the Lords and Ladies want to keep their oaths, and they've unleashed the consequences of their betrayal onto the lands. Only Fer, with the help of the puck-boy Rook, can fight the stillness invading the realm. But can she trust Rook? And can she protect her people before it's too late? Sarah Prineas combines a brave and resourceful young heroine with a richly detailed fantasy world and beloved folklore into a story that will delight middle-grade fans of Diana Wynne Jones, Ingrid Law, and Rick Riordan.

When readers of the Winterling trilogy emailed to ask me what happens next with Fer and Rook, I wrote this short story. It contains smooching.