Hound of the Green Gate

Nell Faraday's bakery opens at five. At three a.m., she finds a bleeding man on her back steps wearing a bronze collar from a kingdom that hasn't existed for four hundred years. His name is Cavan. He is not a dog, he says, twice. He is a gate-warden, and the Green Gate has reopened in the alley behind Nell's shop, letting through something that hunts in mirrors. To close it, they need three keys hidden in the modern world by the last survivors of the Summerwood — including Nell's own grandmother, who mentioned nothing. Nell can't fight. She can bake, argue, and read people, which turns out to be most of what's required. Cavan, sworn to silence and old grief, is undone by a mortal woman with flour on her hands. The gate is not going to close. Nell is going to make it a door.