As the sun rose over her corner lot, Bille slipped from between Pratesi sheets to survey her domain.

She had an expansive view of the development, and what she saw pleased her. The lawns, a uniform sea of fescue, were all mown to a precise 2.5 inches, as stipulated in §2.3.1 of the Covenants. Identical mailboxes stood like proud sentinels next to each driveway. Every decorative flag was seasonally appropriate; the last of the summer’s flipflops and sunflowers had been replaced by autumn gourds. Soon, it would be time for jack-o’-lanterns and ghosts, but not yet.

Billie hated the flags and she had considered a summary ban when Karen Smith—23 Foxchase Drive—asked about them at an HOA meeting. Megan decided to call a vote. It turned out that her people wanted seasonal flags, and Megan was magnanimous in defeat. Despite what some might think, she was capable of compromise. Satisfied with what she saw, Megan did 20 minutes of bodyweight Pilates and finished preparing for the day ahead. It was Monday. Her favorite day. The day when she toured the development looking for infractions.

In the Otherworld, Billie had been known as Queen Benedetta, Architect of Starlight, Shaper of Seasons, the Unyielding Hand of Bureaucracy. It was that last epithet that foreshadowed her undoing. The Fair Folk are known for being legalistic. More precisely, they expect humans to follow the letter of the law and enjoy punishing them when they don’t. But Morwenna’s fondness for rules extended even to her subjects, who were used to striking their own deals with humans and had no interest in such absurdities as licenses, certifications, or filling out forms.

After being dethroned and exiled, Benedetta had emerged from Fairy in a forest. She hadn’t walked far, though, before her feet were touching freshly-laid sod. As she looked out across a new housing development, she saw how the newly-paved streets mimicked the organic curves of a mountain road, but the nearly identical homes were equidistant from each other. She appreciated the illusion that this place was shaped by the landscape when it was really shaped by will. Real places were difficult to control. Humans had clearly sold that problem.

This was order. This was beauty. This was The Glens at Sterling Court, and this where she would rule.

Clad in athleisure and wielding a clipboard, Billie strode down King’s Way. Getting her steps in was easy on Monday. Not that she ever failed to get her steps. She turned onto Canterbury Street without having seen a single violation—although she made a note to keep an eye on the Andersons’ “butterfly garden.”She turned onto Canterbury Street without having seen a single violation—although she made a note to keep an eye on the Andersons’ “butterfly garden.” Everything was as it should be until she got to Ravenwood Circle.

13 Ravenwood Circle had always been a problem. The original owners had hosted an inordinate number of backyard barbecues which tended to spill into the cul-de-sac by the end of the evening. This led to the creation of rules that Megan not-so-secretly referred to as the Delancey Amendments—which may have had something to do with the Delancey family’s decision to move. The young couple they’d sold the house to had fit in just fine at first, but every summer their vegetable garden grew a few square feet. They thought they were being subtle, but Benedetta was just waiting for them to exceed a quarter of their lot, which was the maximum size allowed. This couple, too, decided to leave The Glens at Sterling Creek. And now, Billie’s eyes widened with disbelief as she beheld a tall, ornate, wrought iron fence that could hardly have been more out of place in her meticulously curated universe.

The new owner of Ravenwood Circle was a single man of indeterminate age and the vestiges of a British accent. He worked from home doing something with computers that Billie hadn’t quite understood, What she did understand was that he paid over asking price and didn’t seem like the type to throw block parties or suggest that chickens were a good idea.

And now the new owner of 13 Ravenwood Circle had erected an ornate wrought iron fence that, to Billie, felt like pure provocation. She was so outraged that she abandoned the sidewalk and strode straight across the cul-de-sac. When she got to the gate, she shuddered and had to collect herself before she could pass through it, but pass through it she did.

This would not stand.