The jaguar-looking woman glided slowly through the land of Starfall. She was upset; she was lost and saddened, for her queen was not who she had once been.
Callie was doing her best to advise and contain Queen Athena, but she was no longer the queen Callie had known. She was unhinged, insane.
She mourned for the old queen. Before everything, Athena had been kind, inviting. It was, ironically and a bit devastatingly-no, it was the other way around-her love and fear for her children that had done her in. She had been asked to give up her daughters and son to the man who had played her, and it had driven her crazy.
She knew it would not be long before the two ran. Swallowtail had spoken to her, said that Athena was not ever to be let near her children. Not even her heir, Helene. Apparently Athena had snapped-and Callie was not surprised; her queen was flammable and volatile, too unpredictable to trust and probably too mad to let live. Much longer, anyway. The Fire Queen was now the Mad Queen.
She paid little attention to where she was going. Swallowtail was keeping secrets, but basically everyone in the pack knew that she was planning a coup. A challenge, a way to save them. Maybe even Helene-but she was scared enough of their mother to avoid her thoroughly. Come to think of it, she hadn’t lately seen Asmodeus or Vryko. But Callie guessed that they were keeping far away-Athena was scary. And poor Vryko was shy and small.
Callie dropped to her knees, feeling faint and woozy, She croaked out an unintelligible word-realizing she was in the Firefly Forest-and then passed out.

I’m long gone, I’m way ahead, ever since this race began!”