“I would give everything I own just to have you back again…”

I’d left her. The woman that looked like my sister and had far too many of her memories and unique characteristics—I just left her there—in the basement where I’d been Pri-ya, sitting in the middle of crates of guns and ammo and various food supplies, looking unbearably lost and sad.

So, Mom and Dad think I’m dead? she’d asked as I was leaving.

They buried you. So did I, I’d flung over my shoulder.

Are they okay, Jr.? Did Mom lose it when she thought I was dead? Was Daddy—

They’re here in Dublin, I’d cut her off coldly. Ask them yourself. Go try to convince them. On second thought, don’t. Stay away from my parents. Don’t you dare go near them.

They’re my parents, too! Mac, you have to believe me. Why would I lie? Who else would I be? What’s wrong? What happened to you? How you did get so…hard?

I’d stormed out. Some part of me had simply shut down and there’d been no turning it back on. I’d gotten “hard,” as she called it, because my sister had been murdered.

For the past twenty-four hours I’d refused to even think about the imposter. I’d done nearly as good a job of keeping it in a box as I did with the Book.

But when it seeped out, it went something like this:

What if it really was her?

My sister, alone out there, and I’d turned my back on Alina in this dangerous, Fae-riddled city?

What if she got hurt? What if she was somehow truly, miraculously alive and ended up getting killed by a black hole or an Unseelie because I’d stormed away and left her alone, too wary, too suspicious, to let myself believe?

I’d have gotten my second chance—and blown it.

I suspected I might kill myself if that turned out to be the case.

What if she went to see my parents? They wouldn’t be as realistic as me. They’d welcome her back blindly. Daddy might start to feel skeptical in time but I guaran-damn-tee if that imposter knocked on their door, they’d let her inside their house in one second flat.

On the other and just as plausible hand: what if it was an imposter sent to fuck me up royally, get me to trust it, only to do something terrible to me in an unguarded moment? Who could get closer to me (and my parents) than my sister?

Or what if I was stuck in one gigantic illusion that hadn’t ended since the night I thought I’d bested the Sinsar Dubh?

Because I longed so desperately for it to be her, to believe that Alina had somehow survived, and I wasn’t stuck in an illusion, I was a hundred times more suspicious of this whole situation. My sister was my ultimate weakness, next to Barrons. She was the perfect way to get to me, to manipulate me. She was the very thing Cruce and Darroc and the Book had all offered me back, at one point or another, to try to tempt me.

I’d lived with Alina’s ghost too long. I may not have made peace with it, but I’d accepted her death. There was a painful closure in that, a door that couldn’t easily be reopened.

She claimed she couldn’t remember a single thing from the moment she’d passed out in that alley until she’d been standing in Temple Bar, a few days ago.

How convenient was that?

You couldn’t refute amnesia. Couldn’t argue a single detail. Because there were no details.

Just exactly what might have happened to her? Was I supposed to believe some fairy godmother (or Faery godmother, to be precise) had swooped in, rescued her moments before she died, healed her then put her on ice until this week? Why would any Fae do that?

Dani believed she’d killed Alina. No, I’d never gotten full details. I didn’t know if she actually remained in that alley until Alina was stone-cold dead or not. Nor did I think Jada would tell me, if I were to ask. And on that note, I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want Jada/Dani having to relive it.

Oh, God, what if they ran into each other in the streets?

I glanced at Barrons as we ascended the stairs to Ryodan’s office. “There’s no other solution, Barrons,” I said bitterly. “I’m going to have to talk to it again. I need you to—”

He gave me a dry look. “Check your cellphone.”

“Huh?”

“The thing you call me on.”

I rolled my eyes, pulled it out. “I know what a cellphone is. What am I looking for?”

“Contacts.”

I thumbed it up. I had four, since he’d hooked up my parents to their incomprehensible network. There were now five.

Alina.

“You put the thing’s phone number in my cell? How does it even have a phone that works? The only network running is hardwired and about as reliable as—Wait a minute, you gave it one of your phones? When?”

“Her. Quit trying to carve emotional space with pronouns. And I’m not your bloodhound,” he growled. “You don’t dispatch me to fetch prey. When I hunt, it ends in savagery, not a fucking soap opera.”

“It wasn’t a soap opera,” I said defensively. The imposter might have been hysterical but I’d been cool as a cucumber.

He shot me a look. “The dead sister always comes back. Or the dead husband. Or the evil twin. Mayhem and murder inevitably ensue.”

“Who even says words like ‘mayhem’?” At some point, while I slept, anticipating I’d want to talk to it again, Barrons had taken a phone to it and programmed mine. And washed his hands of us. I glanced at him sideways. Or not. Knowing him, he would keep a close eye on the imposter.

“You think I should have kept interrogating it—her,” I said irritably. Easy for him to think. His heart hadn’t been quietly hemorrhaging while looking at it. He hadn’t been the one questioning his own sanity.

He gave me another look. “Strip the scenario of your volatile emotions,” he clipped.

I bristled. “You like my volatile emotions.”

“They belong in one place, Ms. Lane. My bed. My floor. Up against my wall.”

“That’s three places,” I said pissily.

“Any fucking place I’m inside you. That’s one. Keep your friends close. Enemies closer,” he said tightly. “She’s indisputably one or the other. And you bloody well let her walk away.” He turned and stalked off down the corridor.

I stared after him with a sinking feeling. Damn the man, he was right. Whatever the Alina look-alike was, forcing it out of my space and mind might assuage my immediate discomfort but that only increased the potential for future peril. Mine, hers, my parents, everyone’s.

I sighed and hurried after him. I would call the imposter the moment our meeting was over.

Assuming we all survived it.

When we entered Ryodan’s office, Sean O’Bannion was standing inside. Nephew to the dead mobster Rocky O’Bannion, he shared the same rugged, black Irish muscular build and good looks and was Katarina’s lover. Well, unless something was happening downstairs with Kasteo, he was. Staying in close quarters with one of the Nine, alone for a long period of time, was pretty much the worst thing a woman in a monogamous relationship could do. I wondered why she was down there. Why Ryodan had permitted it. There was no way Kat would come out of that room the same as she’d gone in.

“You haven’t seen Katarina at all?” Sean was saying to Ryodan. “Since when? Killian said he saw her here a few weeks ago.”

“This Killian of yours told you she was in my office?” Ryodan said.

“No, he said he saw her walking through the club. Said she seemed hell-bent on something. He kept an eye out for her but didn’t see her leave. I’ve not been able to find her since.”

Ryodan said, “I haven’t seen her lately.” He glanced up and shot me a hard look: Speak and I’ll rip out your bloody throat, woman.

Beside me, Barrons growled softly.

I’d made two oaths during my time in Dublin: one to the Gray Woman, with my proverbial fingers crossed because the bitch had tried to kill Dani and that was unforgivable enough in and of itself, but I’d also known she was going to kill still more innocents. Endlessly, until she was stopped. Steal their beauty, torture and play with them while they died. They would be someone’s sister, brother, son, daughter. And more of the human race would be lost. I’d never had any intention of honoring it. A coerced oath, forced by a murderer, while threatening the life of someone I love, is not an oath. It’s extortion.

I’d taken another oath, more recently, that I would keep forever. Even if it cost me. Even if it pained me enormously, which I was certain it would. I held Ryodan’s gaze levelly. Your secrets, mine.

After a moment he inclined his head.

Sean turned to look at me. “Have you seen Kat, Mac?”

“Not lately.” I availed myself of Ryodan’s technique, which even Christian would have had a hard time seeing through. I hadn’t seen her. Lately. Depending on how you defined lately. The trick was the same as outsmarting a polygraph, tell your mind the truth while telling the lie. “But I’m sure she’s okay,” I added hastily, not wanting him to worry more than he was. The skin beneath his eyes was smudged dark from stress and lack of sleep. I could only imagine what he was going through.

“I’m not so bloody sure. She’s been missing for weeks.”

“Dani was missing for weeks, too,” I said. “And she’s back just fine now.” Well, that wasn’t entirely accurate but she was back. “I’m sure she’ll show up. Maybe she’s off on confidential sidhe-seer business or something.” One thing I knew for sure, Kat was safe where she was. Physically. Mostly.

He shook his head. “No one at the abbey has seen or heard from her. And Kat’s never gone somewhere without telling me first. We tell each other everything.”

Ryodan said dryly, “No one tells each other everything.”

“We do,” Sean said coolly. “I’m sore fashed and I’ll tell you that. It’s not like my Kat. I’ve been dropping by Dublin Castle twice a day, checking the bodies the Garda are collecting off the streets.”

I cringed inwardly. “I’m so sorry, Sean. Is there anything I can do to help?” It was all I could do not to shoot Ryodan a nasty look. Sean was worried sick about Kat and he had every reason to be. If someone went missing in Dublin these days, the odds were high they were dead.

Sean said soberly, “Aye, keep your eye out. Let me know if you hear a whisper of a word about her. You’ll find me in the piano pub with the lads most evenings. If I’m not there, any one of them will get word to me.”

“I’ll let you know if I hear anything,” I promised.

He nodded and stepped out.

The moment the door closed, I spun on Ryodan and hissed, “I’ll keep your secrets, but you need to let him know somehow that she’s all right.”

“Because it’s not fair,” he mocked.

“Because there’s no need to inflict suffering if you can prevent it,” I retorted.

Those cool silver eyes dismissed me. “He’ll brood, he’ll pine. She’ll return. He’ll get over it. No damage done.”

I scowled at him. The man was as immutable as Barrons. They didn’t view a month of worry as remotely significant because a month was the blink of an eye to them, and besides, everyone died.

Immortals. Pains in the asses, every one of them.

“Let’s get this over with,” I said brusquely. “I have things to do.”

Our path to the small cell in the dungeon was interrupted again, this time by Christian MacKeltar.

The moment we stepped off the elevator and turned left, I felt an icy wind at my back and he was there.

I turned and gasped, startled. Christian looked nearly full Unseelie prince, taller than he usually was, much broader through the shoulders, with great black wings angled up and back and still sweeping the floor. Anger colored him in shades of the Unseelie prison. Ice dusted his wings, his face.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” he snarled at Ryodan. “I can’t do this. I won’t.”

“Then your uncle will suffer.”

“You do it!”

“I did the hard part. He’s alive.”

“He’s never going to forgive you.”

“Yes he will. Because one day he’ll feel something besides the pain and horror and he’ll be glad that he’s alive. No matter the price. That’s the way it works for men of a certain ilk. But you know that, don’t you, Highlander?”

Ryodan turned away and we resumed walking toward the cell in silence, buffeted by an icy breeze.

In the narrow stone cell, I dropped into a chair, edgy and irritable.

My Unseelie flesh high had evaporated without warning, late this afternoon at BB&B, while I was struggling to disengage one of my least damaged bookcases from a pile of splintered furniture and stand it upright again.

The unwieldy tower of shelves had fractured several toes when it crashed to the floor, inadequately supported by abruptly too-weak muscles. Fortunately, even without Unseelie flesh, I heal quickly and no longer sported even a slight limp.

Unfortunately, withdrawal was setting in, making me short-tempered and more impatient than ever.

I wanted this over with. I’d already decided to tell them I still couldn’t find the Book, even with my sidhe-seer senses open again. How would they feel if I tried to make them go rooting around inside themselves for whatever was in there? Attempted to get them to let me use their inner demon in its wildest, most uncontrolled form?

They wouldn’t tolerate it for a second. Why should I? There had to be another way to save our world. Speaking of, before I went disturbing anything I shouldn’t, I glanced at Barrons. I have to show you something back at the bookstore. Tonight.

Can it wait?

It shouldn’t. It could help us with the black holes. But I want you to take it. I’m not the one to use it.

He inclined his head in assent.

If something goes wrong…I told him where to find it, figuring him finding my journals, too, would no longer matter to me if the worst happened tonight.

Nothing will go wrong.

Easy for him to say. My Book had been far too quiet lately.

I closed my eyes and pretended to be sinking inside, questing for my inner lake, beneath which gleamed a monster. Recalling the first time I’d discovered the place, the dark chamber, the freedom and power I’d sensed in it. Before I’d known how corrupted it was.

I’d once loved having that inner lake. Now I despised it.

A flood of water exploded inside me, gushing up, icy and black. I choked and sputtered and my eyes shot open.

“What is it,” Ryodan demanded.

I swallowed surprisingly dryly, for all the water inside me. “Indigestion,” I said. “I don’t think this is going to work.”

Ryodan said, “We’ve got all night.”

And I had no doubt he would sit here all night with me, and make sure I sat here, too.

I closed my eyes again and sat very still, not reaching, merely feeling tentatively. What was going on? My lake had never exploded up to meet me like that, nearly drowning me.

Waters rippled and stirred. Deep down, carving chasms in my soul, there was a rapid, rushing current. I didn’t like it. I’d never felt it before. My lake had always been still, serene, glassy, disturbed only when things of enormous power floated to its surface.

Yet now I felt as if there was something in there that contained a vicious undertow. And I might get swept away by it if I wasn’t careful.

I opened my eyes. “Just exactly how do you think the Book could possibly be of any use to us?”

“We’ve been through this.”

“I can’t read it. I won’t open it.”

“Fear of a thing,” Barrons said, “is often bigger than the thing.”

“And if the damn ‘thing’ is even a tenth the size of my fear of it, that’s bad enough,” I retorted. “You stood in the street with me and watched what it did to Derek O’Bannion. It came after you, too. You sensed its power. And you’re the one that told me if I took even one spell from it, I wouldn’t ever be the same.”

“I said if you ‘took’ a spell. It’s possible there’s a way to access information without taking one. It’s conceivable you could read it without utilizing an ounce of magic. Like Cruce. You know the First Language.”

Was it possible? His contention didn’t sound entirely implausible. I did know the First Language, there inside me in the tatters of the king’s memory. But those memories were part of the Book itself. If I reached for my knowledge of the First Language without it being offered, did that mean I was opening the Book? “I’ve always felt that simply opening it of my own will would doom me.”

“It’s already been open. You closed it.”

I hadn’t thought about any of this in months. I’d shoved every memory of the Sinsar Dubh into a far, dark corner of my mind. He was right. The Book had been open inside me that afternoon when he found me staring sightlessly outside BB&B, lost in my own head, debating whether I dare risk taking a spell from the Sinsar Dubh to free his son.

But I hadn’t opened it. It had been open, the Book offering. Big difference.

Might I have read the spell to save his son, scanning only the words without disturbing the magic, without getting turned into a soulless, evil psychopath? Books could be read. Spells had to be worked. Was information one thing and magic entirely another? I wasn’t sure I could split hairs that finely. I wasn’t sure the Book would either.

Still, Barrons had a point. Fear of a thing was often worse than the thing itself. I’d been afraid of him once. Now, I couldn’t even conceive of such a reaction to this man.

I wanted desperately to believe the Book wasn’t the great, all-knowing, all-spying evil I’d been assuming it was.

Unfortunately, I’d have to face it to find out.

Maybe it was silent because it was gone. Maybe my lake had swallowed and neutralized it. I was inundated with maybes lately. Limp noodley things you could do nothing with.

I sighed and closed my eyes, no longer pretending. I wanted to know. What was at the bottom now? What was going on in the vacuum of dread I carried in my gut every blasted day?

I dove deep, kicked in hard, rejecting fear. I had Barrons and Ryodan in the room with me. What more could I ask as I faced my inner demon?

I swam, holding my breath at first, diving into one towering wave after the next, getting drenched by violently churning water capped by thick foamy brine. I ran out of breath and started struggling against the sensation of suffocation. I forced myself to relax like I had the day I stepped through the Unseelie king’s great mirror in their boudoir and my lungs froze, knowing I had to breathe differently there. Now, I drew the water into my lungs, became one with it.

The waves fought me, buffeted me, as if trying to expel me, but it only strengthened my resolve. Was this why I’d nearly drowned when I first sought it? Because the Book no longer had all that much power—perhaps never had—and didn’t want me to figure that out? And it was throwing up some huge, watery smoke screen to keep me from discovering the truth? Maybe my adamant rejection of it the night it turned me invisible had weakened it somehow. That was, after all, the night it had ceased speaking. And maybe I’d turned visible again because the single spell it offered had been a temporary one, with a finite, albeit damned convenient end date.

I dove deeper, inhaling my icy lake, felt it rushing through my body, filling me with sidhe-seer power. I kicked and thrust and swam, following a gold beacon, forced my way through the chilling undertow and finally drifted lightly down into a dark, shadowy cavern.

Last time I’d been here, the Sinsar Dubh had been crooning to me like a lover, welcoming me, inviting me in.

A towering wall exploded in front of me.

I shattered it with a fist.

Another!

I kicked through it, swinging and cursing.

Wall after wall sprung up and I blasted through them as if my life depended on it.

Whatever the Book didn’t want me to see, I was going to see.

This was ending.

Here, tonight.

I wasn’t leaving this cavern until I knew what I was dealing with.

Wall after wall tumbled, no match for my fury, until there it was: an elaborately carved ebony pedestal upon which lay a shining golden Book.

Open. Just like in the nightmare I’d recently had.

I stood motionless in the cavern.

So—it could open itself. I knew that. No big.

I’d closed it before.

I would close it again.

But first I’d see if it really was possible for me to look at it, understand the words, without using the spell.

Still…if it wasn’t—and I turned into a homicidal maniac?

I almost wavered then. Stood, dripping water for a time, having a hard time persuading myself to move forward.

I could walk away right now. Say I couldn’t find it. Storm back out of my head and let sleeping dogs lie.

I sighed.

And live forever with this eternal instability? Be undermined day after day by fear of the unknown? It was past time for me to face my demons.

Clenching my jaw, I stalked to the pedestal and forced myself to look down. Half expecting I wouldn’t understand a single word. That perhaps there wouldn’t even be any words there. That perhaps my churning sidhe-seer waters had stripped it clean of all forbidden magic.

The blood in my veins turned to ice.

“No,” I breathed.

I would be evil if I’d used it.

I would be crazy.

I would be a psychopath.

I wasn’t any of those things.

At least I didn’t think I was.

“No, damn it, no!” I said again, backing away.

Not a murmur from the Sinsar Dubh, not a chuckle, not a jibe.

Just me alone with the hollow echo of my footfalls.

And my failure.

I’d had no problem reading and understanding the words carved into the Book’s ornate golden pages. The First Language had flowed as easily as English across my mental tongue.

And those words had seemed as familiar as a beloved and often repeated nursery rhyme.

The Sinsar Dubh was open to a spell to resurrect the dead.