I perch on the edge of the mattress, staring up at my flock. The Sinsar Dubh said they were my “priests” and that I could command them. I know better than to trust the Sinsar Dubh and I worry that if I issue even one tiny command such as, “Get the hell away from me and that’s an order,” the Book will somehow own a piece of my soul.

Or maybe if you start ordering this caste around, it antagonizes them so much they eat you. Or perhaps they’ll start vomiting and pissing, and then I’ll be walking around all the time in upchuck and urine, stinking of three different things instead of a single bad smell.

One thing I do know is things can always get worse, most often at the precise moment you’ve decided they can’t.

And so I remain, as Barrons would pithily say, idiotically passive.

I sigh and begin to dress, thinking I might kill for a Starbucks, heavy on the espresso.

I lose sense of time in Chester’s. There are no windows, and if you stay there a while it messes with your circadian rhythm. I think I’ve been here three nights now, listening for the music of an Unseelie Princess, and trying to figure out how to get past Ryodan’s wards and explore the many secrets of Chester’s.

Time and again I’ve turned around and walked away rather than call on something inside me to push past a particularly sticky spot, allowing the Book no opportunity to goad me.

I lost two and a half hours in the street that afternoon and have no idea what the Book did with me. I don’t know if I spent all of it torturing and killing, or—I terminate that thought. No point in going there. It’s done. I can’t undo it. I can only never let it happen again. Brooding about it will only make me feel worse, and when I feel my worst is when the Sinsar Dubh talks the most.

As I round the perimeter balustrade and approach the top of the stairs, flanked by my gaunt ghouls, I realize it must be early morning, as the club is empty except for the many waiters and waitresses wiping things down. I hope they use antibacterial cleanser because virtually every horizontal surface gets used as a bed at some point. There are only a few hours when the dance floors are deserted. Ryodan closes the doors at dawn and doesn’t reopen to the public until eleven A.M. I’ve heard that’s when he gives his infamous nod to some woman and takes her upstairs. I’ve also heard that for an uncommonly long time it’s been the sidhe-seer, Jo. Really, how much of a relationship can she think they’re having when he’s still “selecting” her every morning?

As if I’ve summoned the event merely by thinking of it, I turn the corner to see Ryodan standing at the top of the stairs, looking down.

Lucky me. I get to witness the nod. Woohoo. Could my morning get any better?

I stop abruptly and bony vultures pile into my back. They’re still silent. It creeps me out.

I glance down to my right, past the railing. There’s Jo, looking up, waiting. I wonder again what the hell he thinks he’s doing with her. What she thinks she’s doing with him. Anyone can see they’re no match. Anyone can predict how this disaster will end. One morning Ryodan will walk to the stairs.

He’ll look down and Jo will look up.

And Ryodan will look beyond her, to some other woman, and nod.

Jo will never share his bed again.

Barrons and his men are something else. I may not care for Ryodan, we have baggage between us, but I have to admit any woman takes one look at him and wonders. And wants. It’s visceral. You know that when one of the Nine gets down to fucking, your world is about to get rocked like never before. And like it never will again. Unless you become a Nine groupie. Which I can honestly say might have its merits.

If I was Jo, and it was Barrons at the top of these stairs, what would I do? Like Jo, would I choose to take what I could get of the hottest, dirty, intense sex and passion I’d ever experience, and deem it worth a shattered heart?

There’s no question it will break hers.

I see the hunger in her face. I see the light in her eyes as she gazes up at him. I see the tenderness and the desire and need in every line of her body.

It’s not there in his.

He’s untouched by her. She burns for him.

I want to grab him, shake him, demand he stop before he destroys her. I want to grab her, shake her, demand she stop before she’s destroyed.

I hold my breath in silence. It’s not my place to choose for Jo a path I’m not sure I’d be willing to walk myself.

Life is short. At the buffet of it, who doesn’t want the best dessert?

Ryodan nods, Jo’s cue to toss her cleaning rag and race up the stairs into his arms. They’ll pass me and disappear into his office or a nearby bedroom, and I’ll go downstairs and pilfer precious eggs from the Nine’s private kitchen, whip up an omelet, and break into their espresso machine. Maybe even find some milk to add to my coffee. Oh, happy day.

Jo holds Ryodan’s gaze for a long moment.

Her lashes drop to shield her eyes.

Slowly she turns her back on him and resumes wiping tables.

I gape, stunned.

Nothing against Jo, but I didn’t think she had it in her. I want to leap up on the rail and cheer her choice to pull the plug before the bathwater drowns her.

Ryodan stands unmoving, looking down at Jo’s back.

I begin to inch backward, feeling suddenly like the voyeur I am, in no mood to be caught at it.

Jo turns around and looks up at him. I know what she wants to see. She’ll never find it on that implacable face. I want to shout at her to turn away again. Stop mining for gold where there is none. I tear my gaze from her and glance back at Ryodan.