“Really?” I snapped at Ryodan. “Because I thought she was sounding a lot like you.”

“I’m Jada,” she said to Ryodan. “And don’t try to protect me. I stopped needing you a long time ago.”

“Stopped,” Ryodan echoed.

“Not that I ever did,” she corrected.

“I don’t care who she is,” Barrons growled. “I gave Mac the spear. It’s hers and no one else’s.”

I shot him a curious look. You didn’t like me carrying it. You said so yourself.

He shot back, Far more than someone else carrying a weapon that can harm you. While I believe Jada won’t use the sword against you, I have no such faith in the sidhe-seers. Untenable risk.

“I gave her the cuff of Cruce,” Jada said. “She can also make herself invisible when she so chooses. Clearly, however, she can’t color her hair. Still, she is hardly defenseless.”

My hand went to my hair. “It’s paint,” I said stiffly, “because someone printed a daily that set the Guardians on me, shooting at me. They invaded BB&B and sprayed everything with red paint, and no, I can’t make myself invisible when I want to. That was the Sinsar Dubh, not me.”

Jada said acerbically, “So it is controlling you.”

I snapped, “That’s not what I—”

My hair shot straight up as a small tornado blew past me. I was talking to thin air.

Jada was gone. So was Barrons.

I glanced at Ryodan. Then he was gone, too.

I heard a high whining sound as if they were all snarling or shouting much faster than my brain could process as they faded down the hall.

Then silence.

We were alone in Jada’s study.

I looked at Christian, who was looking at Dancer. Dancer was staring at the door, looking worried. The three of us stood in silence until Christian said, “I’ve a corpse to find while that bastard’s otherwise occupied,” and vanished.

Dancer shook his head and slowly turned his gaze to me. “How do you expect us to save the world if we can’t even stay in the same room together for five minutes?”

“We just need to work a few things out first,” I said irritably. “We’ll get there.”

“The black holes don’t give a rat’s arse about our ‘things.’ And she’s right about the spear. Word on the street is no one was killing Unseelie. Why weren’t you out there?”

“That’s none of your business.”

He smiled faintly but his eyes were sad. “You know one of the best things about Dani?”

The list was long.

“She feared nothing. Do you know what fear fears?”

I inclined my head, waiting.

“Laughter,” he said.

“Your point?” I said stiffly, in no mood for more of his cutting insights. We’d accomplished nothing tonight but pissing each other off. Again.

“Laughter is power. One of the greatest weapons we have. It can slay dragons and it can heal. Jada doesn’t have it anymore. As long as she doesn’t, she’s more vulnerable than any of you seem to realize. Stop worrying about your idiotic ‘things’ and start worrying about her. Make her laugh, Mac. And remember how to do it yourself, while you’re at it. Nice hair, by the way.”

Then he, too, left.

—

Since we were on the first floor, I exited by the window for two reasons. One: I had no idea how long Barrons, Ryodan, and Jada might go at it, but I knew one thing for certain—I would have the spear back before the night was through.

Because I’d eaten Unseelie multiple times, if someone stabbed me with it, I might suffer the same horrific death I’d dealt to Mallucé. I hadn’t worried about that quite so much when I was invisible.

Then again, thanks to a mysterious elixir given to me by Cruce, I might survive the wound and shamble around indefinitely, rotting in various places, clumps of my badly stained hair falling out.

Yes, Barrons would definitely reclaim the spear.

I’d never have let her keep it in the first place if I had suspected for one moment Jada might turn my spear over to sidhe-seers, who not only didn’t know me but knew I harbored their ancient enemy, although they weren’t clear on the how.

I’d been willing to give it to her, no one else. That weapon was a serious liability, and like Barrons, I didn’t know or trust the new sidhe-seers, and the original ones had been conditioned with fear and manipulation for too long. It was going to take more than a few weeks for Jada to retrain them.

My second reason for slipping out via the tall casement window was because I wanted a better look at the black hole, and it would have taken me ten minutes to get there if I’d gone all the way around the inside of the abbey to the front entrance then followed the exterior wall to the rear of the abbey again.

I approached the anomaly warily, recalling what Dancer had said about gravitational pull. About fifteen feet in diameter, it hovered some three or four feet above the earth. Directly beneath it was a thick carpet of abnormally lush, tall grass, exploding with large red poppies, bobbing heavily in the breeze, shimmering with leftover droplets of rain. Many of the blossoms were as large as my hand. I inhaled deeply, the air deliciously spicy behind the sprawling stone fortress, and with my temporarily heightened senses, it was intoxicating. The night was hot and sultry as a summer noon in Georgia, the foliage lapping up the heat and humidity as if it were Unseelie-flesh-laced plant food.