MAC

Rage gets me nowhere. I spin in circles of nothing, full of wild energy with no target to aim it at.

After a time—although that word means nothing to me here—I go still (another word that technically means nothing to me yet somehow does) and turn my thoughts to my captor.

Barrons said recently, You think of the Sinsar Dubh as being an actual book inside you. I doubt it’s either open or closed. Stop thinking of it so concretely.

I’d felt a glimmer of understanding at his words. You mean it’s embedded in me, inseparably, and my ethical structure is the proverbial cover? I’d replied.

The previous time the Sinsar Dubh had taken control of my body, I’d been furious at my clipped wings, my inability to do something, anything, to positively impact my world. I’d let that anger and frustration rip through me and explode out in a burst of violence.

I’d felt badass.

But maybe there’d been no “ass” in that moment at all; just a mother lode of “bad.”

Here, in this silent dark place, without distraction, I apprehend my actions on that day more clearly. I’d broken my chains of doubt and fear with an act of savagery, telling myself since the Gray Woman was one of the bad guys, destroying her made me good.

Evil, Ryodan once told me, is bad that believes it’s good.

Killing her hadn’t been the wrong thing.

It was why I’d killed her that had been wrong. While I’d told myself I was killing her to protect Dublin, the truth was, I’d done it to make myself feel better, to assuage my feelings of impotence. That it would save potential victims had only been the icing on my selfish cake.

I’ve been in Dublin for a year. Although I met Jericho Barrons shortly after I arrived, more of those twelve months were lost in Faery, or spent in the Silvers, or passed mindlessly as a woman turned Pri-ya, than had ever been spent getting to know Barrons. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever gotten to know him. I’ve just gotten to know that I always want him around. And maybe one day I will get to know him.

Still, in those few months I spent with him on a mostly daily basis, I came to admire his system of ethics, unwavering focus, and commitment to those few people and causes he’s selected as his own.

And while part of me wants to wail—why didn’t he save me from this somehow?—another part of me, that clearer part, finally understands that this is what he was trying to get me to see all along; he couldn’t save me and he knew it. He’d told me once that fear was more than a wasted emotion, it was the ultimate set of blinders; that if I couldn’t face the truth of my reality, I could never control it, and would be subject to the wishes of anyone whose will was stronger than mine. He knew too well, from battling his own inner monster, what I’ve come to fathom only here and now.

The most critical, defining battles we wage in life, we wage alone.

Against ourselves.

It might be getting past an abusive childhood, struggling every day to regain belief in your own worth. Or being overweight and accepting that you don’t have to look like whatever the ideal woman currently is to be loved. Maybe it’s quitting drugs or giving up cigarettes. No one can do any of those things for you.

I’ve been divided all my life.

It’s time for that to stop.

The Sweeper was right in wanting to fix my brain; there can’t be two of us in here.

I didn’t ask to be a sidhe-seer. I didn’t ask to be in the wrong place at the wrong time as a fetus, and I certainly didn’t ask to be dicked with by the Seelie Queen and Unseelie King all my life.

Yet this is the war my life has been shoving me toward since my mother carried me in her womb.

I can either be a victim—or a winner. Fuck victimhood. I don’t wear it well; it clashes with my wardrobe.

I’m ready.

Only one of us is getting out alive.

It’s going to be me.

Ten minutes south of Dublin, I park in front of my chosen lair; formerly Mallucé’s gothic playground of death, sex, and fear.

The night MacKayla first laid eyes on the enormous four-story Victorian mansion, with its acre of haphazard, perspective-defying additions, oriel windows and transoms, turrets and porticos and wrought-iron balustrades, I’d known it would one day be mine.

John Johnstone Jr., murderer of his parents, feaster upon lessers of his kind, fueled, like me, by lust, greed, desire, and supremacy; his memory serves only to remind me that my body is as weak as his was and can be destroyed in the same fashion.

I drag myself from the car, clutching the door for support, taking care to position my feet properly. The soothing darkness of night has finally descended.

I’d have arrived much sooner if the unthinkable hadn’t happened—the sun exploded in Dublin—assaulting my newborn eyes with cruel javelins of light. Not even the sunglasses I’d found in the car made it possible for me to stare into the burning glare and drive. Rather than continuing to pursue my goals, I’d been forced to pull into a thicket, cover my head with my jacket and bide time until dusk. I’d occupied those hours going over my plan, envisioning each step in exacting detail. Richly detailed thought shapes reality. I excel at thought.

My body, however, is a bitter joke. I’ve discovered MacKayla’s nerve endings are as flawed as her mind; they cause enormous discomfort, overreacting to every sensation like a flock of hysterical doves.

I was certain when I merged with her body, evicting MacKayla’s guilt-riddled consciousness from the limbs and organs, that firmly embedding my enormous, focused will in her tissue and bone would strengthen her flesh.