That was the end of the page. There was nothing on the other side.
I stared at it until it blurred out of focus. When did grief end? Did it ever? Or did you just get numb from hurting yourself on it so many times?
Would I grow emotional scar tissue? I hoped so. At the same time I hoped not. How could I betray my love for my sister by not suffering every time I thought about her? If I stopped hurting, would that mean I’d stopped loving her a little?
How had Alina known about the Haven? I’d only recently learned of its existence and what it was: the High Council of sidhe-seers. Rowena claimed she’d never met my sister, yet Alina had written in her journal about the governing body of the very organization Rowena ran, and she’d somehow learned of a prophecy foretold by them.
What were the five? What was the Haven’s prophecy?
I clutched my head and massaged my scalp. Evil books and mysterious players and plots within plots, and now prophecies, too? Before I’d needed five things: four stones and a Book. Now I needed ten? That wasn’t merely absurd, it was unfair.
I stuffed the page in the front pocket of my jeans, stood up, freshened my face, took a deep breath, and went out to relieve Dani of her clerk duties. If my eyes were too bright when I stepped behind the counter, either she didn’t notice, or she understood a thing or two about grief, and left me alone.
“Some of the girls want to meet with you, Mac. That’s why I came today. They asked me to ask you because they figured you wouldn’t even let them in the door, and they’re freaked out that you know a prince.” Her feline eyes narrowed. “What’s he like?” Her young voice was hushed with a dangerous blend of fascination and awakening hormones.
V’lane was the sidhe-seer equivalent of Lucifer; and even if his motives in Mankind’s current predicament mirrored ours, he was to be feared, shunned, and, a deep part of me insisted, destroyed. Seelie and Unseelie alike, the Fae were our enemies. They always had been, and always would be. Why, oh why, do we find the most dangerous, forbidden men the most irresistible?
“Fae princes kill sidhe-seers, Dani.”
“He hasn’t killed you.” She shot me an admiring look. “It looked like you had him eating out of your hand.”
“No woman could have that Fae eating out of her hand,” I said sharply, “so don’t be daydreaming about it.”
She ducked her head guiltily, and I sighed, remembering what it was like to be thirteen. V’lane would have been the object of every one of my teenage fantasies. No rock star, no actor, could have competed with the golden, immortal, inhumanly erotic prince. In my daydreams, I would have wowed him with my cleverness, seduced him with my budding femininity, succeeded in winning his heart where no other woman could because, of course, in my fantasy, I would have endowed him with the heart he didn’t have.
“He’s so beautiful,” she said wistfully. “He’s like an angel.”
“Yep,” I agreed flatly. “The one that fell.” My words did nothing to change the expression on her face. I could only hope she never saw him again. I could see no reason that she would. At some point, in the near future, she and I were going to have a long talk about life. She was overdue. I almost laughed. I’d been overdue too. Then I’d come to Dublin. “Tell me more about this meeting they want, Dani.” What were they after?
“After you left that night, everybody got into a huge fight. Rowena sent everybody back to bed, but once she left, it started up again. Some of the girls wanted to hunt you down and get even. But Kat—she was with Moira that day—said that you didn’t mean to do it, and it would be wrong, and a lot of girls listen to her. Some of ’em aren’t happy with Rowena. They think she keeps too tight a rein on us. They think we should be out in the streets, doing what we can to stop what’s going on, instead of just biking past it every day, watching. She almost never lets us go out to kill.”
“With only one weapon, I can see why.” I hated agreeing with the old woman, but I concurred on that score.
“She keeps the sword herself. She doesn’t like to be without it. I think she’s afraid.”
I could understand that, too. Last night, after I’d gotten on the bike and we’d sped off, I’d checked for my spear. Despite his obvious displeasure with me, V’lane had kept his word and returned it at parting.
I showered with it strapped to my thigh.
I slept with it in my hand.
“We could fight, Mac. Maybe we can’t kill them without the sword, but we sure could kick some fecking ass, and maybe they’d think twice about settin’ up shop in our city. I could save dozens of people every day, if she’d just let me. I see ’em walking down the street, holding hands with a human”—she shuddered—“and I know that person’s gonna die. I could save them!”
“But the Unseelie you stopped would only move on to another victim, if you didn’t kill it, Dani. You’d be saving one person to sentence another.” I’d thought this through myself. I felt the same things. We were hopelessly outnumbered with only two weapons.
Her mouth twisted. “That’s what Rowena says, too.”
Ugh. I was not like Rowena. “In this case, she’s right. Diverting them isn’t enough. We need more weapons. More ways to kill them, and I can’t give up my spear, so if they’re using you to bait some kind of trap . . .” I warned. “I didn’t kill Moira. It was an accident. But I won’t let anyone take my spear away.”
“They’re not trying to trap you, Mac. I swear. They just want to talk to you. They think there’s stuff happening that you don’t know about, and they think you might know some stuff we don’t. They want to trade info.”
“What do they think I don’t know?” I demanded. Was there some threat I was unaware of? A new, even worse enemy out there, gunning for me?
“If I tell you anything else, they’ll get mad at me, and half the abbey’s usually mad at me. I’m not pissing off the other half. They said they’d meet on neutral ground, and that you could choose where. Will you do it?”
I made a show of considering it but my mind was already made up. I wanted to know what they knew, and desperately wanted access to their archives. Rowena had given me a glimpse into one of their many books about the Fae the day Dani had taken me to meet her at PHI. She’d shown me the first few sentences of an entry about V’lane, and I’d been itching to get my hands on it ever since, and finish the rest of it. If information about the Sinsar Dubh existed, it was a good bet the sidhe-seers had it, somewhere. Not to mention my hope that somewhere in the abbey were answers to my questions about my mother, and heritage. “Yes. But I’ll need a show of faith.”
“What do you want?”
“Rowena has a book in her desk—”
Dani stiffened instantly. “No fecking way! She’d know! I’m not taking it!”
“Not asking you to. You have a digital camera?”
“Nope. Sorry. Can’t do.” She folded her arms.
“I’ll loan you mine. Photograph the pages about V’lane and bring them to me.” My plan would serve the dual purposes of getting me more information, and proving that she was willing to defy Rowena for me. It would also make her read about the object of her misguided fantasies, and hopefully cure her of them.
She stared at me. “If she catches me, I’m dead.”
“Don’t let her catch you, then,” I said. Then I softened, “Do you think you can do it, Dani? If it’s really too dangerous . . .” She was only thirteen, and I was pitting her against a woman with years of wisdom and experience, ruthless intentions, and a spine of steel.
Her lambent eyes gleamed. “I’m superfast, remember? You want it, I’ll get it.” She glanced around the bookstore. “But if things get really bad, I’m coming to live with you.”
“Oh no, you’re not.” I said, trying not to smile. She was such a teenager.
“Why not? It looks cool to me. No rules, either.”
“I’d drown you in rules. All kinds of rules. No TV, no loud music, no boys, no magazines, no snacks or soda, no sugar, no—”
“I get it, I get it,” she said sourly. Then she brightened. “So, I can tell ’em you’ll meet?”
I nodded.
Dani watched the counter for me, while I ran upstairs and got my Kodak. I changed the settings so it would take the highest resolution photos possible, and told her to make sure she got the entire pages, so I could download them onto my computer, zoom in on the images, and read. I told her to call me as soon as she had them; we’d set a place and time to meet.
“Be safe, Dani,” I said, as she wheeled her bike out the door. There was a storm brewing in the streets of Dublin, and I didn’t mean those dense black clouds currently crawling across the rooftops. I could feel it. Like a bad moon really was rising, and even worse trouble was on the way. Ever since I’d danced to that song the other night, I hadn’t been able to shake it from my head. It was such boppy, happy-sounding music to be accompanied by such grim predictions.
She glanced back over her shoulder at me. “We’re kinda like sisters, aren’t we, Mac?”
A knife twisted in my gut. There was such a hopeful look on her face. “Yeah, I guess we are.” I didn’t want another sister. Ever. I didn’t want to worry about anyone but me.
Still, I did the closest thing to praying I knew how to do, and whispered a silent invocation to the universe to watch over her, as I closed the door.