“Seelie, Unseelie—you’re all fairies to me,” Lor grumbled.
“I thought there was no sifting in this part of the abbey,” I said.
“We had to drop all the wards to let everyone in. There’s too much diversity in …”
“Everyone’s DNA?” I said drily.
Kat smiled. “For lack of a better word. The Keltar are one thing, Barrons and his men another, the Fae yet another.”
And me? I wanted to ask, but didn’t. Was I human? Had the Book told me any of the truth? Did I really have the Sinsar Dubh inside me? Had it stamped its imprint, word for word, into my defenseless infant psyche? Over the years, had I always sensed it—something fundamentally wrong with me—and done my best to wall it off or submerge it in a dark glassy lake to protect myself?
If I did have the entire Book of dark magic inside me, and Kat found out about it, would they try to lock me up down here, too?
I shivered. Would they hunt me like we’d hunted the Sinsar Dubh?
Barrons looked down at me. What is it?
Just cold, I lied. If I did have the Sinsar Dubh inside me, did that mean the spell I’d walked away from was in my glassy lake? There at the bottom, like the Book had said? What was the difference, then? Had I really subdued the monster, or was it still inside me? Was the monster temptation, and I’d defeated it?
“Where’s V’lane?” I asked, desperate for concretes.
“He is collecting the queen,” Velvet said.
That started another fight.
“If you think we’re going to let her come here and open the Sinsar Dubh, you’re wrong.”
“How do you expect her to rebuild the walls without it?” Dree’lia demanded.
“We don’t need walls. You die as easy as any humans,” Fade said.
“Is she even conscious?” I asked.
“We need the walls,” Kat said quietly.
“She surfaces but is still mostly out of it,” Ryodan said. “Point is, if anybody’s reading that damned Book, it’s not going to be a fairy. They started this fucking mess.”
Everyone was still arguing ten minutes later when we reached the cavern that had been designed to contain the Sinsar Dubh.
As we approached the doors, Christian glanced back at me and I nodded. I knew what he was thinking. We’d seen doors like this before, at the entrance to the Unseelie King’s fortress of black ice, however these were much smaller. Kat pressed a hand to a pattern of runes on the door and they swung open silently.
The blackness beyond was so enormous and complete that the thin beams of our flashlights were swallowed a few feet in.
I heard a match being struck, then Jo lit an oil torch mounted in a silver sconce on the wall. It flared into life, fed into the next and the next, until the cavern was brilliantly illuminated.
A hush fell over us.
Chiseled of milky stone, the cavern soared to an impossibly high ceiling with no visible means of support. Every inch of it—floors, walls, ceiling—was covered with silver runes that glittered as if they’d been branded into stone with diamond dust. The torchlight danced off the runes, making the chamber almost too bright to see. I squinted. Figured the only place in Dublin I’d ever need my sunglasses was underground.
The cavern was easily as large as the Unseelie King’s bedchamber. Between the doors and the size of the place, I wondered how much credence there was to the theory that the king was the one who’d founded our order, who’d originally brought his cursed Book here to be entombed.
In the center was a slab laid across two stones. It was also covered with glittering symbols, but these moved constantly, sliding up and across the slab like the tattoos that moved beneath the Unseelie Princes’ skin. They disappeared over the edge and began again at the floor.
“Seen runes like these before, Barrons?” Ryodan said.
“No. You?” Barrons said.
“New to me. Could be useful.”
I heard the sound of a phone taking pictures.
Then I heard the sound of a phone being crushed against rock.
“Are you out of your mind?” Ryodan said disbelievingly. “That was my phone.”
“Possibly,” Jo said. “But no one records anything here.”
“Crush something of mine again, I’ll crush your skull.”
“I weary of you,” Jo said.
“I weary of your ass, too, sidhe-seer,” Ryodan growled.
“Leave her alone,” I said. “It’s their abbey.”
Ryodan shot me a look. Barrons intercepted it and Ryodan looked away—but only after a long, tense moment.
“You must place the Book on the slab,” Kat instructed. “Then the four stones must be positioned around it.”
“Then, MacKayla, you must remove the runes from the binding,” V’lane said.
“What?” I exclaimed, whirling to face him as he sifted in. “I’m not taking those runes off!”
Barrons said, “I thought you were bringing the queen.”
“I am making certain it is safe for her first.”
V’lane scanned the chamber, studying each person, Fae and Druid. I could tell he wasn’t comfortable with the risk. His gaze rested on Velvet for a moment, who nodded. Then he looked at me. “I apologize, but it is the only way to protect her. I cannot be two of me at once without halving my abilities.”
“What are you talking about?”
He didn’t answer.
My parents were suddenly there. My mom and dad—here with the Sinsar Dubh—in the last place I would ever have brought them. And supposedly I was going to have to remove the runes, but we’d see about that.
My dad had the Seelie queen in his arms, heavily wrapped in blankets. She was so well swaddled that all I could see of her were a few strands of silvery hair and the tip of her nose. My mom was pressed close to my dad’s side, and I understood why V’lane had apologized. He should have.
He had my parents protecting the queen with their bodies.
“You’re using my parents as her shield?”
“It’s all right, baby. We wanted to help,” Jack said.
Rainey agreed. “You’re so much like your sister, facing everything alone, but you don’t have to. We’re family. We face things together. Besides, if I have to stay one more moment in that glass cage, I’ll lose my mind. We’ve been stuck in there for months.”
Barrons jerked his head, and Ryodan, Lor, and Fade closed in around my parents, shielding them.
“Thank you,” I said softly. He was always protecting me and mine. God, I sucked.
V’lane was still eyeing all the occupants of the room. “I had no choice, MacKayla. Someone kidnapped her. At first I believed it must be one of my race. Now I wonder if it was not one of yours.”
“Let’s just get this over with,” I said tightly. “Why do I have to remove the runes?”
“They are unpredictable parasites and you have placed them directly on a sentient being. On walls, on a cage, they are useful. On a living, thinking entity, they are unbelievably dangerous. In time, it and they will transmogrify. Who knows what kind of monster we will be dealing with then?”
I blew out a breath. It made perfect Fae sense. I’d applied something Unseelie and alive to something else Unseelie and alive. Who could say whether it would ultimately make the Book stronger, maybe even give it whatever it needed to free itself?
“It must be re-interred precisely as it was before. Without the runes.”
“She’s not removing them,” said Barrons. “It’s too dangerous.”
“It is too dangerous if she does not.”
“If it becomes something else, we’ll deal with it then,” said Barrons.
“You may no longer be around,” V’lane replied coolly. “We cannot always count on Jericho Barrons to save the day.”
“I’ll always be around.”
“The runes on the walls, ceiling, and floor make them obsolete. They will contain it.”
“It escaped before.”
“It was carried out,” Kat said. “Isla O’Connor carried it out. She was the leader of the Haven and the only one with the power to carry it past the wards.”
I was quiet, thinking. The truth of what V’lane had said resonated deep inside me. I feared the crimson runes myself. They were potent; they’d been given to me by the Sinsar Dubh, which in itself was enough to make them suspect. Was this another of its patient gambits? Had I sealed it with precisely what it needed to one day break free again?
Everyone was looking at me. I was tired of making all the decisions. “I see both sides. I don’t know the answer.”
“We’ll vote,” Jo said.
“We’re not voting on something this important,” Barrons said. “This isn’t a fucking democracy.”
“Would you prefer a tyranny? Who would you place in charge?” V’lane demanded.
“Why isn’t it a democracy?” Kat said. “Everyone here is present because they are useful and important. Everyone should have a say.”
Barrons cut her a hard look. “Some of us are more useful and important than others.”
“My ass, you are,” Christian growled.
Barrons folded his arms. “Who let the Unseelie in here?”
Christian lunged for him. Dageus and Cian were on him in an instant, restraining him.
The muscles in the young Highlander’s arms bulged as he shook his uncles off. “I have an idea. Let’s subject Barrons to a little lie-detector test.”
I sighed. “Why don’t we subject everyone to one, Christian? But who’s going to test you? Will you be judge and jury of us all?”
“I could,” he said coldly. “Got a few secrets you don’t want to get out, Mac?”
“Gee, look who’s talking, Prince Christian.”
“Enough,” Drustan said. “No one of us is any better qualified to make the choice alone. Let’s take the bloody vote and be done with it.”
The Fae voted to remove the crimson runes and trust V’lane, naturally. As longtime Druids to the Fae, the Keltar did, too. Ryodan, Lor, Barrons, Fade, and myself voted against it. The sidhe-seers were split down the middle, with Jo for removing them and Kat against. I could barely see the tip of my father’s head between Lor, Fade, and Ryodan, but my parents weighed in on my side. Smart parents.
“They shouldn’t count,” Christian said. “They’re not even part of this.”