I wasn’t leaving this cavern until I knew what I was dealing with.
Wall after wall tumbled, no match for my fury, until there it was: an elaborately carved ebony pedestal upon which lay a shining golden Book.
Open. Just like in the nightmare I’d recently had.
I stood motionless in the cavern.
So—it could open itself. I knew that. No big.
I’d closed it before.
I would close it again.
But first I’d see if it really was possible for me to look at it, understand the words, without using the spell.
Still…if it wasn’t—and I turned into a homicidal maniac?
I almost wavered then. Stood, dripping water for a time, having a hard time persuading myself to move forward.
I could walk away right now. Say I couldn’t find it. Storm back out of my head and let sleeping dogs lie.
I sighed.
And live forever with this eternal instability? Be undermined day after day by fear of the unknown? It was past time for me to face my demons.
Clenching my jaw, I stalked to the pedestal and forced myself to look down. Half expecting I wouldn’t understand a single word. That perhaps there wouldn’t even be any words there. That perhaps my churning sidhe-seer waters had stripped it clean of all forbidden magic.
The blood in my veins turned to ice.
“No,” I breathed.
I would be evil if I’d used it.
I would be crazy.
I would be a psychopath.
I wasn’t any of those things.
At least I didn’t think I was.
“No, damn it, no!” I said again, backing away.
Not a murmur from the Sinsar Dubh, not a chuckle, not a jibe.
Just me alone with the hollow echo of my footfalls.
And my failure.
I’d had no problem reading and understanding the words carved into the Book’s ornate golden pages. The First Language had flowed as easily as English across my mental tongue.
And those words had seemed as familiar as a beloved and often repeated nursery rhyme.
The Sinsar Dubh was open to a spell to resurrect the dead.
29
“I’m just holding on for dear life, won’t look down won’t open my eyes…”
Jada moved through the crisp cool dawn in perfect sync with her environment, eyes closed, feeling her way through the slipstream.
Shazam had taught her that all things emitted frequency, that living beings were essentially receivers that could pick up the vibrations if they could only achieve clarity of mind. Meaning no ego, no past or future, no thoughts at all. Unadulterated sensation. He contended humans lacked the ability to empty themselves, that they were too superficial, and that shallowness was marbled with identity, time/ego obsessed, and given the complexity of her brain, he’d doubted that she would ever get there.
Given the complexity of her brain, she’d been quite certain she would.
And had.
Becoming nothing and no one was something she knew how to do.
Now, she heard with some indefinable sense the dense, simplistic grumble of bricks ahead, the complex whir of moving life, the sleek song of the River Liffey, the soft susurrus of the breeze, and turned minutely to avoid obstacles, melding with the razor edge of buildings.
She was being hunted.
She’d passed small clusters of angry, armed humans, clutching papers with her picture. Mostly men, determined to gain power and ensure a degree of stability in this brutally unstable city by capturing the legendary Sinsar Dubh.
Fools. They felt nothing more than a brisk wind as she passed, on her way to her sacred place. Her bird’s-eye view. The water tower where she’d once crouched in a long black leather coat, sword in her hand, and belly-laughed, drunk on the many wonders of life.
As she pulled herself up the final rung and vaulted onto the platform, the smell of coffee and doughnuts slammed into her, and although her face betrayed nothing, inside she scowled.
She dropped down from the slipstream to tell Ryodan to get the hell off her water tower. They weren’t supposed to meet for another few hours and this was her turf.
But it was Mac she saw, sprawled out on the ledge as if she was perfectly at home, slung low in the old bucket car seat Jada had dragged up there herself, ball cap angled over her badly highlighted hair to shadow her face. She was dressed nearly identical to Jada, in jeans, combat boots, and a leather jacket.
“What are you doing on my water tower?” Jada demanded.
Mac looked up at her. “I don’t see your name on it anywhere.”
“You know it’s my water tower. I used to talk about it.”
“Sorry, dude,” Mac said mildly.
“Don’t fecking ‘dude’ me,” Jada said sharply, then inhaled long and slow. “There are plenty of other places for you to be. Find your own. Have an original thought.”
“I watched the Unseelie princess kill one of the Nine about an hour ago,” Mac said, as if she hadn’t even heard her. “She’s carrying human weapons now. Marching with a small army. They shot the shit out of Fade. Started to rip his body apart.”
“And?” Jada said, forgetting her irritation that Mac was here. She’d tried to strike an alliance with the Unseelie princess but the powerful Fae had chosen Ryodan instead, striking a deal for three of the princes’ heads. Apparently that alliance was over, if she was now killing the Nine.
“He disappeared. The princess saw it happen.”
Jada went still. She knew the Nine returned. Somehow. She didn’t know the nuts and bolts of it but she certainly wanted to. “Why are you telling me this? Your loyalties are with them, not me.”
“They’re not mutually exclusive. My loyalties are to you as well. Coffee?” Mac nudged a thermos toward her.
Jada ignored it.
“Got doughnuts, too. They’re soggy, but hey, it’s sugar. It’s all good.”
Jada turned to leave.
“I saw Alina the other night.”
Her feet rooted. “Impossible,” she said.
“I know. But I did.”
Jada relaxed each muscle by section of her body, starting with her head and working down. Opponents tended to focus at eye level, so she always eradicated signs of obvious tension there first. She didn’t want to talk about this. She didn’t think about this anymore. “I watched her die,” she said finally.
“Did you? Or did you leave before it was over?” Mac held out a doughnut.