“What kind of things?”
“He was into some stuff I didn’t know about. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“When did you put it back on?”
“When I went home to change. After the alley, the next thing I knew, I was standing outside the Stag’s Head, wearing the most bizarre outfit. I didn’t even bring it with me to Dublin. I have no clue how I ended up with it on. Remember the dress I wore my last Christmas at home? The one I hated but you thought looked so good on me? The one that made my ass look flat.”
I pressed a suddenly trembling hand to my mouth.
“That’s what I had on with the ugliest shoes. I’d never even seen them before, and I was freezing. And pearls. You know I haven’t worn those things in years. I wanted to find Darroc, so I went home to change and go hunt for him but when I got there my place had been totally trashed. Did you do that? Did you freak out when you thought I was dead?”
I cleared my throat. Still, it took me two tries to get words out and when I did I croaked like a frog. “Why did you put the ring back on? According to you it was what—like only ten hours earlier that you’d taken it off?” I knew why. I’d have done the same thing with Barrons.
She said softly, “I love him. He’s not perfect. I’m not either.”
So, my sister had the same epiphany I did when it came to relationships. Not surprising. But my inner Book knew I’d had that epiphany. She’d spoken in present tense about Darroc, refusing to believe he was really dead. Again, like me. If someone told me my fiancé was dead and I’d never seen his body, I’d have a hard time believing it, too. I was intimately acquainted with the stages of grief: denial being the first.
“Tell me exactly what happened again. Every detail you remember from the night in the alley to the precise moment you were…here again.” I was struggling to stay focused on logistics when my heart was pounding so hard it felt like it might rupture.
“Why? Have you figured something out, Mac? What do you think’s going on? Oh, God, are you finally starting to believe me? Jr., I’m scared! I don’t understand what’s happening. How could I lose a whole year? How did I end up in that stupid dress?”
I closed my eyes and didn’t say: Well, gee, sis, it’s like this: your baby sister has a big bad Book of black magic inside her and she wanted you back so badly, she brought you back from the dead. In the dress she chose to bury you in because she thought you looked so good in it—and hey, nobody’s looking at your ass when you’re lying in a coffin anyway—along with the pearls Mom and Dad gave you for your sixteenth birthday because you said they made you feel like a princess. And by the way, you’re wrong—those shoes totally rocked that outfit. I know. I bought them at Bloomingdale’s for you, after you died.
Jay-sus.
I’d nearly fallen off my chair when she mentioned the dress. But of course, if I’d brought her back from the dead, she’d be wearing what I buried her in. Ergo, no body in casket.
And my inner Book probably knew that, too. If we were, as Barrons seemed to think, embedded together. Total clusterfuck.
“I’m not sure,” I said finally. “But can we meet somewhere and talk?”
She laughed and said breathlessly, “Yes, Mac. Please. When? Where?”
I had a meeting tonight that I wasn’t missing and I wasn’t sure how long it would take.
So we made plans to meet at her place first thing in the morning. She’d make coffee and breakfast, she said.
It’d be like old times, she said.
31
“Rise, rise, rise in revolution…”
“Have you planted the icefire?” Cruce asked, striding impatiently across the cavern to meet him as soon as he’d finished flattening his flexible carapace and wedging it beneath the door.
Minutes passed while the roach god assumed form. It was never easy but then little was for a roach, living on the refuse and remains of others. Being chased and hunted and exterminated. Considered an enemy by one and all. In the history of man, he’d never met a human that welcomed a roach into its home, or anywhere for that matter. He was pestilence and vermin, nothing more. Yet.
“Yes,” he finally grated. It had taken time to distribute the tiny pods Cruce had given him containing the blue flames, but he’d seen them well-positioned where they’d not be discovered, and when the moment was right, numerous roaches would be standing by, each with tiny plastic vials Toc had provided, which they would chew through with their heavily sclerotized mandibles to mix a drop of Unseelie blood with the flame.
“Where?” Cruce demanded, and the roach god wondered briefly if he’d merely traded one arrogant, belittling bastard for another. The prince was restless tonight, radiating dark energy, eyes bright. He preferred a cool ally, not a hot one.
The roach god repeated the three locations his ally had chosen: an old library where they stored the largest number of ancient scrolls; the chambers once occupied by the prior Grand Mistress; and the chambers occupied by the current one.
“Well done,” Cruce said. “And you have Toc’s blood?”
The roach god nodded, holding himself together with eons of discipline and relentless hunger for a better way of life.
“Toc had the papers printed as I instructed, and dispersed?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent. When they come—”
“Will they come?” the roach god demanded.
Cruce smiled. “Oh, yes, they’ll come. My name is synonymous with rebellion, and the Unseelie have long memories. We fought for freedom once before and nearly attained it. I will not fail this time. I will rule both the Fae and human realms. They are already mine. I’m merely trapped in a spiderweb for the moment and that will soon change.”
“This world is dying. If it does, I want to go with you where you go.”
Cruce’s gaze locked on him and the roach god shuddered faintly. Ah, yes, this Fae had power. He hid it well.
“This world will not die. My realms are tied to it. When they come and the battle begins, watch and wait. If our side appears to be suffering losses, set the fires.”
“You said it burns hotter than human fire. How hot?” Fire was one thing to evade, Fae fire might be entirely another.
“Not too hot for you,” Cruce said. “Light all three at the same time. I want the fires to divide the humans and scatter them across the abbey. The fools will try to put it out rather than fight.”