He grabs my head, pulls it to his. “I stay informed!” he snarls against my ear.
The chiming has become an unbearable orchestra of sounds that the human ear was never meant to hear. My neck is wet. I realize my ears are bleeding. I’m mildly surprised. I don’t bleed easily anymore. Haven’t ever since I ate Unseelie.
“You must obey me in this, MacKayla!” he shouts. “If you wish to remain at my side, dispose of them. Or is it war you wish between us? I thought it was an alliance you sought!” He wipes blood from his lips and cuts a sharp look at the princes.
Blissfully, blessedly, the chiming stops. The ice picks through my eardrums vanish.
I inhale deeply, gulping clean, fresh air greedily, as if it might wash my cells clean of the stain from the princes’ horrific symphony.
My relief is short-lived, however. As abruptly as the hellish music stopped, my shoulders and arms are freezing, and I think sheets of ice might crack and drop away if I move.
I don’t need to turn my head to know that the princes have sifted into position, one on my left, one on my right. I feel them there. I know their inhumanly beautiful faces are inches from mine. If I turn my head, they will look into me with those piercing, mesmerizing, ancient eyes that can see beyond where the human soul is, that can see into the very matter that comprises it—and can take it apart piece by piece. Regardless of how much they despise my runes, they’re still ready to take me on.
I look at Darroc. I’d wondered what his reaction would be if I tried to take the spear. I see a look in his eyes now that was not there a short time ago. I am both a greater liability than he knew and a greater asset—and he likes it. He likes power: both having it and having a woman who has it.
I despise walking with Unseelie Princes at my back. But his comment about the Seelie amassing armies, my ignorance about the runes I hold in my hands, and the icy dark Fae sandwiching me make compelling arguments.
I tilt my head, toss my dark curls from my eyes, and look up at him. He likes it when I use his name. I think it makes him feel like he’s with Alina again. Alina was soft and Southern to the core. We Southern women know a thing or two about men. We know to use their name often, to make them feel strong, needed, as if they have the final say even when they don’t, and to always, always keep them believing they won the best prize in the only competition that will ever matter on the day we said, “I do.”
“If we get into a battle, Darroc, will you promise to return my spear so I can use it to help defend us? Will you permit that?”
He likes those words: “help defend us” and “permit.” I see it in his eyes. A smile breaks across his face. He touches my cheek and nods. “Of course, MacKayla.”
He looks at the princes and they are no longer beside me.
I’m uncertain how to return the runes. I’m not sure they can be returned.
When I toss them over my shoulders at the princes, they make sounds like exploding crystal goblets, as they sift hastily to avoid them. I hear the runes steam and hiss as they hit pavement.
I laugh.
Darroc gives me a look.
“I am behaving,” I reply sweetly. “You can’t tell me they didn’t have that coming.”
I’m getting better at reading him. He finds me amusing. I wipe my palms on my leather pants, trying to get rid of the bloody residue from the runes. I try my shirt. But it’s no use; the red discoloration has set.
When Darroc takes my hand and leads me down the alley between Barrons Books and Baubles and Barrons’ garage, which houses the car collection I used to covet, I don’t look to either side. I keep my gaze trained straight ahead.
I’ve lost Alina, failed to save Christian, killed Barrons, am becoming intimate with my sister’s lover. I hurt Dani to drive her away, and now I’ve teamed up with the Unseelie army.
Eyes on the prize, there’s no turning back.
10
Snow begins to fall, carpeting the night in a soft white hush. We march across it, a stain of Unseelie, stomping, crawling, slithering toward Temple Bar.
There are castes behind me that I’ve seen only once before—the night Darroc brought them through the dolmen. I have no desire to inspect them any more closely than I did that night. Some of the Unseelie aren’t so bad to look at. The Rhino-boys are disgusting, but they don’t make you feel … dirty. Others … well, even the way they move makes your skin crawl, makes you feel slimy where their eyes linger.
As we pass a streetlamp, I glance at a flyer, drooping limply on it: The Dani Daily, 97 days AWC.
The headline brags that she killed a Hunter. I put myself in Dani’s head, to figure out the date. It takes me a minute, but I get it—after the walls crashed. I perform a rapid calculation. The last day I was in Dublin was January 12.