“Yes.”
“Could I choose to stay?”
“And have anything you wanted, MacKayla. Forever.”
Alina never called me MacKayla. In fact, neither did my parents or any of my friends. Only V’lane did. Was he behind those sunny eyes? And still, I wanted to stay here, lose myself on this beach, in this sun, live this day over and over again for the rest of my life. Forget the rain and the fear, the pain and my uncertain future. I could die happily on a hammock in the sun, seventy years from now, surrounded by lost dreams.
“I love you, Alina,” I whispered.
“I love you, too, Mac,” she whispered back.
“I’m sorry I failed you. I’m sorry I missed your call. I’m sorry I didn’t figure out something was wrong.”
“You never failed me, Mac. You never will.”
Tears filled my eyes. Where had those words of absolution come from? Did the icy Fae prince understand more about human emotion than he let on?
I hugged Alina, inhaled deeply, and memorized every sensory detail I could greedily gather.
Then I squeezed my eyes shut and went to that place in my head that was so alien, and I fed the foreign fire. When I’d stoked it hot enough and high enough, I murmured, “Show me what is true,” and opened my eyes.
My arms were empty. Alina was gone.
V’lane knelt in the sand before me.
“Never do that to me again,” I said in a low voice.
“You did not enjoy your time with her?”
“It wasn’t her.”
“Tell me you did not enjoy it.”
I couldn’t.
“Then thank me for it.”
I couldn’t do that either. “How much time has passed?”
“I would have retrieved you but I was loath to disrupt your pleasure. You have had so little of it lately.”
“You said you would take no more than one hour of my time.”
“And I meant it. You chose to stay in Faery when you followed her across the sand. I understand freedom is a commodity humans prize highly. I permitted you yours.”
When I would have argued his underhanded methods he pressed a finger to my lips. It was warm, strong, but there was absolutely nothing Fae in his touch. He was muting himself for me. He felt like a man, a strong, solid, sexy man, nothing more. “Some wounds need salve to heal. Illusion is the great salve. Tell me, has your grief for your sister lessened?”
I considered his words and was startled to realize it was true. Although I knew the Alina I’d just played with, and cried with, and hugged and begged forgiveness of had not been real, my day in the sun with her had given me a degree of closure I’d not had before. Although I knew the Alina who’d absolved hadn’t been my Alina, her words had comforted me all the same.
“Never again,” I repeated. Illusion might be a salve, but it was also dangerous. There was enough danger in my life.
He flashed a smile. “Your wish.”
I closed my eyes a moment, trying to clear Alina from my thoughts; the sight, scent, and sound of her lingered all around me. From hugging her, I still smelled Beautiful on my skin. Later I would re-live every moment, and it would comfort me again. I opened my eyes. “What of the Lord Master?”
“The warehouse was deserted. I destroyed the dolmen. It did not appear anyone had been there in weeks. I suspect he never returned to that location once it had been discovered. Tell me everything you know of him.”
“I’m tired,” I said. “Our hour is up.” Plus some. “Return me now.”
“Tell me of the Sinsar Dubh. You owe me that.”
I told him what I knew, that I’d felt it pass me in the streets of Dublin, moving rapidly in a car of some kind, past the bookstore, a little over two weeks ago. He asked me many questions that I couldn’t answer because the mere nearness of the Dark Book had knocked me out, a fact he seemed to find amusing.
“We will see each other again, MacKayla,” he said.
Then he was gone and I was somewhere else. I blinked. Although I’d not terminated our time together prematurely, V’lane still hadn’t returned me to Wales; he’d deposited me in Barrons Books and Baubles. Probably just to irritate Barrons.
It took me a few moments to adjust and focus. Having realities swapped so quickly and completely seems to exceed what the human mind can process—we were not fashioned for such a method of travel—and it goes blank, like the static on late-night television, for a few seconds. It’s a vulnerable time. A person could be ambushed in such a moment.
My hand went instantly to my spear. I was relieved to find it was once again there, in the belt draped around my—“Haha, V’lane,” I muttered, pissed—hot pink bikini. “Jackass.” It was no wonder I was cold.
Then my brain processed what I was seeing and I gasped.
Barrons Books and Baubles had been ransacked!
Tables were overturned, books torn from shelves and strewn everywhere, baubles broken. Even my little TV behind the counter had been destroyed.
“Barrons?” I called warily. It was night and the lights were on. My illusory Alina had told me more than an hour had passed. Was it the same night, nearly dawn? Or was it the night following our theft attempt? Had Barrons come back from Wales yet? Or was he still there, searching for me? When I’d been so rudely ripped from reality, who or what had come through those basement doors?
I heard footsteps, boots on hardwood, and turned expectantly toward the connecting doors.
Barrons was framed in the doorway. His eyes were black ice. He stared at me a moment, raking me from head to toe. “Nice tan, Ms. Lane. So, where the fuck have you been for the past month?”
TWELVE
O ne afternoon,” I insisted. “I spent maybe six hours there, Barrons!”
I’d lost a month of my life, on a beach in the sun with Alina. It was incomprehensible. Had I aged a month or stayed the same? What if I’d chosen to hang out with Alina for a week? Would I have lost a year? Ten? What had changed since I’d been gone? I glanced out the window. One thing hadn’t—it was still raining.
“In Faery, you fool,” he snarled. “You know time doesn’t move the same there! We talked about that!”
“V’lane promised it would be only an hour of my time. He tricked me,” I said hotly.
“‘V’lane promised. He tricked me,’” he mocked in falsetto. “What did you expect? He’s a bloody Fae, Ms. Lane, and one of the—what do you call them—death-by-sex ones. He seduced you and you fell for it. What else did you fall for? Why did you agree to give him an hour in Faery in the first place?”