“Let me give you a taste of what you’re missing.” She moved to the desk, opened a drawer, and removed a thick volume bound in leather, tied with a cord. “Come.” She placed it on the desk, motioned me over, and opened it, handling the time-stained pages with care. “I think this entry might interest you.” She traced her finger down the page. It was an alphabetical record of some kind, a sidhe-seer lexicon, and we were in the V’s.
I gasped.
V’lane: Prince of the Court of the Light, Seelie. Member of Queen Aoibheal’s High Council and sometimes Consort. Founder of the Wild Hunt, highly elitist, highly sexed. Our first recorded encounter with this prince took place in—
She closed the book and returned it to the desk drawer.
“Hey!” I protested. “I wasn’t done reading. When and what was the first encounter? How sure are you of those notes? Are you positive he’s Seelie?”
“The Fae prince you kept at bay in the museum was born to the Court of the Light and has been with his queen since the dawn of time. Join us, MacKayla, and we will share with you all we have.”
“And demand what in return?”
“Allegiance, obedience, commitment. For that we will give you a home, a family, a sanctuary, a noble cause, and put all the lore of the ages at your disposal.”
“Who was Patrona?”
She smiled faintly, sadly. “A woman for whom I once had tremendous hopes, killed by the Fae. You’ve the look of her.”
“You said I looked like an O’Connor. Are there O’Connors in your organization? People I might be related to?”
She tilted her head and gave me that look down her nose, with a vaguely approving air. “You spoke to your mother. Very good, I wasn’t certain you would. And?”
My jaw locked. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her she’d been right. “I want to know who I am, where I came from. Can you give me that?”
“I can aid you in your search for truth.”
“Are there or aren’t there O’Connors in your organization?” Why didn’t anyone ever give me a straight answer?
A shadow crossed her face. She shook her head. “The bloodline died out, MacKayla. If you are an O’Connor, or an offshoot of that branch, you are the last.”
I turned away, deeply affected. I hadn’t realized how strongly I’d been nurturing the hope of blood relatives until it was summarily executed with a few words.
Her hand was gentle on my shoulder, although I knew it was made of iron. “We are your kin, MacKayla.”
“Were the O’Connors killed by Fae, too?”
“You’re in a doorway, child, one foot in, one foot out. Make up your mind. That door may close.”
I turned and looked at her. “Where is the Sinsar Dubh?”
“Och, now isn’t that the question.”
“Do you have it?”
“You are asking questions only The Haven have the right to know. I will not answer them.”
“Who are The Haven?”
“Our Council, over which Patrona once presided. Are you a Null?”
“Yes.” She’d shifted gears so swiftly I’d answered without hesitation. I employed her tactic and fired right back at her, “What are the Fae that slip inside humans and don’t come out again?”
She sucked in a breath. “You’ve seen such a creature?”
I nodded.
“What do they look like?” I told her and she said, “Sweet saints, the one Dani described to me, the day she met you! So that’s what it does. I’ve heard rumors such Unseelie exist. We don’t know what they are, and have no name for them.”
“I couldn’t see it once it was inside her.”
“It went beyond your sidhe-seer vision? You mean it wore humanity as a glamour, and you were unable to penetrate it?” She looked as troubled as I felt. “Did you kill it?”
“How could I, without killing the girl?”
Rebuke blazed in her eyes. “So, you left it walking around out there, looking like a human? How many humans will die now because you were too good to take a single life? Will you carry those deaths on your conscience, sidhe-seer? Or will you pretend not to own them? She was no longer human the moment that Fae stepped inside her!”
I both understood her point, and found it abhorrent. “First of all, you don’t know that. And second, I can’t just walk up to a perfectly innocent girl and kill her.”
“Then turn that weapon over to someone who can! When you let her walk away, you didn’t reject the blood of a life on your hands, you accepted the blood of dozens. It will kill. That’s what the Unseelie do.”
“It’s all black and white to you, isn’t it?”
“Gray is but another word for light black. Gray is never white. Only white is white. There are no shades of it.”
“You scare me, old woman.”
“You scare me, child,” she retorted. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them, the rebuke was gone. “Come to the abbey. You’ve already met Dani. Meet more of your sisters. Learn about us. See what we do and why. We are not monsters. The Fae are. This is a war that is only going to get worse. If we do not meet their ruthlessness with unwavering resolve and equal ruthlessness, we will lose. Those who do not act react. Those who react die sooner.”
“Do you know about the Lord Master and his plans for freeing all the Unseelie?”
“I won’t answer any more of your questions until you make a choice. We have no renegades among us. I permit none. You are with us, or against us.”
“There are shades of gray, Rowena. I’m neither with nor against. I’m learning and deciding who to trust. Instead of bullying me, convince me.”
“I’m trying. Come to the abbey.”
I wanted to. But on my terms, when and how I felt safe, and currently I couldn’t imagine that situation. “I’ll be in touch.”
“Every moment you waste is a moment you might die alone out there, instead of banded with your sisters where you would be safe, MacKayla.”
“I’ll take that chance.”
As I walked out, she called, “Why couldn’t Dani find you for a month?”
I thought about lying but decided to let the chips fall where they may. “Because I was in Faery with V’lane,” I said, as I stepped through the door.