“Haud your whist yourself, old woman,” I told her flatly. “I’ll bicker while the world falls apart if I feel like it. I’ve done more good and less damage than you. Who had the Sinsar Dubh to begin with—and lost it?”
“Don’t be pushing your nose into doings you can’t begin to understand, girl!”
“Then help me understand them. I’m all ears. Where—no, how—were you keeping the Book?” That was what I wanted to know most. The secret to touching it, to containing the Sinsar Dubh, was the key to harnessing its power. “What happened? How did you lose it?”
“You answer to me, sidhe-seer,” she spat, “not the other way around.”
“In whose warped fantasy?”
“While at my abbey. Now might be the time to take a careful look around you.” It was a threat.
I didn’t need to. I’d heard the other sidhe-seers crowding close while we were arguing. The hall was large, and from the hushed murmurs, I guessed several hundred were behind me. “What have you done since the walls came down, Rowena?” I demanded. “Have you found the Book yet? Have you accomplished anything that might restore order to our world? Or are you still lording your power over a band of women who would do better with a little power of their own? You squeeze the heart out of who and what they are with your rules and regulations. You tie them down when you should be helping them learn to fly.”
“And getting them killed?”
“In any war there are losses. It’s their choice. It’s their birthright. We fight. And sometimes we pay terrible prices. Believe me, I know. But as long as we breathe, we get back up and fight again.”
“You brought us the Orb spiked with Shades!”
“You don’t believe that,” I scoffed. “If you did, you’d have killed me when I was Pri-ya, unable to defend myself. I’ll bet the very fact that I got turned Pri-ya is what convinced you that I wasn’t allied with the Lord Master.” I shrugged. “Why turn a turncoat? There’s no need.”
“There are spies within spies.”
“I’m not one of them. And I’m staying right here, in your abbey, until you see that.”
She blinked. I’d startled the old woman. I wasn’t angling for an invitation. I was staying with or without her permission. Openly or in hiding. I didn’t care which. There were two things within these walls I needed: my spear and answers, and I wasn’t leaving without both of them.
“We don’t want you here.”
“I didn’t want my sister to be murdered. I didn’t want to find out I was a sidhe-seer. I didn’t want to be raped by Unseelie Princes.” I listed my grievances but kept it brief. “In fact, I haven’t wanted a single thing that’s happened to me in the past few months. Fact is, I really don’t even want to be here myself, but a sidhe-seer does what needs to be done.”
We stared at each other.
“Would you agree to supervision?” she said finally, very tightly.
“We can discuss that.” Discussing is where it would end. I would take all her BS under advisement. Before I discarded it. “How’s the Book hunt going, Rowena?” I knew the answer. It wasn’t. “Has anyone spotted it lately?”
“What do you propose?”
“Give me the spear and I’ll go out hunting it.”
“Never.”
“‘Bye, then.” I walked past her, toward the door.
Behind me, sidhe-seers exploded. I smiled. They were frustrated. They were tired of being caged and accomplishing nothing. They were primed for a little pre-mutiny meddling, and I was primed to meddle.
“Silence!” Rowena said. “And you”—she snapped at my back—”stop right there!”
The hall went still. I paused at the door but I didn’t turn. “I won’t go out hunting it without the ability to defend myself.” I paused and bit my tongue hard before adding, “Grand Mistress.”
The silence stretched.
Finally, “You can take Dani, with the sword. She will defend you.”
“Give me the spear and she can come, too. And you can send any of your other sidhe-seers you want, as well.”
“What’s to keep you from walking away, from turning your back on us the minute I give you the spear?”
I whirled. My hands fisted and my lips drew back. Later, Dani would tell me I’d looked half animal, half avenging angel. It impressed even her, and the kid is tough to impress.
“I care, that’s what,” I snarled. “I drove out here through a wasteland. I saw the piles and husks everywhere. I looked in the baby’s car seat before I took it out of the Rover. I know what they’re doing to our world, and I will either stop them or die trying. So get the feck off my back—where you’ve been since the night you met me—and wake up! I’m not the bad guy. I’m the good guy. I’m the one who can help. And I will, but on my terms, not yours. Otherwise, I’m out of here.”
Dani stepped past Rowena and joined me. “And I’m going with her.”
I looked at her, my lips rounded on “no,” then I caught myself. What rights had I just argued for? Dani was old enough to choose. In my book, old enough to kill is old enough to choose. I think hell has a special place for hypocrites.
Kat stepped forward from the crowd. Of all the sidhe-seers I’d met, the quietly persistent gray-eyed brunette who had led the small group in the attack on me at Barrons Books and Baubles (BB&B) the day I’d inadvertently killed Moira seemed the most levelheaded, open-minded, and firmly fixed on the long-term goal of ridding our world of the Fae. She and I had met several times, attempting a tentative partnership. I was still open to one if she was. In her mid-twenties, she had the unassuming quiet confidence of someone much older. I knew she had influence over the others, and I was interested to hear what she had to say. “She’s a tool, Grand Mistress. And, like it or not, she may be our most useful yet.”
“You no longer blame her for spiking the Orb?”
“She can stay and help us get rid of the blimey fecks if she’s so innocent.”
“Language,” Rowena said sharply.
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, for crying out loud, Rowena. It’s a war, not a congeniality contest.”
Somebody snickered.