“We didn’t think you’d meet in private after what happened. I’m Kat, by the way,” the brunette said. “This is Sorcha, Clare, Mary, and Mo.” She pointed to each in turn. The skinny Goth was Josie. The petite brunette was Shauna. “That’s the lot of us,” Kat said, “though if you prove useful, and your loyalties are true, more will join us.”
“Oh, I’m useful,” I said coolly. “The question is, are you? And as for loyalties, if yours are with the old woman, I suggest you rethink them.”
Her gaze cooled to match mine. “Moira was my friend. But I saw what I saw, and you didn’t mean to kill her. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, and doesn’t mean I have to like you. It does mean I’m after doing everything I can to stop the walls from coming down, and if that means I have to join forces with the only person I know can sense the Sin—er, Book—here I am. But back to loyalties; where are yours?”
“Where any sidhe-seers should be. With the humans we’re supposed to protect.” I didn’t say what else I was thinking—in exactly this order: my family, my vengeance, the rest of the world.
She nodded. “Very good. The leader of a cause is never the cause itself. But make no mistake, we listen to Rowena. She’s been training most of since we were born. Those she didn’t teach from birth, she’s spent years gathering and educating.”
“Then why are you going behind her back, and meeting with me?”
All eight, including Dani, shifted uncomfortably and either glanced away or fiddled with something; a coffee mug, a napkin, a cell phone.
It was Dani who finally broke the silence. “We used to guard the Book, Mac. It was ours to protect. We lost it.”
“What?” I exclaimed. “You lost it?” I’d been blaming the Fae for the mess we were in, for making Darroc human, but the sidhe-seers were complicit, too? “How did you lose it?” Then again, knowing what I knew of it, how had they contained it to begin with? How had any sidhe-seer gotten close to it? Weren’t they all repelled by it, like me?
“We don’t know,” Kat said. “It happened twenty-some years ago, before any of us came to the abbey. Those who lived through those dark days share little detail about them. One day it was there, hidden beneath the abbey, then it was gone.”
So that was why Arlington Abbey had been continuously rebuilt and fortified ever stronger—because beneath it they’d been protecting the greatest menace known to Man! How long had it been there, hidden in ground, guarded by whatever was held sacred by each age? Since it had been a shian? Before even that?
“Or so we’ve heard,” she continued. “Only the Haven knew it was there to begin with. The night it vanished, they say terrible things happened. Sidhe-seers died, others disappeared, and rumors flew, until the entire abbey knew what had once been hidden beneath their very feet. That was when Rowena formed PHI, and opened branches all over the world, with couriers out in the streets, listening for even a vague rumor of it. She’s been trying to track it since. For many years, there was no account of it, but recently it surfaced, right here, in Dublin. There are many of us who fear it was our predecessors’ failure to contain it that has caused the problems we’re having now, and only by getting it back do we have any chance to fix them. If you can sense the Book, Mac, then you really are our best hope, like . . .” She trailed off, as if reluctant to say the word aloud. She stared into her coffee but I saw what she struggled to hide: pure, raw fascination. Like Dani, she was smitten. She cleared her throat. “Like the Fae you brought that night said.” She wet her lips. “V’lane.”
“Rowena says you’re dangerous,” Josie said hotly, raking a black-nailed hand through a fringe of pale bangs. “We told her you could sense it but she doesn’t want you to go after it. She says if you find it, you won’t do what’s right, that you want revenge. She says you told her that your sister was killed in Dublin, so she did some checking, and your sister was a traitor. She was working with him, the one who’s been bringing all the Unseelie through.”
“Alina wasn’t a traitor!” I cried. Every occupant in the place turned to look at me. Even the bartender dragged his attention from the small TV behind the bar. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Alina didn’t know who he was,” I said, carefully modulating my voice. “He tricked her. He’s very powerful.” How had Rowena found out about Alina’s involvement with the LM?
“So you say,” Kat said softly.