The night is suddenly twenty degrees cooler. I don’t have to look behind me to know the Unseelie Princes are there, in addition to countless other Unseelie. The night is suddenly thick with dark Fae. Even with my “volume” muted, there are so many, so close to me, that I feel them in the pit of my stomach. Does he keep a contingent of them a mere sift away at all times? Have the princes been hovering all this time, listening for his call, a half dimension beyond my awareness?
I’ll need to remember that.
“I am not walking around Dublin with the princes at my back.”
“I said I will not let them harm you, MacKayla, and I meant it.”
“I want my spear back. Give it to me now.”
“I cannot permit that. I saw what you did to Mallucé with it.”
“I said I won’t harm you, Darroc, and I meant it,” I mock. “See how that feels? Little hard to swallow, isn’t it? You insist that I trust you, but you won’t trust me.”
“I cannot take the risk.”
“Wrong answer.” Should I force the issue and try to take the spear? If I succeed, will he trust me less? Or respect me more?
When I seek the bottomless lake in my head, I don’t bother closing my eyes to do it. I just let them go a little out of focus. I need power, strength, and I know where to find both. With almost no effort at all, I’m standing on a black-pebbled beach. It has always been there for me. It always will be.
Distantly, I hear Darroc speaking to the princes. I shiver. I can’t bear the thought of them behind me.
Deep in its cavernous depths, the black water churns and begins to bubble.
Silvery runes like the ones I encircled myself with on the cliff’s edge break the surface, but the water keeps boiling, and I know it’s not yet done. There’s something more … if I want it. I do. After a few moments, it pushes up a handful of crimson runes that pulse on the inky water like slender deformed hearts. The bubbling stops. The surface is once again as smooth as black glass.
I bend and scoop them up. Dripping blood, they flutter in my fists.
Distantly, I hear the Unseelie Princes begin to chime, but not softly. It’s the sound of broken, jagged crystal scraping against metal.
I don’t turn to look at them. I know all I need to know: Whatever gift I’ve been given, they don’t like it.
My gaze refocuses.
Darroc looks at me, then down at my hands, and goes still. “What are you doing with those? What were you doing in the Silvers before I found you? Did you enter the White Mansion without me, MacKayla?”
Behind me, the princes chime louder. It’s a cacophony that slices into the soul like a razor, severs tendon, and chips bone. I wonder if that’s what comes of being fashioned from an imperfect Song of Making, a melody that can unmake, unsing, uncreate at a molecular level.
They hate my crimson runes, and I hate their dark music.
I won’t be the one to yield.
“Why?” I ask Darroc. Is that where the runes I’ve scooped up came from? What does he know about them? I can’t ask him without betraying that, while I have power, I have no idea what it is or how to use it. I raise my fists and open them, palms up. My hands drip thick red liquid. Slender tubular runes twist on my palms.
Behind me, the princes’ jagged chiming becomes a hellish shriek that even Darroc looks rattled by.
I have no idea what to do with the runes. I was thinking of the Unseelie Princes, that I needed a weapon against them, and they appeared in my mind. I have no idea how I translated them from that dark glassy lake into existence. I understand no more about these crimson symbols than I did about the silvery ones.
“Where did you learn to do that, MacKayla?” Darroc demands.
I can barely hear him over the princes. “How do you plan to merge with the Book?” I counter. I have to raise my voice to a near yell to make myself heard.
“Do you have any idea what those things are capable of?” he demands. I read his lips. I can’t hear him.
The shrieking behind me rises to an inhuman pitch that pierces my eardrums like ice picks. “Give me my spear and I’ll put them away,” I shout.
Darroc moves closer, trying to hear me. “Impossible!” he explodes. “My princes will not remain and protect us if you have the spear.” His gaze slides with distaste over the runes in my hands. “Nor with those present.”
“I think we can take care of ourselves!”
“What?” he shouts.
“We don’t need them!” The ice picks in my ears have begun drilling into my brain. I’m on the verge of a massive migraine.
“I do! I am not yet Fae again. My army follows me only because Fae princes lead at my back!”
“Who needs an army?” We’re inches apart, shouting at each other, and still the words are nearly lost in the din.
He rubs his temples. His nose has started to bleed. “We do! The Seelie are amassing, MacKayla. They, too, have begun hunting the Sinsar Dubh. Much has changed since you were last here!”
“How do you know?” I hadn’t seen any handy newsstands in the Silvers while I was in there.
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.