It was Barrons that told me the most. He said the Sinsar Dubh contained spells to make and unmake worlds. Something to do with those fragments of the Song. He never would tell me why he wanted it. Said he was a book collector. Right. And I’m the Unseelie King.
Lying there, holding Barrons’ body, I’d contemplated the Sinsar Dubh’s potential uses, for the first time, in a very personal way.
Especially the part about making and unmaking worlds.
It had all become perfectly clear to me.
With the Sinsar Dubh, a person could create a world with a different past—and a different future.
Essentially, a person could turn back time.
Erase anything they didn’t like.
Replace those things they couldn’t bear to have lost, including people they couldn’t stand to live without.
I’d torn myself away from Barrons’ body with one purpose.
To get the Sinsar Dubh, and when I did, I wasn’t turning it over to anyone. It was going to be mine. I would study it. Grief had focused me like a laser. I could learn anything. Nothing would stand in my way. I would rebuild the world the way I wanted it.
“Come.” I smile. “Join me.” My face radiates only warmth, invitation, pleasure at his presence. I am the last thing he expected. He believed he would find a terrorized, hysterical girl.
I’m not and never will be again.
He motions the princes back and takes a casual step forward, but I see the studied grace in the movement. He is wary of me. He should be.
Coppery Fae eyes meet mine. How did Alina fail to see that those eyes were not human, no matter how human his body appeared?
The answer is simple: She did. She knew. That was why she lied to him, told him that she didn’t have any family, that she was an orphan. Protected us from the very first. She knew there was something dangerous about him, and she wanted him anyway, wanted to taste that kind of life.
I don’t blame her. We are flawed. We should have been banned from Ireland for everyone’s good.
He assesses me. I know he passed Barrons’ body. He’s trying to figure out what happened but is unwilling to ask. I suspect nothing could have convinced him more surely than seeing Barrons dead that the MacKayla he thought he was dealing with wasn’t home anymore. His gaze drops to the thin, jagged-edged silvery runes on the ground encircling me, bathing me in cool, eerie light. His eyes widen again as he scans them, and, for the briefest of instants, he looks rattled.
“Nice work.” His gaze flicks between the runes and my face. “What are they?”
“You don’t recognize them?” I counter. I sense deception. He knows what they are. I don’t. I’d like to.
The next thing I know, his copper eyes lock with mine and a vibrant blue-black light blazes from his fist. I hadn’t even seen him reach inside his shirt for the Hallow.
“Step out of the circle now,” he commands.
He’s not using Voice. He’s holding the amulet, one of the four Unseelie Hallows, an ornate necklace that houses a fist-sized stone of inexplicable composition. The king created it for his concubine to enable her to bend reality to her whim. The amulet reinforces an epic person’s will. Months ago, I sat at a very exclusive auction in an underground bomb shelter and watched an old Welshman pay in excess of eight figures for it. He’d had stiff competition. Mallucé had murdered the old man and taken it before Barrons and I had been able to steal it. But the wannabe vamp couldn’t use it.
Darroc can. I believe I could, too—if I can get it from him.
I held it once, and it responded to me. But, like many things Fae, time imbued it with a degree of sentience and it had sought something from me—a binding, or pledge. I’d not understood—or, if I had, hadn’t been willing to make it, afraid of what it would cost me. I’d lost the Hallow to Darroc when he’d Voiced me into turning it over, before I learned to use Voice myself. I’d have no compunction about exploring the amulet’s desires now. No price is too high.
I feel the blue-black power it radiates, lacing his command with compulsion. The pressure is immense. I want to leave the circle. I could breathe, eat, sleep, live without pain forever, if only I would leave the circle.
I laugh. “Throw me the amulet now.” Voice explodes from me.
The heads of the Unseelie Princes swivel and they regard me. It’s hard to tell with them, but I think they suddenly find me very interesting.
A chill runs up my spine. There is no fear, no terror left inside me, yet those … things … those icy, unnatural aberrations … they still manage to affect me. I have not looked directly at them yet.