Shadowfever

I’d assumed she’d moved back in! One day I’d learn to quit making assumptions. “Where have you been staying? With Jayne at Dublin Castle?”

She crossed her arms over her chest, preening. “Pop by to kill the Fae fecks they catch, but got my own digs. Call it Casa Mega.”

Dani was living on her own? And she had a boyfriend? “You just turned fourteen.” I was horrified. The boyfriend part was fine—well, maybe, depending on what he was like, how old he was, and if he was good enough for her—but the living on her own part of things was going to have to change, fast.

“I know. Long overdue, huh?” She flashed me that gamine grin. “Got a couple o’ places for different moods. ’S all there for the picking. Even got a crotch rocket!” She waggled her fingers. “Five-finger discount. I was made for this world.”

Who would take care of her if she got the flu? Who would talk to her about birth control and STDs? Who would bandage her cuts and scrapes and make sure she ate right?

“ ’Bout the prophecy, Mac. There’s a whole ’nuther part they didn’t tell us.”

I shelved parental concerns for the moment. “Where did you hear that?”

“Jo told me.”

“I thought Jo was loyal to Rowena.”

“Think Jo’s got stuff going on the side. She’s part of Ro’s Haven, but don’t think she likes her none. Said Ro wouldn’t let ’em tell you the whole truth and they kept it from me ’cause they don’t trust me neither. Think I tell you everything.”

“So, spill,” I urged.

“Prophecy has a whole buncha other parts, more deets about peeps and the ways things’ll happen. Says the one who dies young is gonna betray the human race and hook up with those that made the Beast.”

I shifted uneasily. A thousand years before Alina had even been born, it had been foretold that she would join Team Darroc?

“Says the one who longs for death, the one that’s gonna hunt the Book—that’s you, Mac—ain’t human, and the two from the ancient bloodlines ain’t got a snowball chance in hell o’ fixing our mess, ’cause they ain’t gonna want to.”

I shaped my mouth around words but nothing came out.

“Says the whole gig’s got ’bout twenty percent chance o’ working, and, if it don’t, the second prophecy has about two percent odds.”

“Who writes prophecies with such sucky odds?” I said irritably.

She cracked up. “Dude—I said the same thing!”

“Why didn’t they tell me? They made it sound like I was virtually insignificant.” I’d liked it that way. I had enough problems to deal with.

Dani shrugged. “Whole thing about Ro never telling us we might be an Unseelie caste—said if you knew, it might be like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I say you gotta know what’cha are, know? Look in the mirror, eyes gotta meet eyes or quit looking.”

“What else?” I demanded. “Was there more?”

“There’s like this whole other … sub-prophecy. Says if the two from the ancient bloodlines are killed, things’ll play out different and the odds of success’ll be higher. Younger they’re killed, the better.”

A chill slid up my spine. That was brutal and to the point. Who would go how far to skew the odds more strongly in favor of the human race? I was surprised we hadn’t been killed at birth. Assuming I’d had one.

“So I was thinking that’s prolly why you and Alina got gave up. Somebody didn’t wanna kill you guys as little kids, so they sent you away.”

Of course. And we’d been forbidden to return. But Alina had wanted to go to Dublin to study abroad, and Daddy had never been able to deny us anything.

One decision, one tiny decision, and the world as we knew it began to fall apart.

“What else?” I pressed.

“Jo said they been talking to Nana O’ behind Ro’s back. Said the old woman was at the abbey the night the Book got out. Saw things. Sidhe-seers ripped to pieces, hacked apart. Said they only found little pieces of some. Others, they never found.”

“Nana was there when the Book got out?” She hadn’t mentioned a word of it the night Kat and I had talked to her at her cottage by the sea. Short of calling me Alina, telling us that her granddaughter, Kayleigh, had been Isla’s best friend and fellow Haven member, and that she’d felt dark stirrings in the soil, she’d told us little else.

Dani shook her head. “Showed up after. Said her bones told her her daughter’s immortal soul was in peril.”

“You mean her granddaughter, Kayleigh.”

“I mean her daughter.” Dani’s eyes sparkled. “Ro.”

My mouth shaped a silent O. “Rowena is Nana’s daughter?” I finally managed. Rowena was Kayleigh’s mother? How much more had Nana O’Reilly neglected to tell me?

“Old woman despises her. Won’t claim her. Kat and Jo searched Nana’s cottage while she slept and found things—pictures and baby books and stuff. Nana thinks Ro’s part of how the Book got out. Said Kayleigh told her they’d created a backup mini-Haven that Ro knew nothing about, with a leader that didn’t even live at the abbey. Name was Tessie or Tellie or something funny like that. Case something happened to the Haven members that lived at the abbey.”

My head was spinning. They’d been keeping me completely out of the loop. If I’d postponed celebrating Dani’s birthday, I never would have learned any of this. Here was the mysterious Tellie that Barrons and my father had both mentioned! She’d been leader of a secret Haven. She’d helped my mother escape. I needed to find her. Have you located Tellie yet? I’d overheard Barrons saying. No? Get more people on it. It seemed Barrons had once again beat me to the punch and had his men out hunting for her already. Why? How did he know about the woman? What had he learned that he hadn’t told me? “And?”

“Said your m—well, supposedly you ain’t human, so I guess she ain’t your mom—Isla got out alive. Nana O’ saw her leaving that night. Ain’t never gonna guess with who!”

I didn’t even trust myself to speak. Rowena. And the old bitch had probably killed her. Whether she was my mom or not, I still felt tied to her, protective of her.

“Aw, c’mon, you gotta guess!” She was getting blurry around the edges with excitement.