Shadowfever

Just cold, I lied. If I did have the Sinsar Dubh inside me, did that mean the spell I’d walked away from was in my glassy lake? There at the bottom, like the Book had said? What was the difference, then? Had I really subdued the monster, or was it still inside me? Was the monster temptation, and I’d defeated it?

“Where’s V’lane?” I asked, desperate for concretes.

“He is collecting the queen,” Velvet said.

That started another fight.

“If you think we’re going to let her come here and open the Sinsar Dubh, you’re wrong.”

“How do you expect her to rebuild the walls without it?” Dree’lia demanded.

“We don’t need walls. You die as easy as any humans,” Fade said.

“Is she even conscious?” I asked.

“We need the walls,” Kat said quietly.

“She surfaces but is still mostly out of it,” Ryodan said. “Point is, if anybody’s reading that damned Book, it’s not going to be a fairy. They started this fucking mess.”

Everyone was still arguing ten minutes later when we reached the cavern that had been designed to contain the Sinsar Dubh.

As we approached the doors, Christian glanced back at me and I nodded. I knew what he was thinking. We’d seen doors like this before, at the entrance to the Unseelie King’s fortress of black ice, however these were much smaller. Kat pressed a hand to a pattern of runes on the door and they swung open silently.

The blackness beyond was so enormous and complete that the thin beams of our flashlights were swallowed a few feet in.

I heard a match being struck, then Jo lit an oil torch mounted in a silver sconce on the wall. It flared into life, fed into the next and the next, until the cavern was brilliantly illuminated.

A hush fell over us.

Chiseled of milky stone, the cavern soared to an impossibly high ceiling with no visible means of support. Every inch of it—floors, walls, ceiling—was covered with silver runes that glittered as if they’d been branded into stone with diamond dust. The torchlight danced off the runes, making the chamber almost too bright to see. I squinted. Figured the only place in Dublin I’d ever need my sunglasses was underground.

The cavern was easily as large as the Unseelie King’s bedchamber. Between the doors and the size of the place, I wondered how much credence there was to the theory that the king was the one who’d founded our order, who’d originally brought his cursed Book here to be entombed.

In the center was a slab laid across two stones. It was also covered with glittering symbols, but these moved constantly, sliding up and across the slab like the tattoos that moved beneath the Unseelie Princes’ skin. They disappeared over the edge and began again at the floor.

“Seen runes like these before, Barrons?” Ryodan said.

“No. You?” Barrons said.

“New to me. Could be useful.”

I heard the sound of a phone taking pictures.

Then I heard the sound of a phone being crushed against rock.

“Are you out of your mind?” Ryodan said disbelievingly. “That was my phone.”

“Possibly,” Jo said. “But no one records anything here.”

“Crush something of mine again, I’ll crush your skull.”

“I weary of you,” Jo said.

“I weary of your ass, too, sidhe-seer,” Ryodan growled.

“Leave her alone,” I said. “It’s their abbey.”

Ryodan shot me a look. Barrons intercepted it and Ryodan looked away—but only after a long, tense moment.

“You must place the Book on the slab,” Kat instructed. “Then the four stones must be positioned around it.”

“Then, MacKayla, you must remove the runes from the binding,” V’lane said.

“What?” I exclaimed, whirling to face him as he sifted in. “I’m not taking those runes off!”

Barrons said, “I thought you were bringing the queen.”

“I am making certain it is safe for her first.”

V’lane scanned the chamber, studying each person, Fae and Druid. I could tell he wasn’t comfortable with the risk. His gaze rested on Velvet for a moment, who nodded. Then he looked at me. “I apologize, but it is the only way to protect her. I cannot be two of me at once without halving my abilities.”

“What are you talking about?”

He didn’t answer.

My parents were suddenly there. My mom and dad—here with the Sinsar Dubh—in the last place I would ever have brought them. And supposedly I was going to have to remove the runes, but we’d see about that.

My dad had the Seelie queen in his arms, heavily wrapped in blankets. She was so well swaddled that all I could see of her were a few strands of silvery hair and the tip of her nose. My mom was pressed close to my dad’s side, and I understood why V’lane had apologized. He should have.

He had my parents protecting the queen with their bodies.

“You’re using my parents as her shield?”

“It’s all right, baby. We wanted to help,” Jack said.

Rainey agreed. “You’re so much like your sister, facing everything alone, but you don’t have to. We’re family. We face things together. Besides, if I have to stay one more moment in that glass cage, I’ll lose my mind. We’ve been stuck in there for months.”

Barrons jerked his head, and Ryodan, Lor, and Fade closed in around my parents, shielding them.

“Thank you,” I said softly. He was always protecting me and mine. God, I sucked.

V’lane was still eyeing all the occupants of the room. “I had no choice, MacKayla. Someone kidnapped her. At first I believed it must be one of my race. Now I wonder if it was not one of yours.”

“Let’s just get this over with,” I said tightly. “Why do I have to remove the runes?”

“They are unpredictable parasites and you have placed them directly on a sentient being. On walls, on a cage, they are useful. On a living, thinking entity, they are unbelievably dangerous. In time, it and they will transmogrify. Who knows what kind of monster we will be dealing with then?”

I blew out a breath. It made perfect Fae sense. I’d applied something Unseelie and alive to something else Unseelie and alive. Who could say whether it would ultimately make the Book stronger, maybe even give it whatever it needed to free itself?