Shadowfever

I console myself with the thought that at least she won’t be rushing back to Rowena to tell her I’m sleeping with the enemy and I won’t have a pack of rabid sidhe-seers on my tail.

“Thought we were friends, Mac.”

I see in her eyes that all I have to do is say, “We are,” and she’ll find some way to deal with what she’s looking at right now. How dare she put so much faith in me? I never asked for it, never deserved it.

“You thought wrong. Now answer the question.” I’m the only one who never treated her like a child. She hates being called “kid” more than anything. “Kid,” I say. “Then get the hell out of here. Take your toys and go play somewhere else.”

Her brows climb her forehead and her mouth pulls down. “What did you just say?”

“I said, kid, answer my question and go away! We’re a little busy here, can’t you see?”

She’s bouncing from foot to foot again, a smudge of darkness in the dark. “Feckin’ grown-ups,” she bites out through clenched teeth. “All the feckin’ same. Feckin’ glad I feckin’ left the feckin’ abbey. You can just go to hell!” She shouts the last words, but they catch a little as they come out, like they get tangled up on a sob she’s forcing back down.

I don’t even see the blur of black move away. There’s a burst of light from her MacHalo as she flashes into motion like the Enterprise entering warp speed, then an empty alley.

I’m startled to realize that I think she’s just the tiniest bit faster. Is she eating Unseelie? I’m going to kick her ass all over Dublin if she’s eating Unseelie.

“Why didn’t you stop her, MacKayla? You could have exploited her trust in you to get information about the Book.”

I shrug. “Kid always got on my nerves. Let’s go hunt ourselves a sidhe-seer. If we can’t find one, Jayne’s men are bound to know what’s going on.”

I turn away from Barrons Books and Baubles toward what used to be the biggest Dark Zone in Dublin. It’s a wasteland now, not a single Shade left. When Darroc brought the walls crashing down on Halloween and Dublin went dark, the amorphous vampires escaped their prison of light and slithered on to greener pastures.

Hurting Dani took all my energy. I’m in no mood to walk past BB&B. I’d have to confront the obvious—that, like the man, the store is big, silent, and dead.

If I walk past it, I’ll have to force myself not to stare hungrily at it. Have to ignore that, in this reality, I’ll never enter those doors again.

He’s gone. He’s really, truly gone.

My bookstore has been lost to me as completely and irrevocably as if the Dark Zone had finally swallowed it up.

I’ll never own it. I’ll never open those diamond-paned cherry doors for business again.

I’ll never hear my cash register’s tiny bell ring or curl up with a cup of cocoa and a book, warmed by a cozy gas fire and the promise of Jericho Barrons’ eventual return. I’ll never banter with him, practice Voice, or be tested against pages of the Sinsar Dubh. I’ll never steal hungry glances when I think he’s not looking at me, or hear him laugh, or climb the back stairs to my bedroom that’s sometimes on the fourth floor and other times on the fifth, where I might lie awake and practice things to say to him, only to end up discarding them all because Barrons doesn’t care about words.

Only actions.

I’ll never drive his cars. I’ll never know his secrets.

Darroc takes my arm. “This way.” He turns me around. “Temple Bar.”

I feel his eyes on me as he guides me back toward the bookstore.

I stop and look up at him. “I thought there might be things you needed from the house on LaRuhe,” I say casually. I really don’t want to walk past BB&B. “I thought we should rally your troops. We’ve been gone a long time.”

“There are many places I keep supplies, and my army is always near.” He makes a slicing gesture in the air and murmurs a few words in a language I don’t understand.

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.