“You think it’s me.” Somehow that doesn’t surprise me. As if some part of me always knew it was going to come down to this in the end: me against the Sinsar Dubh, winner take all. It smacks of fate. I hate fate. I don’t believe in her. Unfortunately, I think the bitch believes in me.

He moves to a vault behind the painting I’d been watching candlelight flicker over earlier and removes the amulet. It’s dark in his hands. The moment he approaches me, it pulses faintly.

I reach for it. It blazes when I touch it. It feels right in my hands. I’ve wanted it since the moment I first saw it.

“You’re the wild card, Mac. I’ve thought that since the beginning. This thing thinks you’re epic. So do I.”

Quite a compliment. I cup the amulet in my hands. I know this piece. I turn inward, hunting, searching. I’ve learned so much tonight, about him, about myself. In this place, I feel fearless. Nothing can touch me, nothing can do too much damage to me. I feel calmer than I’ve felt in a long time. If I can use this, I can find the spell to unmake his son. I can end their suffering.

Show me what is true, I say, and shake off my blinders. I quit trying to force myself on the truth to reshape it, and I let the truth force itself on me. What have I been hiding from? What monsters have been stalking me, waiting patiently for me to look at them?

I close my eyes and open my mind. Fragments of times forgotten flash past me so fast I see only blurs of color. I trust my heart to take me where I need to go and tell me when to stop.

The images slow, become static, and I am in another place, another time. It’s so real, I can smell the scent of spiced roses nearby. I love the smell because it makes me think of her. I keep the roses everywhere. I look around.

I am in a laboratory.

Cruce is gone.

I watched him leave.

He loves me, but he loves himself more.

I finish the fourth amulet without him. The first three were imperfect. This one does what I want it to do.

Balances the scales between us.

She will shine as brilliantly in the night sky as do I. Giants mate with giants or not at all.

I will take it to my beloved myself.

I cannot make her Fae, but I will give her all our powers in other ways.

Perhaps I am a fool to give her an amulet capable of weaving illusion that could seduce even me, but my faith in my love knows no bounds.

My wings trail the floor as I turn. I am enormous. I am singular. I am eternal.

I am the Unseelie King.

44

Dusk comes hard-edged and violet.

Dancer’d like that thought. He’s a poet, brilliant cool with words. Wrote a piece the other day ’bout murdering clocks ’cause they feck us up, keep us stuck in the past and keep us from living the day. Used to have this thing in my past riding me all the fecking time, but now she knows, and I say, fine, get the monkey off my back.

I shift, restless, staring down at BB&B. There’s a limo out front. Pulled up hours ago, ain’t movedsince. Couldn’t see who got out. Somebody changed the sign. I think it musta been Mac, and it cracks me up but I don’t laugh from the belly like I used to. Swallow it instead.

Ain’t like she ain’t gonna try to kill me.

And I ain’t gonna die, so.

There we are.

Guess somebody’s gonna bite it.

Been watching the place off and on for days. Watching the watchers. Everybody’s nervous. Chewing each other’s heads off.

Book went nuts the other day. Turned some guy into a suicide bomb, walked him right into Chester’s. Lots o’ peeps died getting him outta there, blown up when it blew. They’re paranoid out at the abbey. Think it’s gonna be next. Ain’t nobody can track the thing, ’cause Mac’s gone missing.

So’s Barrons.

Without ’em, we’re stuck. Ain’t nobody can sense the Book ’til it’s on top of us. Dancer thinks it’ll make a nuke one day. End us all. He says we gotta put it down fast.

I watch, knees up, arms around, perched on a water tower. Nobody looking this high.

I been shut out. Ro won’t let me near none o’ the action. Kat and Jo keep me in the loop. They don’t know I killed Alina. Mac don’t know, ’cause I just found out, but there’s a third prophecy. Something ’bout mirror images and sons and daughters and monsters within being monsters without. Jo wasn’t done translating yet but she was worried big-time. Seems the longer the Book’s loose, the worse the odds get.

I heard Ry-O telling that white-haired dude with the freaky eyes that Mac’s gotta die. But not before the Book gets shut down. Pissed him off real bad that it came into his club and tried to blow it. You don’t mess with Ry-O.

He’s got dudes on top of the bookstore. They move funny.

Jo’s hanging on a roof a few buildings over, with Kat and her trusty little group of sidhe-sheep. “Baaaaa,” I say under my breath. They’re staring through binocs. Never look my way. Only see what they ’spect to see. What she tells ’em to see. Dickheads. Pull your heads out, I think. Smell the sheep shit.

The things I know.

The Scots are on top of a five-story in the Dark Zone. They got binocs, too.

These eyeballs of mine don’t need no help seeing. I’m supercharged, superwired, super-D! All-seeing, all-hearing, all-jamming, all the time.

I smell V’lane. Spice on the wind. Dunno where he is. Somewhere near.

Five days Mac and Barrons been gone. Since the night they tried to trap the Book.

Ro’s blaming it all on Mac. First, she was glad Mac was gone. Said we didn’t need her, didn’t want her. But she came to her senses when it strolled into Chester’s. See, she was there when the Book paid its little visit wearing a corset of dynamite, and ain’t nothing Ro likes better than her own wrinkly ass. Gah. That’s a visual I coulda done without.