“Stop laughing,” Darroc growls.

Hilarity has me on the edge of hysterics and it hurts. I manage to raise my head from my knees just enough to shoot him a dirty look. I’d love to stop laughing. But I can’t.

I want to tell him to make the damned things go away, except I can’t breathe, I can’t even close my lips long enough to grit consonants. Whatever these lovely little Seelie monsters are, their specialty is death-by-laughter. What a hellish way to go. After only a few minutes, my sides ache from heaving, my gut burns, and I’m so breathless I’m light-headed. I wonder how long it takes to die of forced mirth. Hours? Days?

A fourth tiny Fae takes up the game, and I brace myself to dive inward, to find a weapon in my dark, lake-filled cave, when suddenly a long tongue, dripping venom, whizzes past my ear and plucks the dainty Seelie straight from the air.

I hear crunching noises behind me.

I snicker helplessly.

“V’lane!” the golden goddess shrieks. “That thing, that awful thing, it ate M’ree!”

I hear another snap, followed by more crunching noises, and a second one is gone. I cackle madly.

The remaining two retreat, shaking tiny fists and screaming in a language I don’t understand. Even angry, the sound they make is more beautiful than an aria.

My laughter loses its forced edge.

After a long moment, I’m able to relax and I stop making crazed sounds of amusement. Peals fade to moans to silence. I release my sides and gulp cool, soothing air.

I stand, suddenly furious, and this emotion is all mine. I’m sick of being vulnerable. If I’d had my spear, those nasty little death-by-laughter fairies would never have dared approach me. I’d have skewered them midair and made Fae kebabs out of them.

“Friends,” I hiss at Darroc, “trust each other.”

But he doesn’t. I see it in his face.

“You said you would give it to me so I could defend us.”

He smiles faintly, and I know he’s remembering how Mallucé died: slowly, gruesomely, rotting from the inside out. The spear kills all things Fae, and because Darroc has been eating so much Unseelie, he’s laced with veins of Fae. One tiny little prick of the tip of my spear would be a death sentence. “As yet, we are not under attack.”

“Who are you talking to, human?” the goddess demands.

I look at Darroc, who shrugs. “I told you the first Seelie that saw me would try to kill me. Hence they do not see me. My princes keep me concealed from their vision.”

Now I understand why V’lane’s gaze slid over him like he wasn’t there. He’s not. “So it looks like I’m the only one standing here? They think I’m running your army!”

“Never fear, sidhe-seer,” V’lane says coldly. “I smell the foulness of what was once Fae and now cannibalizes our race. I know who leads this army. As for his being your friend, theone you so unwisely walk with has no friends. He has always served only his own purposes.”

I tilt my head. “Are you my friend, V’lane?”

“I would be. I have offered you my protection repeatedly.”

The goddess gasps. “You offered our protection and she refused? She chose those … things over us?”

“Silence, Dree’lia!”

“The Tuatha Dé Danann do not offer twice!” she fumes. “I said, ‘Silence!’ ” V’lane snaps.

“Clearly you do not under—”

I gape.

Dree’lia has no mouth. There is only smooth skin where her lips used to be. Delicate nostrils flare beneath ancient, hate-filled eyes.

The golden god moves to embrace her. She rests her head in the hollow of his neck and clutches him. “That was unnecessary,” he tells V’lane stiffly.

I’m struck by the absurdity of the moment. Here I stand, between opposing halves of the most powerful race imaginable. They are at war with each other. They despise each other and are vying for the same prize.

And the Seelie—who have enjoyed absolute freedom and power their entire existences—are squabbling among themselves over trivialities, while the Unseelie—who’ve been imprisoned, starved, and tortured for hundreds of thousands of years—patiently hold formation and wait for Darroc’s orders.

And I can’t help but see myself in them. The Seelie are who I was before my sister died. Pink, pretty, frivolous Mac. The Unseelie are who I’ve become, carved by loss and despair. Black, grungy, driven Mac.

The Unseelie are stronger, less breakable. I’m glad I’m like them.

“I will speak with the sidhe-seer alone,” V’lane says.

“He will not,” Darroc growls at my side.

V’lane extends his hand when I don’t move. “Come, we must speak privately.”

“Why?”

“What subtle nuance of the word ‘private’ do you not understand?”

“Probably the same subtle nuance of the word ‘no’ you never understand. I’m not sifting anywhere with you.”

The god at his right gasps at my disrespect of his prince, but I see a small smile shape the corners of V’lane’s mouth.

“Consorting with Barrons has changed you. I think he will approve.”

The name is poison in my veins, from which I will die a slow death every minute I have to spend in this world without him. I’ll never be on the receiving end of one of those looks again. Never see that infamous mocking smile. Never have one of those wordless conversations in which we said so much more with our eyes than either of us ever was willing to say with our mouths. Jericho, Jericho, Jericho. How many times did I actually ever speak his name? Three? “Barrons is dead,” I say coolly.