Dani "the Mega" O'Malley.

All grown up.

Every bit as beautiful as I'd known she would be. Creamy Irish skin, faint dusting of freckles, long red hair swept up in a high ponytail caught in a leather thong, her gamine features both sharpened and softened, resulting in a finely chiseled, stunning face.

This time, however, as I examined her, I looked for the Dani in Jada without regretting the aspects I couldn't see, focusing instead on the aspects of Dani that still shined through.

Strong. Criminy, she'd always been so strong, and now was even more so.

Smart. Check-fierce intelligence blazed in those slanted emerald eyes above high blades of cheekbones.

Aware. Yes, her gaze was even now skimming the room, taking our measure, missing nothing. It rested briefly on my badly "highlighted" hair. Dani would have burst out laughing. We'd have joked about whether I might add a Mohawk to the mess.

Jada merely noted it and moved on with her assessment.

As did I.

Loyal, she sat in this abbey, training the sidhe-seers as the prior headmistress had never been willing to do.

A warrior, like our Dani, she patrolled the streets, tirelessly killing the enemy.

Like Dani, fighting for what she believed in.

I offered her a smile. It wasn't hard. This was Dani. She was here. She'd survived. We could have lost her completely. We hadn't. I would find a way to love this version of her, too. And maybe, one day, I'd get to see more of the girl I'd once known. Dancer's reminder that she hadn't been back long was something to consider. A soldier on the front needed time to decompress from the nightmare. A soldier who'd seen hard battle came back mined with triggers. I knew what those felt like from the rape I endured, the complete and total powerlessness I'd felt. I also knew that every time I'd sensed one of my triggers even potentially being approached, I'd done everything in my power to shut down inside. "Jada." I infused her chosen name with as much warmth as I could.

"Mac," Jada replied coolly. Like Ryodan and Barrons, she didn't comment on my visibility. These were difficult people to surprise. Then she looked past me and her face went stiller than still, as if she'd frozen into a stone statue of a woman.

"Jada," Dancer said happily behind me. "Welcome home!"

I felt like the biggest shit in the world. The one thing none of us had said, Dancer put right out there right away. Saying the normal thing, the nice thing, the thing she'd probably wanted to hear the most. Making the rest of us look like monsters.

Animation returned to Jada's face-well, as much animation as it ever had-and she said, "Thank you. It's good to be back."

A nice normal reply. More than any of us had gotten from her.

"I can imagine," Dancer said. "Actually, no I can't. No clue what you went through, but you kicked its ass, didn't you, Jada? You made it-just like you always do. Good thing, too. We're in a world of shit."

"The black holes," she agreed.

"I've got a ton of stuff to go over with you, when you have a minute. Primarily speculation at this point, but between the two of us, we'll sort it out. I also finished the Papa Roach spray whenever you have a minute to swing by."

"No one's swinging by anywhere." Shooting Jada a pointed look, Ryodan said, "Someone published a rash of dailies that have everyone looking for us."

"I told you, I don't believe Jada published the one about me," I defended again.

"And Jada certainly didn't publish the one about herself," said Barrons.

"She admitted she published the one about us," Ryodan said flatly.

Barrons whipped his head toward Jada, eyes narrowed.

"Well, why wouldn't she?" Dancer said. "More targets dilute the hunt."

"Precisely," Jada said. "I think Ryodan published the first two that betrayed me and Mac."

"It sounds like something he would do," Christian agreed. "Hunted women are easier to control."

"Whoever is behind WeCare is the one who published those dailies," Ryodan growled. "That's who you need to be looking for."

"And who the bloody hell is behind WeCare?" Christian said.

"Don't look at me," Ryodan said.

"Well, it's not me," I said. "Remember, I got targeted."

"Enough!" Jada said, pushing herself up to her full height, which never failed to startle me. She was taller than me now. "We're not devolving into our customary bickering. I didn't fight so hard to get back here only to lose my world. If you are incapable of focus," she gestured at the door, "leave. Now."

I didn't hear a word she said. The moment she'd stood, a glint of silver against the stark black of her outfit had caught my eye. While she'd been seated, I couldn't see it. My tongue was useless for a few seconds, thickened by shock. I was able to focus on one thing only. "What are you doing with the sword?" I demanded.

"The same thing I always did with it. Killing Unseelie."

"You said you lost it!"

"I said no such thing. You said I lost it. I said I knew precisely where it was."

I narrowed my eyes. "You played me."

"You assumed. I didn't correct you. It's not my job to correct you. The spear was useless in your hands. It's useful where it is now."

"You took Mac's spear?" Barrons said. "When you already had the sword, leaving her defenseless?"

"You're talking to Dani, Barrons," Ryodan murmured. "Remember that."

"Really?" I snapped at Ryodan. "Because I thought she was sounding a lot like you."

"I'm Jada," she said to Ryodan. "And don't try to protect me. I stopped needing you a long time ago."

"Stopped," Ryodan echoed.

"Not that I ever did," she corrected.

"I don't care who she is," Barrons growled. "I gave Mac the spear. It's hers and no one else's."

I shot him a curious look. You didn't like me carrying it. You said so yourself.

He shot back, Far more than someone else carrying a weapon that can harm you. While I believe Jada won't use the sword against you, I have no such faith in the sidhe-seers. Untenable risk.

"I gave her the cuff of Cruce," Jada said. "She can also make herself invisible when she so chooses. Clearly, however, she can't color her hair. Still, she is hardly defenseless."

My hand went to my hair. "It's paint," I said stiffly, "because someone printed a daily that set the Guardians on me, shooting at me. They invaded BB&B and sprayed everything with red paint, and no, I can't make myself invisible when I want to. That was the Sinsar Dubh, not me."

Jada said acerbically, "So it is controlling you."

I snapped, "That's not what I-"

My hair shot straight up as a small tornado blew past me. I was talking to thin air.

Jada was gone. So was Barrons.

I glanced at Ryodan. Then he was gone, too.

I heard a high whining sound as if they were all snarling or shouting much faster than my brain could process as they faded down the hall.

Then silence.

We were alone in Jada's study.

I looked at Christian, who was looking at Dancer. Dancer was staring at the door, looking worried. The three of us stood in silence until Christian said, "I've a corpse to find while that bastard's otherwise occupied," and vanished.

Dancer shook his head and slowly turned his gaze to me. "How do you expect us to save the world if we can't even stay in the same room together for five minutes?"

"We just need to work a few things out first," I said irritably. "We'll get there."

"The black holes don't give a rat's arse about our 'things.' And she's right about the spear. Word on the street is no one was killing Unseelie. Why weren't you out there?"

"That's none of your business."

He smiled faintly but his eyes were sad. "You know one of the best things about Dani?"

The list was long.

"She feared nothing. Do you know what fear fears?"

I inclined my head, waiting.

"Laughter," he said.

"Your point?" I said stiffly, in no mood for more of his cutting insights. We'd accomplished nothing tonight but pissing each other off. Again.

"Laughter is power. One of the greatest weapons we have. It can slay dragons and it can heal. Jada doesn't have it anymore. As long as she doesn't, she's more vulnerable than any of you seem to realize. Stop worrying about your idiotic 'things' and start worrying about her. Make her laugh, Mac. And remember how to do it yourself, while you're at it. Nice hair, by the way."

Then he, too, left.

- Since we were on the first floor, I exited by the window for two reasons. One: I had no idea how long Barrons, Ryodan, and Jada might go at it, but I knew one thing for certain-I would have the spear back before the night was through.

Because I'd eaten Unseelie multiple times, if someone stabbed me with it, I might suffer the same horrific death I'd dealt to Malluce. I hadn't worried about that quite so much when I was invisible.

Then again, thanks to a mysterious elixir given to me by Cruce, I might survive the wound and shamble around indefinitely, rotting in various places, clumps of my badly stained hair falling out.

Yes, Barrons would definitely reclaim the spear.

I'd never have let her keep it in the first place if I had suspected for one moment Jada might turn my spear over to sidhe-seers, who not only didn't know me but knew I harbored their ancient enemy, although they weren't clear on the how.

I'd been willing to give it to her, no one else. That weapon was a serious liability, and like Barrons, I didn't know or trust the new sidhe-seers, and the original ones had been conditioned with fear and manipulation for too long. It was going to take more than a few weeks for Jada to retrain them.

My second reason for slipping out via the tall casement window was because I wanted a better look at the black hole, and it would have taken me ten minutes to get there if I'd gone all the way around the inside of the abbey to the front entrance then followed the exterior wall to the rear of the abbey again.

I approached the anomaly warily, recalling what Dancer had said about gravitational pull. About fifteen feet in diameter, it hovered some three or four feet above the earth. Directly beneath it was a thick carpet of abnormally lush, tall grass, exploding with large red poppies, bobbing heavily in the breeze, shimmering with leftover droplets of rain. Many of the blossoms were as large as my hand. I inhaled deeply, the air deliciously spicy behind the sprawling stone fortress, and with my temporarily heightened senses, it was intoxicating. The night was hot and sultry as a summer noon in Georgia, the foliage lapping up the heat and humidity as if it were Unseelie-flesh-laced plant food.

I scanned the immediate area. There were no trees near the floating sphere, no jagged trunks or holes in the ground to indicate trees had once grown nearby and been sucked up and in.

Then how had the anomaly gotten so big? I couldn't believe it had been here all this time, so large, and no one had mentioned it. More logical that it began small and grew quickly.

But what was feeding it?

I dropped onto a nearby bench some twenty feet from the ominous vortex, drew up my knees, rested my head on my arms and studied it.

When I'd been this close to the one beneath Chester's, I was assaulted by a melody so wrong, so vile, I'd felt as if my internal cohesion was being threatened, feared I might be torn apart at the core, atoms scattered to the corners of the galaxies.

Yet tonight, gorged on Unseelie flesh, I heard nothing. My human senses might be heightened but my sidhe-seer senses were useless. If I came back in a few days when the high wore off, would it sing the same soul-rending song to me I'd heard before?

I narrowed my eyes. The poppies were trembling beneath the weight of glistening, nectar-coated insects I hadn't noticed at first in the pale light of the moon, their soft buzzing engulfed by the nocturnal symphony of crickets and frogs and half a dozen Fae-colored fountains splashing water.

There were hundreds-no, thousands-of sticky bees swarming the poppies, Earth-born creatures gorging on Faery nectar. Flying erratically, with airborne starts and stops and stumbles, buzzing left and right with dizzying speed.

I pushed myself up and moved cautiously nearer.

Ten feet from the black hole, I became aware of a subtle change in the air. It felt...thicker...almost sticky, as if I was pressing forward into a mild, unseen paste.

If it was affecting me, with my considerable mass, how was it affecting the bees?

I took three more steps and gasped softly. Bee after bee was vanishing into the black hole above. Drunk on poppy juice, disoriented by abnormally dense air, they were being pulled directly into the spherical abyss.

How long had this been going on? Since the night they'd destroyed the HFK? How many tens of thousands of bees?

I sensed motion above and tipped back my head. Not just bees-bats. Was it messing with their echolocation? They were flying straight into it as if lured by a siren song. Was it confusing the birds, too?

"What are you doing?" A voice cut through the night behind me, and I spun around.

Two of Jada's commando sidhe-seers stood in the moonlight, watching me with cold calculation. I'd been so lost in thought that if I heard them approach, I'd tuned it out.

"Trying to figure out why you're letting this thing grow unchecked," I said coolly. I didn't like being between sidhe-seers that knew I had the Sinsar Dubh inside me and a black hole that could swallow me alive in an instant.

I eased to the left. They did, too.

I stepped farther to the left and they moved with me, keeping me pinned, black hole at my back, a mere seven or eight feet away. I could feel the light inexorable pull of it and shivered.

"Funny. We're trying to figure out why Jada is letting you go, unchecked," the tall blonde said icily.