"Right. Words mean nothing to you, but now you insist on them," I said against his mouth. "You are such such a hypocrite." a hypocrite."

"And you're bipolar. You want me. You always do. You think I can't smell it?"

"I'm not not bipolar." Sometimes he struck way too close to home. I popped the button on his pants, unzipped them, and shoved my hands inside. He was rock hard. God, he felt good. bipolar." Sometimes he struck way too close to home. I popped the button on his pants, unzipped them, and shoved my hands inside. He was rock hard. God, he felt good.

He stiffened, air hissing between clenched teeth.

Make haste...He comes....

"Leave me alone alone," I snapped.

"Over my dead body," he said roughly. "You've got my dick in your hands." He told me where it was going to be next and my bones turned to water, tried to spill my body across the floor and let him do anything he wanted to me.

"Not you. Her."

"Her who?"

A hand tugged at the sleeve of my jacket, and I knew without looking that it wasn't his. "Kiss me and she'll go away." I needed him inside me so badly I hurt from it. I was hot and wet and nothing mattered but this moment, this man.

"Who?"

"Kiss me!"

But he didn't. He pulled back and looked past me, and I knew from the look on his face that I wasn't the only one who could see her.

"I think she's me," I whispered.

He looked at me, back at her, and at me again. "Is that a joke?"

"I know this house. I know this place. I don't know how else to explain it."

"Impossible."

It is nearly too late. Come NOW.

It was no longer a wisp of a plea. It was a command, and the hand was implacable on my arm. I could not disobey, no matter how badly I wanted to stay here and lose myself in sex, no matter how desperately I needed him inside me again, needed to feel we were joined in the most primal way, that I was in Jericho Barrons' arms and mouth and under his skin.

And, God, did I need it! So much that I resented it. I never wanted to want a man this much-so much that not not having him was physical pain. I never wanted to feel that any man had so much control over me and my life. having him was physical pain. I never wanted to feel that any man had so much control over me and my life.

I pushed up from my knees and shoved past him.

He grabbed the sleeve of my coat; it ripped as I pulled away. "We need to talk about this! Mac!"

I dashed down the corridor, running after her like a dog chasing its own tail.

The concubine's white half of the boudoir was carpeted in dewy petals and lit by a thousand candles. The winking diamonds that floated on the air were tiny fiery stars. Those few that passed through the enormous mirror to the dark king's side were instantly extinguished, as if there wasn't oxygen enough to support flame, or the darkness there was too dense to permit light.

The concubine sprawled nude on piles of snowy ermine before the white hearth.

In the shadows on the far side of the bedchamber, darkness moved. The king watched her through the mirror. I could feel him there, immense, ancient, sexual. She knew he was watching. She stretched languidly, slid her hands up her body into her hair, and arched her back.

I'd expected to find the other end of the rubber band here, ending with the concubine, but it tugged me still. It stretched invisibly on, through the massive black Silver that divided their bedchamber in half.

I wanted to step through and join that immense ancientness.

I never wanted to step one foot closer to those shadows.

Was the king himself summoning me? Or was part of the king standing behind me, even now? I had to know. I'd called Jericho a coward but could too easily be accused of the same.

I need... the voice summoned. the voice summoned.

I understood that. I did, too. Sex. Answers. An end to my fears, one way or another.

But the voice hadn't come from the woman on the rug.

It had come from the dark side of the boudoir, which was all bed because he required that much bed. It was a command I couldn't refuse. I would slip through the mirror and Barrons would lay me back on the Unseelie King's bed and cover me with lust and darkness. And we would know who we were. It would be okay. It would all be out in the open finally.

As I stared into the Silver that I knew was a killing mirror for anyone who wasn't the king or his concubine, I was suddenly five again. More details of my Cold Place dream crashed over me and I realized there were many I still didn't remember.

I'd always had to pass through this chamber first: half white, half dark, half warm, half cold. But numbed and frightened out of my childhood wits by the nightmarish things that followed, I'd always forgotten how the dream had begun. It had always been here.

And it had always been so hard to force myself to go through the enormous black Silver, because I'd wanted nothing more than to stay in the warm white half of this chamber forever, to lose myself in endlessly replaying scenes of what had once been but was now lost to me and I could never have again, and grief-oh, God, I'd never really known grief at all! Grief was walking these black halls and knowing they would be haunted for eternity with the residue of lovers too foolish to savor what time they'd had. Memories stalked these corridors, and I stalked those memories like a sad ghost.

Still, wasn't illusion better than nothing?

I could stay here and never have to face that my existence was empty, that emptiness was all my life had ever been about: dreams, seduction, glamour.

Lies. All lies.

But here I could forget.

Come NOW.

"Mac." Jericho was shaking me. "Look at me."

I could see him distantly, through sparkling diamonds and ghosts of times past. And behind him, through the mirror, I could see the monstrous dark shape of the Unseelie King, as if he was casting Jericho as his shadow on the other side, on the white half of the room. I wondered if the concubine's shadow was different, too, through the king's Silver. Did she become like him on his half? Large and complex enough to mate with whatever the king was? Over there, in the blessed, comforting, sacred dark, what was she? What was I?

"Mac, focus on me! Look at me, talk to me!"

But I couldn't look. I couldn't focus, because whatever was beyond that mirror had been calling me all my life.

I knew the Silver wouldn't kill me. I knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

"I'm sorry. I have to go."

His hands tightened on my shoulders and tried to turn me away. "Walk away from it, Mac. Let it go. Some things don't need to be known. Isn't your life enough as it is?"

I laughed. The man who always insisted I see things as they were was now urging me to hide? On the rug behind him, the concubine laughed, too. Her head arched, her chin tipped up, as if she was being kissed by an invisible lover.

He had to be the king. I slid my hand down his arm, twined my fingers with his. "Come with me," I said, and ran for the Silver.

26.

I was surprised by the ease with which I slid through the black membrane. I was stunned senseless by the cold that knifed into me. was surprised by the ease with which I slid through the black membrane. I was stunned senseless by the cold that knifed into me.

My brain issued an order to gasp. My body failed to obey it. I was crusted from head to toe with a thin sheet of glittering ice. It cracked as I took a step, tinkled to my feet, and I was instantly re-coated again.

How was I supposed to breathe here? How had the concubine breathed?

Ice coated the insides of my nose, my mouth and tongue and teeth, all the way down to my lungs, as all the parts of my body I needed to process air were sheathed in an impenetrable layer. I stumbled backward, seeking the other side of the mirror, where there was white and light and oxygen.

I was so cold that I could barely move. For a moment, I wasn't sure I would make it back through the Silver. I was afraid I would die in the Unseelie King's bedchamber, repeating history, only this time I'd have left no note.

When I finally slid through the dark membrane, warmth hit me like a blast oven, and I stumbled, went flying across the room, and slammed into the wall. The concubine stretched on the rug paid me no heed. I sucked in air with a greedy screech.

Where was Jericho? Could he breathe on the other side? Did he need need to breathe, or was it his natural environment? I glanced back at the mirror, expecting to see him moving darkly on the other side, scowling at me for having forced him to reveal his true identity. to breathe, or was it his natural environment? I glanced back at the mirror, expecting to see him moving darkly on the other side, scowling at me for having forced him to reveal his true identity.

I staggered and nearly went down.

I'd been so certain I was right.

Barrons was collapsed on the floor, at the boundary of light and dark-on the white white side of the room. side of the room.

Only two in all existence could ever travel through that Silver: the Unseelie King and his concubine, Darroc had told me. Any other that touches it is instantly killed. Even Fae Any other that touches it is instantly killed. Even Fae.

"Jericho!" I ran for him, dragged him away from the mirror, and sank to the floor beside him. I rolled him over. He wasn't breathing. He was dead. Again.

I stared down at him.

I stared into the darkness of the mirror.

The Silver hadn't killed me. But it had had killed him. I didn't like what that meant one bit. killed him. I didn't like what that meant one bit.

It meant I was indeed the concubine.

It also meant that Jericho wasn't wasn't my king. my king.

NOW.

The command was enormous, irresistible, Voice to the nth degree. I wanted to stay with Jericho. I couldn't have stayed if my life had depended on it. And I was pretty sure it did.

"I can't breathe over there."

You do not live on this side of the Silver. Alter your expectations. Forgo breath. Fear, not fact, impedes you.

Was that possible? I wasn't buying it. But apparently it didn't matter whether I bought it, because my hands were pushing me up and my feet were moving me straight into the dark Silver.

"Jericho!" I cried as I felt myself being forced away.

I hated this. I hated everything about it. I was the concubine but Jericho wasn't the king, and I couldn't deal with that-not that I was sure how well I would have dealt with it if he had had been the king. Now I was being summoned to a place where I couldn't breathe, where I didn't really live according to my disembodied tormentor, and I had no choice but to leave him, dead again, by himself. been the king. Now I was being summoned to a place where I couldn't breathe, where I didn't really live according to my disembodied tormentor, and I had no choice but to leave him, dead again, by himself.

I suddenly had no desire to learn anything else about myself. This was enough. I was sorry I'd been so hell-bent on knowing to begin with. He'd been right. Wasn't he always? Some things just didn't need to be known.

"I'm not doing this. I'm not playing your stupid games, whatever they are, whoever you are. I'm going back to my life now. That would be Mac's Mac's life," I clarified. There was no reply. Only an inexorable pull into the darkness. life," I clarified. There was no reply. Only an inexorable pull into the darkness.

I was once again puppet to an invisible puppet master. I had no choice. I was being dragged through and there was nothing I could do about it.

Struggling, gritting my teeth, resisting every step of the way, I stepped over Jericho's body and pushed back into the Silver.

27.

It was pure instinct to fight for breath.

I was encased in ice again the moment I slid through the Silver.

Passing through the dark mirror peeled back a curtain, exposing more forgotten childhood memories. Abruptly, I recalled being four, five, six, finding myself stuck in this alien dreamscape nightly. No sooner did I say my prayers, close my eyes, and drift off to sleep than a disembodied command would infiltrate my slumber.

I recalled waking from those nightmares, gasping and shivering, running for Daddy, crying that I was freezing, suffocating.

I wondered what young Jack Lane had made of it-his adopted daughter who'd been forbidden to ever return to the country of her birth, who was tormented by terrifyingly cold, airless nightmares. What horrors had he decided I must have suffered to be scarred in such ways?

I loved him with all my heart for the childhood he'd given me. He'd anchored me with the day-to-day routines of a simple life, crammed it full of sunshine and bike rides, music lessons and baking with Mom in our bright, warm kitchen. Perhaps he'd let me be too frivolous, in an effort to counter the pain of those nightmares. But I couldn't say I'd have done any differently as a parent.

The inability to breathe had been only the first of many things my child's mind had found so terrifying. As I'd gotten older, strengthened by the cocoon of parental love, I'd learned to suppress those nocturnal images and the bleak emotions the Cold Place engendered. By my teens, the recurring nightmare had been buried deep in my subconscious, leaving me burdened with an intense dislike of the cold and a vague sense of bipolarity I was finally beginning to understand. If occasionally images that made no sense to me slipped through a crack, I attributed them to some horror movie I'd flipped through on TV.

Do not be frightened. I chose you because you could.

I remembered that now, too. The voice that had demanded I come had tried to comfort me and promised I was capable of the task-whatever it was.

I'd never believed it. If I was capable, I wouldn't have dreaded it so much.

I shook myself hard, cracking the ice. It dropped away, but I immediately re-iced.

I repeated the shaking, the re-icing. I did it four or five more times, terrified all the while that if I didn't keep cracking it, it would build up so thick that I would end up staying right here where I stood forever, a statue of a woman, frozen and forgotten, in the Unseelie King's bedchamber.

When Barrons came back to life, he would stand and stare through the mirror at me and try to roar me back to my senses and into motion, but there I'd be-right in front of his eyes, eternally out of his reach, because nobody but me and the Unseelie race's mysterious creator could enter the king's boudoir. And who knew where the king was?