You have the amulet. With it you will always have control over me. You will always be stronger than I. I am merely a book. You are alive.

It was was just a book. just a book.

Take me, use me. It is as Barrons has always told you-it is how how you go on that defines you. You make the choices. His child suffers. There is so much suffering in this world. You can make it all go away you go on that defines you. You make the choices. His child suffers. There is so much suffering in this world. You can make it all go away.

I stared at it, hands flexing. That was the hard thing. The pain. He and his son suffered endlessly and would continue to do so every day, eternally. Unless I could get the spell of unmaking I'd promised him.

I have such a spell. We will lay the child to rest together. You will be his savior. We will free him now, this very night. Open me, MacKayla. Open yourself. I have been unguided. You will teach me.

I bit my lip, frowning. Could I guide the Sinsar Dubh Sinsar Dubh? Would my humanity give me the edge I needed? I turned inward, searching my heart, my soul. What I found there straightened my spine and squared my shoulders.

"I can," I said. "I can change you. I can can make you better." make you better."

Yes, yes, do it now. Take me, hold me, open me, it whispered. Love you, MacKayla. Love me Love you, MacKayla. Love me.

I couldn't wait another moment. I reached for the Sinsar Dubh Sinsar Dubh.

48.

The Book was icy beneath my hands, but the flames in the rubies warmed my soul.

I was touching the Sinsar Dubh Sinsar Dubh.

The contact took my breath away. We were twins separated at birth, rejoined. I'd been waiting for it all my life. With it in my hands, I was complete. I hugged it to my chest, shivering, trembling with emotion. A dark song began to build inside me. The Book was a finger and I was the wine-damp rim of a fine crystal goblet. It slid round and round, playing a melody that came from deep within my compromised soul.

I ran my hands lovingly over the jeweled cover.

I felt the immense power it contained. It inflated me, swelled inside me, made me drunk on it, giddy. The baby I'd once been, who'd known no right or wrong, was still in there. Unborn, we have yet to develop morality. I suspect there's some part of us that remains that way until death.

We choose. That's what it's all about.

When I stopped embracing it, held it away to admire it, the crimson rune that had been hidden in one of my palms pulsed wetly, expanded, and latched tiny suckers onto it, binding the covers closed.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING! the the Sinsar Dubh Sinsar Dubh screamed. screamed.

"Making you better." I began to cry as I scooped another bloody rune from the glassy black surface of my lake. I wanted the Book like I wanted to breathe. Now I knew why it had hunted me. I was was its perfect host. We were made for each other. With it, I would never fear anything. Rejecting it was the hardest thing I'd ever done in my life. More bitter still was the knowledge that with each rune I pressed into the boards and binding, I was condemning Jericho and his son to continue living in an eternal hell. its perfect host. We were made for each other. With it, I would never fear anything. Rejecting it was the hardest thing I'd ever done in my life. More bitter still was the knowledge that with each rune I pressed into the boards and binding, I was condemning Jericho and his son to continue living in an eternal hell.

HOW DARE YOU DECEIVE ME?.

"The nerve of me." I wanted to tear the runes off, crack open the Book, take my spell of unmaking. I didn't dare. If I opened the gold, black, and crimson cover the tiniest sliver, its dark song would rush out and consume me.

She would doom the world, they'd said.

I'd been tempted, so tempted. I wanted Alina back. I wanted the walls up. I wanted Dani to be innocent and young and not my sister's killer. I wanted to be Jericho Barrons' hero. I wanted to release him from endless pain. See him walk into the future with hope and maybe even smile every now and then.

YOU SAID THE WORLD WAS IMPERFECT!.

"It is." I pressed another dripping rune into the cover.

But it was my world, filled with good people, like my father and mother, patient Kat, and Inspector Jayne, who were always doing their parts to make it a better place. Unseelie might be overrunning our planet, but we'd been long overdue for a threat to unify us as a race and turn our petty angers away from one another.

There was pain, but there was also joy. It was in the tension between the two that life happened. Imperfect as it was, this world was real. Illusion was no substitute. I'd rather live a hard life of fact than a sweet life of lies.

I flipped the Book over and pressed a rune into its back.

Its voice was muffled, growing weaker.

He will hate you!

That was the crushing blow. I'd been a breath away from what Barrons had devoted his entire existence to getting, and I'd turned my back on it. I'd promised him. I'd told him we would find a way, and I'd failed him. There was no way to lift a single spell of such power from the Sinsar Dubh Sinsar Dubh. It would never have floated it to the surface and given it to me willingly. Even now it was regretting that it had ever floated anything to the surface for me, but it had taken calculated risks, tempting me to look deeper. It had given me what I'd needed to stay alive, to keep me heading toward merging with it, taking it in, letting it have my body and have control. It knew what I wanted now and would never give it up unless I merged with it completely. If I'd raised that lid-even a scant inch, just for a quick peek-looking for the spell, it would have been all over. It would have taken up squatter's rights and obliterated me. Perhaps some tiny part of me would have remained cognizant, screaming in eternal horror, but not enough to matter.

Ryodan had been right. The Sinsar Dubh Sinsar Dubh was after a body, and it had wanted mine. If I believed its story, it had prepped me to be possessed since before I was born. Waited until I'd become the perfect host. But it hadn't waited quite long enough. Or maybe it had waited too long. was after a body, and it had wanted mine. If I believed its story, it had prepped me to be possessed since before I was born. Waited until I'd become the perfect host. But it hadn't waited quite long enough. Or maybe it had waited too long. Evil is a completely different creature, Mac Evil is a completely different creature, Mac, Ryodan had said. Evil is bad that believes it's Evil is bad that believes it's good. good.

I hadn't understood what he was saying at the time. I did now.

I pressed another rune onto the binding.

I would never lay Barrons' child to rest now. Never free the man.

Destroy you, bitch! Not the end. Never the end!

Four more runes and the Sinsar Dubh Sinsar Dubh was silent. was silent.

I sat back on my heels. My hands were shaking, I was exhausted, and my cheeks were wet.

I was about to lay my hand against the cover to confirm what I sensed, that it was contained-at least as well as it could be until we got it to the abbey-when the invisible barrier restraining Jericho evaporated.

Then I was in his arms and he was kissing me, and all I could think was that I'd done it, I'd survived, but at what cost?

From the day I'd met him, he'd been after one thing and one thing only. He'd been hunting it for thousands of years with singleminded focus.

I was a woman he'd known for a few months. What could I possibly mean to him compared to that?

49.

Shocked by the news that Rowena was dead, the surviving members of the Haven took one look at Drustan MacKeltar carrying the Book, identified themselves-and, yes, Jo was one of them-then removed the wards and opened the corridor to allow access to the chamber in which the Sinsar Dubh Sinsar Dubh had originally been interred. had originally been interred.

I was thrilled Drustan was carrying it. I wanted nothing more to do with it. I never wanted to touch it again. If I did, I'd have to think about the spell Barrons wanted, how close it was, and how all I'd have to do was lift that cover and...

I shook my head, forcing the thought away.

I'd done my part. It was here, and now it was their responsibility. I'd ridden in the Hummer with the Keltar clan to the abbey as a precaution. It was hard to believe it was almost over. I couldn't shake the feeling that the other shoe hadn't dropped yet. In movies, the villain always twitched one last time, and my nerves were a wreck, waiting for it.

Jo and the other Haven members led our procession into the bowels of the stone fortress, followed by Ryodan and the others. The Keltar Druids were next. Barrons and I followed, with Kat and half a dozen more sidhe sidhe-seers bringing up the rear. V'lane and his Seelie were due to sift in at any moment.

I kept a careful eye on the Book as Drustan carried it down the corridor, past a now silent image of Isla O'Connor that I could barely look at, into an underground chamber, down more stairs, into another chamber, and down still more stairs.

I quit counting after a dozen flights. It was deep. I was once again underground.

I kept waiting for the Book to somehow sense it was approaching the place where it had been caged for so long and make a final, deadly gambit for my soul. Or body.

I looked at Barrons. "Do you feel like-"

"The fat lady hasn't sung?"

I love that about him. He gets me. I don't even have to finish my sentences.

"Ideas?" I said.

"Not a one."

"Are we being paranoid?"

"Possibly. Hard to say." He looked at me. Although his eyes were empty of conversation, I knew he wanted to know everything that had happened while I'd been battling the Book but wouldn't ask until we were alone. The entire time the Sinsar Dubh Sinsar Dubh had been playing its head games with me, all he'd been able to see was me standing in silence with Rowena, me killing Rowena, then me standing in silence near the Book. The illusions it had woven for me had taken place only in my head. The battle had been invisible to the naked eye, but the hardest ones are. had been playing its head games with me, all he'd been able to see was me standing in silence with Rowena, me killing Rowena, then me standing in silence near the Book. The illusions it had woven for me had taken place only in my head. The battle had been invisible to the naked eye, but the hardest ones are.

He'd been a silent mountain of barely contained hostility the entire way out here. Since the moment the barrier restraining him had evaporated, he hadn't stopped touching me. I was sucking it up. Who knew how he'd feel soon.

I couldn't get to you, he'd exploded when he'd finally stopped kissing me long enough to speak.

But you did, I'd told him. I heard you roaring. It was what tipped me off. You got through I heard you roaring. It was what tipped me off. You got through.

I couldn't save you. His expression had been stark, furious.

I couldn't save him, either. And I was in no hurry to tell him that.

Did you get it? The spell of unmaking?

Ancient eyes had stared at me, filled with ancient grief. And something more. Something so alien and unexpected that I'd almost burst into tears. I'd seen many things in his eyes in the time that I'd known him: lust, amusement, sympathy, mockery, caution, fury. But I had never seen this.

Hope. Jericho Barrons had hope, and I was the reason for it.

Yes, I lied. I got it I got it.

I would never forget his smile. It had illuminated him from the inside out.

I blew out a breath and focused on my surroundings. There was a small underground city beneath the abbey. Even Barrons was beginning to look impressed. Wide streetlike tunnels intersected neatly; narrower alleys ran off them in dizzying slopes. We passed an enormous hive of catacombs that Jo told us held the remains of every Grand Mistress that had ever lived. Somewhere among those labyrinthine tunnels, hidden in row after row of mausoleums, was the crypt of the first leader of the first Haven. I wanted to find it, run my fingers over the inscription, know the date our order had been founded. There were secrets down here entrusted to only the initiate, and I wanted to know them all.

Kat, too, was a member of the Haven, a secret she'd not betrayed.

"Rowena would have shut me out if I'd told you, and I'd have had no control over the inner doings of our order. It wasn't a risk I could take. You did well tonight, Mac. She was wrong about you. With both prophecies against you, still you came through for us." Serene gray eyes searched mine. "I can't begin to imagine what you went through." The look on her face told me she'd like to know and that she wouldn't be waiting long to ask me in detail. "We can't thank you enough."

"Sure you can." I gave her a tired smile. "Never let it get out again."

There was a sudden commotion ahead of us.

The Seelie had just sifted in, minus V'lane, in close proximity to Ryodan, Lor, and Fade.

I wasn't sure who was more disgusted. Or more homicidal.

Velvet hissed. "You have no right to be here!"

"Kill it," Ryodan said flatly.

"Don't you dare!" I heard Jo snap.

"Fucking fairies," Lor muttered.

"Touch one of them and I'll-"

"What, human?" Ryodan barked at Jo. "Just what will you do to stop me?"

"Don't push me."

"Stop it," Drustan said quietly. "'Tis a Fae Book and they've come to see it contained, as is their right."

"They're the reason it got out in the first place," Fade said. the reason it got out in the first place," Fade said.

"We are Seelie, not sidhe sidhe-seers. The sidhe sidhe-seers let it out."

"You made it." made it."

"We did not. The Unseelie made it."

"Seelie, Unseelie-you're all fairies to me," Lor grumbled.

"I thought there was no sifting in this part of the abbey," I said.

"We had to drop all the wards to let everyone in. There's too much diversity in..."

"Everyone's DNA?" I said drily.

Kat smiled. "For lack of a better word. The Keltar are one thing, Barrons and his men another, the Fae yet another."

And me? I wanted to ask, but didn't. Was I human? Had the Book told me any of the truth? Did I really have the I wanted to ask, but didn't. Was I human? Had the Book told me any of the truth? Did I really have the Sinsar Dubh Sinsar Dubh inside me? Had it stamped its imprint, word for word, into my defenseless infant psyche? Over the years, had I always sensed it-something fundamentally wrong with me-and done my best to wall it off or submerge it in a dark glassy lake to protect myself? inside me? Had it stamped its imprint, word for word, into my defenseless infant psyche? Over the years, had I always sensed it-something fundamentally wrong with me-and done my best to wall it off or submerge it in a dark glassy lake to protect myself?

If I did did have the entire Book of dark magic inside me, and Kat found out about it, would they try to lock me up down here, too? have the entire Book of dark magic inside me, and Kat found out about it, would they try to lock me up down here, too?