So did everyone in the cavern.

The Keltar stopped chanting. Barrons and my daddy were frozen mid-lunge. Even V'lane was affected, but not completely. The spells moving up his arms slowed from a fast-moving river to a stream.

I looked where my mother had been pointing and lost my breath.

He was by the door. No, he was behind me. No, he was right in front of me! When he smiled at me, I got lost in his eyes. They expanded until they were enormous and I was swallowed up in darkness, drifting between supernovas in space.

"Hey, beautiful girl," the dreamy-eyed guy said.

"Butterfly fingers," I managed finally. "You."

"Finest surgeon," he agreed.

"You helped."

"Told you not to talk to it. You did."

"I survived."

"So far."

"There's more?"

"Always."

I couldn't stop staring. I knew who he was. And now that I knew, I couldn't believe I hadn't seen it before.

"Never let you, small thing."

"Let me now."

"Why?"

"Curiosity."

"Dead cats."

"Nine lives," I countered.

He smiled and his head swiveled in a distinctly Unseelie manner. I was also seeing, superimposed on a space of air that couldn't exist-at least not in this realm-an enormous darkness regarding me. Its head didn't swivel: It grated like stone on stone. It was as if the king was so vast that no single realm could contain him, around him dimensions splintered, overlapped, shifted. His eyes locked with mine, opening wider and wider until they swallowed the entire abbey, and I went spinning, head over heels, into them, with the abbey tumbling beside me.

I was wrapped in enormous black velvet wings, taken into the heart of darkness that was the Unseelie King.

He was so far beyond my comprehension that I couldn't begin to absorb it. "Ancient" didn't come close, because he was newborn in each moment, as well. Time didn't define him. He He defined time. He wasn't death or life, or creation or destruction. He was all possibles and none, everything and nothing, a bottomless abyss that would look back at you if you gazed into it. He was a truth of existence: Once you'd been exposed to him, you'd never be the same. Like a contagion that infected the blood and brain, he forced new neural pathways to develop merely to handle the brief contact. That or you went nuts. defined time. He wasn't death or life, or creation or destruction. He was all possibles and none, everything and nothing, a bottomless abyss that would look back at you if you gazed into it. He was a truth of existence: Once you'd been exposed to him, you'd never be the same. Like a contagion that infected the blood and brain, he forced new neural pathways to develop merely to handle the brief contact. That or you went nuts.

For a split second, drifting in his vast, ancient embrace, I understood everything. It all made sense. The universes, the galaxies-existence was unfolding precisely as it should, and there was a symmetry, a pattern, a stunning beauty to the structure of it.

I was tiny and naked, lost in black velvet wings so lush, rich, and sensual that I never wanted to leave. His darkness wasn't frightening. It was verdant, teeming with life on the verge of becoming. There were shiny pearls of worlds tucked into his feathers. I rolled between them, laughing with delight. I think he rolled with me, watching my reaction to him, learning me, tasting. I tumbled among planets, constellations, stars. They hung from his quills, suspended, trembling with growing pains. Waiting for the day he would unfasten them, bat them off into the ballpark, and see what they might do. A home run-hey, batter, batter! Fly ball, watch out! That ball sucks, didn't stitch it tight enough...coming apart at the seams... A home run-hey, batter, batter! Fly ball, watch out! That ball sucks, didn't stitch it tight enough...coming apart at the seams...

I saw us through his eyes: dust motes floating in a shaft of sunlight that stabbed through the rusted-out roof of a barn. He was as likely to swipe his hand through us and watch us scatter as he was to turn and walk away from this particular hole-in-the-roof byproduct. Or maybe sneeze us all into the great outdoors, where we would go whirling off in a dozen different directions, lost in lonely oblivion, never to come together again.

By our standards, he was mad. Utterly and completely mad. But every now and then, he surfaced and walked a fine line of sanity. It never lasted long.

By his standards, we were paper dolls, flat and one-dimensional. Barking mad as far as he was concerned. But every now and then, one of us walked a fine line of sanity. It never lasted long.

Still, all was well. Life was, and change happened.

Me. He thought I I was relatively sane. I laughed until I cried, rolling around in his feathers. Because of his imprint inside me? If I was a shining example of my race, we should all be shot. was relatively sane. I laughed until I cried, rolling around in his feathers. Because of his imprint inside me? If I was a shining example of my race, we should all be shot.

He showed me things. Took my hand and escorted me into an enormous theater, where I watched an endless play of light and shadows from a prime seat in the front row. He watched me, chin on a fist, from a red crushed-velvet chair in a box near the stage.

"Never did get it all out." His voice came from every speaker: huge, melodic.

"The Book?"

"Can't eviscerate essential self."

"Playing doctor again?"

"Trying. You listening this time?"

"He's stealing your Book. You listening?"

The dreamy-eyed guy's head swiveled away from the stage, and suddenly the theater was gone and we were back in the cavern.

Wings no longer cradled me.

I was cold and alone. I missed his wings. I yearned for him. It hurt.

"It will pass," he said absently. "You will forget the pain of separation. They always do." His eyes narrowed on V'lane. "Yes. He is."

"Aren't you going to stop him?"

"Que sera, sera."

I was being stalked by a song, haunted by the calliope from hell. "It's your responsibility. You should take care of it."

"Should is a false god. No fun there."

"Some changes are better than others."

"Expound."

"If you stop him, the changes will be much more interesting."

"Opinion. Subjective."

"So is yours," I said indignantly.

His starry eyes glinted with amusement. "If he replaces me, I will become something else."

I could almost hear the Sinsar Dubh Sinsar Dubh saying, saying, Is not any act of destruction, should time enough pass, an act of creation? Is not any act of destruction, should time enough pass, an act of creation? The apple didn't fall far from the tree. The apple didn't fall far from the tree.

"I don't want you replaced. I like you as you are."

"Flirting with me, beautiful girl?"

I tried to breathe and couldn't. The Unseelie King was touching me, kissing me. I could feel his lips on my skin, and I-I-I- "Breathe, BG."

I could breathe again.

"Please, stop him." I wasn't above begging. I'd get on my knees. If V'lane succeeded in gaining ultimate power, I didn't want to live in this world. Not with him in charge. With a spell of unmaking he could kill Barrons, and he'd made it clear, every chance he got, that he wanted to. He had to be stopped. I wasn't losing any of my people. My parents were going to live to a ripe old age. Barrons was going to live forever. Me? Well. I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to do. But I planned on having a long, full lifetime. "It would mean a lot to me."

"You would owe me. Like you owe my Gray Woman."

Was there anything he didn't know? Deals with devils Deals with devils...Barrons would have said, if he hadn't been frozen. "Deal."

He winked. "I'd planned to, anyway."

"Ooh! Then why did you-"

"Pretty girl and all. Asking. Gotta love that. Stuff of heroes. Don't get the role often."

He was gone. He reappeared near the slab, staring at V'lane through crystal walls.

I was horrified to realize V'lane was more than halfway through the Sinsar Dubh Sinsar Dubh.

But it was going to be okay. The king was going to stop him, crush him like a bug. V'lane would take one look at who'd come after him and sift out with his tail tucked, whimpering with fear. The king would reseal the cavern, and all would be well. No one would have any spells of unmaking. Barrons would continue to be unkillable. That was a constant, eternal rock beneath my feet that I needed.

"-fore. Where on earth do you think he came from?" My mother finished her sentence. She frowned. "And where did he go?"

Time resumed and everyone in the cavern began moving again.

V'lane's head dropped down and his eyes slid open.

His reaction wasn't at all what I expected.

His mouth ticked up in a cool smile. "About fucking time you showed your face, old man."

"Ah," said the Unseelie King. "Cruce."

52.

Cruce? V'lane was Cruce?

I glanced around the cavern. Everyone looked as stupefied as I felt, staring between V'lane and the dreamy-eyed guy.

When I'd stood at Darroc's side, watching the Seelie and Unseelie armies face off in a snowy Dublin street, I'd been awed by the mythic proportions of the event.

Now, according to the dreamy-eyed guy who was really the Unseelie King, the Seelie who'd been masquerading as V'lane for hundreds of thousands of years was really the legendary Cruce, aka War-the final and most perfect Unseelie ever sung into existence.

And he was facing off with his maker.

Cruce was staring down the Unseelie King.

It was the stuff of million-year-old legends. I looked from one to the other. You could have heard a pin drop in the cavern.

I glanced at Barrons, who had both brows raised in an expression of complete shock. For a change, there was something he hadn't known, either. Then his eyes narrowed on the dreamy-eyed guy.

"He's the king? That frail old geezer?" the king? That frail old geezer?"

"Geezer? You mean the pretty French woman," Jo said. "She's a waitress at Chester's."

"French woman? It's the Morgan Freeman lookalike from the bar on the seventh level at Chester's," Christian said.

"No," Dageus said, "'tis the ex-groundskeeper from Edinburgh castle who took on a bussing job at Ryodan's pub when the walls fell."

And I saw a young, dreamy-eyed college guy. He winked at me again. We all saw something different when we looked at him.

I stared back at V'lane...er, Cruce.

How had I not known? How had I been so completely duped? It had never been a Seelie Prince facing an Unseelie Prince that night in the snowy Dublin street but two two Unseelie Princes. If War's brother had recognized him, he'd never given it away. Unseelie Princes. If War's brother had recognized him, he'd never given it away.

V'lane was Cruce.

V'lane was War.

I'd walked hand in hand with him on a beach. I'd kissed him. More times than I could count. I'd had his name in my tongue. I'd trembled with orgasm after orgasm in his arms. He'd given me Ashford back. Had he taken it to begin with?

War. Of course. He'd turned my world on itself. He'd set armies against each other and sat back watching the chaos he'd created. He'd even gotten out in it and fought with us. No doubt laughing inside, enjoying the added chaos, being in the thick of the fight, watching his handiwork up close and personal.

Was he behind it all? Had he been nudging Darroc for millennia, priming him to defy the queen? And when Darroc was made mortal, had Cruce whispered in a few Unseelie ears, maybe planted key information, and helped him bring down the walls from far behind the scenes? Had he been watching, waiting for the day he might get close enough to the Sinsar Dubh Sinsar Dubh to steal the king's knowledge and kill the current queen and take her magic? to steal the king's knowledge and kill the current queen and take her magic?

Did Fae really possess such patience?

He'd killed all the princesses and secreted the queen away to kill at the right time.

He'd turned the Seelie and Unseelie courts against each other, using our world as their battlefield.

We were all pawns on his chessboard.

I had no doubt he was after the ultimate power. The nerve of him, the arrogance-he was the one who'd told me it could be done and how! He was the one who'd recounted the legend to begin with. Unable to resist bragging? When I'd asked him about Cruce, he'd gotten irritated, saying: was the one who'd told me it could be done and how! He was the one who'd recounted the legend to begin with. Unable to resist bragging? When I'd asked him about Cruce, he'd gotten irritated, saying: One day you will wish to talk of One day you will wish to talk of me. He'd been jealous of himself, angry that he couldn't reveal his true majesty. He'd said, me. He'd been jealous of himself, angry that he couldn't reveal his true majesty. He'd said, Cruce was the most beautiful of all, although the world will never know it-a waste of perfection to never have laid eyes upon one such as he Cruce was the most beautiful of all, although the world will never know it-a waste of perfection to never have laid eyes upon one such as he. How it must have chafed him to have to hide his true face for so long.