“Cruce?” Rath growls.
“He was destroyed long ago,” Kiall hisses.
“Remember the fourth when we fucked her in the street,” Rath murmurs to Kiall. “We detected a presence but couldn’t see it.”
“You said ‘iced.’ By the Gh’luk-ra d’J’hai? Cruce is alive?” Kiall demands.
“Duh, iced means dead,” I say coldly, in a belated attempt to exercise damage control. Their idle comment about fucking me in the street was like a shot of adrenaline to my heart. I inhale slowly, exhale even more slowly, waiting for the Book to goad me. There’s only silence.
Kiall sneers. “I do not believe even the one you called the Hoar Frost King could destroy our brother. Where is he? You will tell us now.” The Unseelie Princes lunge to their feet, staring directly at the spot I used to be standing in.
I’m a dozen feet away, half concealed behind a bookcase, hand pressed to my lips, wishing I could scrape most of my words back into my mouth tonight.
“Her brain vanished when her body did,” Ryodan says to Barrons.
“Apparently,” Barrons says.
“That’s not true,” I say hotly. “The realization startled me. I blurted. Excuse the hell out of me for being stunned to realize the one who was so busy incriminating me for trafficking with the Sinsar Dubh was also trafficking with the Sinsar Dubh. And why isn’t anyone looking accusingly at Jada?” I want to know how the heck she got that cuff off the frozen prince. That worries me. A lot.
“The Sinsar Dubh,” Kiall says softly, eyes gleaming. “It is here as well? In Dublin? Where?” He and Rath begin to chime hollowly. I can imagine their alien conversation and it’s all my fault: Our brother is alive and the Sinsar Dubh is near, we can bring them together and rule the world!
They don’t know their brother is the Sinsar Dubh and would destroy them before teaming up with them.
“And she just keeps making it worse,” Ryodan marvels.
“She is the Sinsar Dubh,” Jada says coolly. “She has it inside her.”
“And Dani just joined her,” Barrons observes, fascinated.
“As one of our Pri-ya,” Kiall murmurs to Rath, like I’m not standing right here, listening, “we could control both her and the power of the Unseelie King.”
“Pri-ya doesn’t work on me anymore. And nobody controls the Sinsar Dubh,” I say irritably, then snap at Dani, “I can’t believe you just ratted me out like that!” I duck and roll again, soundlessly relocating as Rath and Kiall begin to prowl the room looking for me.
“You did it first,” Jada says. “The cuff is an invaluable weapon. Dangerous to leave where it was.”
“You lost your sword. Admit it.”
“I know precisely where it is.”
Maybe she does. But wherever it is, for some reason she can’t get to it.
“We shall see,” Rath threatens me. “Perhaps it merely takes longer now.”
I open my mouth to ask how Dani got the cuff and if the removal of it in any way compromised the integrity of Cruce’s prison, then clack my teeth together before I say anything else spectacularly stupid. At the moment, the Unseelie Princes think I am the Book. Last thing I want them to know is that their long lost brother is, too.
As the princes continue stalking, I warn them, “I have the spear. Touch me, you’re dead.” They don’t know it’s a bluff. I draw my spear in this room, and who knows what will happen? I duck, roll, stay low.
“Where is Cruce?” R’jan demands.
No one says a word. There were only three “Seelie” present the night we interred the Sinsar Dubh: V’lane, who was actually Cruce; Velvet, who is dead; and Dree-lia, who’s apparently told no one among her court what happened. Wise woman.
“You invite us to this table yet treat us as slaves. You lie, deceive, and manipulate,” Rath snarls.
“Oh, gee, we act like far more civilized versions of you,” I mock.
“You have information you do not share,” Kiall fires back. “We are no longer allies. Fuck you.” He and his brother vanish.
“Uh, did they just sift out?” I say, looking around warily, ready to duck and roll again in a heartbeat.
“We are no longer so predictable,” R’jan purrs.
“Predictable enough,” Ryodan says.
R’jan sifts out an instant before Ryodan gets to him.
“My head is not up my ass. The advisor was disposable. We knew you kept secrets. We kept our own.” The Seelie’s words linger on the air, disembodied. “Your wards no longer work on us.”
“Your wards don’t work?” I say incredulously.
“So they think,” Barrons murmurs.
“Och, that was bloody grand,” Drustan growls. “We’ve no sifters.”
“Aye,” Dageus agrees. “So now what’s the fucking plan?”
Ryodan smiles faintly. “That was the plan.”
I gasp when the Unseelie Princess from whom I’m supposedly protecting the Nine sifts into the room, materializing directly behind Barrons and Ryodan.
She takes each by an arm.
Then all three of them are gone.
32
I ain’t scared of your teeth, I admire what’s in ’em
The problem with having all chiefs and no Indians in your teepee is that unless you’re the chief dictating the current warpath, or in tight with that chief, you have no bloody idea what’s going on.
I’m not in tight with Ryodan, and apparently not with Barrons either.
I have news for them: if they think I’m going to be one of the squaws in their chauvinistic tent, they’re wrong.
Dageus and Drustan left the bookstore, less angry than I expected them to be, with Dageus making a comment about heading back to wherever it is they’re staying to spend time with his wife, and I got the impression they were either in on the plan or had reason to believe Ryodan and Barrons were actively furthering their aim of rescuing Christian. The Keltar remind me of Ryodan, men accustomed to patiently mounting complicated campaigns in pursuit of long-term goals. I suspect they see a few chess moves ahead better than I do. At the moment. I’m learning.
I have no clue if Jada/Dani was in the know or as miffed as me. Her cold, beautiful face had betrayed nothing. I’d slipped behind a bookcase and held perfectly still until I heard the doorbell tinkle as she left, then remained motionless an additional interminable ten minutes to be certain she wasn’t faking an exit while crouching silently near, a tiger ready to pounce the moment I moved so she could try to take my spear and lock me up beneath the abbey.
Eventually I’d eased out and taken a thorough look around. She was gone, ostensibly no more anxious to spend time with me than I was with her.
Now, sitting in front of the fireplace, munching a bag of slightly stale chips, I wonder why, in whatever chess game they’re playing, Barrons and Ryodan would want to make the princes think their wards didn’t work on them any longer.
I smile faintly. I am getting better at this. Soon I’ll be devising the plans, instead of merely decoding them while they’re being implemented without me.
Because the princes would relax.
Encouraging them to further lower their defenses, Ryodan made them believe they were essential to his plan, and power goes to an Unseelie Prince’s head faster than night comes slamming down in Faery.
When one feels threatened, one clears the house before going to bed, but when one feels safe — a foolish thing to ever believe — one doesn’t compulsively check all windows and doors, or is perhaps busy celebrating what one perceives as a victory over one’s enemy.