Dani shook her head. “The ability to sense Fae objects is extremely rare, Mac.”
Her roommate said stiffly, “The last sidhe-seer with that ability died a long time ago. We’ve not been successful at breeding those bloodlines.”
Breeding those bloodlines? The soft Irish lilt didn’t soften the words a bit. They were cold. Made me think of white coats and labs and petri dishes. It was no wonder I was so highly sought after. No wonder Barrons was so determined to keep me alive, and I had a Fae prince playing lapdog, and the Lord Master hadn’t yet launched a full-scale attack against me. They all needed me alive. I was Tigger. I was the only one.
“You killed Moira!” the woman in the door across the hall accused.
V’lane regarded me with acute interest. “You killed one of your own?”
“No, I didn’t kill Moira.” I addressed the sidhe-seers, who were all regarding me with open hostility, with the exception of Dani. “Rowena killed Moira when she sent her after me to beat me up and take my spear.” The woman had a name: Moira. Did she have a sister, too, who was now mourning her like I grieved for Alina? “I’m just as horrified by what happened today as you are.”
“Sure you are,” someone scoffed.
“She doesn’t even say she’s sorry,” another spat. “Just comes in here with her fancy Fae guard and blames our leader. I’m surprised she didn’t bring a Hunter along, too.”
I’d give them an apology if they wanted one. “I’m sorry I unsheathed my spear and was holding it. I’m even sorrier she decided to lunge for me right then. If she hadn’t, she’d be alive.”
“If you hadn’t refused to give us the spear, she would, too,” someone called.
“The spear isn’t yours,” another woman cried. “Why should you have it? There are only two weapons that kill Fae. More than seven hundred of us share the sword. You have the other. Do what’s right. Give it to those who were born and bred to have it!”
Others concurred.
Born and bred, my petunia. As if I were something less! “I’m the only one who can sense the Book, and I have to be out there every night, hunting for it. Do you have any idea what Dublin’s like right now? I wouldn’t survive a night without it. Besides, I’m the one who risked my life to steal it.”
My accuser sniffed and turned away, folding her arms. “Stealing. Working with a Fae Prince. Killing one of our sisters. You are not one of us.”
“I say she is, and she just got off to a bad start.” Dani said. “She didn’t have anyone to help her figure things out. How would you guys have done in the same situation? She’s just trying to survive, like we all are.”
I smiled. I’d once asked her the same thing and she’d acted all snotty and perfect, but apparently she’d gotten my point. I admired her courage, defending me like that. Barely thirteen or fourteen, and she had the balls of a bull. It was also the longest run of sentences I could recall hearing her string together, unplugged by a single cussword.
“Go back to bed, kid,” someone called.
“I am not a fecking kid,” Dani bristled. “I’ve killed more of them than any of you.”
“What’s your kill count now, Dani?” Last time we talked, she’d had forty-seven Unseelie kills to her credit. With her sidhe-gift of heightened speed, armed with the Seelie Hallow, the Sword of Light, she had to be a formidable fighter. I’d like the chance to find out one day, to battle at her side. The two of us could seriously watch each other’s backs.
“Ninety-two,” she said proudly. “And I just got this big, nasty fecker with dozens of mouths and a huge, disgusting dick—”
“All right, Dani, that’s it,” her roommate said sharply, forcibly turning her from the door. “Back to bed,”
“You got the Many-Mouthed Thing?” I exclaimed. “Way to go, Dani!”
“Thanks,” she said proudly. “He was tough to kill. You wouldn’t believe—”
“Bed. Now.” Her roommate shoved Dani into the room and pulled the door shut behind her, remaining in the hall.
“You know she’s just standing on the other side of the door, listening,” I said. “What’s the point?”
“Stay out of our business, and get that thing out of here.”
“Well said,” came the voice of steel I’d been waiting for.
Sidhe-seers fell back, allowing a silver-haired woman through. I’d wondered how long it would take her to get here. I’d wagered two or three minutes. It had taken her five. I’d wanted a few minutes alone with the sidhe-seers, unimpeded by Rowena, to clear my name. I’d said what I had to say to her followers. Now I had a few things to say to their leader.
I glanced up at V’lane. He returned the look, face impassive, but his eyes were blades, hundreds of sharp shiny edges that could spill blood in the blink of a lethal eye.
With a rustle of her long white robes, the old woman stopped in front of me. Her age was impossible to pinpoint; she might be sixty, she might be eighty. Her long silvery hair was intricately plaited in a crown above a finely wrinkled face. Glasses rested on a small pointed nose, magnifying the fierce intensity and intelligence in her piercing blue eyes.
“Rowena,” I said. She was wearing what I guessed must be Grand Mistress garb: a white hooded robe, with emerald trim, and a misshapen shamrock—the symbol of our Order’s pledge to See, Serve, and Protect—emblazoned on the breast.
“How dare you?” Her voice was low, controlled, and furious.
“Oh, you should talk,” I said, in the same tight voice.
“I invited you to assume your place among us and waited for you to accept my offer. You didn’t. I could only conclude you had turned your back on us.”
“I told you I would come and I was planning to, but a few things came up.” Things like being hunted down, abducted, locked up, and tortured to death. “It was only a few days.”
“It was a week and a half! Days matter now, even hours.”
Had it really been a week and a half? Time flew when you were dying. “Did you give them orders to kill me if it was the only way they could get my spear?”
“Och, it was not I who spilled sidhe-seer blood today!”
“Oh, yes, it was. You sent them after me. You sent six of your women to attack me. I would never have killed any of them, and they know it. They saw it happen. Moira collided with my spear. It was a terrible accident. But it was just that—an accident.”
She slipped her glasses from her nose, and let them rest on her chest, suspended by a chain of delicate seed pearls behind her neck. Without taking her gaze from my face, Rowena addressed her enclave. “She’s calling murder an accident, she is. Betraying us to our enemies and guiding them past our wards. This woman is our enemy, too.”
“I have known where your kind hide for millennia,” V’lane purred. “Your wards are laughable. They could not prevent a nightmare of me from getting in. You stink of old age and death, human. Shall I weave you dreams of it, haunt you with them?”
Rowena stared past him. “I do not hear it speaking.” To me, she said, “Give me the spear and I will permit the two of you to live. You will remain here with us. It will leave and never return.”
Snow dusted my cheeks. Soft gasps filled the corridor. Some of the sidhe-seers held out their hands, palms upward, to catch the whirling, icy flakes. I guessed none of them had seen a Fae prince before.
V’lane’s voice was even colder than the unnatural snow caused by his displeasure. “Do you think to kill me with the sword you have hidden in your robes, old woman?”
I groaned inwardly. Great. Now he had both weapons. Should I Null him and try to take them back?