For the first time in my life, I want a rule book.

  I, Dani O’Malley, would like a rule—the horror of it! I’d like to know a concrete rule such as: after two years, or five years, or a decade, I’ll be fully immortal in both forms.

  I frown. Maybe I wouldn’t like to know that, because, then, I might be tempted to be careful with myself for that period of time, which would seriously dick with my head.

  I sigh irritably. Life was a lot simpler when I had nothing to lose and nothing to live for but the sheer rush of living. Then I began loving people and caring about things, like whether I lived or died, and my essential principles started getting squished and contorted. I used to think adulthood sucks. I’m now convinced of it. I miss the days I swaggered around, little belly sticking out, full of myself and oblivious.

  Yeah, well, not everything about those days. Mostly just my attitude.

  It occurs to me I might be regressing, given my current situation, taking a broody page from one of Jericho Barrons’s books.

  But some things trigger me, hard. I’m a redhead. Easily triggered comes with the hair. We’re fiery folk. Most of the time I file “easily triggered” under “perfectly normal, bodacious response to life.” Not something like PTSD.

  Still. There is one thing that can really get to me. Even after all these years.

  With a groan, I lean back against the wall, gingerly stretching my legs. Everything hurts. I slammed into the perimeter so many times my body is one big bruise.

  I’m alone. Naked. No sword. It’s back in Chester’s. That makes me feel way more naked than naked does. Depending on who’s got me, naked can buy me a moment of brain-stutter in a male enemy. I’ll take any advantage I can get.

  Just like years ago, I’m all I’ve got.

  One moment I was in bed with Ryodan, the next everything went black, then I woke up here. And it’s still black. It was difficult at first to convince myself I’m awake because it’s the kind of blackness that is blindness. There’s not one speck of light, not even one speck of slightly-not-black. It’s total ocular deprivation.

  I must have been unconscious, but have no idea how I was put under or why, or who has me. Someone noodled me about. It offends me on a mitochondrial level, turns all my cells into bristling Tasmanian devils, bouncing from foot to foot, raging for a fight.

  I have no bloody idea where I am.

  But one fact is as solid as the unbendable, unbreakable, inescapable, very thick bars I kept smashing into.

  Someone snatched me.

  From Ryodan. From inside Chester’s.

  Noodled me about like I was a kid. Not a ferocious Hunter/superhero.

  Metal bars surround me.

  There are thick, impossible-to-dent-even-with-my-super-strength slabs at the bottom and top.

  I don’t need lights to know where I am.

  I’m in a cage.

  I knew the moment I came to. Live long enough behind bars and you become intimately acquainted with the tiniest nuances of imprisonment; the way the air movement stutters at evenly spaced intervals. It’s a bare puff of a difference, but such things become your whole world when there’s nothing else to feel.

  But hunger.

  Surely my captors will feed me.

  There’s going to be hell to pay when I get out of here. And I will get out of here.

  I wonder—whoever’s done this to me—do they know my past, or was their choice of incarceration merely a happy coincidence for them?

  If it’s a happy coincidence, I’ll be more merciful.

  When I kill them.

  23

  I was once like you are now

  CRUCE

  “MacKayla Lane knows you’re alive,” Masdann said as he sifted into Cruce’s bedchamber.

  Cruce turned from the fire that blazed in the hearth. “I’ve told you not to sift into my chambers. Unless I summon, use the door.”

  “I believed this news of critical import.”

  It was. Undesirable at that. He’d been staring into the flames, perfecting the details of his next moves, which, until this moment, had included how and when he was going to reveal himself to Mac, an act he’d been anticipating for a long time. “How is that possible?” Lyryka would never risk his wrath, not after what he threatened to do if she disobeyed him, not that he would. Prickly but sweet as an eternal child, she hungered to please him. He was her entire world. He’d made certain of that.

  “I do not know.”

  “What makes you think she knows?”

  “She was sitting on a sofa when I moved in behind her to see what she was writing.”

  “Sitting on a sofa, where?” Cruce demanded.

  “At Chester’s.”

  Cruce’s eyes flashed. “You went to Chester’s again without explicit orders from me to do so?”

  “If you wish me to pass as him surely enough to convince even her, I must know her innermost thoughts.”

  “Have I failed to make myself clear? If I have not given you an order, you do not take action,” Cruce snarled.

  “Am I enslaved then,” Masdann asked, but without the inflection of a question.

  Cruce stared at him a long moment then slowly began to laugh. “Ah, Masdann, you surprise me.”

  “You question my loyalty, my liege.”

  “I question everyone’s.”

  “That leaves you no one to trust, a perilous state of affairs.”

  “Trust is expectation that another will behave in keeping with prior actions. They rarely do. Do you feel enslaved?”

  Masdann was quiet a moment, then said, “I exist only to serve your needs. Is that not enslavement? How is it different from the stories you’ve told me of the prior king?”

  “It is only for a short time longer. Until we’ve accomplished our aims.”

  “Your aims.”

  “My aims that will establish your place in the world. Have patience, Masdann.”

  “ ‘Patience’ is another word for ‘I’ll tell you when.’ Again, how is this different from the stories you’ve told me of the prior king who said ‘only until my concubine is immortal and fully Fae’? How long did that take? Oh, wait, it never happened.”

  “Unlike me, the prior king wasn’t seeking the Shadow Court’s freedom. He wasn’t fighting to raise you to the light. He sought a personal and selfish aim.”

  “Desire for a woman lay at the core of things, then as now.”

  “A small part of a larger plan.”

  “Your desire to possess her is lesser than your desire for our freedom?”

  “You’ve never questioned me before. Has something changed?”

  “I’ve seen what lies above and am intrigued and eager to live. You think motive defines results.”

  Cruce inhaled sharply. “You do not walk in my dreams!” It wasn’t a question but a sudden suspicion. He’d thought those exact words recently. His prince could walk in dreams that shaped the dreamer’s thoughts and actions. An excessively dangerous power if he chose to abuse it.

  “Does the creator fear he’s created something unmanageable?”

  “Are you challenging me?”

  “I’m saying the reason you oppress someone is irrelevant. They’re still oppressed and hunger to be free. We’ve been waiting for years.”

  “You know nothing about years!” Cruce snarled. “Let me tell you what it’s like to live for tens of thousands—no, hundreds of thousands—of years believing, pledging your loyalty, waiting, always waiting for that one day that never comes. What are three or four years to you? You know nothing of suffering!”

  “Perhaps I know nothing of such lengthy periods of time, but I know you’re becoming like him. The one you despise. I’m not permitted to do anything of my own accord. I exist only to fulfill your commands. If that is what my life is to be, tell me. Don’t promise me freedom only to withhold it in the slightest ways. I serve you, always. But I have dreams of my own. As do my brethren.”

  A long silence spun out between them. Cruce studied Masdann’s features, wondering if he’d inadvertently captured too much of the original’s arrogance, independence, and determination. Was he, like the prototype, too wild to ever be tamed, too free to be broken? Arguing for his brethren’s rights, just as he, Cruce, had done so long ago. Had he created his own rival?

  There was truth in Masdann’s words. The Shadow Court was newborn, and, until now, the lavish underground world he’d created for them had been enough. He’d not hobbled them with insatiable hunger. They were capable of deriving pleasure among their own kind. But eons ago, three or four years of imprisonment had seemed cruelly long to Cruce, too. Yet time had crawled so slowly by, dragging on and on, that he’d become inured to the passage of it. His faith in his king had faded. His rage had grown.

  Was he doing the same to his own prince? “What freedom do you wish?” he said.

  “The freedom of trust.”

  “Ah, only the greatest freedom of all,” Cruce scoffed. “Ask for the world, why don’t you?”

  “You made me. You know me better than anyone. You fashioned me to want the world. That was what you intended, yet now you deny it. You created a hunger you forbid to be fed, gave me the power to navigate a realm where all is possible yet ask me to live in a realm where nothing is. Only what you choose to allow me. Befriend me or make me your enemy. Destroy me, if you must. I will live no other way than trusted and free. You want the woman. I will deliver her to you with her heart aflame with desire and love. But only if you trust me—the one who walks in the deepest, richest, most magical of realms—to learn her, know her, understand what she needs. You gave me great power. Let me use it.”

  “Did she think you were him?”

  “Yes. And now we know for certain it’s possible for me to move intimately close within their world, undetected.”

  “And if she mentions to Barrons that she saw him at a time he knows he wasn’t there?”

  “I may have given her a suggestion to forget the encounter while dreaming.”

  “Did you kiss her?”

  “No. But I may. Can you abide?”

  Cruce’s eyes flashed with sudden thunder, and his wings rustled warning. “Only in the Dreaming. Never in real life. That is forbidden.”

  Masdann inclined his dark head, lips lifting faintly at one corner. “Real life is, I suspect, but another dream, my liege, wherein emotional decisions are rarely any wiser than they are in the waking. Still, as you wish. Am I free to attend her as I deem necessary to secure your aims?”

  Cruce weighed his options. His prince was right. He needed to either destroy him or set him free, and he couldn’t bear the thought of destroying him. Before long, Masdann would be free anyway. They could reach that moment as allies. Or enemies. Once, Cruce had loved his king. And he’d begun to bristle at incessant promises of a future that never came to pass. Poisoned by the arrows of time and neglect, love became hate in time enough.

  “You are free to attend her as you deem necessary to secure my aims. But once my goal is met, you will no longer reveal yourself to her. She will never lay eyes upon you again,” he emphasized. Neither prototype nor copy; Cruce would see to that.

  “As you wish.” Masdann inclined his head and turned for the door.

  * * *

  After Masdann left, Cruce stared, brooding, into the flames. MacKayla knew he was alive. He’d missed the opportunity for his great reveal. It mattered to him. He’d wanted to study her when she first laid eyes on him after so long, probe for hidden joy beneath her confusion. Had she grieved him? Had she told tales of the great Cruce, as he’d instructed, who’d been willing to sacrifice his own existence to save the world? No matter that he’d known the bracelet he demanded when they signed the Compact, coupled with a certain chamber in the Unseelie king’s castle, would likely keep him alive.

  He’d not been certain.

  And therein lay worlds of sacrifice.

  He’d always planned to one day create his own Shadow Court. He spent millennia refining what bits of essences he would employ, studying the king’s notes, trials, and results, making his own notes on how to improve, securing the ingredients he required, purloining many without their owner’s knowledge, secreting them away. The raw material from Barrons had been difficult to acquire as the bastard hungered to kill him, and could. Cruce had kept him at a giant’s arm’s length for a small eternity.

  But that day in the rain, when Barrons discovered Cruce had fucked MacKayla, too, they’d ended up at each other’s throats, and his small theft had gone unnoticed.

  Masdann contained part of Jericho Barrons’s very essence, the physical matter of which he was fashioned.

  It was no wonder he was difficult to control.

  It was on that day Cruce realized MacKayla had feelings for him. She’d never told Barrons they’d had sex. She’d concealed it, a hidden jewel in her memory, hers alone to revisit and relive. She’d wanted the other princes dead yet never tried to kill him. He would set her free from the male she’d imprinted upon merely because he’d found her first.

  “Masdann,” he murmured.

  “My liege?” The prince appeared at his side.

  “Did you read all that MacKayla had written?”

  “Only a few sentences penned at the top of a new page.”

  “I want to know everything she wrote. Did you put her to sleep?”

  “Of course. Our deepest fears and desires surface like submerged swans from the lake of midnight slumber to take flight in astonishing and revealing ways.”

  Cruce began to command him to read and report back, but chose to rephrase before he spoke. Masdann had reminded him that courtesies mattered among royalty for good reason. With beings as powerful as Fae, a light tread engendered priceless loyalty. It occurred to him that he was unable to recall the last time Masdann had called him anything other than “my liege.” Once he’d called him king. “How would you feel about reading the entirety and reporting the contents to me?”

  Masdann’s smile lit his dark face, a fierce sun blazing on the coldest of winter days. “It would be my pleasure. My king.”

  * * *

  Hours later, Cruce sprawled on the chesterfield sofa before the fire, where, one day, Mac would find her place beside him, in a place that would feel familiar to her, but afforded a far better view. His fireplace, rather than being inserted into a mere wall, was framed by the cosmos itself. The vastness of space yawned behind the flames, brilliant with glittering stars. Big minds liked big views. Ah, yes, she would feel at home here.

  Lyryka had betrayed him. He had no doubt the simpleton had slipped. She possessed no guile, no ability to play games within games, a weakness he rued. As he’d feared, she was too naïve, too trusting to be used as a tool in the world beyond her flask, despite his clear instructions. He’d have been wiser to hone her into a sharper tool, indoctrinate her to suffering at a young age rather than cosseting her. Still, she’d done her best. It wasn’t good enough. He’d hoped to be able to use her to learn the deepest secrets of the Keltar, keepers of the lore, and the Nine, who were capable of killing the Fae. He’d selected the two forms to which he’d restricted her to sow chaos. The enemy, befuddled by mysteries and inconsistencies, always proved more malleable. But from the moment of her birth, Lyryka had been a disappointment. He no longer had need of the library. Though he’d hoped she would prove of use in his current endeavors, she’d cheated him of a prized moment. Still, she’d done her best, and it would soon be time for him to keep the promise he’d made long ago.

  Despite having lost the element of surprise, it was difficult for him to be upset by much of anything, because the rest of the news was so auspicious, the best for which he could have hoped.

  The Seelies’ memories had—as he’d suspected they might, hence his theft of the Cauldron of Forgetting—been restored. He’d removed the Cauldron of Forgetting some time ago, to prevent them from drinking again.

  He knew what the restoration meant. But MacKayla didn’t. She’d inherited the power of a queen who had never possessed the full history of the Fae, and there was much Cruce had not shared with her. MacKayla didn’t know the Fae had once been wildly, disastrously emotional beings, far back, when they were mortal, before they’d drunk the Elixir of Life. Cruce knew Fae origins better than anyone, except for the king and Lyryka, given the work Lyryka had done for him over countless millennia, scouring the Unseelie king’s library, distilling facts and reporting to him.

  Emotion had returned as well.

  Coupling that with their abduction of Jack Lane and Dani O’Malley assured him of one more delightful fact, for which he’d hoped but been unconvinced.

  Mortality for the Light Court was not far behind—and they knew it.

  Events had come to a head at one of several possible critical junctures he’d foreseen years ago, when MacKayla had sung the Song of Making. The queen and humans had been so certain the Light Court would escape unscathed, deemed perfect as they were.

  Cruce had not been nearly as certain, and he’d postulated what the ancient melody might do to his “fairer” brethren.

  It had done exactly what they deserved.

  It was destroying them, too.

  His original plan, based on a different conjunction of events—in which the Seelie remained immortal—was to rule with MacKayla, king to her queen.

  But this delightful twist of fate—for which he’d hoped and planned but been uncertain might come to pass—changed everything. The Seelie would die out, there would soon be no Light Court, and no need for a queen.