But I haven’t lived yet! I scream.

  He doesn’t care. He’s done with me now, he’s had his say, and he has a life to get back to, a new daughter who’s pretty and looks like him, and a new court, and new plans, and I’m sinking into the ice as he presses me down and down, and I can neither fight nor scream nor rage nor kill him as I so deeply hunger to do.

  Who is he to decide I don’t fit or belong? Who is he to tell me no one will ever accept me? Who is he to label me wrong based solely on my appearance, of all things, as if that’s what matters?

  Who is he to decide whether I live or die?

  All beings that live, no matter their form, have the right to live well and free.

  I feel the ice closing around me and I can’t breathe (although technically I don’t need to), and it feels like suffocating anyway, just like drowning in Guinness—oh, by the Goddess, what I wouldn’t give to be back drowning in Guinness inside a smelly bottle, about to seek Death’s bed again!—feels like drowning, then Cruce’s face is far away, beyond the smothering blue-black ice, and he’s placing wards atop my tomb, and walking the circumference of my sepulchre, chanting and placing more wards.

  And he’s killing me, I know, because, already, I feel a hungry darkness lapping at my essence, draining my light and energy, and all I can think is, but he’s wrong.

  He’s so very, very wrong.

  I’m not ugly.

  I’m not monstrous.

  I’m good and kind, I’m passionate about creating, never destroying, I take excellent care of books, I don’t dog-ear pages, I like to help others achieve their goals and attain success, and I love. And oh, how delightfully well I might have loved Death! (While also teaching him to label things properly.)

  In sum, I am magnificent.

  I think no more then, for despite my frantic attempts at resistance, sleep weights my lids closed with heavy coins of slumber for what may well be the last time.

  42

  Good morning, Worm, your honor

  DANI

  Telepathy is how the brilliant, space-faring beings known as the Hunters communicate and how they intend to conduct our trial.

  I stare beyond the bars of my cage, at an even dozen of the icy black dragons, remembering the first time I saw one sailing, leathery wings flapping, churning ice, high above the streets of Dublin.

  It feels like so long ago; I was so bloody young. On fire with life, irritated by everyone and at everything for not being as vibrantly alive and rambunctious as me, as I tried on one personality after the next, deciding who I wanted to be.

  Those were some of the best days. I love the kid I was. Especially now that I have a clearer perspective on how I might have turned out. I kept alive what mattered most in me, didn’t let the erosions turn into landslides.

  The Hunters, with their massive satyr-like heads, long, curved horns, cloven hooves, and forked tongues, with their great inky black hides and wings and long, scaled tails, look Satanic, although they churn ice in their wake, not flames of hellfire. Regardless, I find them beautiful and don’t want to stop being one. Nor do I want Shazam to never again get to be the entity known as Y’rill. I want a reduced sentence so we can remain the dual creatures we are. They could “clip our wings,” so to speak, for a few decades, limit our powers. I’d agree to that.

  Our jury of a dozen hang in space, effortlessly floating, without moving so much as a wingtip (bugger, I need to figure out how to do that—jealousy is me) arranged at even intervals beyond our cages.

  These are the creatures that tend the great threads of the cosmos, traveling through space and time, occasionally tying together lives and events, watching epic events unfold. Being curious adventurers, whenever they feel the ripples of significant events converging in a single spot in some remote corner of the universe, they journey to the planet suffering birth pangs to watch the changes unfold. Just as they were once drawn to Earth, not long ago, when the walls between Fae and Man began to come down.

  There are different castes of Hunters, Y’rill told me. At the bottom of their hierarchy is the caste the Unseelie king created in his laboratory: the V’Kan, who became bounty hunters of sidhe-seers. Because the Hunters were having difficulty birthing children, they allowed the king to use their essence in his quest to create life, hoping, in such fashion, they would birth more young.

  According to Y’rill, the Hunters were offended by what the king produced, and the V’Kan are outcastes. If foolish enough to join their brethren in the skies, they are instantly sifted elsewhere (and never anyplace pleasant). For repeat offenses, they are destroyed. The true Hunters want nothing to do with the mercenary caste spawned by the king.

  Still, they like the king. Y’rill says, a long time ago, he did them an enormous favor, incurring the debt of a boon, which he’s never collected. I find that thought deeply concerning. Hunters can manipulate time, and I only hope the king doesn’t one day decide he wants a complete reset. Mac says she owes him a boon, too. Again, concerning.

  The Hunters want more children. But the strictness and illogic of their rules, coupled with the complexity of the birthing process, guarantees a disappointing outcome.

  Back when I began turning black and could suddenly fling deadly lightning bolts with my hands, I had no idea what was happening to me, and I’m a woman accustomed to strangeness. I can’t imagine how the average human might deal with the disturbing transition.

  I could have rejected the changes at any time. Y’rill told me if I’d not been fully committed to embracing the transformation, if deep down I’d not hungered for it, it would have swiftly reversed, leaving me no explanation for those days parts of me blackened and I temporarily possessed a new superpower. I would never have known a great Hunter had chosen me to be her child. I would never have become the space-exploring dragon I am.

  You will speak only when spoken to, explodes in my head, and I clap my hands to my ears, snarling, “Volume!” Bloody hell, they’re louder than Christian in a pissy mood. We’re not off to a good start. Already I’m bristling. Speak when I’m spoken to, my ass. “I’d like to see the letter of the law,” I demand.

  What part of “speak only when spoken to” did you fail to understand?

  “Every bloody syllable,” I reply flatly. “You’ve been torturing us, caged us, starved us, left us in the darkness, accused of crimes you’ve not even bothered to address, and you’re supposed to be so bloody highly evolved that one has every reason to expect—”

  Silence!

  “—at least something to eat in their cage, even if it’s only a thin gruel of virtually inedible protein-based food. And I can’t hear Shazam. I have a right to hear what he says. Let me hear him.”

  SILENCE!

  My ears ring, and I’m suddenly nauseated. “I’ll keep my mouth shut if you let me hear Shazam when he speaks.” I’m desperate to be able to talk to him, console him. Being trapped in a cage, watching as he weeps, is killing me. I hunger to comfort him, reassure him.

  Fiery snorts echo inside my head. Many thoughts broadcast at once: She’s a difficult one. Why would Y’rill choose her? Perhaps it’s not Y’rill’s fault but the fault of that unmanageable one. Y’rill was a rule-follower until she came along. Finished by the stern admonishment: Y’rill will be held accountable for her actions. They were hers alone. Hunters are not influenced by others.

  “Bull-crikey. Everyone is influenced by others, if they love them,” I growl. “The only thing Y’rill is guilty of is loving me. That’s the only reason she did any of the things she did. Speaking of, where are your laws? I demand the opportunity to study and prepare our defense.”

  Suddenly there’s sound as if they’ve connected our cages to a vast intercom system, and Shazam is sobbing violently. “Yi-yi, my Yi-yi, can you ever forgive me?”

  “There’s nothing to forgive, Shazam. I wouldn’t undo a moment of our time together,” I say fervently. “I see you, Yi-yi.”

  You will not address each other, only the court. If you violate that rule again, we will not permit you to hear what Y’rill says.

  “But that’s just the problem,” I pounce instantly. I was ready for this, had my argument prepared. “You accuse Y’rill yet put Shazam on trial. Shazam didn’t make the choices you intend to punish. Y’rill did. Therefore Y’rill should be the one speaking.”

  Silence for a suspended moment, then a burst of thoughts I can’t make out followed by deafening silence as they terminate telepathic communication with me.

  Bouncing from foot to furious foot, ignoring the borderline migraine I’ve got from starvation, excruciatingly aware I have precious little energy to spare, I snarl, “You can’t just shut me out. Trials don’t work that way. I have the right to be privy to the detailed thinking behind your decisions. Even humans allow that, and you’re supposedly vastly superior. Heavy emphasis on the ‘supposedly.’ ”

  Twelve pair of fiery eyes swivel my way.

  Shazam is no longer permitted to be Hunter.

  “I know that’s what you’ve decided. I’m saying it’s wrong. Shazam is not a Hunter. He’s a small being that doesn’t possess the wisdom and intelligence of Y’rill. He can’t express himself as clearly as she. It wasn’t Shazam that committed the crimes of which he’s accused. It was Y’rill. You’re trying the wrong person. Y’rill must have the opportunity to speak on her own behalf.”

  One by one, the Hunters vanish, I suppose to reconvene elsewhere and discuss the objection I raised. I take their adjournment as a hopeful sign. And I hope also, when they return, they’ll bring me the letter of their law and allow me time to pore over it.

  “Shazam?” I say just as hopefully. There’s no reply. They’ve disconnected us from each other again.

  Sighing, I turn to gaze across space at him, and my heart sinks. Furry paws tipped with black talons wrap tightly around the bars against which he’s slumped, sobbing.

  I can’t help but see myself, when I was young, in my own cage. How many nights I felt the same, small and alone, aching for comfort. I understand his pain, loneliness, and fears. Shaz and me, we’re perfect together. I’m not losing him.

  Abruptly, my cage goes dark, and I can no longer see beyond it.

  Sighing, I slump to the floor, hear a clatter, and grope about frantically in the darkness, trying to find whatever I jostled.

  I discover it, by plunging a hand into something cold and wet. “Oh, bloody hell, it’s about time,” I mutter. I don’t even care what’s in the metal bowl they deposited in my cage when they turned out the lights. It’s a grain of some kind, swimming in a thin liquid. Holy Not-a-Happy Meal, Batman, I think irritably, if I’d known they were taking orders, I would have suggested a burger and fries.

  I eat greedily, using my fingers to shove the messy stuff into my mouth, pausing to slurp sips between gulps, hoping they fed Shazam, too.

  If not, that cruelty will also be addressed when they return.

  43

  Behold, I have become Death

  CHRISTIAN

  You are the end of all Fae, Lyryka whispered urgently in my ear before vanishing, the Unseelie king’s version of the Seelie queen’s Far Dorocha, driver of her Death Coach. You can kill them. Death was created as the king’s private weapon. Only the king and Cruce knew what the prince was, and they never told him, never gave him the spell to attain his full power. Check the Boora Boora books. You’ll find what you need there.

  I sit before a pile of those very books, which I’ve not yet opened because the moment I do, words and sentences will commence a determined, hostile march from between the pages. For whatever reason, the sentences in the Boora Boora books don’t like being confined to the page; perhaps they think their story sucks and seek the opportunity to write their own, a new one in which events are more momentous and interesting. I’ve read a few books in my time that certainly could have used a bit of help, a few of which needed to be rewritten entirely.

  Dani cracked these books open, long ago, in the king’s True Library, the day she released the Crimson Hag. I’d been hovering near the high shelves, drawn for some unfathomable reason to peruse those tomes, listening as she snickered below. Her snickers turned to curses as she tried frantically to stuff sentences back into the books, and they stung her with the viciousness of fire ants, incensed at being mangled and manhandled.

  The Boora Boora books come from a world that bears the same name, where nothing is what it seems. Rather like Earth, lately, and I wonder if, in time, the Song of Making might not awaken our stories, bringing all the characters that have ever been written to life. Bloody hell, I hope not. We’ve already got enough freakish characters on the prowl.

  I take a deep breath and reach for the first volume, bracing myself, cursing Lyryka’s sense of humor. No doubt she tucked the information I needed between these pages to mess with me. I smile faintly. She knew all along what I was. And it didn’t diminish one defiant, perky, irritable ounce of her personality.

  Assuming the spell works, I’ll soon be as lethal as Mac’s spear, as deadly as Dani’s sword.

  And, if it works, Lyryka will have given us a third weapon to use against the Fae, against her own father, which speaks volumes to me.

  I eye the pile of books—seven in all—with irritation, fair certain, should I commence my search at the top of the pile, what I seek will invariably be at the bottom of the stack, and vice versa, so I remove the top three books, place them aside, and open the fourth.

  I slam it closed violently, but not fast enough. A tangle of trapped sentences dangles from between the covers, twisting, turning, straining, and hissing at me.

  Christ, they’re fast and furious little fucks.

  I glare at the closed book with the explosion of bristling sentences and shrug. I’ve got a shattered mirror somewhere in my keep, from which I’ve no doubt something dreadful has escaped, and I’ll probably break another bottle soon. My castle is already a shambolic affair. How much more harm can seven books of marauding sentences do to my life, scurrying about my floors?

  I should know better than to think questions like that, inviting the universe to answer. It’s always listening, snickering behind a cosmic hand.

  Resolved, I open the fourth book again, but this time I swiftly turn it upside down and shake the book vigorously, dumping the story onto the floor. Words spill in a snarl of sentences that writhe on the flagstones but quickly manage to extricate themselves from one another and dash off, speedy as snakes, for the far corners of my chapel, where they vanish into cracks in the stone.

  And there, on the floor, where, seconds ago, a complete story was jumbled about, lies a folded piece of parchment with my name on it.

  I snort, amused.

  And, och, bloody hell, charmed.

  I may be violently horny and frustrated as a celibate priest. Still, I’m charmed.

  Christ, I wish I knew what she looked like.

  Lyryka drew a tiny heart to dot the “i” in my name.

  I unfold the parchment, expecting to discover the written words of a spell, but that’s not what happens, and I understand, belatedly, why the spell was in the Boora Boora books.

  The moment I open the parchment, words fly from the page.

  Literally. Fly.

  One moment the sentences are there on the paper, the next they’re wrapping around my throat, nipping with sharp, pointy letters, puncturing holes in my skin, and burrowing into my flesh.

  I surge to my feet, swatting at the damned sentences, but it’s too late, they’re inside me, and my mind whirls frantically, as I hope to hell my lie-detecting abilities are worth their salt and Lyryka isn’t some kind of—

  Ow!

  While swatting at my neck, I just conked myself in the head with something, and I’m stunned to realize I’m holding an object that wasn’t in my hand before.

  It appeared out of nowhere, manifesting in my grip.

  A sense of wholeness settles over me, as if something was missing, as if I knew all along my transformation to prince was incomplete, but had no idea what I lacked.

  What I now hold in my hand was precisely what I lacked.

  I imagine the original prince of Death spent his entire existence feeling, in similar fashion, vaguely unfinished, diminished. I wonder if that’s why I had such difficulty learning to control my power.

  My hand is fisted around the shaft of a reaper’s scythe fashioned of antiqued, blackened silver, sporting a long, wickedly curved obsidian blade. It’s as tall as I am, with eight lethal spikes around the hilt, at the point of ascension, where the shaft curves into blade. The shaft itself is the perfect thickness to grasp with my hand, its surface embedded with glowing, icy blue-black runes. It feels good in my hand. It feels alive, as much a living part of me as my wings.

  I turn to glance in the mirror that leans against the wall and, as I do, I sense the ancient, sentient power of the Unseelie king.

  Behind me, it nearly drapes my shoulders in a great, inky cloak, and I go motionless, as if I might somehow become invisible to it.

  It oozes over my skin, smoky and dark. I hold my breath as it pokes and prods at me, as if taking my measure, and I will silently, No, no, no, not me. I don’t want you. I’m a Highlander, a Keltar druid and the prince of Death, and that’s quite enough for me so please just go away and pick someone else. Anyone else. Except Cruce, I append hastily and vehemently. Please. Just not me.

  Abruptly, the king’s power vanishes.

  “Oh, bloody hell, thank you,” I explode, punching the air with a fist.