Power radiated from its dark depths, crackled in the air of the cave in which I stood. I could feel something in the water, waiting in the darkness.

What lay concealed beneath the surface knew everything, could do everything, feared nothing. It was waiting for me. To call it forth. To use it as my birthright.

But doubt as vast as the thing’s watery habitat immobilized me.

What if whatever I summoned from those ancient depths wasn’t a part of me at all but something else entirely?

If it was me, I could use it.

But if by some bizarre twist of events—and no events were too bizarre to consider in my day-to-day existence—there was something down there that wasn’t me, it could use me.

I didn’t trust myself. No, I didn’t trust that sidhe-seer place.

Why would I? I hadn’t even known it existed until a few months ago. Until I knew more about what it was and wasn’t, I wasn’t calling forth any unknowns. My current skills would have to suffice.

I shook my head sharply and I was in the street again, with a raptor thing about to take a bite out of me.

I ducked.

Its head flew to the side and its body slid to the cobbled stone, leaving Dani standing where it had been, grinning at me. “Pull your head outta your arse, Mac.”

We moved into pattern: I Nulled, she killed.

I don’t know how long I fought without my spear. But it was long enough to give me a taste of what I was asking of my sisters-in-arms. I cursed Rowena for sending them into Dublin without guns, without iron bullets. I would never let them be such walking targets.

I kept looking for Kat but couldn’t find her in the mess. Without my spear, I felt naked, exposed. I felt wrong.

I slammed my palms into a tall, beetle-bodied Unseelie with a thick, many-plated carapace. It didn’t freeze. I drew back my fist, and suddenly there was another hand around mine, and when I drove it forward, Kat and I sunk the spear in its armorlike hide together.

As it crashed to the pavement, I glanced over my shoulder.

Kat smiled, nodded, and let go of the spear, leaving it in my hand. Then she turned her back to mine and moved into pattern with me, as I had with Dani.

Although she wasn’t a Null, she had a wicked uppercut, and we made a great team. Dani paired off with another sidhe-seer, and the battle raged on.

Later, we sat on curbs, leaned against buildings, and sprawled on the sidewalks, dirty, splattered with disgusting variations of Unseelie blood, exhilarated, and exhausted.

“What happened?” I asked Kat. “How did you get stuck in the middle of so many of them?”

She flushed. “We’ve grown accustomed to having Dani with us, we have. She hears what we can’t. I think they must have begun following us the moment we entered the city, drawn by our hats”—she tapped her MacHalo—“or perhaps the noise of the bus. They gathered more as we went, biding time, looking for a tight spot to close in. If you hadn’t happened along … well. It’s glad we are that you did.”

I assessed the carnage. There were several hundred Unseelie dead in the street. “We did good. With guns and a plan, we could do better.”

Kat nodded. “May we speak plainly?”

I inclined my head.

“Your differences with the Grand Mistress hurt us all.”

“Then she should wise up and see reason.”

“Her differences with you hurt us, too,” Kat said pointedly. “War is no time for a coup. Continue fighting each other and you’ll end up destroying the kingdom you’re after ruling.”

There was a chorus of murmured assents in the street.

“I’m not trying to rule. I’m just trying to help.”

“You’re both trying to rule. And we’re telling you both to stop. We’ve been talking since you and Dani left. We want you back. We don’t care if you keep the weapons. But we’re not willing to trade Rowena’s guidance for yours. We want you both. If you agree to team up, we’ll help you in whatever way we can and make Rowena accept it, too. The way we see it, neither you nor Rowena can force us to accept either one of you. But we’re willing to bet we can force you two to work together for the greater good. That is what you both say you’re after, isn’t it?”

“I’m not living at the abbey, Mac!” Dani bounded to her feet. “You said I could live with Barrons.”

I looked from Dani to Kat, considering her words. She’d made a point, and I was feeling a little ashamed of myself. I had made it personal with Rowena. I’d tried to divide and conquer, and now was not the time to be dividing loyalties over anything. We had enough problems as it was.

My whole goal in sending Dani to the abbey today was to find out when the sidhe-seers were coming in, so I could take them into battle, pump them up on victory, and regain a foothold in the abbey. Kat was offering it to me, hand outstretched. Five hundred sidhe-seers could force Rowena to cooperate with me, and all I’d have to do was bite my tongue a lot.

“I’m convinced, Kat. Convince Rowena.”

“But you said,” Dani exploded.

I sighed. I wanted my buffer. But Barrons had a point, too. It wasn’t just about me. “I need you where you’re safest, Dani. After the Unseelie Princes took you today, I’m afraid that’s not with me.”

Sidhe-seers gasped. “You were taken by the Unseelie Princes, Dani? What? How? Where did they take you? What happened?”

Suddenly Dani was the center of attention. Preening, she began to tell them all about it.

I watched the show—Dani knew how to dazzle and loved doing it—smiling faintly, feeling sad.

I wasn’t ready to give her up.

Or face the rest of the night alone with Barrons. I’d rather fight another blockful of Unseelie.

I looked at Kat. “We’ll meet you at the abbey in the morning. If the old woman behaves, so will I. You have my word.”

She gave me a level look, then her gaze dropped to the spear strapped to my thigh. “I don’t need your word, Mac. You gave me something else tonight that said it all.”

MacKayla.”

We were a block from the bookstore when V’lane’s voice slid out of the darkness, an orchestral variation on an erotic dream. The Fae have extraordinary voices, melodious and rich. The notes vibrate under your skin, sleek and sensual against the tips of your nerve endings. If the Song of Making really is a song, I’m not sure a human could survive hearing it.

I used to have what I would have called a normal sex drive. Some of my friends were beyond obsessed with it, though. I guess they thought it would fill the void of purposelessness so many in my generation are afflicted with while trying to find our place in the world.

But being Pri-ya changed me, left me with a voracious awareness of all things sexual. Or maybe sex with Barrons did it—I don’t know. All I know is that I’m far more attuned to erotic nuances than I used to be. The Seelie Prince’s murmur was a full-body caress, and I appreciated it for a moment before shrugging it off.

“V’lane!” Dani exclaimed.

He laughed, and if I hadn’t been immune to death-by-sex Fae glamour, I would have been in serious trouble. He was putting on the seduction, beautiful golden Fae radiating pure sexual heat. I’ve begun to think it’s simply part of his nature, that he can’t help it any more than some men can prevent themselves from oozing testosterone. I think some males of both species just have more.

Dani wasn’t immune. Her eyes were feverishly bright, her skin flushed, her lips parted. I caught a glimpse in that moment of the woman she would become. “Stop it, V’lane. Leave her alone.”

“I do not believe she wishes me to. Who better to awaken her to the shape and texture of Eros? Set the bar, so to speak.”

“Uh-huh,” Dani said thickly. “I’d like that.”