Faefever Part 23

"I know," he said.

"She's eating Unseelie."

"Yes."

"Do you care?"

"Fio is her own woman, Ms. Lane."

"What if I have to kill her?" If she came after me now, I'd have no choice but to stab her.

"She tried to kill you. If her plan had worked, you would have been dead. I underestimated her. I didn't think her capable of murder. I was wrong. She wanted you out of the way and was willing to sacrifice anything I might want, or need, to accomplish it."

"Were you her lover?"

He looked at me. "Yes."

"Oh." I swirled the cocoa with my spoon. "She was a little old, don't you think?" I rolled my eyes at myself as soon as I said it. I was going by appearances, not reality. Reality was Barrons was at least twice her age; who knew how much more?

His lips curved faintly.

I began to cry.

Barrons looked horrified. "Stop that immediately, Ms. Lane."

"I can't." I sniffled into my cup of cocoa so he couldn't see my face.

"Try harder!"

I gave a great sniff and shudder, and turned it off.

"I have not been her lover for . . . some time," he offered, watching me carefully.

"Oh, get over yourself! That's not why I cried."

"Why, then?"

"I can't do it, Barrons," I said hollowly. "You saw it. I can't get . . . that . . . that . . . thing. thing. Who are we kidding?" Who are we kidding?"

We stared into the flames for a time, until long after my cocoa was gone.

"What did it feel like to you?" I said, finally.

His mouth shaped a bitter smile. "All this time I've been hunting it, I've been telling myself I I would be the exception. I would be the one who could touch it. Use it. I would be unaffected. I was so certain of myself. 'Just get me within sight distance of it, Ms. Lane,' I said, convinced I'd all but have it in the bag then. Well, I was wrong." He laughed, a sharp bark of a sound. "I can't touch it, either." would be the exception. I would be the one who could touch it. Use it. I would be unaffected. I was so certain of myself. 'Just get me within sight distance of it, Ms. Lane,' I said, convinced I'd all but have it in the bag then. Well, I was wrong." He laughed, a sharp bark of a sound. "I can't touch it, either."

"Can't? Or won't?"

"A fine distinction. Irony, perfect definition: That for which I want to possess it, I would no longer want, once I possessed it. I would lose everything to gain nothing. I am not one for exercises in futility."

Well, at least I no longer had to worry about Barrons or V'lane getting the Book before I did. V'lane couldn't touch it because he was Seelie, and Barrons wouldn't wouldn't touch it because he was smart enough to realize that whatever purpose he wanted it for would be instantly forfeit to the Beast's all-consuming nature. "Was it coming after us?" I asked. touch it because he was smart enough to realize that whatever purpose he wanted it for would be instantly forfeit to the Beast's all-consuming nature. "Was it coming after us?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said. "It certainly looked like it, though, didn't it?"

I nestled deeper into my blankets. "What are we going to do, Barrons?"

He gave me a dark look. "The only thing we can do, Ms. Lane. We're going to keep those f.u.c.king walls up."

FOURTEEN.

When I unlocked the front door Thursday morning to open for business-a measure of how desperately I wanted to be a normal girl in a normal world-Inspector Jayne was waiting for me.

I stepped back to let him in, closed the door, then, with a gusty sigh, ceded the absurdity of my actions, and flipped the sign back to CLOSED CLOSED. I wasn't normal and it wasn't a normal world, and pretending wasn't going to accomplish a thing. It was time to call yet another of my own bluffs. The bookstore lulled me with temporary comfort that I had no right to. I should be anxious, I should be afraid. Fear is a powerful motivator.

I took the inspector's damp coat and motioned him to a seat near the fire. "Tea? Er, I mean, normal tea?"

He nodded and sat.

I brought him a cup of Earl Grey, took a seat across from him, and sipped at my own.

"Aren't we the pair?" he said, blowing his cup to cool.

I smiled. We certainly were. It seemed a year ago that he'd dragged me down to the station. Months since he'd accosted me in the alcove with his maps. "It has downsides," I told him, meaning eating Unseelie. He knew what I meant. It was what he'd come here for.

"Doesn't everything?"

"It makes you superstrong, but the Fae can't be killed, Jayne. You can't engage them. You must be satisfied merely seeing them. If you start trying to kill them, they'll know you know, and they'll kill you."

"How strong does eating it make you? As strong as one of them?"

I considered it. I didn't know, and told him that.

"So, it might?"

I shrugged. "Regardless, you still can't kill them. They don't die. They're immortal."

"Why do you think we have prisons, Ms. Lane? We're not allowed to kill the serial murderers, either."

"Oh." I blinked. "I never thought of imprisoning them. I'm not certain anything would hold them." Except an Unseelie prison woven from the fabric of the Song of Making. "They sift, remember?"

"All of them?"

He'd made another good point. I'd never seen a Rhino-boy sift. I supposed it was possible only the more powerful Fae could do it; the princes and the one-of-a-kinds like the Gray Man.

"Isn't it worth a try? Maybe we lowly humans can come up with a few surprises. While you do your thing, others can be doing theirs. The word in the street is that something bad is coming, soon. What's going on?"

I told him about Halloween, and the walls, and what would happen if they came down.

He placed his cup and saucer on the table. "And you would have me go out there defenseless?"

"It has other downsides, too. I'm not sure what they all are, but one of them is that if you get wounded by one of the immortal weapons, you'll . . ." I described Malluce 's death for him. The decomposing flesh, the dying body parts.

"How many of these immortal weapons are there, Ms. Lane?"

"Two." How far he'd come from denying missing parts of the maps to so casually speaking of dining on monsters and immortal weapons!

"Who has them?"

"Uh, me and someone else."

He smiled faintly. "I'll take my chances."

"It's addictive."

"I used to smoke. If I can quit that, I can quit anything."

"I think it changes you somehow." I was pretty sure eating Unseelie was why I'd been able to get closer to the Sinsar Dubh Sinsar Dubh. There was a lot about eating Dark Fae I wasn't clear on, but something something had made the Book perceive me as . . . tarnished, diluted. had made the Book perceive me as . . . tarnished, diluted.

"Lady, you've changed me more than an early heart attack. Quit stalling. No more tips, remember?"

For the time being, I didn't want tips. I had no desire to know where the Book was, other than as a means of avoiding it.

"You didn't give me a choice when you opened my eyes," the inspector said roughly. "You owe me for that."

I studied his face, the set of his shoulders, his hands. How far I'd come, too. Far from seeing an enemy, an impediment to my progress, I saw a good man sitting in my store, having tea with me. "I'm sorry I made you eat it," I said.

"I'm not," he said flatly. "I'd rather die seeing the face of my enemy than die blind."

I sighed. "You'll have to come back every few days. I don't know how long it lasts."

I went to the counter, rummaged in my purse. He accepted the jars a bit eagerly for my taste, revulsion married to antic.i.p.ation on his face. I felt like a supplier to a junkie. I felt like a mom, sending her child off to face the perils of first grade. I had to do more than pack his lunch and put him on the bus; I had to give him advice.

"The ones that look like Rhinos are watchdogs for the Fae. They spy, and lately, for some bizarre reason, they've been doing utility work. I think the ones that fly prey on children, but I'm not sure. They follow them, behind their shoulders. There are dainty, pretty ones that can get inside you. I call them Grippers. If you see one coming toward you, run like h.e.l.l. The shadowy dark ones will devour you in an instant if you stumble into a Dark Zone. At night, you've got got to stay to the lights. . . ." I was half hanging out the door, calling after him. "Start carrying flashlights at all times. If they catch you in the dark, you're dead." to stay to the lights. . . ." I was half hanging out the door, calling after him. "Start carrying flashlights at all times. If they catch you in the dark, you're dead."

"I'll figure it out, Ms. Lane." He got in his car and drove away.

At eleven o'clock, I was in Punta Cana, walking on the beach with V'lane, wearing a gold lame bikini (me, not V'lane; tacky, I know; he he chose it) with a hot pink sarong. chose it) with a hot pink sarong.

I'd released his name to the wind and summoned him shortly after Jayne had left, desperate for answers, and not at all averse to a little sunshine. I'd been thinking about the walls all night and most of the morning. The more we knew about them, the better our odds were of fortifying them. The surest bet for information was a Fae Prince, one of the queen's most trusted, and one who'd not drunk from the cauldron for a long, long time.

First, he demanded to know the latest about the Sinsar Dubh Sinsar Dubh and I told him, withholding the fact that Barrons had been with me to avoid a potential p.i.s.sing contest. I told him there was no point in my continuing to pursue it right now, because I had no clue how to get close to it, and since he couldn't, either, there was no way to get it to the queen. As I said that, a question occurred to me that was so obvious I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it before. and I told him, withholding the fact that Barrons had been with me to avoid a potential p.i.s.sing contest. I told him there was no point in my continuing to pursue it right now, because I had no clue how to get close to it, and since he couldn't, either, there was no way to get it to the queen. As I said that, a question occurred to me that was so obvious I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it before.

"You said the queen can touch it, so why doesn't she come after it herself?"

"She dares not leave Faery. She was attacked recently, and it left her severely weakened. Her enemies in the mortal world are too numerous. She has fled court and sought an ancient place of refuge and protection within our realm. It is also a place of high magic. There, she believes she can re-create the Song. None but those few she trusts can enter. She must be kept safe, MacKayla. There is no other to lead in her place. All the princesses are gone."

"What happened to them?" In a matriarchal line, that was a disaster.

"She sent them searching for the Book, along with others. They have not been seen or heard from since."

And they thought I I could do this? If Fae Princesses couldn't hold their own against the many dangers out there, what chance did I have? could do this? If Fae Princesses couldn't hold their own against the many dangers out there, what chance did I have?

"There's something I don't understand, V'lane. The walls of the Unseelie prison were put up hundreds of thousands of years ago, weren't they?"

"Yes."

"Wasn't that a long time before Queen Aoibheal erected the ones between our realms?"

He nodded.

"Well, if they existed independently once before, why can't they now? Why will the prison walls go down, too, if the LM succeeds in bringing those between our worlds down? Why will all all the walls fall?" the walls fall?"

"The walls have never existed independently. The walls between our worlds are an extension of those prison walls. Without the Song, the queen was unable to fabricate barriers on her own. Separating worlds requires immense power. She had to tap into the magic of the prison walls, and entrust a portion of the new walls' fortification to humans. A pact of magic inevitably yields stronger results than a solo undertaking. It was risky, but over the protests of her council, she deemed it necessary."

"Why did the council protest?"

"When first we came here, you were like the rest of life on this world: savages, animals. But one day you developed language. One day the dog did not wag its tail and bark. It spoke. She felt that made you higher beings. She granted you rights and ordered us to coexist. It did not work but, rather than exterminating you-which two thirds of her council was in favor of-she separated us, as part of your new rights."

It was obvious V'lane didn't think we'd deserved any rights at all. "Sorry we wrecked your racial supremacy," I said coolly. "It was our world first, remember?"

Snow dusted my shoulders. "You say that often. Tell me, human, precisely what do you think that establishes? That by dint of fate you happened to begin life on this planet ent.i.tles you to it? Under our care your world flourished. We made it verdant; for us Gaea bloomed. Your race has smogged it up, carved it up, concreted it up, and now you overpopulate it. The planet weeps. Your kind knows no restraint. We do. Your kind knows no patience. We are the most patient race you will ever encounter."

His words chilled me. The Fae could take thousands of years getting around to reimprisoning their dark brethren but the human race would never survive that long. More reason why we had to keep the prison break from occurring. "What's the LM doing that's weakening the walls?"

"I do not know."

"What can we do to fortify them?"

"I do not know. There were agreements reached between the queen and the humans she hid and protected. They must honor those agreements."

"They have been, and it's not working."

He shrugged a golden shoulder. "Why do you fear? If the walls come down, I will keep you safe."

"I'm not the only one I'm worried about."

"I will protect those you care for in . . . Ashford, is it not? Your mother and father. Who else matters to you?"

I felt the tip of a blade caress my spine at his words. He knew of my parents. He knew where I was from. I despised any Fae, good or bad, knowing anything about the people I love. I understood how Alina must have felt, trying so hard to keep us hidden from the dark new world she'd stumbled into in Dublin, including the boyfriend she'd trusted. Had her heart battled her head over him? Had she sensed somewhere deep down that he was evil, but been seduced by his words and charmed by his actions?