Life could begin again. It would never be as normal as it used to be, but it would be a lot more normal than it had been for a long time. With the biggest, most immediate threat out of the way, we could focus our efforts on reclaiming and rebuilding our world. I could get some pots and dirt and start a rooftop garden at the bookstore.

I’d never have to walk down a dark street and be afraid the Book might be waiting for me, ready to crush me with a bone-deep migraine, set my spine on fire, or tempt me with illusion. It would never again possess one of us, never slaughter its way through our midst or threaten the people I loved.

I didn’t have to strip when I went to Chester’s anymore! Skintight clothing was a fad whose time had passed.

I turned around. Everyone was looking at me expectantly. They looked so wired and anxious, I suspected they’d jump out of their skins if I said, Boo. And for a moment I was tempted.

But I didn’t want anything to detract from the joy of the moment. I spread my hands and shrugged, smiling. “It’s over. It worked. The Sinsar Dubh is just a book. Nothing more.”

The cheers were deafening.

Well, okay, so maybe the cheers weren’t deafening, but they felt deafening to me, because I was cheering, too, and louder than most. The reality of the situation was that the sidhe-seers cheered, Mom and Dad hooted, Drustan whooped, Dageus and Cian grunted, Christopher looked worried, Christian turned and began to walk away in silence, Barrons scowled as did the rest of his men, and the Seelie glared.

Then the fighting broke out. Again.

I sighed gustily. They really needed to get with the program and learn to celebrate the good times a little longer before dwelling on the problems. I’d been walking around under the sentence of a prophecy that I would doom or save the world and I’d … well, technically, I hadn’t done either. I hadn’t doomed it. But I couldn’t see any way I’d saved it. Unless I’d saved it simply by not dooming it. But, still, I knew the importance of celebrating every now and then to alleviate the stress.

“We cannot restore the walls without the Song,” V’lane was saying.

“Who says we need the walls back up?” Barrons demanded. “You’re roaches, we’re Raid. We’ll get rid of you eventually.”

“We. Are. Not. Insects,” Velvet said tightly.

“I was talking about the Unseelie. I figured you prancing fairy bastards would get off our world voluntarily after helping eradicate your skulking half.”

“I do not prance.” Dree’lia was insulted. “You would do well to recall the delights found in our arms.”

I glanced at Barrons disbelievingly. “You had sex with her?”

He rolled his eyes. “It was a long time ago and only because she pretended to know something about the Book.”

“Lies, ancient one. You panted around behind me—”

“Barrons has never panted around behind anyone,” I said.

His dark gaze shimmered with amusement. Unexpected, but thanks for the defense.

Well, you haven’t. Not even me.

Debatable. Ryodan would disagree with you.

Sleep with another fairy and I’ll turn into V’lane’s personal Pri-ya.

His eyes were murderous, but he kept his tone light. Jealous much?

What’s mine is mine.

He went very still. Is that how you think of me?

Time seemed to stand still while we looked at each other. The arguing receded. The cavern emptied and it was just him and me. The moment stretched between us, pregnant with possibility. I hate moments like this. They always demand you lay something on the line.

He wanted an answer. And he wasn’t moving until he got one. I could see it in his eyes.

I was terrified. What if I said yes and he came back with a mocking retort? What if I got dewy and emotional and he left me hanging all exposed? Worse yet, what was going to happen when he found out I hadn’t gotten the spell to free his son? Would he take down my sign, batten up my beloved store, steal off with his child in the dark of night, burning off like mist in the morning sun, and I would never see him again?

I’d learned a thing or two.

Hope strengthens. Fear kills.

Bet your ass you’re mine, bud, I shot at him. I was staking my claim and I’d fight for it—lie, cheat, and steal. So I hadn’t gotten the spell. Yet. Tomorrow was another day. And if that was all he’d wanted me for, he didn’t deserve me.

Barrons tossed his head back and laughed, teeth flashing in his dark face.

Only once before had I ever heard him laugh like that: the night he caught me dancing to “Bad Moon Rising,” wearing the MacHalo, leaping small couches in a single bound, slaying pillows and slashing air. I caught my breath. Like Alina’s laugh, which used to make my world brighter than the hot afternoon sun, it held joy.

The rest of the occupants faded back in. They’d all gone silent and were staring at Barrons and me.

He stopped laughing instantly and cleared his throat. Then his eyes narrowed. “What the fuck is he doing? We haven’t made a decision.”

“I was trying to tell you,” Jack said. “But you didn’t hear a thing I said. You were looking at my daughter like—”

“Get away from the Book, V’lane,” Barrons growled. “If anyone’s going to be looking at it, it’ll be Mac.”

“Mac’s not touching it,” Rainey said instantly. “That terrible thing should be destroyed.”

“Can’t be, Mom. It doesn’t work that way.”

While everyone was fighting and Barrons and I were absorbed in a wordless conversation, V’lane had taken the bundled queen/concubine from my daddy and was now standing near the slab, looking down at the Sinsar Dubh.

“Don’t open it,” Kat warned him. “We need to talk. Make plans.”

“She’s right,” Dageus said. “ ’Tis no’ a thing to be undertaken lightly, V’lane.”

“There are precautions that must be observed,” Drustan added.

“There has been enough talk,” V’lane said. “My duties to my race are clear. They always have been.”

Barrons didn’t waste any breath. He moved like the beast, too fast to see. One moment he was a few feet from me, the next he was—

—slamming up against a wall and bouncing off it, snarling.

Clear crystal walls erupted around V’lane. Lined with blue-black bars, they extended all the way up to the ceiling.

He didn’t even turn. It was as if he’d tuned us out. He placed the unconscious body of the queen on the ground next to the slab and reached for the Sinsar Dubh.

“V’lane, don’t open it!” I cried. “I think it’s inert, but we don’t have any idea what will happen if you—”

It was too late. He’d opened the Book.

Arms spread, hands splayed on either side of it, head down, V’lane began to read, his lips moving.

Barrons flung himself at the wall. He bounced off.

V’lane had shut us out.

Ryodan, Lor, and Fade joined him, and moments later all five Keltar and my dad were at it, too, pounding on the walls, blasting into it with their shoulders and fists.

Me, I just stood, staring, trying to make sense of it, thinking back to the day I’d met V’lane. He’d told me he served his queen, that she needed the Book in order to have any chance at re-creating the lost Song. At the time, the only thing I’d been worried about was finding Alina’s murderer and keeping the walls up. I’d very much wanted the queen to find that Song and reinforce them.

However, he’d also told me it was legend that if there were no contenders for the queen’s magic at the time of her death, all the matriarchal magic of the True Race would go to the most powerful male.

Surely he wouldn’t have told me that if he’d planned all along to be the one. Would he? Was he that stupid?

Or so arrogant that he’d given me all the clues, laughing the entire time, as the “puny human” failed to put them together?