As I’d stared into the coffin and recognized her from the White Mansion, it had taken me only a moment to process that, if the concubine was lying in the coffin and I could pass through the king’s Silver, I had a serious problem.

The scream had been instinctive, denial from the very marrow in my bones clawing its way up my throat and past my lips.

If she was the concubine, and I could go though the Silver, too, there was only one other … person—and I was using that term very loosely—I could be.

“And it’s not the concubine, that’s for sure,” I muttered as I pushed through the Silver and slammed into the wall. I’d expected resistance like in every other Silver, but this one—the first ever created—was untainted by Cruce’s curse. I turned at the last moment, cradling her in my arms, taking the brunt of the impact on my shoulder. Not a damned thing about this made sense.

“Mac, what are you doing?” Christian roared, storming toward the mirror.

“Don’t touch it!” I cried. “It will kill you!” I didn’t want him to think for a minute that it wouldn’t and try to come through. It had killed Barrons. I had no doubt it would destroy Christian, and he didn’t have a get-out-of-death-free card. At least not that I knew of. But as had just become painfully apparent to me, I didn’t know much of anything, so maybe he had a whole deck of them. Maybe everyone did but me. Still, I wasn’t going to count on it. I needed him. More than ever before, I needed the Sinsar Dubh contained, and he was one of the five necessary to do it. I understood why it played with me now.

He stopped inches from the mirror and peered at me through it. “Why didn’t it kill her? I’ll know the truth,” he warned.

I adjusted her in my arms, scooped up a mass of her hair, and draped it over my shoulder so it didn’t trail the floor and trip me. I stared back through the mirror at him. “Because she’s the concubine. That’s why I really screamed. I recognized her.”

“But I thought you were the conc—” He gave me a fast once-over. “But you went through the—But that would mean—Mac?”

I shrugged. I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“How do you know she’s the concubine?” he demanded.

“The memory residue of the king and the concubine walks these halls. It’s hard not to get lost in them. But I imagine you won’t have quite as hard a time as I had, seeing how you aren’t quite so … personally involved,” I said bitterly. “I have no doubt you’ll see her while I’m gone.” I still wouldn’t look at her. It was too disconcerting. She was frighteningly light, delicate, and very, very cold. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

We stared at each other.

“I won’t believe it,” he said finally.

“It makes too much sense not to be true. There’s no record of me being born, Christian. The Book … it hunts me. I hear it always has.”

“Not buying it.”

“Give me another explanation.”

“Maybe the legends are wrong. Maybe a lot of people can step through the Silver. Maybe it’s all bluff, to keep people from trying.”

My heart lurched when he took a step forward. “No, don’t! Christian, listen to me. I can’t tell you who, but I know you can hear the truth in what I’m saying. I watched the Silver kill someone already.”

He cocked his head, then nodded. “Aye, lass. I hear truth in that, but why can’t you tell me who?”

“It’s not my secret to tell.”

“You’ll tell me one day.”

I didn’t reply.

“I’m still not buying it.”

“Find me an alternative. Any alternative. I’ll happily believe it.”

“Maybe you’re … I don’t know … Maybe you’re their child somehow,” he offered.

“Seven-hundred-thousand-plus years later?” I’d already considered and discarded that thought. Not only didn’t it resonate with my gut feelings, but “It doesn’t begin to explain all the things I know and feel and remember, or why the Book plays with me,” I said. I couldn’t explain how I knew it, but I wasn’t the progeny of the Unseelie King and his concubine. My feelings were far too personal. Far too sexual and possessive. Not a child’s feelings at all. But a lover’s.

He shrugged. “I’ll remain here. But hurry back.”

“Promise me you won’t try to come through, Christian.”

“I promise, Mac. But hurry. The longer I’m in here, the more I feel myself … changing.”

I nodded. As I turned away with the queen/concubine/woman I’d apparently destroyed worlds for, I couldn’t help but wonder where my other parts were.

I stared through the front door of Barrons Books and Baubles, uncertain what surprised me more: that the front seating cozy was intact or that Barrons was sitting there, boots propped on a table, surrounded by piles of books, hand-drawn maps tacked to the walls.

I couldn’t count how many nights I’d sat in exactly the same place and position, digging through books for answers, occasionally staring out the windows at the Dublin night, and waiting for him to appear. I liked to think he was waiting for me to show.

I leaned closer, staring in through the glass.

He’d refurnished the bookstore. How long had I been gone?

There was my magazine rack, my cashier’s counter, a new old-fashioned cash register, a small flat-screen TV/DVD player that was actually from this decade, and a sound dock for my iPod. There was a new sleek black iPod Nano in the dock. He’d done more than refurnish the place. He might as well have put a mat out that said WELCOME HOME, MAC.

A bell tinkled as I stepped inside.

His head whipped around and he half-stood, books sliding to the floor.

The last time I’d seen him, he was dead. I stood in the doorway, forgetting to breathe, watching him unfold from the couch in a ripple of animal grace. He crammed the four-story room full, dwarfed it with his presence. For a moment neither of us spoke.

Leave it to Barrons—the world melts down and he’s still dressed like a wealthy business tycoon. His suit was exquisite, his shirt crisp, tie intricately patterned and tastefully muted. Silver glinted at his wrist, that familiar wide cuff decorated with ancient Celtic designs he and Ryodan both wore.

Even with all my problems, my knees still went weak. I was suddenly back in that basement. My hands were tied to the bed. He was between my legs but wouldn’t give me what I wanted. He used his mouth, then rubbed himself against my clitoris and barely pushed inside me before pulling out, then his mouth, then him, over and over, watching my eyes the whole time, staring down at me.

What am I, Mac? he’d say.

My world, I’d purr, and mean it. And I was afraid that, even now that I wasn’t Pri-ya, I’d be just as out of control in bed with him as I was then. I’d melt, I’d purr, I’d hand him my heart. And I would have no excuse, nothing to blame it on. And if he got up and walked away from me and never came back to my bed, I would never recover. I’d keep waiting for a man like him, and there were no other men like him. I’d have to die old and alone, with the greatest sex of my life a painful memory.

So, you’re alive, his dark eyes said. Pisses me off, the wondering. Do something about that.

Like what? Can’t all be like you, Barrons.

His eyes suddenly rushed with shadows and I couldn’t make out a single word. Impatience, anger, something ancient and ruthless. Cold eyes regarded me with calculation, as if weighing things against each other, meditating—a word Daddy used to point out was the larger part of premeditation. He’d say, Baby, once you start thinking about it, you’re working your way toward doing it. Was there something Barrons was working his way toward doing?

I shivered.

“Where the fuck’ve you been? It’s been over a month. Pull a stunt like that again without telling me what you’re doing first, and I’m chaining you to my bed when you get back.”