“Do you know what his idea of bringing me back was?” I snapped.

There was a smile in Ryodan’s voice. “I volunteered for the job. He didn’t seem at all touched by my offer.” The smiled faded. “Don’t lose yourself in anger, Mac. It’s gasoline. You can burn it as fuel, or you can use it to torch everything you care about and end up standing on a scorched battlefield, with everybody dead, even you—only your body doesn’t have the good grace to quit breathing.”

Deep inside, his words resonated. I was straddling a fine line and I knew it. But there was a part of me that wanted to go over the edge. Wanted to scorch the battlefield. Just to watch the damned thing burn.

“Stay focused, Mac. Keep your eyes on the prize.”

“What the bloody hell is the prize?”

“We work together. Take back our world. We all win.”

“What are you, Ryodan?”

He laughed.

“What are the nine of you?” I pressed. He said nothing. “I’m going to call it,” I threatened. “‘Bye now.” I didn’t hang up.

He stopped laughing. “I’ll kill you myself, Mac.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Woman,” he said, and his voice was suddenly so hard and cold and ancient-sounding that the fine hair at the nape of my neck lifted and prickled all the way down my spine, “you don’t know the first thing about me. The Mac that would call IYD when she’s not dying isn’t the Mac I’ll protect. Choose carefully. Choose wrong, and it will be the last choice you ever make.”

“Don’t you threaten—” I held the phone away from my ear and stared at it disbelievingly.

He’d hung up. On me. The only one who could track the Book. This season’s MVP! And I hadn’t even gotten around to asking him what Chester’s was and where to find it!

My hair gusted, raised straight up in the air around my face in a tangle. Sheets flapped on the furniture. The flames of the fire flared, crackled, then nearly went out.

Dani stood in front of me, guzzling orange juice and cramming her mouth with what looked like Little Debbie cakes.

“We got trubs, Mac. Ro’s at the bus, and so’s half the abbey. Shit’s hittin’ the fan big-time. S’time to go,” she mumbled around a mouthful. She sniffed the air and looked crestfallen. “Dude, they were both here? Why’n’t’cha call me?”

If Ro and half the abbey were at the bus, “trubs” were troubles. I was exhausted. I was wired. I was as ready as I was going to be. I stood and shoved my cell phone into my pocket. “You have super hearing. Why didn’t you hear them?”

“S’not that good.”

My eyes narrowed. “You really can smell that they were here?” What I’d give for her supersenses.

She nodded. “I’m gonna give one of ‘em my virginity one day.” She preened.

I was momentarily dumbstruck. I couldn’t begin to enumerate all the things that were appalling about that possibility. “We so have to talk,” I finally managed. I added pointedly, “Danielle.” Her gamine grin faded and I hated to see it go, so I added, “I don’t know why you don’t like it. It’s such a pretty name.” I knew why. Her toughness was all she had.

“Ow. Sorry I duded you. Man.” She held out her hand.

“No, thanks, I’m walking.”

She snickered, grabbed my arm anyway, and we were gone.

It was complete chaos, and Rowena wasn’t having an ounce of success taking control of the situation.

When Dani stopped, I headed straight for the front of the bus. Biting back the urge to puke, I climbed up on the bumper and hauled myself onto the hood, where I stood, looking down.

Hundreds of sidhe-seers stared back at me, with expressions ranging from disbelief that we’d dared return, to curiosity and excitement, to fear and blatant distrust.

If I’d been an attorney like my daddy, the bus would have been my opening argument and—filled to overflowing as it was with dead Unseelie and automatic weapons—it would certainly be swaying the jury. The sidhe-seers had opened the doors and begun unloading it. Guns were piled on the lawn, between dead Fae. I doubted they’d ever seen so many of our enemy up close and personal, sequestered as Rowena kept them. They couldn’t seem to take their eyes off them, poking at them with their toes, turning them this way and that, examining them.

Initially, I’d planned to fill the back of the Range Rover with dead Unseelie heads, to show the sidhe-seers what effect a mere two of us could have in a single night out on the town. But then we’d learned about iron, and raided Barrons’ stash of guns, and we’d had to swap rides.

Dani blew the bus horn to silence the crowd. When a few short bursts did nothing, she laid on it, making it impossible to hear. Finally, there was silence.

Rowena pushed from a small cluster of sidhe-seers, moved to the front of the bus, and glared up at me. “Get down from there this instant,” she demanded.

“Not until I’ve had my say.”

“You have no right to a say. You stole the spear and sword and left this entire abbey unprotected last night!”

“Oh, please,” I said dryly, “like it’s being protected with you keeping the Hallows to yourself, doling them out on rare occasions. What could you do if the Fae came for them? And we didn’t steal them. I took back what was mine to begin with and gave Dani what should have been hers all along. Then we put them to the use they were meant for—killing Fae.” I gestured behind me. “In case you didn’t notice, a lot of Fae.”

“Return them to me now,” Rowena demanded.

I shook my head. “Not a chance. Dani and I did more last night to strike at our enemy than you’ve ever let these women do, and not because they can’t but because you won’t permit it. We’re supposed to See, Serve, and Protect. You told me we were born for it. That in the old days, when we arrived at a village, they feasted and offered us the finest of all they had, because we were their honored, revered guardians. We protected them. We lived and died for them. You don’t let these women be guardians. You’ve made them afraid of their own shadows.”

“I obviously have a higher opinion of them than you do. You will get down from there this very instant. You do not lead these women. You never will.”