He interrogated me for nearly half an hour before he was satisfied. I let myself into my fourth-floor bedroom, weary to the bone. My room was a mess—protein-bar wrappers, empty water bottles, and clothes everywhere. I washed my face, brushed my teeth, slipped into pajamas, and was about to crawl into bed, when I remembered the tarot card from last night that the dreamy-eyed guy had given me.

I dug in the pocket of my coat and pulled it out. The back of it was black, covered with silver symbols and runes that looked a lot like the silver etchings I’d glimpsed on one of the three forms of the Sinsar Dubh—the one of an ancient black tome with heavy locks.

I turned it over. THE WORLD was inscribed at the top.

It was a beautiful card, framed in crimson and black. A woman stood in profile on a white landscape tinged with blue that looked icy, forbidding. Against the backdrop of a starry sky, a planet revolved in front of her face, but she was looking away—not at the world at all but staring off into the distance. Or was she looking at someone who wasn’t on the card? I had no idea what THE WORLD card was supposed to mean in a tarot reading. I’d never had my cards read. Mac 1.0 had considered having your future divined through tarot cards as ridiculous as trying to dial up a dead relative on a Ouija board. Mac 5.0 would happily take any help she could get from any source. I studied it. Why had the dreamy-eyed guy left it for me? What was I supposed to learn from it? That I needed to look at the world? That I was distracted by other things and people and not seeing clearly? That I really was the person holding the fate of the world in my hands?

No matter how I looked at it, the card implied way too much responsibility. The prophecy had made it clear that my involvement wasn’t much at all. I tucked it between the pages of the book on my bed stand, got into bed, and pulled the covers over my head.

Once again, I dreamed of the sad, beautiful woman and, once again, I had the oddest sense of duality, seeing from her eyes and mine, feeling her sorrow and my confusion. Come, you must hurry, you must know.

Urgency gripped me.

Only you can. No other way in … Her words echoed off the cliffs, growing fainter with each rebound. Trying to … for so long … so hard …

Then an Unseelie Prince was there beside her (us).

But he was not one of the three I knew, one of the three that had raped me. It was the fourth. The one I’d never seen.

In that strange way of knowing things in dreams, I knew it was War.

Run, hide! she screamed.

I couldn’t. My feet were rooted to the ground, my eyes locked on him. He was far more beautiful than the other Unseelie Princes and far more terrifying. Like the others, he looked into me, not at me, and his gaze felt like razors slicing through my most private hopes and fears. I knew that War’s specialty was not merely to turn opposing factions, races, or populations upon one another but to find sides within a person and turn them upon themselves.

Here was the ultimate trickster, the destroyer.

And I understood that Death wasn’t the one to be feared. War was the one that laid waste to lives. Death was just the cleanup guy, the janitor, the final act.

Though the same black torque writhed around War’s neck, it was threaded with silver. Though kaleidoscopic colors rushed beneath his skin, a nimbus of gold surrounded him, and, at his back, I glimpsed the flash of black feathers. War was winged.

You are too late, he said.

24

I was jarred awake the next morning by an unaccustomed noise and sat up, looking around. Twice more I heard the sound before I figured out what it was. Someone was throwing a rock against my window.

I rubbed my eyes and stretched. “Coming,” I groused, and tossed back the covers. I figured it was Dani. Since cell phone service still wasn’t back up and the store had no doorbell, it was the only way she could get my attention, short of breaking in.

I pushed aside the drape and glanced out into the alley.

V’lane reclined on the hood of Barrons’ Viper, leaning back against the windshield. Though supposedly the car wasn’t mine (we’d see about that), I instantly assessed V’lane for rivets or any other abrasive elements that might mar the paint job. I love sports cars. All that muscle just does it for me. I decided it was a safe bet the soft white towel knotted loosely at his waist wasn’t going to scratch anything. His perfect body was dusted gold, and his eyes were sunshine sparkling on diamonds.

I pushed the window up. Chilly air wafted in. The temperature had dropped, low-hanging clouds had moved in. It was once again cold and gloomy in Dublin.

He lifted a cup of Starbucks. “Good morning, MacKayla. I brought you coffee.”

I eyed it with equal parts suspicion and longing. “You found an open Starbucks?”

“I sifted to a store in New York. I ground the beans and made it myself. I even … how do you say? Frothed the milk.” He held up some packets. “Splenda or raw sugar?”

My mouth watered. Raw sugar and caffeine in the morning. Only sex could make it better.

“Is Barrons around?” he said.

I shook my head.

“Where is he?”

“Busy for the day,” I lied.

“Anything pressing on your agenda?”

I narrowed my eyes. V’lane wasn’t talking like he normally did. Usually he spoke with great formality. Today he sounded almost … human. I eyed the towel, trying to decide if there might be a Book beneath it. It was possible. “Could you swap that towel for something like, well, skintight shorts?”

He was suddenly nude.

Definitely no Book. “Put your towel back on,” I said hastily. “Why are you talking funny?”

“Am I? I endeavor to learn from humanity, MacKayla. I thought you would find me more appealing. How am I doing? No, wait. I am appropriating human contractions. How’m I doing?”

He was still nude. “Towel. Now. And you contracted the wrong words. ‘I am’ becomes ‘I’m.’ ‘How am’ does not become ‘how’m.’ But, really, it’s okay. Contractions don’t sound right coming out of your mouth anyway.”

He flashed me a dazzling smile. “You like me as the prince I am. That is promising. I came to take you for a day at the beach. Tropical surf and sandbars. Coconuts and palm trees. Sand and sun. Come.” He offered a hand. It wasn’t the only part of him extended in my direction.

I’m surrounded by intensely sexual men at every turn. “Towel,” I demanded. I bit my lower lip. I shouldn’t. I had no right. I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. I even had the tarot card to prove it.