“Listening.”

“Fucking half-breed Highlander took the sword.”

“What?” I explode. “Christian took my sword? I told you and told you it was probably unfrozen! I kept saying that we needed to go check! What the feck is wrong with you dudes? Can’t you guard a measly little sword from a measly little half-human?”

Shadow gives me a look. “He’s damn-near full Unseelie prince and he had a flamethrower, kid.” To Ryodan, he adds, “Lor and Kasteo are badly burned.”

A fecking flamethrower! Why didn’t I think of that? Best I came up with was a measly hair dryer. I need to start thinking on grander scales! I return the look. I’m so pissed off my head is mean with pure pissed-offedness. “You don’t understand, when I was in his bed, I found a dead woman stuffed between it and the wall! Now he wants me dead and you let him get my sword! What am I supposed to do now? Ryodan won’t share whatever the feck weapon he has! How am I supposed to protect myself? Can’t you guys do anything right? One little sword! That’s all you had to watch over! And why didn’t we think of a flamethrower? Anybody got a brain among you dudes? Flamethrower! Brilliant! Did it hurt my sword?”

“When were you in Christian’s bed,” Ryodan says softly.

I gape. “Dude, you got a serious case of selective hearing, the kind that bleeps out all the important stuff! Who cares when I was in his stupid bed? How the feck did you kill Velvet? You been holding out on me! You need to learn to share your weapons!”

“When.”

There’s something in the way he utters that single word that makes me shiver, and I’m hard to rattle. “So, I didn’t change in a convenience store! So, shoot me! I need my sword. What are you going to do to get it back?”

I’ve never seen Ryodan’s face go so smooth. It’s like it got iced blank of all expression. I’ve never heard him talk so soft and silky either. “Take her back to Chester’s and lock her down. I’ll get the sword.”

Shadow looks grim. Like my own personal grim reaper. Not.

I slip a hand in my pocket. Pull the pin on a grenade. Start counting because I got to time it just right. I’m not getting locked down anywhere. No more cages for Dani Mega O’Malley. A split second before it goes off, I lob the bomb to the pavement in front of them. It detonates with the brilliant, Shade-killing flash of light Dancer rigged up for me. “My ass, you will.”

I freeze-frame out of there with everything I’ve got.

TWENTY-SEVEN

“ ’Cause I’m one step closer to the edge and I’m about to break”

I think I set a personal best.

I had a lot of incentive. The look on Ryodan’s face was like nothing I’ve ever seen. Worse than when I killed all those Fae in Chester’s and he locked me in his dungeon. Way worse.

While I’m freeze-framing, I think about how he’s been screwing up my life since the sec he stepped foot on my water tower and told me he had a job for me. I think I got him figured out. I think the reason he’s so pissy about both Christian and Dancer is because he’s worried I’ll get a superhero boyfriend who will kick his ass from one end of Dublin to the other and tear up that nasty little contract he made me sign. He doesn’t want any other dudes too close to me because it would interfere with his ability to use me for his own purposes. Christian’s a physical competitor. Dancer could brainiac him dead.

He doesn’t get that I’m not interested in a superhero boyfriend.

I’m going to be the superhero that can kick his ass from one end of Dublin to the other.

“Oh, sweet fecking day,” I sigh raptly around a mouthful of chocolate, anticipating it. Peanuts and chocolate get stuck in my throat and I almost can’t swallow. I been eating too many candy bars lately because I’m on the go so much and it’s all I got handy. I’m having a major salt craving. Sometimes when I eat too much sugar I start obsessing about my mom’s corned beef and cabbage with her fresh rosemary bread and potatoes and chives and—Holy Ashleagh Falls, my mouth is watering!

I whiz into a grocery store. Empty. I head north three blocks to Paddy’s Stop ’n’ Go. Empty. I dash ten blocks south to Porter’s. Also completely cleaned out. What I wouldn’t give for a bag of chips! Useless for an energy punch but a hopping St. Patty’s Day Parade on the tongue! I’m practically drooling I’m so hungry for something besides chocolate. A can of beans. Crimeny, even tuna would cheer me up!

I get over it. Wasted energy. There is no other food right now, and one thing I learned in a cage is you either pretend you have what you want or you don’t think about it. And if you pretend, make it real, milk it for every nuance, every succulent taste, scent, touch. I don’t have time for that kind of indulgence right now. I got a crazy Unseelie prince gunning for me with my own sword. I got a nutty nightclub owner out there who thinks he has a point to make with me and wants to lock me up to do it. I got a bloodthirsty ex–best friend who’s after my ass. I got an Ice Monster killing all kinds of innocents.

I can deal with the first three. Dublin needs to know about the last one!

I got several places in the city I can print a daily. It won’t take Ryodan long to find them all, so I know I don’t have much time. If I can print off even just a thousand and get them up, word will spread fast. Then I’ll get down to the business of figuring out how to get my sword back from Christian.

I head for the old Bartlett Building on the south side of the river Liffey, whizzing over Ha’Penny Bridge, freeze-framing parallel to the water. Stars are twinkling on it, ice crystals on a silver slide. It’s all kissed with the new lavender-metallic shade the Fae brought with them.

A few seconds later I blast in through double doors, dump my backpack on a table, and fire up the presses, blowing on my hands to warm them. I set up my little miniprinter and hook up my phone to print out the photos I been taking all day. My hands are clumsy with cold. I think the Iceman is starting to screw up our weather or something. Usually in May we run a low of forty, high of sixty. And I run hotter because, well, I run everywhere. But I been cold all day. Feels like no more than twenty-five or thirty outside right now. I wish this place had a fireplace like Mac has at Barrons Books & Baubles. I been avoiding that part of town for weeks. Can’t stand the thought of seeing her coming and going, knowing I’m dead to her. Knowing I’ll never step foot inside BB&B again and laugh with her, feel like I fit somewhere. I wish I had a place like Mac has at Barrons Books & Baubles.