“Not this time. It’s your monster. Nobody can know another person’s monster, not well enough to cage it. Only you can do that yourself.”

“Speculate,” I demanded.

He smiled faintly. He finds it amusing when I throw his own words back at him. “If you are the Unseelie King—and note the word ‘if’ there, I remain unconvinced—one might speculate that you have a weakness for evil. Once you acquire the Sinsar Dubh, it’s conceivable that you would feel tempted to do what it wants. Instead of trying to lock it away, you might choose to relinquish human form and restore yourself to your former glory—take all the spells you dumped into it back and become the Unseelie King again.”

Never. But I’ve learned never to say never. “What if I am?”

“I’ll be there, talking you out of it. But I don’t think you’re the king.”

What other possible explanation was there? Occam’s razor, my daddy’s criteria for conviction, and my own logic concurred. But with Barrons there to shout me back and my determination to live a normal human life, I could do it. I knew I could. What I wanted was here, in the human world. Not in an icy prison with a pale silvery woman, caught up in eternal court politics.

“I’m more concerned about what your inner monster might be if you’re not the king. Any ideas?”

I shook my head. Irrelevant. He might be having a hard time accepting what I was, but he didn’t know everything I knew, and there wasn’t time to explain. Every day, every hour, that the Sinsar Dubh was free, roaming the streets of Dublin, more people would die. I had no illusions about why it kept going to Chester’s. It wanted to take my parents from me. Wanted to strip away everything I cared about, leaving only it and me. As if it could force me to care about it. Force me to welcome its darkness back into my body and be one again. I now believed Ryodan had been right all along: It had been trying to get me to “flip.” The Book thought if it took enough from me, made me angry and hurt enough, I wouldn’t care about the world, only about power. Then it would conveniently appear and say, Here I am, take me, use my power, do whatever you want.

I inhaled sharply. That was exactly the frame of mind I’d been in when I’d thought Barrons was dead. Hunting the Book, ready to pick it up and merge with it and unmake the world. Believing I would be able to control it.

But I was on guard now. I’d experienced that grief once. Besides, I had Darroc’s shortcut in my hand. I had the key to controlling it. I wasn’t going to flip. Barrons was alive. My parents were well. I wouldn’t even be tempted.

I was suddenly impatient to get it over with. Before anything could go wrong.

“I need to be certain you can use the amulet.”

“How?”

“Deceive me,” he said flatly. “And convince me of it.”

I fisted my hand around the amulet and closed my eyes. Long ago, in Mallucé’s grotto, it had not been willing to work for me. It had wanted something, had waited for what I’d thought was a tithe, as if I needed to spill blood for it or something.

I knew now it was much simpler than that. It had flared with blue-black brilliance for the same reason the stones did, because it recognized me.

The problem was I hadn’t recognized myself.

I did now.

I am your king. You belong to me. You will obey me in all things.

I gasped with pleasure as it blazed in my fist, brighter than it had ever burned for Darroc.

I looked around the bedroom. I remembered the basement where I had been Pri-ya. I would never forget any of the details.

I re-created it now for us, down to the last detail: pictures of Alina and me, crimson silk sheets, a shower in the corner, a Christmas tree twinkling, fur-lined handcuffs on the bed. For a time, it had been the happiest, simplest place I’d ever known.

“Not exactly incentive to get me out of here.”

“We have to save the world,” I reminded.

He reached for me. “The world can wait. I can’t.”

45

I knew the moment he began to reconsider.

I could feel the tension in his body, see the tightening around his eyes, which meant he was thinking hard and not liking the topic. “It’s not enough of a plan,” he said finally, and got out of bed.

It was nearly impossible to make myself move. I wanted to stay in bed forever. But until this was over, no one I cared about was safe and I wasn’t going to be able to relax and get on with life. I pushed up, tugged on my jeans, buttoned the fly, and yanked my shirt over my head.

“What do you suggest? That we get everyone together and make them all hold the amulet? See if it responds to anyone else? What if it lights up for someone like, say, Rowena?”

He glared at me as I slipped the amulet around my neck and tucked it beneath my shirt, where it lay cool against my skin. I could see the strange dark light of it through my shirt. I tugged my leather jacket on over it and belted it.

It didn’t flare with blue-black light for him. I knew if it had, and he’d known what the second prophecy said, he’d have gone after the Book long ago.

“I don’t like this one bit.”

Neither did I, but I didn’t see any alternative. “You helped make this plan.”

“That was hours ago. Now we’re about to walk out into the streets and you’re going to pick the bloody thing up, believing in some prophecy scribbled by a mad washerwoman who used to work at the abbey, with no concrete idea what to do, trusting that the amulet will help you deceive it into submission. It’s the ultimate in seductive evil, and you expect to wing it. The plan stinks. That’s all there is to it. I don’t trust Rowena. I don’t trust—”

“Anyone,” I finished. “You don’t trust anyone. Except yourself, and that’s not trust, that’s ego.”

“Not ego. Awareness of my abilities. And the limitless nature of them.”

“You got killed on a cliff by Ryodan and me. Classic case of a time when a little trust might have gone a long way.”

His eyes were black and bottomless. I was just about to look away when something moved in them. I trust you.

I felt like he’d handed me the keys to the kingdom. That sealed it: I could do anything. “Prove it. You’ve been training me since the moment I got here to make me strong enough, smart enough, tough enough to do whatever has to be done. I’ve been through hell and back and survived. Look at me. What is it you say? See me. You made me a fighter. Now let me fight.”