The fourth had me gritting my teeth, cursing whoever had placed these ancient designs. Rowena? I wanted to learn.

I made the mistake of trying to barge through the fifth to get the discomfort over with quickly and slammed into it like a brick wall. I bounced off and went sprawling.

Dani snickered.

I tossed my hair from my eyes and glared up at her.

“Dude. Happens to me all the time.”

I stood and warily approached the ward line. It wasn’t a simple ward line. There were layers of wards, shimmering, one on top of another. To date, the only wards I’d seen were silvery delicate-looking things.

These wards had a bluish tint, sharper lines, and more-complex shapes. Now that I was paying careful attention, I could feel the slight chill they threw off. The pages in the Book of Kells had nothing on the intricacy of these designs. Knots became fantastical creatures, morphed into incomprehensible mathematical equations and then back into knots again. I knew nothing of wards. Where was Barrons when I needed him?

I spent ten minutes trying to get through it. If I ran at it, it bounced me off. If I tried to press slowly forward, it simply didn’t yield, as if there genuinely was a wall there that I just couldn’t see.

“Try blood,” Dani suggested.

I looked at her. “Why?”

She shrugged. “Sometimes when Ro needs fierce wicked mojo, she uses blood. Some of the wards we placed around your cell had my blood in ‘em. I figure since you can cross most of ‘em, your blood might do something. If not, you can try mine.”

“What do I do with it?”

“Dunno. Drip some on the wards.”

After a moment’s consideration, I decided it couldn’t hurt. (The day would come when I would discover I was wrong about that. Adding blood to some wards is even more stupid than throwing gas on a fire and, in some cases, actually transmutes them into living guardians. Take it from me, never indiscriminately drip your blood on wards of unknown origin!) I reached into my boot for my switchblade. “Stay back, in case something goes wrong,” I told her.

I held out my hand, palm up, as close to the ward barrier as I could get without being repelled, and made a shallow slice. Ow.

Blood welled.

I turned my hand over to drip it on the floor.

Nothing dripped. I turned my hand back over. There was no wound.

I sliced my palm again, this time more deeply. “Ow!” Blood welled. I turned it over. Nothing dripped. I frowned. Shook it. Squeezed my hand into a fist.

“What’cha doin’, Mac?”

“Hang on a sec.” I turned my hand back over. There was no cut.

Setting my jaw, I turned my palm to the floor, kept it down, and sliced fast, hard, and deep. Blood dripped. Good for me. It stopped. I sliced again, deeper. It dripped again, and a thin rivulet ran into the edge of the symbols.

The designs hissed, shivered on the stone floor, and steamed, before eroding where my blood had touched them.

I was able to step across the barrier, although not without difficulty.

“Come on, Dani.” We weren’t through the storm yet. I could feel things up ahead.

Worse things.

There was no reply.

I turned around. There was a stone wall behind me. “Dani?” I called. “Dani, can you hear me?”

You are not permitted here. You are not one of us.

I whirled back around. A woman stood in the corridor, blocking my way. She was blond, beautiful, with icy eyes.

“Who are you?” I demanded.

Leave now or suffer our wrath.

I took a step forward and instantly felt excruciating pain. I staggered back. “I need to get into the library. I’m just looking for answers.”

You are not permitted here. You are not one of us.

“I heard you the first time. I just want to look around.”

Leave now or suffer our wrath.

I tried reasoning with her, only to realize that, despite the crushing pain that slammed me every time I tried to take a step forward, the woman was nothing more than the mystical equivalent of a recorded message.

No matter what I said, she repeated the same two things, over and over. No matter how many times I tried to push forward, pain drove me back.

There was no doubt in my mind that these impenetrable wards protected invaluable secrets. I had to get through.

I had other tools at my disposal. I opened my mouth and released V’lane’s name.

He was there before I’d even finished speaking, smiling—for a split second.

Then he doubled over in pain. His golden head snapped back.

He actually hissed at me like an animal.

And vanished.

I gaped.

I looked back at the woman.

You are not permitted here. You are not one of us.

There was no way forward that I could see at the moment. I didn’t have any Unseelie flesh on me to try eating, to see if it would make me immune enough to the pain to continue on. Then again, after what I’d just seen happen to V’lane, I wasn’t sure if having temporary Fae running through my veins would help or hinder.

I wasn’t completely surprised to discover the stone wall behind me was an illusion.

Still, forcing my way through it hurt like hell.

The LM came to see me yesterday,” I said, as I stepped through the front door of Barrons Books and Baubles. The exterior lights of the handsomely restored building were set to low, bathing the street and alcoved entrance in a soft amber glow. The interior lights were equally low. It appeared Barrons no longer considered the Shades much of a threat.

I couldn’t see him, but I knew he was here. I’m attuned to even the faintest whiff of Jericho Barrons now. I wish I wasn’t. It makes me remember a time when we danced, and he laughed, and I had no cares in the world but to be … a fine beast. To eat, sleep, and have sex.

Ah, the simple life.

I tensed. There was an Object of Power, or several, somewhere in the bookstore. It was one kick-ass powerful one, or an assortment of lessers. I could feel it in my stomach. I could sense it, a cold fire in the dark pit of my brain. OOPs no longer make me feel sick. They make me feel … alive.

“He said you’re the jackass who taught him Voice,” I continued. “Funny how you forgot to mention that when you were trying to teach me.”

“I forget nothing, Ms. Lane. I omit.”

“And evade.”

“Lie, cheat, and steal,” he agreed.

“If the shoe fits.”