“No, it’s not more important than this. Nothing is, and you know that,” Barrons growled. “Who the fuck does he think is in charge?” A pause. “Then he can get the fuck out of my city.”

My city. I pondered that phrase, wondered why Barrons felt that way. He never said “our world.” He always said “your world.” But he called Dublin his city. Merely because he’d been in it so long? Or had Barrons, like me, been beguiled by her tawdry grace, fallen for her charm and colorful dualities?

I looked around “my” bookstore. That was what I called it. Did we call the things of our heart our own, whether they were or not? And if Dublin was his city, did that mean he had a heart, contrary to Fiona’s beliefs?

“Nah,” I scoffed, and sipped my coffee.

I have no idea how long it flapped on the door before I noticed it.

I would later wonder if someone had walked by and stuck it there while I sipped ignorantly away, eavesdropping on Barrons. Maybe peered in through the tinted glass and looked at me. Smirked or smothered a villainous laugh. I would wonder if it had been Fiona who’d put it there. Would hate her, knowing she would have stood there watching me, relishing my pain.

“Darroc will come,” Barrons was saying, as I squinted at the door. “I told Fiona that I have three of the stones, and I know where the fourth is.”

He had? When? Had he gone to see her last night while I’d slept? The idea made me feel … betrayed.

I skirted the counter and walked slowly toward the front of the store, where the thing flapped in a gentle breeze on the diamond-paned glass of the door. It was the motion that had caught my attention. Who knew how long it might have taken me to find it otherwise.

Barrons said, “It’s possible she might make all of it unnecessary. But it’s still too soon to tell.”

A dozen feet from the door, I recognized it. I looked away, as if, like an ostrich with my head in the sand, I would be safe.

But I wasn’t safe.

“It can’t be,” I said.

I looked back, marched to the door, opened it, and gently removed the tape holding it to the glass.

It was.

I stared at it for a long moment, then closed my eyes.

“The LM’s not coming,” I told Barrons, stepping into his study. As always, my gaze slid uneasily to the huge mirror that was part of the vast network of Unseelie Silvers: doorway into a hellish no-man’s-land of ice and monsters. But my fascination/fear of it held new poignancy today, and new relevance.

“You can’t know that,” Barrons dismissed.

Seated behind the massive desk, he appeared sculpted from material of the same tension and density, hard with anger.

I gave him a smile. It was that or burst into tears, and there was no way that was happening. “Trouble at home? Boys aren’t behaving?” I said sweetly.

“Get to the point, Ms. Lane.”

I began to hand him what I’d removed from the front door. My hand trembled. I steeled myself, and when I extended it again, my hand was perfectly steady.

He glanced at the photo. “It’s your sister. So?”

Indeed it was. She was laughing, on an openmouthed smile, standing at the entrance to Trinity College.

“Turn it over,” I said tightly.

He flipped it.

“Read it.”

“She was happy,” he read. “I love you, Mom and Dad. I’ll be home as soon as I can. Mac.” He paused before continuing. A muscle jerked in his jaw. “1247 LaRuhe. Fifth Silver on the right. Bring the stones. If you bring Barrons, they both die.” He looked up at me. “He’s got your parents. Fuck.”

That pretty much summed it up.

“This is a terrible plan,” Barrons said for the tenth time.

“You’re the one who came up with it,” I reminded. “And I agreed. We’re not going back now.” I continued stuffing things in my backpack.

There was no other way. I’d wanted a confrontation and I was going to get it. Just not the way I’d hoped. “Look, Barrons, you’ve filled my head with more knowledge about life than anyone else ever has, except my dad. Between the two of you, if I can’t survive, I should be shot. I should be put out of everyone’s misery.”

“Was that a thank-you, Ms. Lane?”

I thought about it and shrugged. “Yes.”

Behind me, he made a strange noise. “That’s it. You’re not going.”

“Because I thanked you? What kind of logic is that?”

“The kind of person that thanks another person never survives. Have you learned nothing?”

“He has my parents.”

“If he gets you, he could get the whole world.”

“He’s not going to get me. I’m going to do exactly what you told me to do. No deviations. No independent decisions. I’ll go into the house, snap a photo of whatever destination the Silver shows, and text it to you. Between that and my brand, you’ll track me. You’ll bring your … whatever they are in behind me or get there some other way, and you’ll rescue us.” And I would kill the LM. Bury my spear to the hilt in his chest. Maybe his eyeball. Stand there and watch him begin to rot. I hoped he died slowly.

“The Silvers are too unpredictable. Something could go wrong even in the brief time you pass from one to the next.”

“You wondered if I had the balls. Now you know. Besides, he needs me, remember? He’s not going to take any chances.”

“Anytime you use the Silvers, you’re taking a chance. Especially if you’re carrying OOPs. Power provokes change in places of unpredictable power.”

“I know. You’ve told me five times now. I’m to keep my spear hidden and the stones in the pouch.”

“With the holes in the prison walls, and Cruce’s curse … there’s no bloody telling what could go wrong. No, Ms. Lane, this just won’t work.”

“I’m going in, Barrons, with or without your help.”

“I could stop you,” he said, so softly that I knew he was not only seriously considering it but a breath away from chaining me up somewhere.

I inhaled sharply. “Remember the child dying in your arms?”

His nostrils flared. The thing rattled in his chest.

“Don’t make me live it, Barrons. Don’t choose my grief for me. You have no right.”