I decided the McCabes, O’Bannions, and sundry collectors of Fae artifacts weren’t part of the game. Only those seeking the Sinsar Dubh or working for someone who was merited their own square.

I accorded all the Unseelie in our world pawn status. It seemed their primary purpose was to indulge their twisted appetites, spy on humans, and create general chaos. To keep things stirred up while the Lord Master pursued his private agenda, and when he’d ultimately achieved his ends, serve him. If there was any single Unseelie more significant than another, either I hadn’t yet encountered it, or was too dense to see it.

I paused with my pen above the page, wondering about the players behind the scenes, as yet unseen.

The Seelie Queen, I wrote. According to V’lane she wanted the Sinsar Dubh, but why? Did she need it to recontain the Unseelie? Were there spells in there that governed their darker brethren? What was the Sinsar Dubh, really? I knew it was a book of black magic authored by the Unseelie King, but what did it do? What did everyone want it for? Did each player have a different desire/use for it? What spells and enchantments were scribed in its pages that were so heinous they could corrupt anyone who came in contact with it? Could words and symbols wield such power? Could mere scribblings on parchment unmake a person’s moral fiber? Weren’t we made of sterner stuff?

I was in no hurry to find out. My two brushes with the Dark Book had pushed me beyond pain into unconsciousness, left me weak as a baby and wishing desperately that I’d never found my way onto this game board.

Where was the Unseelie King in all this?

Did he signify or was he an absentee landlord?

If my book of dark magic had gone missing, you could bet your petunia I’d be out there looking for it. Was he? Why hadn’t he tracked me down, too? Everyone else had. How had his book gotten away from him in the first place? For that matter, indulging myself in perfect paranoia—which, in the world I inhabited, seemed perfectly reasonable—had it gotten away from him? What if it was nothing more than bait at the end of a very long fishing line? If so, what was he fishing for? Was the Lord Master himself a pawn, being moved about by a much darker, unspeakably ancient hand? Was the playing board bigger than I could see? Were we all pawns of something much larger than we knew?

Somewhere out there on the game board, the Sinsar Dubh was moving around. Who was moving it? How was it being moved? And why?

And what kind of prankster benevolent being—this was the one I really wanted to know—would create something like me that could sense the most dangerous of all relics, then give me a fatal flaw that caused me to pass out every time I got near it?

I ordered another shot and tossed it back, indulging myself in a ritual I’d witnessed too many times across my bar: swallow, shudder, breathe.

“Mind if I join you?”

I glanced up. It was the guy with the Scottish accent from the Ancient Languages Department at Trinity; “Scotty,” the one I’d gotten the envelope about the illegal auction from. Small world. And everyone keeps telling me how large a city Dublin is.

I shrugged. “Sure, why not.”

“Gee, thanks,” he said dryly.

I suspected he was unaccustomed to such a blasé response from women. He was about the same age as the dreamy-eyed guy he worked with, but the resemblance ended there. His coworker was velvety-skinned, a sexy boy-on-the-cusp-of-man, but Scotty was broader, his body more filled out, and there was maturity in the way he walked and moved, a quiet self-assurance, as if, even at his age, he’d already been tested.

Six foot two or three, his hair was long and dark and pulled back at his nape. Gold tiger eyes swept me appreciatively. Estrogen responded to testosterone—this boy was a man—and I sat up a little straighter.

“To fine Scotch and lovely lasses.” He clinked a glass of whisky to my mug of beer and we drank. I chased it with a third shot: swallow, shudder, breathe. That cold place in my stomach, where I felt alone and lost, was finally starting to warm up.

He extended his hand. “I’m Christian.”

I took it. His hand swallowed mine. “Mac.”

He laughed. “You don’t look like a Mac to me.”

“Okay, I give up. Why does everyone keep saying that? What do I look like?”

“In most places Mac is a man’s name and you, lass, look nothing like a man. Where I come from you just introduced yourself to me as ‘from the clan of’ and I’m still waiting for the rest of your name.”

“You’re from Scotland.”

He nodded. “From the clan of the Keltar.”

Christian MacKeltar. “Beautiful name.”

“Thanks. I’ve been watching you since you came in. You look…pensive. And if I’m not mistaken, that was your third shot. When a lovely lass drinks shots alone I worry. Is everything okay?”

“Just a rough day. Thanks for asking.” How sweet he was. A much-needed reminder that there were nice people in the world; I just didn’t get to hang out with them often.

“You write?” He gestured to my journal. I’d closed it the moment he’d sat down.

“I keep a diary.”

“Really?” A brow rose, his golden gaze shone with interest.

I almost laughed. I had no doubt he thought I wrote about cute boys and pretty clothes and the latest reality TV show hunk I had a crush on; all those things that used to occupy my mind. I was tempted to shove it across the table at him, tell him to read a page or two, then see if he still wanted to sit with me, and after three shots, I was just buzzed enough to do it.

I was tired of lies and tired of being alone and tired of feeling disconnected. I was tired of being with people I couldn’t trust and wanting to trust people I couldn’t be with, like this guy for example, or his coworker, the dreamy-eyed guy. I was hungry for normalcy and angry enough to want to destroy any chance I had at getting it.

“Check it out.” I shoved my notebook across the table.

He looked startled, conflicted. I could tell he wanted to know my innermost thoughts—what man would turn down a chance to read what a woman really thought, uncensored?—yet knew he should preserve my dignity if I was too drunk to do it myself, and shove it back at me. Which would win: man or gentleman?

The man opened my journal to the first page, a page of descriptions of the latest Unseelie I’d been seeing, followed by a page of speculation about how they killed and how I might best kill them.