My spear is in the holster beneath my arm, my dirk in my waistband. The black-leather rune-covered pouch holding the three stones the LM wants—three-quarters of what we all hope will form some kind of cage for the Sinsar Dubh—are tucked securely in my backpack, which hangs over my shoulder.

Shapes glide from the darkness: the LM and the last two Unseelie Princes.

Jack and Rainey Lane are not with them.

That would disturb me, except the Mac who loves her parents was in those pieces I left behind with Barrons’ body. Barrons is dead. It’s my fault. I have no parents. No love. No weaknesses. There’s not a single shaft of sunshine in my soul.

I feel immeasurably lighter, stronger.

Darroc—I will no longer call him the LM; even the abbreviation of his smug-ass title implies superiority—has been eating a great deal of Unseelie flesh. Power is thick in the air between us. I’m not sure what comes from him and what is rolling off me. I wonder how his minions feel about him cannibalizing their own. Perhaps what is an abomination to the Light Court is a common vice at the Dark Court, an acceptable hazard of being Unseelie.

As he approaches the circle of silvery light in which I stand, his eyes widen infinitesimally.

I laugh, a throaty purr. I know what I look like. I washed after leaving Barrons and prepared myself with care. My bra is in my backpack. My hair is softly curled and wild around my face. It took time to get the black stain off my palms. There is nothing about me that is not a weapon, an asset, something to use to get what I want, including my body. I’ve learned a thing or two from Barrons: Power is sexy. It shapes my spine, infuses my beckoning hand.

I have not been devastated by Barrons’ death. The alchemy of grief has forged a new metal.

I have been transformed.

There’s only one way I can make his death okay. Undo it.