“I suppose you have a collection of stories and records somewhere?” If so, I’d love to get my hands on it.

She nodded. “We do. We have more information on the Fae than one person could sort through in a dozen lifetimes. Some of our…less physically inclined members have been recruited to bring us into the twenty-first century. They’ve begun the laborious task of converting it all to electronic files. Our library, though vast, is coming apart at the spines.”

“Where is this library?”

She measured me. “In an old abbey, a few hours from Dublin.”

An old abbey. Right. I was going to kill Barrons the next time I saw him.

“Would you like to see it?”

With every ounce of my being. I wanted to say take me, show me, right now, walk me up and down those halls, teach me who I am. But I didn’t. What if she got me out there among hills and sheep and ruins, overpowered me with a coven of her faithful, and stole my spear? I understood the value of my weapon. There were only two capable of killing Fae. She had one—and countless followers who were unarmed. I had the other. Hardly seemed fair, even to me. I wasn’t interested in fair. I was interested in my own survival. “Maybe sometime,” I said noncommittally.

“Let me give you a taste of what you’re missing.” She moved to the desk, opened a drawer, and removed a thick volume bound in leather, tied with a cord. “Come.” She placed it on the desk, motioned me over, and opened it, handling the time-stained pages with care. “I think this entry might interest you.” She traced her finger down the page. It was an alphabetical record of some kind, a sidhe-seer lexicon, and we were in the V’s.

I gasped.

V’lane: Prince of the Court of the Light, Seelie. Member of Queen Aoibheal’s High Council and sometimes Consort. Founder of the Wild Hunt, highly elitist, highly sexed. Our first recorded encounter with this prince took place in—

She closed the book and returned it to the desk drawer.

“Hey!” I protested. “I wasn’t done reading. When and what was the first encounter? How sure are you of those notes? Are you positive he’s Seelie?”

“The Fae prince you kept at bay in the museum was born to the Court of the Light and has been with his queen since the dawn of time. Join us, MacKayla, and we will share with you all we have.”

“And demand what in return?”

“Allegiance, obedience, commitment. For that we will give you a home, a family, a sanctuary, a noble cause, and put all the lore of the ages at your disposal.”

“Who was Patrona?”

She smiled faintly, sadly. “A woman for whom I once had tremendous hopes, killed by the Fae. You’ve the look of her.”

“You said I looked like an O’Connor. Are there O’Connors in yourorganization? People I might be related to?”

She tilted her head and gave me that look down her nose, with a vaguely approving air. “You spoke to your mother. Very good, I wasn’t certain you would. And?”

My jaw locked. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her she’d been right. “I want to know who I am, where I came from. Can you give me that?”

“I can aid you in your search for truth.”

“Are there or aren’t there O’Connors in your organization?” Why didn’t anyone ever give me a straight answer?

A shadow crossed her face. She shook her head. “The bloodline died out, MacKayla. If you are an O’Connor, or an offshoot of that branch, you are the last.”

I turned away, deeply affected. I hadn’t realized how strongly I’d been nurturing the hope of blood relatives until it was summarily executed with a few words.

Her hand was gentle on my shoulder, although I knew it was made of iron. “We are your kin, MacKayla.”

“Were the O’Connors killed by Fae, too?”

“You’re in a doorway, child, one foot in, one foot out. Make up your mind. That door may close.”

I turned and looked at her. “Where is the Sinsar Dubh?”

“Och, now isn’t that the question.”

“Do you have it?”

“You are asking questions only The Haven have the right to know. I will not answer them.”

“Who are The Haven?”

“Our Council, over which Patrona once presided. Are you a Null?”

“Yes.” She’d shifted gears so swiftly I’d answered without hesitation. I employed her tactic and fired right back at her, “What are the Fae that slip inside humans and don’t come out again?”

She sucked in a breath. “You’ve seen such a creature?”

I nodded.

“What do they look like?” I told her and she said, “Sweet saints, the one Dani described to me, the day she met you! So that’s what it does. I’ve heard rumors such Unseelie exist. We don’t know what they are, and have no name for them.”

“I couldn’t see it once it was inside her.”

“It went beyond your sidhe-seer vision? You mean it wore humanity as a glamour, and you were unable to penetrate it?” She looked as troubled as I felt. “Did you kill it?”

“How could I, without killing the girl?”

Rebuke blazed in her eyes. “So, you left it walking around out there, looking like a human? How many humans will die now because you were too good to take a single life? Will you carry those deaths on your conscience, sidhe-seer? Or will you pretend not to own them? She was no longer human the moment that Fae stepped inside her!”