I walked through the bustling crowds dressed in pink and gold, my dark curls fluffed, my eyes sparkling, looking everywhere, inhaling the scents, enjoying the sounds. The spring was back in my step. I’d never felt more alive, more charged, more part of the world. I decided I would stop at an all-night Internet café on the way home, soak up the late-night Irish craic, and download some new tunes for my iPod. I was making a salary now. I was entitled to spend a little of it.

I’d been knocking on Death’s door recently and I was exhilarated to be alive, no matter how bad the current state of my world, no matter how fecked-up my life.

I stared curiously, interestedly into the faces as they passed by. I offered smiles, collected many in return. I got a few whistles, too. Sometimes the small pleasures in life are the sweetest.

I mentally assessed the current state of my game board as I walked. Mallucé was now off it for real, a dark, headless rook, slain on the sidelines. Derek O’Bannion had risen up in his place on the shadowy side of the board ruled by the Lord Master.

I was still willing to keep Rowena mostly on my side—the light side—and I hoped Christian MacKeltar might fit there somehow, too. It would be nice to have a little company. I was certain Dani was a light warrior.

Barrons?

Sometimes I wondered if he’d built the darned board, set the game in motion.

I was three blocks from Trinity, down a side street shortcut I’d decided to take, when it happened.

I clutched my head and moaned. “No. Not now. No!” I tried to step backward, to retreat from it, but it wouldn’t let me. My feet locked down right where they were.

The pain in my head swelled to a vicious crescendo. I wrapped both arms around my face and cradled my aching skull.

Nothing compares to the agony the Sinsar Dubh causes me. I ducked my chin to my chest, knowing in moments I would be on the sidewalk, curled up in a gibbering ball, then unconscious, vulnerable to anyone and anything in the night.

The pressure ratcheted up violently, and just when I was certain the top of my skull was going to blow off and rain bone shrapnel across the street, a thousand red hot ice picks perforated my head,releasing the pressure, creating a new hell of its own, an internal inferno.

“No,” I whimpered, staggering. “Please…no.”

The ice picks had jagged edges and rotated like roasting skewers. My lips moved soundlessly and I collapsed to my knees, toppled into the gutter, and fell facedown into a sour-smelling puddle; so much for pretty in pink and gold. A wintry wind howled down between the buildings, chilling me to the bone. Old newspapers cartwheeled like dirty, sodden tumbleweeds over broken bottles and discarded wrappers and glasses.

I clawed at the pavement with my fingernails, left the tips of them broken in gaps between the cobbled stones.

With immense effort, I raised my head and looked down the street. It was nearly deserted, scourged clean of tourists by the dark, arctic wind, leaving only me…and them.

I watched in speechless horror at the tableau that played out before my eyes.

After a few interminable minutes, the pain began to ebb and I dropped my chin in the sour dark puddle, panting from the aftermath of agony.

After a few more minutes, I managed to crawl from the puddle and drag myself back up onto the sidewalk, where I threw up until nothing was left.

I knew now where the Sinsar Dubh was.

And I knew who was moving it around.

As momentous and mind-boggling as that information was, it wasn’t my primary concern at the moment.

I’d been within fifty yards of the Dark Book, closer to it than I’d ever been before, I’d seen it with my own eyes—and I hadn’t passed out.

I wonder, Barrons had said, dilute the opposite, would it still repel?

The Sinsar Dubh had existed for a million years and although, according to Barrons, Fae things change in subtle ways over time, I was quite certain it was never going to get any nicer. In fact, I had no doubt it would only continue to grow consistently more evil.

Previously it had repelled me so violently that it had knocked me out within seconds. Tonight I had remained conscious the entire time, closer to it than ever before, and that could mean only one thing.

What had changed was me.