She slaps me. Hard across the face.

“I’m going to kill you, you crazy motherfucking bitch,” I say tenderly. My kind doesn’t get loud when we’re about to annihilate. We go soft and gentle. See us like that: worry. She doesn’t know I’m one of the few in existence that can actually make good on that promise. She doesn’t know who or what I am.

She’ll be calling me master before she dies.

“Who am I?” she says.

I clamp my mouth shut and strain against the Fae compulsion, and still my vocal cords grit, “Mistress.”

Oh, yeah, definitely killing her. Ten different ways, and slow.

“That’s a good boy, Lor.”

What the hell, she knows my name?

“Now we’re really going to play,” she purrs.

8

“This town ain’t yours and this town ain’t mine”

MAC

An hour into our meeting, we’ve got more problems on the table than I knew we had. Despite the bloom on New Dublin, our city has deeper shadows in which to die than ever before.

It’s been an enormous test of self-restraint, negotiating concessions with the two Unseelie Princes that raped me; a Seelie Prince that’s been shooting me looks like he wants to; Ryodan, whom I’ve never been able to get along with for more than a few sentences of conversation—oh, wait, I can’t even do that; and the first cousin of the mobsters that put a price on my head. The Sinsar Dubh has been attempting to make its voice heard at every turn, but I pump up the volume on my seventh-grade recitation and drown it out.

A part of me wishes they’d all just stand up and battle to the death. Make it simple. Take control through bloodshed and war. I have no doubt Barrons would be the last one standing.

But humans would die, and in the Fae way of things, more princes would be born, or get transformed like Christian, and we would end up slaughtering one another all over again¸ losing more humans every time.

I’m beginning to understand why Barrons wanted this meeting. Before the walls between worlds crashed, there was a system in place to run the city, the country, the world. But when that system collapsed, it was only a matter of time before someone or something stepped in and tried to become the new system. Though Barrons and his men prefer to wield power from the shadows, they’ll step into the light long enough to reestablish the social order that best affords the existence they enjoy.

When Ryodan imparted the latest rough count of Fae and humans in Dublin, I was staggered. I had no idea how drastically our population was exploding. According to his sources, thousands more Seelie and Unseelie arrive in Dublin every day, intrigued by the news that the princes have settled here and the feeding ground is rich with humans willing to be enslaved.

The more Fae in Dublin, the more humans will follow, drawn by their power, sex, and ability to provide comfort and luxury—or at least the illusion of it—in a time of such hardship and food shortages. Our city is growing too quickly to be controlled by any one of the males at this table.

A shattered, rapidly growing world requires multiple fiefdoms to rebuild it into a unified territory before a single king or democracy can hope to take it over.

During the transition period, clever enemies work together, or there’ll be no kingdom to govern. As each male in this room believes he’s the one who will ultimately be in charge, they’re willing to play nice until one of them decides the moment is ripe for a swift and bloody coup.

At which point everything will go straight to Hell again.

It seems a rather futile and endless cycle, either way. Yet a truce offers the benefit of a period, however brief, of peace and—more importantly—the possibility that something might change during it, perhaps making it possible to tip the balance of things in human favor and get rid of all the Fae for good.

Even the one inside me.

For the moment, we concede that none of us can hold the population in check, so we’ve agreed to divide Dublin into territories and permit certain atrocities in exchange for a modicum of civility for the masses. Kat looks as miserable as I feel but there’s no other way. Not yet. We justify our heartless calls by our commitment to one day defeat all our enemies so the people can live the remainder of their days in peace and prosperity.

We’ve become politicians.

Kat demanded the abbey be off limits to all Fae, and that Barrons and Ryodan immediately secure the perimeter with stronger wards, to which the majority agreed, five to three—then, of course, the Unseelie argued again for more Unseelie at the table so they could gain the upper hand, which, of course, the majority overruled, six to two, with R’jan on our side. The Unseelie seem unaware of what lies beneath the abbey walls. It appears the Seelie who were with us that night aren’t talking. I pray it stays that way.

Rath and Kiall insisted their lairs be off limits to us, governed by their laws and none other. Any who enter belong to them. And all may enter if they choose.

R’jan demanded we recognize him as king of the Fae, but the Unseelie Princes instantly declared war against him and he recanted. For now. The three princes are a war waiting to happen. It’s just a matter of time. Each will work tirelessly in coming weeks to pack the most Fae possible behind their claim for the throne.

The Song of Making could restore the walls between our worlds, shut them all out, and preclude possibility of war further ravaging our planet. I think I have a pretty good idea where it is. But my problem with doing anything to pursue it is twofold: the only one capable of using it is the concubine/Seelie Queen who’s missing along with the king, and I don’t dare go anywhere near the all-powerful song with the Sinsar Dubh inside me. I won’t put that final, fantastical magic in its hands.