Only when I could see my bookstore with perfect clarity, exactly the way it had been that day, did I open my eyes.

Still wrecked. Not a damn thing had changed.

Okay. That hadn’t worked. Time wasn’t my friend. I needed to figure this out fast. I was rather relieved it hadn’t worked because it had taken me too long. V’lane had removed Dree’lia’s mouth effortlessly and instantly, and I didn’t believe for a minute that if things got critical and I had to do something to save us, my potential adversary might wait patiently for me to picture whatever I wanted to do with crystal clear perfection.

I dropped down onto a crate, buried my head in my hands and sank into myself, seeking the shining vault I’d claimed for my own, quite certain it was no more an actual vault than there’d ever been an actual book or box inside me. But what was it? And how did I access it?

I went still, disconnecting from my body, remembering what it had felt like to be consciousness and not one thing more, and focused.

There it was.

Rays of dazzling gold radiated from the smooth gilded surface of it, and I could feel raw, ferocious power emanating from within. I welcomed it, embraced it, basked in the bright golden light it was throwing off, and grew warm all over as if absorbing rays of sun.

I experienced a sudden whooshing sensation as if I was being yanked from one location to another. Then abruptly I was somewhere else.

My eyes flew open.

I stood near an enormous alabaster altar, on top of a hill that looked very much like Tara only bigger, more dramatic and otherworldly. At the bottom of the high, vast mound a thousand or more mighty megaliths that shimmered with iridescent fire encircled the base, with only small spaces between.

A soft breeze tousled my hair, the sky above me was dark, glittering with stars and three enormous moons that hung abnormally near the planet. One was so close, low, and directly above me that I felt as if it might drop on my head and crush me. The entire mound was carpeted with lush velvety flowers that bobbed and swayed in the breeze, scenting the night air with perfume. High in the sky, dark, leathery-winged Hunters sailed past the two more distant moons, gonging deep in their massive chests. Night birds sang an exquisite synchronized melody. It was so overwhelmingly beautiful to all my senses that it hurt. I closed my eyes, inhaling deeply, wondering where I was.

What have you come for? A bodiless voice demanded.

I kept my eyes closed, the better to answer with an undistracted mind. Opening them would have done me no good anyway. The voice had been huge, coming from everywhere at once: the stones, the earth, even the moons.

“The True Magic of the Fae race,” I said strongly.

What will you do with it?

My answer was instant and effortless. “Protect and guide.”

How will you achieve it?

“With wisdom and grace.”

Are you equal to it?

Well, shit. That felt like a trick question. “Yes” displayed arrogance. “No” displayed weakness. I inhaled deeply of the jasmine-and-sandalwood-scented breeze and searched myself—the ego that was undivided for the first time in my entire life—for the answer my daddy, Jack Lane, would have given, because it was the right one, and said quietly, “I will do everything in my power to be equal to it.”

I gasped as I felt something warm and good settle over me like a full body cloak. It draped me completely from head to toe, seeping into my skin, and deeper still, pooling inside me like molten gold. Still, I kept my eyes closed because I’d learned recently how clear a lack of visual distractions kept my mind. As it filled me, I felt as if I was becoming a small star, blazing from within, ancient and calm and watchful and as essential to the universe as any of those stars above me. My head whipped back, my body drew taut, as radiance drenched my being.

I opened my eyes, held out my hand and looked at it. I was glowing, translucent, ethereal, my body no longer solid.

You are not Fae. It was a judgment. Not a favorable one.

I said simply, “I have the blood of the Unseelie King in me and Queen Aoibheal chose me to be her successor. I did battle with the entity known as the Sinsar Dubh and won. The True Race is in danger of extinction. I will do everything in my power to prevent that.”

I felt a sentient presence gust close then. It entered me, joining the brilliance that filled me, and although it was instinct to want to resist—especially after what the Book had done to me—I quelled it quickly and trusted what my gut was saying. This sentience was nonthreatening. It felt vast and wise, gentle and pure. It gusted through my being, leaving no corner untouched by its soft tendrils. I felt as if it was probing into the fundamental elements of my soul, examining every component of every belief I held and every action I’d made.

You recently committed acts of great evil.

There was nothing left in me but honesty. I couldn’t have lied if I’d wanted to. I offered it my sorrow, my sins, my grief. “I did,” I answered sadly.

Why?

Another trick question. An evil book made me do it displayed blame-displacement and weakness; I was possessed and not myself” displayed a lack of personal responsibility, and yet more weakness. “Because I made mistakes,” I said finally, with a strangely nuanced sorrow I’d never felt before. There was a difference between being sad and feeling sorrow. Sad was about yourself. Sorrow was big as the world and encompassed all of it.

Will you make those mistakes again?

I answered without hesitation. “No. I suspect I’ll make entirely new ones. And carry the pain of those, too.”

I felt as if the thing inside me smiled. Then it is yours. As are the Tuatha De Danann. Guide them well.

There was another whooshing sensation and I felt the crate beneath my butt.

I was back in the bookstore, head still in my hands, gasping at the suddenness of the transition, pained by my abrupt eviction from the starry-skied paradise and loss of communion with the wise, gentle thing that had interrogated me and deemed me fit.

I wouldn’t let it down.

Inhaling deeply, I raised my head.

Barrons Books & Baubles looked exactly like it had the day I’d first stepped inside it.

Late afternoon sunshine slanted in the front windows of the bookstore, spilling across the back of the Chesterfield, warming my shoulders. I nibbled on the tip of my pen and scanned my list.

WORLD GOALS: (NOT IN ORDER)

1. Get the music box to Dancer so we can determine exactly what it is. I know it has something to do with the song. I felt it that day in the White Mansion.