A tiny muscle twitched in his jaw. He was pissed. I was definitely right.

“He can always circumvent the price of black magic,” I marveled. “When you kill him, he comes back exactly the same as he was before, doesn’t he? He could tattoo his whole body with protection runes and, when he ran out of skin, kill himself so he could come back with a clean slate, to start all over.” That was why his tattoos weren’t always the same. “Talk about your ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card! And if you hadn’t botched the plan, I would never have known. It’s your fault I know, Ryodan. I think that means it’s not me you should kill, it’s yourself. Oh, gee, wait,” I said sarcastically, “that wouldn’t work, would it?”

“Did you know that when you were in the Silvers, the Book paid a visit to the abbey?”

I winced. “Dani told me. How many of the sidhe-seers were killed?”

“Irrelevant. Why do you think it went to the abbey?”

Irrelevant, my ass. Being unable to die—I was still having a hard time wrapping my brain around that and was certain I could come up with some creative ways to test it—had given him a Fae share of arrogance and disdain for mortals. “Let me guess,” I said tartly. “This is somehow my fault, too?”

Ryodan pressed a button on his desk and spoke into an intercom. “Tell Barrons to leave them where they are. They’re safer there. I’ll bring her to them. We’ve got a problem. A big one.” He released the button. “Yes,” he said to me, “it is. I think that when it couldn’t find you, it went to the abbey, hunting for you, trying to get a lead on you.”

“Do the others believe this, too, or is it your personal delusion? Perspective, Ryodan. Get some.”

“I’m not the one that needs it.”

“Why do you hate me?”

“I have no emotion about you at all, Mac. I take care of my own. You are not my own.” He moved past me, pressed his palm to the door, and stood waiting for me to exit. “Barrons wants you to see your parents so as you go about your business you will remember they are here. With me.”

“Lovely,” I muttered.

“I suffer them to live, against my better judgment, as a favor to Barrons. He’s running out of favors. Remember that, too.”

19

You put them in a glass room? Can’t you give them a little privacy?” I stared at my parents through the wall. Although comfortably furnished with rugs, a bed, a sofa, a small table, and two chairs, the room was made of the same kind of glass as Ryodan’s office, only in reverse. Mom and Dad couldn’t see out, but everyone else could see in.

I glanced to the left. The shower had an enclosure of sorts; the toilet didn’t. “Do they know people can see in?”

“I spare their lives and you ask forprivacy. This isn’t for you. Or them. It’s insurance for me,” Ryodan said.

Barrons joined us. “I told Fade to bring up sheets and duct tape.”

“For what?” I was horrified. Were they going to roll my parents up in sheets and duct-tape them?

“They can tape sheets to the walls.”

“Oh,” I said. “Thanks,” I muttered. I was silent a moment, watching them through the glass. Dad was sitting on the sofa, facing my mom, holding her hands, talking softly. He was robust and handsome as ever, and the extra silver in his hair only made him look more distinguished. Mom had that glazed look she got whenever she couldn’t deal, and I knew he was probably talking about normal, everyday things to ground her in a reality she could face. I had no doubt he was assuring her everything was going to be okay, because that was what Jack Lane did: exuded safety and security, made you believe he could deliver on anything he promised. It was what made him such a great lawyer, such a wonderful father. No obstacle had ever seemed too large, no threat too scary with Daddy around. “I need to talk to them.”

“No,” Ryodan said.

“Why?” Barrons demanded.

I hesitated. I’d never told Barrons that I’d gone to Ashford with V’lane, or admitted that I’d overheard a conversation between my parents in which they’d been discussing the circumstances of our adoption, or that Daddy had mentioned a prophecy about me—one in which I supposedly ended up dooming the whole world.

Nana O’Reilly—the ninety-seven-year-old woman whom Kat and I visited in her house by the sea—had mentioned two prophecies: one that promised hope, the other warning of a blight upon the earth. If I genuinely was part of either one, I was determined to fulfill the former. I wanted to know more about the latter so I could avoid it.

I wanted the names of the people Daddy had spoken to all those years ago when he’d gone to Ireland to dig into Alina’s medical history when she was sick. I wanted to know exactly what they’d told him.

But there was no way I could ask him about any of it in front of Barrons and Ryodan. If they got the smallest whiff of some prophecy in which I supposedly doomed the world, they might just lock me up and throw away the key.

“I miss them. They need to know I’m alive.”

“They know. I videoed you walking in, and Barrons showed them the clip.” Ryodan paused, then added, “Jack insisted on it.”

I glanced sharply at Ryodan. Was that a faint smile on his face? He liked my father. I’d heard it in his voice when he called him Jack. He respected him. I glowed inside. I’m always proud of my daddy, but when somebody like Ryodan likes him … Even though I couldn’t stand the owner of Chester’s, I took it as a compliment.