I had a spear the Hunters didn’t want to get too close to. I had a tattoo at the nape of my neck that Barrons could use to find me anytime he wanted to, anywhere. And if I were in Faery, I suspected news would travel swiftly to V’lane on a Fae wind and I knew he wanted me alive, too. I might have powerful enemies but I had powerful protectors. Then there was Ryodan—a man capable of surviving a fight with Barrons—who was a mere phone call away in case Barrons wasn’t around, and I had IYD, in case things got really bad. After what I’ve seen from Barrons, I was confident that IYD would be a real petunia-kicker.

If things got stupendously bad, I’d bite the nearest Unseelie instead of stabbing it, and start chewing.

Speaking of Unseelie, they were everywhere in the busy party zone tonight, but I didn’t focus on them. I focused on the humans instead.

They were my people.

I had a job, a purpose, more so than the task of finding the Sinsar Dubh with which my sister had charged me. I knew now that she’d never meant it to end there, anyway. I’d just been interpreting her message from my selfish viewpoint.

Everything depends on it, she’d said. We can’t let them have it! We’ve got to get to it first!

I knew her message by heart. I’d listened to it over and over in my head. We had to get to it first so that we could do something with it. Exactly what, I had no idea, but I had no doubt my job would be far from over when it was finally found.

Question: When you’re one of the few people who can do something to fix a problem, just how responsible does that make you for it?

Answer: It’s how you choose to answer that question that defines you.

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.