I didn’t believe Barrons had been the fourth. That wasn’t his way. But might it have been his idea of “the right training”? How far would Barrons go to get what he wanted? He was mercenary to the core, constantly pushing me, trying to make me tougher, stronger. Trying to make me what I needed to be in order to do what he wanted me to do.

I was now immune to death-by-sex Fae. I could walk through wards. I was more powerful in ways that could have been accomplished only by putting me through something that would either kill me or make me stronger. A proving ground: die or evolve.

It was too awful for me to contemplate. “Maybe the fourth was you, V’lane. How do I know it wasn’t?”

My skin frosted. When I shivered, crystals of ice fell in a small snowstorm to the sidewalk. “I was with my queen.”

“So you say.”

“I would never harm you.”

“You constantly manipulate me sexually.”

“Only to a pleasurable limit.”

“According to who?”

His face tightened. “You do not understand my race. Seelie and Unseelie do not suffer the other to exist. We do not consort. Even now we battle, as we did before, so long ago.”

“So you say.”

“How can I set your mind at ease, MacKayla?”

“You can’t.” I could trust no one. Rely on nothing but myself. “I don’t know who the fourth was that day, but I will find out. And when I do …” I reached for the comfort of my gun and smiled coldly. By Fae weapon or human, I would have revenge.

“Ah, yes, you have changed.” V’lane’s eyes narrowed, and he studied me. “Could it be?” he murmured.

“What?” I demanded. I didn’t like the way he was looking at me. Fascination in a Fae’s eyes is never a good thing.

“Behold me. I believe you can.” Was that grudging respect in his voice? He shimmered and was suddenly something else.

I’d seen a vision similar to the one he showed me now that morning at the church, when the three Unseelie Princes had circled around me, morphing from shape to shape. My brain hadn’t been able to process what I’d been seeing, and I’d guessed it was a complex state of being that had more dimensions than humans could comprehend.

Unlike the Unseelie Princes, however, V’lane didn’t continue moving from form to form. He adopted a static one. At least, I think it was static. It wasn’t change. Stasis and change are how the Fae define everything. For example, if a human dies—or, as they say, “ceases to exist”—they don’t perceive the loss of life at all, they merely perceive “change.” They’re cold bastards.

My eyes could see V’lane, but my brain couldn’t define him. We’ve invented only words we’ve had need of, and we’ve never seen anything like this. Energy—but multidimensional? I don’t understand the first thing about dimensions, just the little I learned in school about space, time, and matter. My mind strained to grasp what was before my eyes … expanded … nearly tore itself in two trying to reconcile the image with some frame of reference I understood. I couldn’t find one, and the more I searched and failed, the more frantic I felt, which in turn made me keep trying to find one, which in turn made me more frantic. It was a backfeed loop, escalating quickly. Stop fighting it, I told myself, stop trying to define and simply see.

The strain eased. I stared.

“You apprehend me in my true form. Mortals cannot do so and retain a unified mind. It fractures. Well done, MacKayla. Was it not worth it? Would you not do it all over again?”

Bile rose in my throat. At the cost of a piece of my soul? That’s what he thought? That if I’d been given the choice, I would have chosen to go through what had happened on Samhain? That I would have chosen Dublin falling, the walls coming down, the Unseelie getting freed, being raped and turned into an animal that’d had to be rescued first by Dani, then by Barrons? “I would never have chosen it!” It wasn’t just me who had suffered. How many humans had been slaughtered that night and since?

He was back in his human form. “Really? For such power? You are immune to me—a Fae Prince. Impervious to sexual glamour. You can gaze upon my true form without your mind fracturing. You can walk through wards. I wonder what else you can do now. What a creature you are becoming.”

“I’m not a creature. I’m a human and proud of it.”

“Ah, MacKayla, only a fool would still call you human now.” He vanished, but his voice lingered. “Your spear is at the abbey … Princess.” Laughter danced on the air.