“Not about to. Would you?”

“No. I’ve done my share of research into the Fae. Did you know the potion allegedly destroys a human’s immortal soul?”

I did, and I’d wondered on more than one occasion if Cruce’s elixir had the same effect. I hoped not. If so, it was too late now, and I had other issues to deal with. I’d worry about the state of my soul later.

“I died once. I know what comes next. No way I’m missing it. I’ve known most of my life that I could die pretty much anytime. I’m in no hurry but it doesn’t bother me either. So, are we going to do this? Can we wait for Mega? I texted her, too. She should be here any minute.”

Tucking the laptop beneath my arm, I headed for the door. Over my shoulder I tossed, “There’s some kind of price for using it. I’d prefer neither of you came with me.” I considered sifting, to prevent them from attending, but decided against it. I’ve become a big believer in free will.

Then Barrons and Dancer were beside me and we hurried from the bookstore, into the sunny Dublin afternoon.

Not only did the song have absolutely zero effect on the black hole near the church (although I’d sat dreamily mesmerized, feeling like it was definitely doing something to me), when I went to play it a second time, even louder, it was gone. It simply didn’t exist on the laptop anymore.

“What do you mean, it’s not there?” Dancer exclaimed. “Give me that thing,” he demanded, reaching for his laptop. “Clearly, you’re looking in the wrong place.”

When I handed it to him, he scanned it rapidly then began opening folders, digging into root files.

I sighed and leaned back against a trashcan. The three of us were sitting on a curb, in the gutter, ten feet from the sphere, as close as we should get, Dancer had warned.

After a few minutes of “bloody hells” and Batman quips, Dancer snapped the laptop shut. “None of my files are here. Not a single one. Every note of the song I recorded, every conversion, inversion, extrapolation, is gone. Even my Word docs with theories are gone!”

“How is that even possible?” I’d been sitting here, wondering if the black hole had somehow managed to eat the music we’d played, right down to the source. But if so, it had taken much more than merely the origin of the music, operating like a super-stealth spy, wiping out even Dancer’s notes about it.

He buried both hands in his hair, scowling. “How can you ask me to postulate when I don’t even understand the primary suppositions? Bugger! Now I’m going to have to bloody well do it all over again.”

“Why? It didn’t work. That means either the sphere stripped it from your computer or there’s something going on here we don’t understand. Why re-create a failed experiment?” I said pessimistically. I’d had a good feeling about our venture, and had expected the music to do something—if not outright make the sphere vanish, maybe shrink it a bit. But when the song had played with no result, I’d grown dismal.

Dancer said impatiently, “Because that bastard”—he yanked a hand from his hair and pointed an accusing finger at the sphere—“took something from me and I want it back. That’s reason enough.”

He pushed to his feet, tucked the laptop beneath his arm, and loped off without a backward glance.

I looked at Barrons. “I feel like I did something wrong. I can’t shake the feeling this music is what we need. But that blasted ‘wield’ part of the equation is eluding me. I use the True Magic by amplifying it with my Fae tether to the planet. While we were playing the song, I did the same thing, but it had no effect. And now it’s gone. What did I do wrong?”

He extended a hand and pulled me up. “As much as I hate to say it, you need to talk to Cruce. I’ll round up the others. Meet back at the bookstore.”

“Why have a meeting? It’s not like we have new information,” I said pissily.

“Failure is always new information, and those who are willing to suffer it repeatedly make it a stepping-stone to success.”

Looking up into his steady, dark gaze, I thought about how many times Jericho Barrons had pinned his hopes on some new way to end his son’s suffering, only to meet with failure. How many millennia had he worked with quiet fortitude toward his goal? I would do no less.

“I know why Dancer wants to re-create the music,” he continued. “Inspiration frequently strikes the second or third or tenth time around. The more minds we have working on this, the better. Others can deal with the black holes. We’ll figure it out, Mac.”

He kissed me then, hard and fast.

As he disappeared down the street, I sifted back to BB&B.

Barrons’s plan was for the group of us—Dani, Dancer, me, Cruce, Christian, and Ryodan—to sequester ourselves at BB&B until we had the answer. According to him, if I was so certain the music we had was the solution, we just had to figure out how to employ it, determine exactly what “wield” meant.

After Christian and Ryodan arrived, Dani and Dancer sped in a few moments later, looking strangely subdued.

When they joined us in the rear conversation area, Dancer sat on the sofa but Dani remained standing with a clear view of the room and summoned Cruce.

He appeared instantly: nude, erect, and obviously having sex. He clothed himself instantly in a short iridescent tunic and snarled, “For fuck’s sake, what?”

Before the tension could thicken further, I said hastily, “We tried to use the song from the music box and it didn’t work. We need to know why.”