Cruce inhaled sharply, stretched to his full, enormous height, tossed his head back and pushed away from the fireplace. “Ah,” he purred. “Yes, that is what I was missing.” He closed his eyes a moment, adjusting and resettling his massive velvety wings. Then he opened his eyes and glared daggers at me. “Sign the Compact. Now.”

Ignoring him for the moment, I moved to the small fridge behind the counter, retrieved one of the many ice packs I had from my early days in Dublin when I’d kept getting beat up all the time, and gave it to my sister. She pressed it lightly to her eye and sank down on the sofa next to Daddy.

“Hey, Daddy,” I said, and kissed him on top of his head, beaming. The only people missing were Dani and Mom and my family would be complete.

“Hi, baby.” He smiled up at me. “It’s finished. That is, if you still want to sign it.”

I slid over the back of the Chesterfield and dropped down on the other side of him, opposite Alina. He draped his arms around both our shoulders. “I do.” I took the packet he was offering me, flipped through it and laughed. Our Compact was fifty-two pages long. “Looks like you covered it all.” With lengthy codicils for virtually every possibility.

Jack Lane looked at me carefully. “Are you certain you want to sign this, honey? I agree with your mother. You’d make a fine queen.”

I couldn’t wait to sign it. I stretched my hand out behind me, in the general direction of Barrons. “Can I have one of your knives?” He was always carrying. I’d nearly pulled my spear from my holster before remembering how much I never wanted to poke myself with that thing. Then Barrons’s mouth was on my wrist. I felt the touch of his tongue, the sting of fangs, a kiss, and his mouth was gone.

He had to do it five more times because I kept healing so quickly, but finally, with an ancient quill Barrons had produced, the Compact was signed by one MacKayla Evelina Lane, Queen of the Fae, cross-signed by Cruce, then signed secondarily in sharp, dramatic script that shimmered even when dried, with a name that defied translation into any language known to man. It was formally witnessed by Jack Lane, Barrons, Ryodan, and Alina Lane.

“There must be an exchange of precious metals, imbued with power,” Cruce said. “I will accept the bracelet you had the other night.”

“No,” Ryodan said. He shot me a look that said, if he wants it, it’s important.

“Then it is not binding,” Cruce said flatly. “I have not demanded the Amulet, which I know you have and should be mine. That is my offering of precious metals. You may keep it, a gift from the Fae race.”

Barrons looked at me. I have other objects of power to offer.

I narrowed my eyes and glanced back at Cruce. “You may have one of the lesser three amulets.”

“Only for the bracelet will I agree to this pact.”

“And his demands just keep growing,” Ryodan mocked. “No surprise there.”

I met Cruce’s dark, turbulent gaze and was shocked to hear clearly in my head, I do not seek to take anything from you that you would ever desire to use, MacKayla. It is important only to me.

His words carried the knell of truth, resonated clearly and simply inside me. But then, he was the great deceiver. Regardless, it was a bracelet I had no idea how to use, and if we were successful, the Fae would soon be gone from our world forever. That made it another item that didn’t signify.

After a moment, over the protests of others, I went upstairs, got the bracelet, and gave it to him.

It was done.

Once we saved our world, I would transfer the weight of mantle and scepter to someone else, the Fae would be gone, life would be incredibly normal, and I would finally be “just Mac” again.

Hours later I sat on the Chesterfield, gaze unfocused, doing the equivalent of reading Fae files on ancient history. After confirming that the key to using my power lay in forging a connection to the planet itself, Cruce had also told me that new queens required anywhere from fifty to five hundred years to grow into their power, due to the sheer enormity of information transferred.

Yeah, so not sticking around for that job curve.

If there was a way to instantly internalize it all, no queen had ever found it. A large part of my new, lofty position was little more than file clerk. If I focused on, say, “Song of Making,” every single one of the 9,722,342 records, legends, myths, and songs about it swam up in my mind with the equivalent of tabs and a filing system that made no bloody sense to me because I knew nothing about Fae history. The information had been logged under the name of the Fae that most largely signified in that bit of information. To any other queen, those names might have been recognizable and she could have immediately sought the most credible ones.

They meant nothing to me. I’d spent hours blurting names while Cruce had either shaken his head to pass, or inclined it to indicate I should continue to read.

With Barrons watching, scowling darkly.

Imagine having access to a million years of human history, every myth, legend, or factual (yet biased) news clipping. Imagine having the Internet inside you, becoming a walking Google search engine.

It felt exactly like that. I’d become a human computer. It was one more reason I was enormously grateful Cruce would be taking over. By the time he left, I’d begun to seriously question both the queen’s decision to give me the True Magic and the sanity of the one on the planet who’d deemed me a worthy choice.

Barrons departed shortly after Cruce.

Christian’s efforts to remove soil from beneath the spheres had proved successful but time-consuming. He’d retrieved the other Keltar druids from Scotland, and Barrons and Ryodan were assisting, using small bobcats to push soil far from the danger zone of the most immediately threatening black holes.