He follows me. “All you accomplish by persisting in your inane and erroneous belief that I killed Alina is guaranteeing that you will never find her true murderer. Humans have an animal of which you remind me. The ostrich.”

“My head is not buried in the sand.”

“No, it’s up your ass,” he snaps.

I whirl on him.

We glare at each other, but his words give me pause. Am I being an ostrich? Do I deny myself the opportunity to avenge my sister, because I’m stuck in a rut I refuse to get out of? Will I let my sister’s real murderer get away, because I can’t open my mind to see beyond my preconceptions? Barrons warned me from the beginning to not so blithely assume Darroc was definitely her killer.

A muscle works in my jaw. Each time I remember something about Barrons, I hate Darroc more for taking him from me. But I remind myself why I’m here and why I haven’t already killed him.

To accomplish my goal, there are certain answers I need.

I eye him speculatively. There are others I just want.

And once I get the Book in my hands and change things, I’ll never have another chance to ask. He’ll be gone. I’ll have killed him. Here and now is my one shot.

“She said she was going to try to come home but she was afraid you wouldn’t let her leave the country,” I say stiffly. “She said I had to find the Sinsar Dubh. Then she sounded terrified and said you were coming.”

“Me? By name? She told you ‘Darroc’ was coming?”

“She didn’t have to. What she said earlier made it clear.”

“And what was that? What so thoroughly incriminated me?”

I still have her message memorized. I dream it sometimes, word for word. “She said, I thought he was helping me, but—God, I can’t believe I was so stupid! I thought I was in love with him and he’s one of them, Mac! He’s one of them! Who else could that have been? You keep telling me she loved you. Was there someone else she was involved with that she thought she—”

“No! There was only me. She would never have sought another. I gave her everything.”

“Then you understand why I believe you killed her.”

“I do not, and did not. There are holes larger than Hunters in your puny human logic!”

“Who else could it have been? Who else did she fear?”

He turns and paces to one of the windows, where he stands gazing out at the dazzling winter day. Ice-crusted trees sparkle like they’ve been diamond-dipped. Drifts of powdery snow shimmer in the sunlight. The scene seems lit from within, like the concubine herself.

But there is only darkness inside me. I feel it growing.

“You are certain that the day you had this conversation with her was the day she died?”

It wasn’t a conversation, but I don’t tell him that. “Although the Garda didn’t find her body for two days, they estimated her time of death at about four hours after she called me. The coroner in Ashford said it was possible she died as much as eight to ten hours after she made the call. She said it was difficult to estimate exact time of death due to the way her body had been savaged.” I refuse to say “chewed on.”

Still staring out the window, his back to me, he says, “One morning after I left, she followed me to the house on LaRuhe.”

I catch my breath. These are words I’ve been waiting to hear since the day I identified my sister’s body. To learn what she did the last day she was alive. Where she went. How it came to such a bitter end.

“Did you know?” I demand.

“I eat Unseelie.”

He knew. Of course he knew. It amps up all the senses, hearing, sight, taste, touch. It’s what makes it so addictive—and the super-sized strength is icing on the cake. You feel alive, incredibly alive. Everything is more vivid.

“We’d been in bed all night, fucking—”

“T-the-fuck-M-I,” I snarl.

“You think I don’t know what that means. Alina used to say it. Too much information. It disturbs you to hear of the passion your sister and I shared.”

“It sickens me.”

When he turns, his gaze is cool. “I made her happy.”

“You didn’t keep her safe. Even if you didn’t kill her, she died on your watch.”

He flinches almost imperceptibly.

I think, Nice, real nice, got that fake emotion down real well.

“I thought she was ready. I believed what she felt for me would win in one of your idiotic human battles of morality. I was wrong.”

“So she followed you. Did she confront you?”