I frown. Where are the princes? Why didn’t they protect him? Wait a minute! Who did this to him?

Am I next?

I glance wildly around.

“Whuh,” I manage. I can’t process it.

Sidhe-seer, the Hunter purrs in my mind.

I stare blankly. The Hunter that Darroc summoned for us to ride is crouched a dozen paces away, dangling Darroc’s head by the hair, swinging it from a taloned claw.

If Hunters smile, this one is. Leathery lips crack on saber teeth, and it oozes amusement.

Its … hand, for lack of a better word, is the size of a small car. How did it so tidily rip off Darroc’s head?

Did it pinch it off with its talons? It happened absurdly fast.

Why would it kill him?

Darroc was allied with the Hunters. It was the Hunters that taught him to eat Unseelie. Did they—as I once warned him they would—tire of him and turn on him?

I reach for my spear. It’s back. Great, the princes are definitely gone. But before I can pull it out, the Hunter laughs, dry and dusty, in my mind, and I am assaulted by a sense of age that defies time, of sanity that was forged down a long path of madness. It was muting itself before. This one is very different from the other Hunters.

I wouldn’t be surprised to discover it was the granddaddy of them all.

It calls itself K’Vruck. Humans have no word for it. It means a state beyond death. Death is small compared to K’Vruck.

“Huh?” I stammer. The voice was in my mind.

K’Vruck is so much more complete than death. It is the reduction of matter to a state of utter inertness, from which nothing can ever rise again. It is less than nothing. Nothing is something. K’Vruck is absolute. Your species would postulate the loss of soul to try to wrap their puny brains around it.

I stiffen. I know this voice. This mockery. My spear will be no use against it. If I kill the Hunter, it would probably just hop a ride on me.

I will tell you a secret, it says silkily. You do go on. Humans. Unless you are—it laughs softly—K’Vrucked.

I suck in a ragged breath.

MacKayla, I permit none to control me. Darroc will never use his shortcut, and you will never learn it.

The Hunter pops Darroc’s head like a grape. Hair and bone slap to the pavement. And now that I’m no longer transfixed by the gory sight, I see what the Hunter holds in its other hand. Had been holding all along.

I back away faster.

There was never any chance that Darroc and I would soar up into the night, and hunt the Sinsar Dubh.

It beat us to the punch.

It hitched a ride on our Hunter and came to us.

And here I am, helpless. I have no stones, my spear is useless—

The amulet! When the Hunter ripped Darroc’s head off, it stayed on his body! I feint a wild glance around, trying hard to look at nothing in particular and everything, to keep from telegraphing my intentions.

Where the hell are the princes? They could sift me out of here! What did they do—vanish the moment Darroc was killed? Cowards!

It’s there! When Darroc’s body collapsed to the ground, the amulet slid off the stump of his neck. Silver and gold, it’s lying in a pool of blood, a dozen feet from me! I have power in my glassy lake. With the amulet to reinforce me, is it enough to hold my own?

I turn inward to step onto my black-pebbled beach, but that damned wall springs up before I can get there. The Sinsar Dubh laughs. I fractured this wall last night. I’ll do it tonight or die trying.

Power is earned, and you have not.

I don’t need to look to know it’s rising, separating from the Hunter, soaring up, becoming the towering Beast form of the Book, getting ready to crush me with pain.

Or, who knows this time? Maybe worse. Maybe it’s going to K’Vruck me.

I lunge forward and grab. My fingers brush the chain. I’ve got it! I’m pulling it toward me!

Then suddenly something slams into my side, and the amulet is knocked from my grasp and gone. My arm is caught at a bad angle, extended mid-reach, and I hear it snap as I’m pushed into a long, helpless slide on my side, scraping pavement. My head hits the ground and my forehead drags. I feel skin ripping away.

Then I’m being picked up and tossed into the air. I glance wildly around but don’t see the amulet anywhere. As I come down, someone flings me over their shoulder. My hair is in my face, my arm dangles limply, and my forehead is bleeding into my eyes. I nearly scalped myself on the pavement.

Everything is moving so fast it’s a blur.

Superstrength. Superspeed. I feel motion sickness coming on.

“Dani?” I gasp. Did she come to save me, even though I was such a bitch and drove her away?