I pass Liz in the corridor on the way to the stairs. She’s wearing a MacHalo, blazing like a small sun.
“How is she?” I say.
Liz shrugs. “No idea. Not my turn to be checking on her, and you won’t find me down there ‘less it is.”
When I pass Barb and Jo, I don’t ask. Most of the sidhe-seers feel the same way as Liz. They don’t want Mac here, and nobody’s taking any chances. There’s no electricity downstairs. Like medieval times. Torches burning in wall sconces. You get the picture.
It’d make me nervous for Mac, ‘cept I tossed fifty or so click-on LED lights in her cell and been keeping an eye on the batteries.
“I don’t know why you bother,” Jo throws over her shoulder. “She spiked the Orb. She flirted with a Seelie Prince. She was asking for it. Fae and human don’t mix. That’s the whole point of our order—we keep the races apart. She got what she was asking for.”
My blood boils. I thought I was at the door, about to go down, but I’ve got Jo flattened against the wall, our noses separated only by the distance forced by the front lights of our MacHalos.
There’s that look. Scared of me.
“You should be,” I say coolly. “Scared of me. Because if anything happens to Mac, you’re gonna be the first person I come looking for.”
She shoves me away, hard. “Rowena will take away your pretty sword. Without your sword, you’re not so tough, Danielle.”
Was she kidding me? “It’s Dani.” I hate that sissy name. I shove her back against the wall.
I can’t fecking believe it, but she shoves me again. Still got that scared look but defiant, too.
“You might be faster and stronger, kid, but enough of us together could kick your ass, and we’re beginning to want to. You take care of a traitor, you start looking like one.”
I look at Barb, who shrugs as if to say, “Sorry, but I agree.”
Buncha idiots. I whiz off without a backward glance. Not wasting time or breath on them. Mac needs me.
My first clue something’s wrong is I open the door to the downstairs and it’s dark. I stand there, stupid for a second. No way all the torches burned out at once. I’m not sensing Fae, and even the weakest sidhe-seer among us has range enough to cover the whole abbey.
No Fae around means one of us put out the torches. Means we got somebody in our ranks wants Mac dead bad enough to try to outright kill her. And expects to get away with it. I punch on my Click-Its, go into superspeed mode, and bingo—I’m at her cell.
It’s worse than I thought.
When we brought buckets of paint downstairs, we never got around to carrying the unused gallons back up, and now somebody’s gone and dumped black paint all over the floor and splashed it on the walls outside her cell, obliterating the wards.
I toe it with a sandal. It’s wet, fresh.
I frown. Something’s not making sense. With the torches out—sure, the Shades could get down here. With the wards obliterated, they could even enter the cell—if there weren’t fifty lights blazing in there with her, but there are. So what’s the point? Why make a half-assed murder attempt that has no chance of working?
“Aw, crap,” I say, as it dawns on me. Because it’s not Shades someone’s expecting. It’s something bigger and badder, something not afraid of the light.
No way. No way we got that serious a traitor in our walls!
I mull the evidence. Brain says, way, Dani. Wise up.
Don’t want to leave her alone, but I can’t guard her without a weapon! Still not sensing Fae. I need forty-five seconds, tops. Gotta risk it.
Freeze-frame!
Moving like I do is cool; ‘s ‘bout as close to being invisible as you can get. People say they feel a rush of wind blasting by that practically blows off their hair. I’m still testing the limits. I like running outside best, ‘cause there’s less to crash into. Bruises are me.
Point I’m making is, people can’t even see me. So a person touching me when I’m freeze-framing? Totally out of the question.
I can sort of see what’s going on around me, hear a little, too, but it’s mostly a blur of movement and noise.
The noise that tips me off, moments before I get freaked out of my skin, is male voices. Angry. Violent. No men are allowed in the abbey.
Ever. No exceptions. The night Mac brought V’lane here, we all ‘bout died.
But here they are. Men headed toward me. Lots of them. Gunshots! Fecking A! What kinda idiot brings guns to this kinda war? What would guns kill? Oh, jeez, duh—us. Why? Right ahead, coming faster than expected—
AVOID! AVOID! AVOID!
I call on every ounce of speed and agility I got, because something major weird is happening and something’s sort of in my space with me, and I’m having a shit of a time avoiding it, and all the sudden I’m plucked from the air by my elbows and jammed into a stationary position on the floor, so hard my teeth rattle.
Plucked.
Me.
Snatched straight out of superwhiz speed. Forced to stop.
I can’t deal.
I squeak.
“Dani,” a man says.
I gape. Mac never told me what he looked like. I can’t believe Mac never told me what he looked like. I can’t stop staring. “Barrons?” I breathe. It has to be him. It can’t be anybody else. This is what she lived with every day? How did she stand it? How did she ever say “no” to him about anything? How does he know who I am? Did Mac tell him about me? I hope she told him how awesome I am! I’m so embarrassed I could die. I squeaked in front of him. Mice squeak. He takes up too much space. He yanked me from midair.