Shadowfever
Page 172

Vlane, dont open it! I cried. I think its inert, but we dont have any idea what will happen if you
It was too late. Hed opened the Book.
Arms spread, hands splayed on either side of it, head down, Vlane began to read, his lips moving.
Barrons flung himself at the wall. He bounced off.
Vlane had shut us out.
Ryodan, Lor, and Fade joined him, and moments later all five Keltar and my dad were at it, too, pounding on the walls, blasting into it with their shoulders and fists.
Me, I just stood, staring, trying to make sense of it, thinking back to the day Id met Vlane. Hed told me he served his queen, that she needed the Book in order to have any chance at re-creating the lost Song. At the time, the only thing Id been worried about was finding Alinas murderer and keeping the walls up. Id very much wanted the queen to find that Song and reinforce them.
However, hed also told me it was legend that if there were no contenders for the queens magic at the time of her death, all the matriarchal magic of the True Race would go to the most powerful male.
Surely he wouldnt have told me that if hed planned all along to be the one. Would he? Was he that stupid?
Or so arrogant that hed given me all the clues, laughing the entire time, as the puny human failed to put them together?
If he read the entire Sinsar Dubh, would that make himunquestionablythe most powerful male, stronger even than the Unseelie King?
I hadnt seen a single Unseelie Princess. Not one. All the Seelie Princesses wereaccording to Vlanemissing or dead.
What if he finished reading the Book and killed the queen?
He would have all the dark knowledge of the Unseelie King and all the magic of the queen. He would be unstoppable.
Was he the player whod been manipulating events, biding time, waiting for the perfect moment?
I felt for my spear in the holster. It wasnt there. I inhaled, nostrils flaring. How long ago had it disappeared? Had he taken it to kill the queen? Would he even need it? Once hed absorbed the Book, could he simply unmake her?
Was I being totally paranoid?
This was Vlane, after all. He was probably just looking for the fragments of the Song for his queen and once hed found them he would close the deadly tome.
I sidled in for a better view.
The men were blasting the walls with everything they had. Christopher and Christian were doing some sort of chant, while the others hammered at it. Nothing they did was having the slightest effect.
Peering between them, I suddenly got a clear look at Vlane. Unruffled by the assault on the walls hed erected, he stood, head thrown back, eyes closed. His hands werent spread on each side of the Bookas Id thought.
They were on it, a palm pressed to each page.
How was he touching an Unseelie Hallow? The pages were entrancingly beautiful, each made of hammered gold, embellished with gems, covered with a strikingly bold, dynamic script that rushed across the pages like ceaseless waves. The First Language was as fluid as the original queen had been static.
Vlane wasnt reading the Sinsar Dubh.
The spells scribed upon the gold pages were vanishing from the Book, passing up his arms, into his body, leaving the pages empty. He was draining it. Absorbing it. Becoming it.
Barrons, I shouted to be heard over the roars and grunts as bodies imploded with an unyielding barrier, weve got a serious problem!
Same page, Mac. Same bloody word.
51
When I was fifteen, Dad taught me how to drive. Mom was terrified to let me behind the wheel. I hadnt been that bad. I remember swerving wide around a bend, narrowly missing a mailbox, and asking Daddy, But how do you stay on the road? What keeps people from just running off it? Its not like were on rails.
Hed laughed. Ruts in the road, baby. They arent really there, but if you keep doing it over and over, eventually you begin to feel them, and a sort of autopilot kicks in.
Life is like that. Ruts in the road. My rut was that Vlane was one of the good guys.
But be careful, Jack had added, because autopilot can be dangerous. Drunk driver might come at you head on. The most important thing to know about ruts is how and when to get out of them.
I was immobilized by indecision. Was Vlane really one of the bad guys? Was he really trying to usurp all Fae power and rule? Was I supposed to intervene? What could I do?
As my mom and I watched, Kat, Jo, and the other sidhe-seers joined the assault on the walls. I was about to step in myself when my mom said, Whos that handsome young man? He wasnt here be She froze, mid-word.
So did everyone in the cavern.
The Keltar stopped chanting. Barrons and my daddy were frozen mid-lunge. Even Vlane was affected, but not completely. The spells moving up his arms slowed from a fast-moving river to a stream.
I looked where my mother had been pointing and lost my breath.
He was by the door. No, he was behind me. No, he was right in front of me! When he smiled at me, I got lost in his eyes. They expanded until they were enormous and I was swallowed up in darkness, drifting between supernovas in space.
Hey, beautiful girl, the dreamy-eyed guy said.
Butterfly fingers, I managed finally. You.
Finest surgeon, he agreed.
You helped.
Told you not to talk to it. You did.