Karen Marie Moning’s Fever Series 5-Book Bundle: Darkfever, Bloodfever, Faefever, Dreamfever, Shadowfever

by Karen Marie Moning

  “Rowena would have shut me out if I’d told you, and I’d have had no control over the inner doings of our order. It wasn’t a risk I could take. You did well tonight, Mac. She was wrong about you. With both prophecies against you, still you came through for us.” Serene gray eyes searched mine. “I can’t begin to imagine what you went through.” The look on her face told me she’d like to know and that she wouldn’t be waiting long to ask me in detail. “We can’t thank you enough.”

  “Sure you can.” I gave her a tired smile. “Never let it get out again.”

  There was a sudden commotion ahead of us.

  The Seelie had just sifted in, minus V’lane, in close proximity to Ryodan, Lor, and Fade.

  I wasn’t sure who was more disgusted. Or more homicidal.

  Velvet hissed. “You have no right to be here!”

  “Kill it,” Ryodan said flatly.

  “Don’t you dare!” I heard Jo snap.

  “Fucking fairies,” Lor muttered.

  “Touch one of them and I’ll—”

  “What, human?” Ryodan barked at Jo. “Just what will you do to stop me?”

  “Don’t push me.”

  “Stop it,” Drustan said quietly. “ ’Tis a Fae Book and they’ve come to see it contained, as is their right.”

  “They’re the reason it got out in the first place,” Fade said.

  “We are Seelie, not sidhe-seers. The sidhe-seers let it out.”

  “You made it.”

  “We did not. The Unseelie made it.”

  “Seelie, Unseelie—you’re all fairies to me,” Lor grumbled.

  “I thought there was no sifting in this part of the abbey,” I said.

  “We had to drop all the wards to let everyone in. There’s too much diversity in …”

  “Everyone’s DNA?” I said drily.

  Kat smiled. “For lack of a better word. The Keltar are one thing, Barrons and his men another, the Fae yet another.”

  And me? I wanted to ask, but didn’t. Was I human? Had the Book told me any of the truth? Did I really have the Sinsar Dubh inside me? Had it stamped its imprint, word for word, into my defenseless infant psyche? Over the years, had I always sensed it—something fundamentally wrong with me—and done my best to wall it off or submerge it in a dark glassy lake to protect myself?

  If I did have the entire Book of dark magic inside me, and Kat found out about it, would they try to lock me up down here, too?

  I shivered. Would they hunt me like we’d hunted the Sinsar Dubh?

  Barrons looked down at me. What is it?

  Just cold, I lied. If I did have the Sinsar Dubh inside me, did that mean the spell I’d walked away from was in my glassy lake? There at the bottom, like the Book had said? What was the difference, then? Had I really subdued the monster, or was it still inside me? Was the monster temptation, and I’d defeated it?

  “Where’s V’lane?” I asked, desperate for concretes.

  “He is collecting the queen,” Velvet said.

  That started another fight.

  “If you think we’re going to let her come here and open the Sinsar Dubh, you’re wrong.”

  “How do you expect her to rebuild the walls without it?” Dree’lia demanded.

  “We don’t need walls. You die as easy as any humans,” Fade said.

  “Is she even conscious?” I asked.

  “We need the walls,” Kat said quietly.

  “She surfaces but is still mostly out of it,” Ryodan said. “Point is, if anybody’s reading that damned Book, it’s not going to be a fairy. They started this fucking mess.”

  Everyone was still arguing ten minutes later when we reached the cavern that had been designed to contain the Sinsar Dubh.

  As we approached the doors, Christian glanced back at me and I nodded. I knew what he was thinking. We’d seen doors like this before, at the entrance to the Unseelie King’s fortress of black ice, however these were much smaller. Kat pressed a hand to a pattern of runes on the door and they swung open silently.

  The blackness beyond was so enormous and complete that the thin beams of our flashlights were swallowed a few feet in.

  I heard a match being struck, then Jo lit an oil torch mounted in a silver sconce on the wall. It flared into life, fed into the next and the next, until the cavern was brilliantly illuminated.

  A hush fell over us.

  Chiseled of milky stone, the cavern soared to an impossibly high ceiling with no visible means of support. Every inch of it—floors, walls, ceiling—was covered with silver runes that glittered as if they’d been branded into stone with diamond dust. The torchlight danced off the runes, making the chamber almost too bright to see. I squinted. Figured the only place in Dublin I’d ever need my sunglasses was underground.

  The cavern was easily as large as the Unseelie King’s bedchamber. Between the doors and the size of the place, I wondered how much credence there was to the theory that the king was the one who’d founded our order, who’d originally brought his cursed Book here to be entombed.

  In the center was a slab laid across two stones. It was also covered with glittering symbols, but these moved constantly, sliding up and across the slab like the tattoos that moved beneath the Unseelie Princes’ skin. They disappeared over the edge and began again at the floor.

  “Seen runes like these before, Barrons?” Ryodan said.

  “No. You?” Barrons said.

  “New to me. Could be useful.”

  I heard the sound of a phone taking pictures.

  Then I heard the sound of a phone being crushed against rock.

  “Are you out of your mind?” Ryodan said disbelievingly. “That was my phone.”

  “Possibly,” Jo said. “But no one records anything here.”

  “Crush something of mine again, I’ll crush your skull.”

  “I weary of you,” Jo said.

  “I weary of your ass, too, sidhe-seer,” Ryodan growled.

  “Leave her alone,” I said. “It’s their abbey.”

  Ryodan shot me a look. Barrons intercepted it and Ryodan looked away—but only after a long, tense moment.

  “You must place the Book on the slab,” Kat instructed. “Then the four stones must be positioned around it.”

  “Then, MacKayla, you must remove the runes from the binding,” V’lane said.

  “What?” I exclaimed, whirling to face him as he sifted in. “I’m not taking those runes off!”

  Barrons said, “I thought you were bringing the queen.”

  “I am making certain it is safe for her first.”

  V’lane scanned the chamber, studying each person, Fae and Druid. I could tell he wasn’t comfortable with the risk. His gaze rested on Velvet for a moment, who nodded. Then he looked at me. “I apologize, but it is the only way to protect her. I cannot be two of me at once without halving my abilities.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He didn’t answer.

  My parents were suddenly there. My mom and dad—here with the Sinsar Dubh—in the last place I would ever have brought them. And supposedly I was going to have to remove the runes, but we’d see about that.

  My dad had the Seelie queen in his arms, heavily wrapped in blankets. She was so well swaddled that all I could see of her were a few strands of silvery hair and the tip of her nose. My mom was pressed close to my dad’s side, and I understood why V’lane had apologized. He should have.

  He had my parents protecting the queen with their bodies.

  “You’re using my parents as her shield?”

  “It’s all right, baby. We wanted to help,” Jack said.

  Rainey agreed. “You’re so much like your sister, facing everything alone, but you don’t have to. We’re family. We face things together. Besides, if I have to stay one more moment in that glass cage, I’ll lose my mind. We’ve been stuck in there for months.”

  Barrons jerked his head, and Ryodan, Lor, and Fade closed in around my parents, shielding them.

>   “Thank you,” I said softly. He was always protecting me and mine. God, I sucked.

  V’lane was still eyeing all the occupants of the room. “I had no choice, MacKayla. Someone kidnapped her. At first I believed it must be one of my race. Now I wonder if it was not one of yours.”

  “Let’s just get this over with,” I said tightly. “Why do I have to remove the runes?”

  “They are unpredictable parasites and you have placed them directly on a sentient being. On walls, on a cage, they are useful. On a living, thinking entity, they are unbelievably dangerous. In time, it and they will transmogrify. Who knows what kind of monster we will be dealing with then?”

  I blew out a breath. It made perfect Fae sense. I’d applied something Unseelie and alive to something else Unseelie and alive. Who could say whether it would ultimately make the Book stronger, maybe even give it whatever it needed to free itself?

  “It must be re-interred precisely as it was before. Without the runes.”

  “She’s not removing them,” said Barrons. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “It is too dangerous if she does not.”

  “If it becomes something else, we’ll deal with it then,” said Barrons.

  “You may no longer be around,” V’lane replied coolly. “We cannot always count on Jericho Barrons to save the day.”

  “I’ll always be around.”

  “The runes on the walls, ceiling, and floor make them obsolete. They will contain it.”

  “It escaped before.”

  “It was carried out,” Kat said. “Isla O’Connor carried it out. She was the leader of the Haven and the only one with the power to carry it past the wards.”

  I was quiet, thinking. The truth of what V’lane had said resonated deep inside me. I feared the crimson runes myself. They were potent; they’d been given to me by the Sinsar Dubh, which in itself was enough to make them suspect. Was this another of its patient gambits? Had I sealed it with precisely what it needed to one day break free again?

  Everyone was looking at me. I was tired of making all the decisions. “I see both sides. I don’t know the answer.”

  “We’ll vote,” Jo said.

  “We’re not voting on something this important,” Barrons said. “This isn’t a fucking democracy.”

  “Would you prefer a tyranny? Who would you place in charge?” V’lane demanded.

  “Why isn’t it a democracy?” Kat said. “Everyone here is present because they are useful and important. Everyone should have a say.”

  Barrons cut her a hard look. “Some of us are more useful and important than others.”

  “My ass, you are,” Christian growled.

  Barrons folded his arms. “Who let the Unseelie in here?”

  Christian lunged for him. Dageus and Cian were on him in an instant, restraining him.

  The muscles in the young Highlander’s arms bulged as he shook his uncles off. “I have an idea. Let’s subject Barrons to a little lie-detector test.”

  I sighed. “Why don’t we subject everyone to one, Christian? But who’s going to test you? Will you be judge and jury of us all?”

  “I could,” he said coldly. “Got a few secrets you don’t want to get out, Mac?”

  “Gee, look who’s talking, Prince Christian.”

  “Enough,” Drustan said. “No one of us is any better qualified to make the choice alone. Let’s take the bloody vote and be done with it.”

  The Fae voted to remove the crimson runes and trust V’lane, naturally. As longtime Druids to the Fae, the Keltar did, too. Ryodan, Lor, Barrons, Fade, and myself voted against it. The sidhe-seers were split down the middle, with Jo for removing them and Kat against. I could barely see the tip of my father’s head between Lor, Fade, and Ryodan, but my parents weighed in on my side. Smart parents.

  “They shouldn’t count,” Christian said. “They’re not even part of this.”

  “They’re protecting the queen with their lives,” Barrons said flatly. “They count.”

  We still lost.

  Drustan placed the Book on the slab. Barrons took the stones from Lor and Fade and placed the first three around it. V’lane laid the final stone in place. As soon as the four were positioned, they began to glow an eerie blue-black and emit a soft, constant chime.

  The entire top of the slab was bathed in blue-black light.

  “Now, MacKayla,” V’lane said.

  I bit my lower lip, hesitating, wondering what would happen if I refused.

  “We voted,” Kat reminded.

  I sighed. I knew what would happen. We’d still be down here tomorrow and the next day and the next, arguing about what to do.

  I had a really bad feeling about this. But I’d had really bad feelings before that had amounted to nothing more than a case of nerves and, after everything I’d been through, I could understand how I might feel dread merely being in the Book’s presence.

  I looked at V’lane. He nodded encouragingly.

  I looked at Barrons. He was so inhumanly still that I almost missed him. For a moment, he looked like someone else’s shadow in the bright cavern. It was a neat trick. I knew what that kind of stillness meant. He didn’t like it, either, but had come to the same conclusions as me. Ours was a volatile group. It had voted. If I went against that vote, all hell would break lose. We’d turn on one another, and who knew how ugly things might get?

  My parents were here. Did I remove the runes and potentially expose them to risk? Or refuse and potentially expose them to risk?

  There were no good choices.

  I reached into the blue-black light and began to peel the first rune from the spine. As I pried it away, it pulsed like a small angry heartbeat and left a lesion that pooled with black blood before vanishing.

  “What am I supposed to do with them?” I held it in the air.

  “Velvet will sift them away as you remove them,” V’lane said.

  One by one, I tugged them away and they popped out of existence.

  When there was only one left, I stopped and pressed both my hands to the cover. It felt inert. Were the runes on the inside of these walls really enough to hold it? I was about to find out.

  I tugged the final one from the binding of the book. It came away reluctantly, squirming like a hungry leech, and tried to attach to me once I’d broken the bond.

  Velvet sifted it out.

  I held my breath as the crimson rune vanished. After about twenty seconds, I heard a small explosion of gusty exhales. I think we all expected it to morph into the Beast and rain down the end of days on us.

  “Well?” V’lane said.

  I opened my sidhe-seer senses, trying to feel it.

  “Is it contained?” Barrons demanded.

  I reached with everything I had, stretching, pushing that part of me that could sense OOPs as far as it could go, and for a brief moment I felt the entire interior of the cavern and understood the purposes of the runes.

  Each had been meticulously chiseled into the stone interior so that if lines were drawn connecting them, from floor to ceiling and wall to wall, they would reveal an intricate tight grid. Once the Book had been positioned on the slab and the stones arranged around it, the runes had begun to activate. They now crisscrossed the room with a gigantic invisible spiderweb. I could almost see the tensile silvery strands shooting past my head, feel them slicing through me.

  Even if the Book somehow got off the slab, it would be instantly stuck in the first of countless sticky compartments. The harder it fought, the more the web would twist around it, eventually cocooning it.

  It was over. It was really over. There was no other shoe that was going to drop.

  There was a time I’d thought this day would never come. The mission had seemed too difficult, the odds too strongly stacked against us.

  But we’d done it.

  The Sinsar Dubh was shut down. Locked up. Caged. Imprisoned. Put to rest. Neutralized. Inert.

  So long as nobody ever came down here and set it fr
ee again.

  We were going to need better locks on the door. And I was going to make a motion that no one in the Haven got to have a key this time around. I wasn’t sure why they’d been able to get in to begin with. There was no reason anyone should enter this cavern. Ever.

  Relief flooded me. I was having a hard time processing that it was really, truly over and comprehending all that meant.

  Life could begin again. It would never be as normal as it used to be, but it would be a lot more normal than it had been for a long time. With the biggest, most immediate threat out of the way, we could focus our efforts on reclaiming and rebuilding our world. I could get some pots and dirt and start a rooftop garden at the bookstore.

  I’d never have to walk down a dark street and be afraid the Book might be waiting for me, ready to crush me with a bone-deep migraine, set my spine on fire, or tempt me with illusion. It would never again possess one of us, never slaughter its way through our midst or threaten the people I loved.

  I didn’t have to strip when I went to Chester’s anymore! Skintight clothing was a fad whose time had passed.

  I turned around. Everyone was looking at me expectantly. They looked so wired and anxious, I suspected they’d jump out of their skins if I said, Boo. And for a moment I was tempted.

  But I didn’t want anything to detract from the joy of the moment. I spread my hands and shrugged, smiling. “It’s over. It worked. The Sinsar Dubh is just a book. Nothing more.”

  The cheers were deafening.

  50

  Well, okay, so maybe the cheers weren’t deafening, but they felt deafening to me, because I was cheering, too, and louder than most. The reality of the situation was that the sidhe-seers cheered, Mom and Dad hooted, Drustan whooped, Dageus and Cian grunted, Christopher looked worried, Christian turned and began to walk away in silence, Barrons scowled as did the rest of his men, and the Seelie glared.

  Then the fighting broke out. Again.

  I sighed gustily. They really needed to get with the program and learn to celebrate the good times a little longer before dwelling on the problems. I’d been walking around under the sentence of a prophecy that I would doom or save the world and I’d … well, technically, I hadn’t done either. I hadn’t doomed it. But I couldn’t see any way I’d saved it. Unless I’d saved it simply by not dooming it. But, still, I knew the importance of celebrating every now and then to alleviate the stress.