"A room?" Fiona exclaimed.

"Shears? Hair colors?" I exclaimed. My hands flew to my hair. I'd address the room part in a minute. I had my priorities.

"Can't bear to shed your pretty feathers, Ms. Lane? What did you expect? It knows you saw it. It won't stop looking for you until you're dead—or it is. And believe me, they don't die easily, if at all. The only question is whether it will alert the Hunters, or come for you by itself. If you're lucky, it's one of a kind like the Gray Man. The lower castes prefer to hunt alone."

"You mean, maybe it won't tell any of the other Unseelie?" I felt a small surge of hope. One Unseelie might just be survivable, but the thought of being hunted by a multitude of monsters was enough to make me give up without even trying. I could too easily envision a horde of hideous creatures chasing me through the Dublin night. I'd keel over and die of a heart attack before they ever caught me.

"They have as many factions among themselves as humans do," he said. "The Fae, particularly the Unseelie, trust each other about as much as you might trust sharing a cage with a hungry lion."

Or a Jericho Barrons, I was thinking a quarter hour later, when Fiona showed me to a room. That's exactly what it felt like—preparing to spend the night at Barrons Books and Baubles—like I was taking up residence in the lion's den. Out of the frying pan, into the fire. That was me. But I'd thought twice about pitching a fit, because if my choices were staying at the inn by myself or staying here, I'd rather stay here, if only to minimize my odds of dying alone and unnoticed for several days like my sister had.

The bookstore extended farther back from the street than I'd realized. The rear half wasn't part of the store at all, but living quarters. Fiona briskly unlocked one door, led me down a short corridor, then unlocked a second door and we entered Barrons' private residence. I got a fleeting impression of understated wealth as she whisked me through an anteroom, down a hallway, and directly to a stairwell.

"Do you see them too?" I asked, as we climbed flight after flight, to the top floor.

"All myths contain a grain of truth, Ms. Lane. I've handled books and artifacts that will never find their way into a museum or library, things no archaeologist or historian could ever make sense of. There are many realities pocketed away in the one we call our own. Most go blindly about their lives and never see beyond the ends of their noses. Some of us do."

Which told me nothing about her, really, but she hadn't exactly been giving off warm and friendly vibes in my direction, so I didn't press. After Barrons left, I'd described the thing again. She'd taken notes with brusque efficiency, rarely looking at me directly. She'd gotten the same tight-lipped look my mom got when she vigorously disapproved of something. I was pretty sure the something was me, but couldn't imagine why.

We stopped.at a door at the end of the hall. "Here." Fiona thrust a key into my hand, then turned back for the stairwell. "Oh, and Ms. Lane," she said over her shoulder, "I'd lock myself in if I were you."

It was advice I hadn't needed. I wedged a chair beneath the door handle, too. I would have barricaded it with the dresser as well, but it was too heavy for me to move.

The rear bedroom windows looked down four stories onto an alley behind the bookstore. The alley vanished into darkness on the left and semidarkness on the right, after bisecting narrow cobbled walkways that ran along each side of the building. Across the alley was a one-story structure that looked like a warehouse or a huge garage with glass-block windows that were painted black, making it impossible to discern anything within. Floodlights washed the area directly between the buildings white, illuminating a walkway from door to door. Dublin sprawled beneath me, a sea of roofs, melting into the night sky. To my left, so few lights pierced the darkness that it appeared that section of the city was dead. I was relieved to see there was no fire escape on the rear of the building. I didn't think any of the Unseelie I'd seen could scale the sheer brick face. I refused to dwell on the winged Hunters.

I double-checked all the locks and closed the drapes.

Then I dug my brush from my purse, sat down on the bed, and began brushing my hair. I worked on it for a long time, until it shimmered like blond silk.

I was going to miss it.

Don't leave the bookstore until I return, read the note that had been shoved beneath my door sometime during the night.

I crumpled it, irritated. What was I supposed to eat? It was ten o'clock. I'd slept late and was starving. I'm one of those people that needs to eat as soon as I wake up.

I removed the chair from beneath the knob and unlocked the door. Though my proper southern upbringing made me balk at the idea of intruding into another person's house without an invitation to make myself at home, I didn't see that I had any choice but to go hunting for his kitchen. I would get a sick headache if I went too long without food. Mom says it's because my metabolism is so high.

When I opened the door, I discovered someone had been busy while I'd slept. A bakery bag, a bottled latte, and my luggage were outside the door. Down South, store-bought food outside your bedroom door isn't a treat—it's an insult. Despite the presence of my personal belongings, Barrons couldn't have told me any more plainly not to make myself at home. Stay out of my kitchen, the bag said, and don't go looking around. Down South it meant, Leave before lunch, preferably now.

I ate two croissants, drank the coffee, got dressed, and retraced my steps of last night directly back to the bookstore. I didn't look either way as I went. Any curiosity I might have felt about Barrons was second to my pride. He didn't want me there—fine—I didn't want to be there. In fact, I wasn't sure why I was there. I mean, I knew why I'd stayed, but I had no idea why he'd let me. I wasn't stupid enough to think Jericho Barrons had an ounce of chivalry in him; damsels in distress were clearly not his cup of tea.

"Why are you helping me?" I asked him that night, when he returned to the store. I wondered where he'd been. I was still where I'd spent the entire day: in the rear conversation area of the store, the one that was almost out of sight, back by the bathroom and set of doors that led to Barrons' private quarters. I'd pretended to be reading while I was really trying to make sense of my life and contemplating the various hair color shades Fiona had brought when she'd arrived to open the store at noon. She'd ignored my efforts to make conversation and hadn't spoken to me all day expect for the offer of a sandwich at lunch. At ten after eight, she'd locked up the store and left. A few minutes later, Barrons had appeared.

He dropped into a chair across from me: elegance and arrogance in tailored black pants, black boots, and a white silk shirt he'd not bothered to tuck in. The snowy fabric contrasted with his coloring, intensifying his slicked-back hair to midnight, his eyes to obsidian, his skin to bronze. He'd rolled the sleeves back at his wrists; one powerful forearm sported a platinum-and-diamond watch, the other an embossed, wide silver cuff that looked very old and Celtic. Tall, dark, and basely sexual in a way I supposed some women might find irresistibly attractive, Barrons exuded his usual unsettling vitality. "I'm not helping you, Ms. Lane. I'm entertaining the notion that you might be of use to me. If so, I need you alive."

"How could I be of use to you?"

"I want the Sinsar Dubh."

So did I. But I didn't see how my odds of getting it were any greater than his. In fact, in light of recent events, I didn't see that I had any odds of getting the darn thing at all. What could he need me for? "You think I can help find it somehow?"