She shrugged. “We’ve been collecting them for millennia.”

“Who’s in the seventh circle? Rowena?”

“The seventh is the Haven itself, the High Council of . . . you know . . .” That level gray gaze swept the pub uneasily.

I glanced around, too. There were five customers in the place. Two were shooting pool, the other three were brooding into their beers. None of them were paying any attention to us, and there wasn’t a Fae in sight. “If you don’t feel comfortable talking in a public place, why did you ask me to pick one?”

“We didn’t think you’d meet in private after what happened. I’m Kat, by the way,” the brunette said. “This is Sorcha, Clare, Mary, and Mo.” She pointed to each in turn. The skinny Goth was Josie. The petite brunette was Shauna. “That’s the lot of us,” Kat said, “though if you prove useful, and your loyalties are true, more will join us.”

“Oh, I’m useful,” I said coolly. “The question is, are you? And as for loyalties, if yours are with the old woman, I suggest you rethink them.”

Her gaze cooled to match mine. “Moira was my friend. But I saw what I saw, and you didn’t mean to kill her. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, and doesn’t mean I have to like you. It does mean I’m after doing everything I can to stop the walls from coming down, and if that means I have to join forces with the only person I know can sense the Sin—er, Book—here I am. But back to loyalties; where are yours?”

“Where any sidhe-seers should be. With the humans we’re supposed to protect.” I didn’t say what else I was thinking—in exactly this order: my family, my vengeance, the rest of the world.

She nodded. “Very good. The leader of a cause is never the cause itself. But make no mistake, we listen to Rowena. She’s been training most of since we were born. Those she didn’t teach from birth, she’s spent years gathering and educating.”

“Then why are you going behind her back, and meeting with me?”

All eight, including Dani, shifted uncomfortably and either glanced away or fiddled with something; a coffee mug, a napkin, a cell phone.

It was Dani who finally broke the silence. “We used to guard the Book, Mac. It was ours to protect. We lost it.”

“What?” I exclaimed. “You lost it?” I’d been blaming the Fae for the mess we were in, for making Darroc human, but the sidhe-seers were complicit, too? “How did you lose it?” Then again, knowing what I knew of it, how had they contained it to begin with? How had any sidhe-seer gotten close to it? Weren’t they all repelled by it, like me?