Why hadn’t he walked up behind me? Why hadn’t he sent his army after me? Now that I thought about it, the only two times he’d ever tried to capture me were when I’d practically delivered myself to him, and he’d believed I was alone, almost as if I’d been an opportunity too convenient to pass up. Was the Lord Master in no hurry to get close to me? Did he fear my spear after seeing what it had done to Mallucé? I’d feared it intensely when I’d eaten Unseelie. I hadn’t wanted it anywhere near me. But with Voice he could easily strip it away. He’d wanted Alina’s willing participation, and now he seemed to want mine. Why? Because it was easier if I was willing, or was it more complicated than that? Did Voice work only to a certain extent, and there was something he needed from me that he wouldn’t be able to coerce? Or maybe—a chill of foreboding accompanied this thought—I was only a small part of his much larger plans, and he’d already made other arrangements for me, and it just wasn’t the right time yet. Maybe he was even now constructing a cage around me that I couldn’t see. Would I wake up one morning, and walk straight into it? I’d been duped by Mallucé. I’d believed him a figment of my imagination until the last.

I shoved my fearful thoughts away before they could multiply. I certainly wanted to get close to him. I was going to kill him. And his nasty trick of Voice was a barrier I was going to have to be able to get past.

“Well,” I prompted, “when can we start?” I didn’t trust Barrons, but he’d had plenty of opportunities to use Voice on me in the past, and hadn’t. I didn’t believe he’d use it to harm me now. At least not much. The potential gain was worth the risk.

“I’ll be there at ten.” He hung up.

It was nine-fifteen by the time I finished my invention, forty-five minutes before Barrons was due to arrive.

I turned it on, sat back, scrutinized it a few moments, then nodded.

It looked good.

Well, it didn’t really. It looked . . . strange, like something out of a sci-fi movie. But it worked, and that was all that mattered to me. I was sick of not being safe in the dark. I was sick of watching my flashlights go spinning away from me. This couldn’t spin away. And if I was right about its capabilities, I’d be able to walk straight through a Shade-wall with it on.

There was one final test I needed to perform.