“I don’t think he’ll risk getting within twenty feet of you,” I said coolly. “And you didn’t have to remind me that my sister’s dead. That was a cheap shot.”

I got on the Harley.

Go with V’lane and be punished for violating our bargain?

I’d take my chances with Barrons. For now.

Chapter Eight

EIGHT

Some of your mail missed the slot,” Dani said as she pushed open the front door of Barrons Books and Baubles, and wheeled her bike inside.

I glanced up from the book I was reading (Irish invasions again, some of the most boring research I’d ever done, except for some of the bits about the Fir Bolg and Fomorians) and, after looking behind her to make sure she was alone, smiled. Her curly auburn hair was windblown, her cheeks were flushed with cold, and she’d topped her green pin-striped Post Haste, Inc. courier uniform with a jauntily perched company cap, and her eternal I’m-bored-and-way-too-cool-for-words expression.

I like Dani. She’s different from the other sidhe-seers. I’ve liked her since the day I met her. There’s something kindred in us, besides the fact that we’re both on vengeance quests: her for her mother, and me for my sister.

“Rowena would kill you for coming here, you know.” I frowned, as a suspicion occurred to me. “Or did she send you?”

“Nah. I snuck away. I don’t think anyone followed me. You’re top dog on her shit list, Mac. If she’d sent me, she’d’ve sent me with the sword.”

I caught my breath. I never wanted to battle Dani. Not because I was afraid I might not win—although with her superhuman speed, I supposed it was possible—but because I never wanted to see that exuberant, flippant spark extinguished by my hand, or any other. “Really?”

She flashed a gamine grin. “Nah. I don’t think she wants you dead. She just wants you to grow the feck up and obey her every word. She’s waiting for the same thing from me. She doesn’t get that we are grown the feck up. We’re just not good little tin soldiers like the rest of her fluff-brained army. If you have a mind of your own, Rowena calls you a child. If you don’t have a mind of your own, I call you a sheep. Baaa,” she said, making a face. “The abbey’s so full of ’em it stinks of sheep shit on a summer day.”

I swallowed a laugh. It would only encourage her. “Stop cussing,” I said. Before she could get pissy, I added, “Because pretty girls don’t have ugly mouths, okay? I cuss sometimes, too. But I do it sparingly.”