I want to be so fearless. I want to be so bad and tough that all the monsters leave me alone.

I tugged Alina’s journal entry from my pocket and read it again, more slowly this time.

Her worst fear had come true, and here I was, left alone with a lifetime of things unsaid and undone. I’d never gotten that hug. I knew I needed to push past the emotional punch and focus on the Haven’s prophecy, the five, and the new questions her journal entry raised, but I was detoured by memories. There’d been so many nights that I’d sprawled on my bed, talking to Alina on the phone. Mom was always making good stuff, filling the house with the mouth-watering aroma of yeast, caramel cream sauces, and spices. Dad was always yelling at the Braves with old man Marley during baseball season. I would have prattled aimlessly about boys and school and my idiotic complaints about whatever I used to complain about, believing the whole time she and I were immortal.

What a shock when life ends at twenty-four. Nobody’s ready for it. I missed my rainbow quilt. I missed my mom. God, I missed—

I stood, crammed the page back in my pocket, and pruned my dark thoughts in the seedling stage before they could sprout. Depression gets you nowhere but tangled in an overgrown garden that can choke the life out of you.

I moved to the window and stared out at the rain. Gray street. Gray day. Gray rain, splashing grayly on gray pavement. What was that Jars of Clay song on my iPod? “My world is a flood. Slowly I become one with the mud.”

As I stared, unblinking into the grayness, a brilliant shaft of sunlight splintered the rain, directly in front of me.

I looked up, seeking its source. The beam pierced the dark clouds, a radiant lance shot down from heaven, forming a perfect golden circle on the dreary, drenched sidewalk, inside which there was no rain, no storm, just sunshine and warmth. I thumbed a Tums from my pocket. My tea and noodles were abruptly an unpleasant stew in my stomach.

Speaking of the sidhe-seer’s equivalent of Lucifer . . .

“Funny,” I said. But I wasn’t laughing. Fae-induced nausea coupled with an impossible illusion spelled one thing: V-l-a-n-e. The only thing missing was a frenzy of Fae lust, and I braced myself for it. His name piercing my tongue suddenly tasted sweet as honey, felt smooth and supple and sexy in my mouth. “Go away,” I told the illusory shaft of sun, focusing my sidheseer center on it. It didn’t evaporate.

Then V’lane was standing in it, but he wasn’t Fae, and he wasn’t the biker man. He was a version of himself I’d never seen before: he looked human, and he was definitely muted. Still, he was inhumanly beautiful. He was wearing white swim trunks that contrasted perfectly with his gold skin, and flaunted his flawless body. His hair slid like silk over his bare shoulders. His eyes were amber, warm with invitation.

He’d come to punish me. I knew that. And still I wanted to step outside, splash through the rain and join him in his sunny oasis. Hold his hand. Run away for a while, maybe to Faery, where I could play volleyball and drink beers with a perfectly convincing illusion of Alina. I stuffed that thought back in my padlocked box and checked the chains. They weren’t holding so good today.

I will attend to you later, he’d said last night. You broke our bargain. There is a price for that.

“Leave me alone, V’lane,” I called through the window. It echoed off the glass back at me, and I wasn’t sure he heard. Maybe he could read lips. Suddenly the windowpane separating us was gone. Drops of wind-driven rain needled my face, my hands.

“You are forgiven, MacKayla. Upon reflection, I realized it was not your fault. You were not responsible for Barrons’ interference. I do not expect you to be able to control him. To demonstrate my understanding, I have come, not to punish you, but to give you a gift.”

His “gifts” all had strings attached, and I told him so, with a tongue that tasted of nectar.

“Not this one. This is for you and only for you. I will gain nothing from it.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I could have harmed you long before now if I wished.”

“So? Maybe you’re just putting it off. Sucking me in for the grand finale.” I brushed rain from my face, and pushed my hair back. It was simultaneously curling and drooping, becoming an unmanageable mess. “You can put the window back anytime.”

“I took your hand and accompanied you into the halls of my enemies, trusting you not to Null me. Return the honor, sidhe-seer.” The temperature was dropping. “I gave you my name, the means to summon me at will.” The rain turned to sleet.

“Not inspiring trust with your little display of temper.” A strong gust of wind dumped a sudden bucket of rain on me.