And if she’d lived?

I closed my eyes.

I knew my sister.

Darroc had been right. She would have gone to him. She would have found a way to accept it. To love him anyway. We were so fatally flawed.

But what if … what if her love might have changed him? Who could say it wouldn’t have? What if she’d gotten pregnant and there was suddenly a baby Alina, helpless and pink and cooing? Might love have softened his edges, his need for revenge? It had worked greater miracles. Maybe I shouldn’t think of her as flawed but as a wrench in the works in a good way, who might have changed the outcome for the better. Who could say?

I turned the page and my cheeks flamed.

I shouldn’t look. I couldn’t help it. They were in bed. I couldn’t see Alina. She had the camera. Darroc was naked. From the angle, I knew Alina was on top of him. From the look on his face, I knew he was coming when she took it. And I could see it in his eyes.

He’d loved her, too.

I dropped the album and sat staring into space.

Life was so complicated. Was she bad because she’d loved him? Was he evil because he’d wanted to reclaim what had been taken from him? Hadn’t the same motives driven the Unseelie King and his concubine? Didn’t the same motives drive humans every day?

Why hadn’t the queen just let the king have the woman he loved? Why couldn’t the king be happy with one lifetime? What might have happened to the Unseelie if they’d never been imprisoned? Might they have turned out like the Seelie court?

And what about my sister and me? Would we really doom the world? Nurture or nature: What were we?

Everywhere I looked, I could see only shades of gray. Black and white were nothing more than lofty ideals in our minds, the standards by which we tried to judge things and map out our place in the world in relevance to them. Good and evil, in their purest form, were as intangible and forever beyond our ability to hold in our hand as any Fae illusion. We could only aim at them, aspire to them, and hope not to get so lost in the shadows that we could no longer see the light.

Alina had been aiming for the right thing to do. So was I. She hadn’t made it. Would I fail? Sometimes it was hard to know what the right thing to do was.

Feeling like the worst kind of voyeur, I reached for the photo album, pulled it back on my lap, and began to turn the page.

That’s when I felt it. The pocket was too thick. There was something behind the photo of Darroc staring up at Alina like she was his world, coming inside her.

I slid the photo out with trembling hands. What would I find secreted away here? A note from my sister? Something that would give me more insight into her life before she’d died?

A love letter from him? From her?

I withdrew a piece of old parchment, unfolded it, and gently smoothed it open. There was writing on both sides. I turned it over. One side was covered from upper margin to lower. The other side had only a few lines on it.

I recognized the paper and script on the full side instantly. I’d seen Mad Morry’s writings before, although I didn’t read Old Irish Gaelic.

I turned it over, holding my breath. Yes, he’d translated it!

IF THE BEAST OF THREE FACES IS NOT CONTAINED BY THE TIME THE FIRST DARK PRINCE DIES THE FIRST PROPHECY SHALL FAIL FOR THE BEAST SHALL HAVE GORGED ON POWER AND CHANGED. ONLY BY ITS OWN DESIGN WILL IT FALL. HE WHO IS NOT WHAT HE WAS SHALL TAKE UP THE TALISMAN AND WHEN THE MONSTER WITHIN IS DEFEATED SO SHALL BE THE MONSTER WITHOUT.

I read it again. “What talisman?” How accurate was his translation? He’d written, He who is not what he was. Had Darroc really been the only one who could merge with the Book? Dageus wasn’t what he was. I was willing to bet Barrons wasn’t, either. Really, who of us was? What a nebulous statement. I’d hardly call that definitive criteria. Daddy would have a heyday in court with such a vague phrase.

By the time the first dark prince dies … It was already too late, if that was true. The first dark prince was Cruce, who couldn’t possibly be alive. At least once in the past seven hundred thousand years, he would have shown his face. Someone would have seen him. But even if he was alive, the moment Dani had killed the dark prince who came to my cell at the abbey, it had been too late for the first prophecy to work.

The shortcut was a talisman. And Darroc had had it.

Something nagged at my subconscious. I grabbed my backpack and began to rummage through it, hunting for the tarot card. I dumped out the contents, picked up the card, and studied it. A woman stared off into the distance while the world spun in front of her.

What was the point? Why had the DEG—or the fear dorcha, as he’d claimed—given me this particular card?