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He’d not blow this chance Nor would he give the Elder a chance to screw things up again with his lust for vengeance He’d summon Darroc only at the last possible h for his liking, Bastion himself would see to Adam’s death

21

Aoibheal paced a tract of silica sand on the Isle of Morar, staring out at a frothing turquoise sea, her iridescent eyes flashing

Ti of which she was, indeed, scarcely aware, had suddenly becoo, she’d sensed an unfa lack of cohesion in the fabric of the realms she’d created for her race Because she’d not felt such a thing before, she’d not immediately comprehended what it was

The walls between the real

It took her yet another ain of distress in the weft and weave of worlds: The Keltar Druids had not yet perforhnassadh, the ancient rite that was to be completed at break of the feast day, as it had been for millennia

She shook her head, astonished By Danu, would they test hernot outward but inward, stretching her far-vision across ti her now

Stunned to find it was the sa farther to know the why of it

She snapped raht, eyes ith disbelief

"Amadan," she hissed "How dare you?"

Perhaps even more to the point, how could he?

She’d stripped hiht she had--unable to be seen, heard, felt She’d consigned hihost, and cast him into the human reallimpse of his own kind

She’d chosen the parameters of his punishment carefully, to force him to taste the bitterness of the human condition with none of the attendant sweetness, to cure him of his foolish fascination with ence of her favored prince--the only one of her people who ever ods to a sixty-thousand-year-old queen--had cast her in an unfavorable light with both her courtiers and her advisers Not to ed to do

The High Council had been insisting she take action for centuries and, after his ree Adaainst her in front of her court and council, a thing she could never pernty be questioned, lest she be blatantly challenged Though she was theas she held the support of the majority of her people That power could be taken from her

She’d been certain fifty or so years of such punishrateful to be Tuatha Dé, to bring hi with humans

She’d not believed it possible for hiiven hi she’d been As always, if a loophole existed, her iconoclastic D’Jai prince found it And in a mere few months’ time There he was, on the Keltar estate, and there was no doubt in her mind that he’d created this problem Even cursed and powerless, he’d so to keep the Keltar froain, feeling for di walls would first be felt in Scotland, then would spread quickly to Ireland and England It had, in fact, already begun The effects would radiate outward until, by nightfall, hidden Tuatha Dé realms would rise up all over the world in the htfall, any Tuatha Dé walking alahtfall, even the silica sands of Morar would gleam palely beneath a human moon

Dimensions would bleed into one another, temporal portals would open The Unseelie would be freed

In a nutshell, all hell would break loose

Ada afternoon light, when he sensed the queen drawing near About bloody ti, wondering as taking her so long

He had no words for how he sensed her, was, in fact, rather surprised he could, being hu in his body, a pressure inside his skull He tightened his arms protectively around Gabrielle