Текст книги "Shadowfever"

Автор книги: Karen Marie Moning

Соавторы: Karen Marie Moning,Karen Marie Moning
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Текущая страница: 32 (всего у книги 37 страниц)

PART IV

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

– T. S. ELIOT

Don’t talk to it, beautiful girl.

Never talk to it.

– THE DREAMY-EYED GUY

45

I knew the moment he began to reconsider.

I could feel the tension in his body, see the tightening around his eyes, which meant he was thinking hard and not liking the topic. “It’s not enough of a plan,” he said finally, and got out of bed.

It was nearly impossible to make myself move. I wanted to stay in bed forever. But until this was over, no one I cared about was safe and I wasn’t going to be able to relax and get on with life. I pushed up, tugged on my jeans, buttoned the fly, and yanked my shirt over my head.

“What do you suggest? That we get everyone together and make them all hold the amulet? See if it responds to anyone else? What if it lights up for someone like, say, Rowena?”

He glared at me as I slipped the amulet around my neck and tucked it beneath my shirt, where it lay cool against my skin. I could see the strange dark light of it through my shirt. I tugged my leather jacket on over it and belted it.

It didn’t flare with blue-black light for him. I knew if it had, and he’d known what the second prophecy said, he’d have gone after the Book long ago.

“I don’t like this one bit.”

Neither did I, but I didn’t see any alternative. “You helped make this plan.”

“That was hours ago. Now we’re about to walk out into the streets and you’re going to pick the bloody thing up, believing in some prophecy scribbled by a mad washerwoman who used to work at the abbey, with no concrete idea what to do, trusting that the amulet will help you deceive it into submission. It’s the ultimate in seductive evil, and you expect to wing it. The plan stinks. That’s all there is to it. I don’t trust Rowena. I don’t trust—”

“Anyone,” I finished. “You don’t trust anyone. Except yourself, and that’s not trust, that’s ego.”

“Not ego. Awareness of my abilities. And the limitless nature of them.”

“You got killed on a cliff by Ryodan and me. Classic case of a time when a little trust might have gone a long way.”

His eyes were black and bottomless. I was just about to look away when something moved in them. I trust you.

I felt like he’d handed me the keys to the kingdom. That sealed it: I could do anything. “Prove it. You’ve been training me since the moment I got here to make me strong enough, smart enough, tough enough to do whatever has to be done. I’ve been through hell and back and survived. Look at me. What is it you say? See me. You made me a fighter. Now let me fight.”

“I fight the battles.”

“You are fighting this battle. We’re going after it together.”

“Watching. Who’s driving this motorcycle and who’s in the bloody sidecar? I don’t ride in the sidecar. I wouldn’t even own a pussy bike with a sidecar.” He looked aggrieved to the bottom of his soul.

“More than watching. Keeping me tethered, like you did when I was Pri-ya and couldn’t find my way back. I never would have made it without you, Jericho. I was lost, but I could feel you there, grounding me, holding my kite string.” He’d stalked into hell for me, sat down on my sprung sofa in my insane place, and kept me from being stuck there forever. He’d dragged me out by sheer force of will. He always would. “I need you,” I said simply.

A haze of crimson stained his eyes. He pulled a sweater over his head, muscles flexing, tattoos rippling. “It’s not too late,” he said roughly. “We can let the world go to hell. There are other worlds. Plenty of them. We can even take your parents. Whoever you want.”

I searched his eyes. He meant it. He’d leave with me, go through the Silvers, and live somewhere else. “I like this world.”

“Some prices are too high. You aren’t invincible. Merely long-lived and hard to kill.”

“You can’t protect me forever.”

He gave me a look that said, Are you crazy? Of course I could.

You would ask me to live that way?

Key word there being: live.

Don’t put me in a cage. I expect better from you.

He smiled faintly. Touché.

“We could see if it works for Dageus. He’s inhabited, too, or so they say.”

“Funny girl, aren’t you? Over my dead body.”

“Then stop tilting at windmills. You can’t use the amulet. That leaves me, with you at my side. It’s the only choice. You can’t die—I mean, you can, but you’ll always come back. And we know it won’t kill me. We’re perfect for this.”

“Nobody’s perfect for battling evil. It’s seductive. When we find it, it’s going to come at you with everything it’s got.”

I was braced for it. I knew it would. I took a deep, slow breath, filling my lungs, squaring my shoulders. “Jericho, I feel like my whole life has been pushing me toward this moment.”

“That’s it. Fate’s a fickle whore. We’re not going. Take your clothes off and get back in my bed.”

I laughed. “Come on, Barrons. When have you ever run from a fight?”

“Never. And others paid for it. I won’t have the same happen to you.”

“I don’t believe this,” I said with mock horror. “Jericho Barrons is vacillating. Will wonders never cease?”

The rattle moved in his chest. “I’m not vacillating. I’m … ah, fuck.”

Barrons doesn’t lie to himself. He was vacillating and he knew it.

“The moment I laid eyes on you, I knew you were trouble.”

“Ditto.”

“I wanted to drag you between the shelves, fuck you senseless, and send you home.”

“If you’d done that, I never would have left.”

“You’re still here anyway.”

“You don’t have to sound so sour about it.”

“You’re upsetting my entire existence.”

“Fine, I’ll leave.”

“Try and I’ll chain you up.” He glowered at me. “That’s vacillating.” He sighed.

After a moment, he held out his hand.

I slipped mine into his.

The Silver in Barrons’ study belched me out. I went flying across the room and slammed into the wall.

I was tired of the mirrors not liking me. When this was over, I wanted Cruce’s curse lifted. In my free time, I might like exploring the White Mansion.

I frowned. But then again, I might not. Maybe I needed to cut all my ties with my past.

Barrons glided out behind me, looking urbane and unruffled as usual, dark hair and brows frosted, skin icy. “Stop,” he ordered instantly.

My feet rooted to the floor. “What?”

“People on the roof. Talking.” He stood still so long that the frost began to slide in droplets down his cheeks and neck. “Ryodan and others. The Keltar are near. They’re waiting for—what the hell was that noise?” He strode past me and stalked from the study.

He pushed through the door that joined the rear, private residence part of the bookstore to the public portion.

I followed, hot on his heels. It was dark outside, drizzly with a light fog beyond the tall windows, and the interior was lit only by the soft amber glow of the recessed lights I left on all the time so the store would never be fully dark.

“Jericho Barrons,” an elegantly cultured voice said.

“Who the fuck are you?” Barrons demanded.

I caught up with Barrons just in time to see a man step from the shadows in the rear conversation area.

He walked toward us, offering his hand. “I am Pieter Van de Meer.”

Long and lean, with the impeccable posture of a man trained in martial arts, he was in his mid to late forties. Blond hair framed a Nordic face with deep-set pale-green eyes. He had the quietly watchful air of a snake, coiled but not about to strike unless he had to.

“Take one more step and I’ll kill you,” Barrons said.

The man paused, looking surprised and impatient. “Mr. Barrons, we don’t have time for this.”

“I’ll decide what we have time for. What are you doing here?”

“I’m with the Triton Group.”

“So?”

“Let us not play games. You know who we are,” the man chided.

“You own the abbey, among other things. I don’t like your kind.”

“Our kind?” Pieter Van de Meer afforded a small smile. “We have watched you for centuries, Mr. Barrons. We are not a ‘kind.’ You are.”

“And why am I not killing you now?” Barrons purred.

“Because ‘my kind’ is often useful, and you’ve long sought a way to infiltrate our ranks. You never succeeded. You are curious about us. I’ve brought something for the girl. It’s time for the truth.”

“What would anyone in the Triton Group know of truth?”

“If you will not hear me out with any degree of objectivity, perhaps you will listen to someone else.”

“Get out of my store right now and I’ll let you live. This time. There won’t be another.”

“We can’t do that. You’re on the cusp of making a grave mistake, and we have been forced to show our hand. It’s her choice. Not yours.”

“Who is us?” I’d been alternately eyeing Pieter and peering into the dimly lit conversation area, keeping a careful watch on the other figure seated there. There wasn’t enough light to make out her features, but there was enough that I knew it was a woman. I had butterflies in my stomach and a strong sense of foreboding.

Pieter’s pale-green eyes drifted from Barrons to me. His features softened.

I was instantly uneasy. He was looking at me like he knew me. I didn’t know this man. I’d never seen him before in my life.

“MacKayla,” he said gently. “How lovely you are. But I knew you would be. Letting you go was the hardest thing we ever did.”

“Who the hell are you?” I didn’t like him. Not one bit.

He extended a hand toward the person on the sofa.

She rose and stepped into the light.

I gaped.

Although time had worked delicate changes on her face, softening the jaw, brushing creases at the corners of the eyes and mouth, and her hair was much shorter now, barely brushing her shoulders, there was no doubt who she was.

Blond hair, blue eyes, beautiful. I’d seen her, twenty years younger, standing guard in a warded corridor at the abbey. She’d said: You do not belong here. You are not one of us.

I was looking at the last known leader of the Haven, Alina’s mother.

Isla O’Connor.

“How—what—” I stammered.

“Please forgive me.” The plea was soft in her words, anguished in her eyes. “You must know it was necessary. I had no choice.”

Barrons said, “You died. I saw you. You were in a coma. I went to your funeral.”

I jerked. He’d just confirmed it. She was Isla O’Connor. I didn’t know why I cared. She wasn’t my mother. Alina had been her only child. I was the Unseelie King.

“It’s a long story,” she said.

Barrons shook his head. “And one we’re not listening to.”

“But you must. Or you’ll make a terrible mistake,” Pieter said grimly. “And MacKayla will pay for it.”

“He’s right. We need to talk now, before it’s too late.” Isla didn’t seem to be able to take her eyes off me. “You want to hear it, don’t you?”

I shook my head. I didn’t trust myself to speak. How did I keep getting so brutally blindsided by life? When we’d walked into the Silver, I’d fully expected to walk out the other side, get in a car, and go driving around, hunting for the Sinsar Dubh.

Not for one moment had I entertained the possibility that Isla O’Connor might be waiting for us in the bookstore, long black limousine parked out front, a wide-shouldered chauffeur by the passenger doors, scanning the street up and down. I was willing to bet that beneath that dark uniform I’d find a gun or two. What was the Triton Group, besides the company that owned the abbey? Why did Barrons dislike them so much? What was Isla—one more person who was supposed to be dead but wasn’t—doing here?

Her fine-boned features crumpled and tears spilled down her cheeks. “Oh, darling, giving you up was the hardest thing I ever did. If you will hear nothing else from me, hear that. You were my baby. My sweet, helpless baby, and they said you were going to doom the world. They would have killed you if they’d known about you! Both my daughters were in danger. We all knew about the prophecy. Knew it had been foretold that sisters would be born to one of the most potent bloodlines. Rowena was watching me. She’d hated me since the day my talents began to manifest. She wanted her daughter, Kayleigh, to become Haven Mistress, wanted the O’Reillys to run the abbey forever. She never forgave Nana for turning her back on the order. She would have done anything to get rid of me. If she’d known I was pregnant again … I had no choice. I had to give you up and go away, pretend to be dead.”

“You weren’t pregnant when I helped you leave the abbey,” Barrons said coolly.

“Nearly five months. I carried well and dressed to hide it. It was a miracle my baby wasn’t injured when I escaped. I was so afraid I would lose her.” More tears spilled.

I was still shaking my head. I didn’t seem to be able to stop.

“Oh, MacKayla! It was torture every day, knowing you were out there, being raised by someone else, knowing that I could never see you or Alina again without putting you in danger. But you’re here now, and you’re about to do something that would have terrible consequences. It’s time for the lies to stop. You need to know the truth.”

I shoved my fists in my pockets and turned away.

“Don’t turn your back on me,” she cried. “I’m your mother!”

“Rainey Lane is my mother.”

“Unkind and unfair,” Pieter said. “You aren’t even giving her a chance.”

“Why do you care?” I said irritably.

“Because I’m her husband, MacKayla. And your father.”

46

I had brothers: Pieter, Jr., who was nineteen, and Michael—everyone called him Mick—who was sixteen. They showed me pictures. We looked alike. Even Barrons seemed rattled.

“We staged your mother’s death, cremated a Jane Doe, and smuggled the two of you from the country. Took you to the States and did our best to find you a good home far from danger.” Pieter took Isla’s hand and clasped it between his own. “Your mother nearly didn’t survive it. She didn’t speak for months afterward.”

“Oh, Pieter, I knew it had to be done. It was just—”

“Hell,” he said flatly. “It was absolute hell giving them up.”

I jerked. They were saying all the things I wanted to hear. It was breaking my heart. I had parents. Brothers. I’d been born. I belonged. I only wished Alina had lived to see this day. It would have been perfect.

“You said you had something important to tell her. Say it and get out,” Barrons ordered.

I looked at Barrons, torn. Part of me wanted to tell him to be quiet so I could hear more, and part of me wanted them to go away and never come back. I’d just gotten my head wrapped around one reality. Now they wanted me to abandon that reality and embrace a new one. How many times was I supposed to decide who I knew and what I was, only to learn I was wrong? I was no longer feeling bipolar, I was feeling schizophrenic, with multiple personalities.

“If I’m your daughter, then why do I have memories that belong to the Unseelie King?”

Isla gasped. “You do?”

I nodded.

“I told you she might do it,” Pieter reminded.

“Who?” I demanded. “Do what?”

“The Seelie Queen came to see us shortly after the Book escaped, before we left Dublin. She said she would do everything in her power to help recover it,” Pieter said.

“She was very interested in you,” Isla said grimly. “You were barely three months old. I remember like it was yesterday. You had on a pink dress with tiny flowers and a rainbow hair ribbon. You couldn’t stop looking at her. You kept cooing and reaching for her. The two of you seemed fascinated by each other.”

“We were afraid then that the queen had meddled with you. She’s notorious for that. She looks to the future and tries to adjust minuscule events, nudging here and there to achieve her ends,” Pieter said. “A few times I was almost certain someone had been in your nursery moments before I walked in.”

“And you think she planted memories of the Unseelie King? How would she have any to plant? I thought she drank from the cauldron. It would have erased everything she knew.”

“Who could say with her?” Isla shrugged. “Perhaps they were false memories, cleverly crafted, or lifted from another. Perhaps she never truly drank from cauldron. Some say she pretends.”

“Who gives a fuck? What did you come here for?” Barrons said impatiently.

Isla looked at him as if he must be crazy. “You’ve been taking care of her, and for that we can’t thank you enough, but we’ve come to take her home.”

“She is home. And she’s got a world to save.”

“We’ll take care of that,” Pieter said. “It’s what we do.”

“Bang-up job you’ve been doing so far.”

Pieter gave him a look of rebuke. “Not as if you’ve been doing any better. We’ve been directing the majority of our efforts to hunting the amulet. The true one.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Why?”

“The Triton Group has been searching for it for centuries for various reasons. But recently it became critical that we find it, because we’ve discovered it’s the only way to re-inter the Book,” Pieter said. “A representative from our company heard—too late—about the auction where it was sold. We arrived at the Welshman’s castle shortly after Johnstone’s massacre. But the Goth punk seemed to vanish into thin air.”

“Thick rock,” I muttered. I would never forget my hellish incarceration beneath the Burren.

“We had no idea where it was for months. We suspected Darroc had it but couldn’t get any of our people close enough. He had no tolerance for humans. Then we received reports that MacKayla had infiltrated his camp and was at his right hand.” His gaze glowed with pride. “Well done, darling! You are as brilliant and resourceful as your mother.”

“You said ‘the true one,’ ” I said.

“According to legend, the king made many amulets,” Isla replied. “All capable of sustaining varying degrees of illusion. Used together, they are formidable. But only the last one he made can deceive the king himself. The Book has grown too powerful to be stopped by any other means. Illusion is the only weapon that will work against it.”

“We were right!” I exclaimed, looking at Barrons.

“The prophecy is clear. The one who was inhabited must use the amulet to seal it away.”

“Already on it,” Barrons said coolly.

“It’s not your fight,” Pieter said gently. “We started this. We will end it.”

I sat forward on the edge of the sofa, elbows on my knees. “What are you saying?”

“Your mother is the one who has to do it. Although if you’re anything like her, darling, you think it’s your problem. That’s what we were worried about, why we rushed here tonight. Isla is ‘the inhabited.’ Twenty-three years ago, when the Book escaped, it possessed her, inhabited her. She knows it. She has been it. She understands it. And she’s the only one who can lay it to rest.”

“It never leaves a human alive,” Barrons said flatly.

“It left Fiona alive,” I reminded.

“She’d been eating Unseelie. She was different.”

“Isla was able to wrest it from her body,” Pieter said. “She is the only one we know of that has ever been able to resist to the point where it jumped from her while she was still alive and took another, more complacent host.”

Barrons didn’t look remotely convinced. “But not before it made her kill most of the Haven.”

“I never said it was easy,” Isla said softly, eyes dark with remembered grief. “I despise what it made me do. I live with it every day.”

“But it’s been tracking me,” I protested.

“Sensing your bloodline, looking for me,” Isla said.

“But I’m epic,” I said numbly. Wasn’t I? I was so tired of not knowing my place in things.

Was I going to doom the world? Was I the concubine? Was I the Unseelie King? Was I even human? Was I the person who was supposed to re-inter the Book?

The answer was no to all of the above. I was just Mac Lane, bumbling around, getting in the way a lot, and making stupid decisions.

“You are, darling,” Isla said. “But this isn’t your battle.”

“Your destiny is another day,” Pieter said. “This is only the first of many battles we’ll be called upon to fight. There are dark times ahead. Even with the Book contained, there’s still the matter of the walls between realms. They can’t be rebuilt without the Song of Making. We have our work cut out for us.” He smiled. “Your brothers have their talents, too. They can’t wait to meet you.”

“Oh, MacKayla, we’ll be a family again!” Isla said, and began to cry. “It’s all I ever wanted.”

I looked at Barrons. He wore a grim expression. I looked back at Pieter and Isla. It was all I’d ever wanted, too. I wasn’t the king. I’d been born. I was a person with a family. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. But my heart was already trying.

Family reconciliations aside, Barrons didn’t like the change in the game plan, and neither did I.

We’d spent months building to this moment, and now, on the eve of battle, in walked my biological parents, telling us we were no longer necessary. They would fight the war and finish it.

It chafed.

“Can you track it?” Barrons demanded.

Pieter answered. “Isla can. But it can sense her, as well, which made it too dangerous for her to be in Dublin until we were certain MacKayla had the amulet.”

“How did you know I had it?” I said.

“Your mother said she felt you connect with it tonight. We came at once.”

“I thought I felt you connect with it once before, at the beginning of October last year,” Isla said, “but the feeling was gone almost as suddenly as it came.”

I blinked. “I did touch it last October. How did you know that?”

“I have no idea,” she said simply. “I felt the joining of two great powers. Both times I felt you, MacKayla. I felt my daughter!” Her face crumpled. “I felt Alina once, too.” She looked away, stared into the cold fireplace for a long moment, then shivered. “She was dying. Could we please have a fire?”

“Of course,” Pieter said immediately. He rose and moved to the fireplace, but Barrons beat him there.

He glared at Pieter. You may be trying to claim the woman, his eyes said, but make no mistake, she and the fucking fireplace are mine.

After a long moment, Pieter shrugged and moved back to the sofa.

“We’ll sleep on it,” Barrons said. “Leave now. We’ll be in touch tomorrow.”

Pieter snorted. “We can’t leave, Barrons. This has to end here, tonight, one way or another. There’s no time to waste.”

I couldn’t stop looking at Isla. There was something about her face. Looking at her made me think of Rowena. I guess because the old woman had persecuted us for so long. “Why does it have to end tonight?”

Isla gave me an odd look. “MacKayla, don’t you feel it?”

“Feel wh—” I broke off. I hadn’t been trying to feel it. I’d been keeping my sidhe-seer volume all the way down for so long it had become instinct. “Oh, God, the Sinsar Dubh is heading straight for us.” I opened my senses as far as I could. “It’s … different.” I looked at Isla, who nodded. “It’s more intense. Like it’s all pumped up and ready. It’s been waiting for this.” My eyes widened. “It’s got a suicide bomber again, and it’s going to blow us all to hell if we don’t stop it!”

“It knows I’m here,” Isla said. Her face was pale, but her eyes were narrowed with determination that I recognized. I’d seen it in my own face. “It’s all right,” she said with a tight smile. “I’m ready, too. It may have stolen my children and torn my family apart twenty-three years ago, but tonight we’re putting it back together.”

Pieter and Isla excused themselves for a moment and stepped away, talking in hushed, urgent tones.

I sat on the chesterfield with Barrons, watching them. This was all so surreal. I felt as if I’d stepped through the Silver into an alternate reality, one with a happily-ever-after. This was exactly what I’d wanted: a family, a safe haven, no responsibility to save the day.

Then why did I feel so deflated and off kilter?

Out there in the night, I could feel the Book coming. It had slowed for some reason, nearly stopped. I wondered if it was swapping “rides.” Maybe it had found a better one.

In spite of myself, despite my love for Jack and Rainey, looking at my biological parents was doing something funny to me. Knowing that they hadn’t wanted to give me up had released a knot of tension I hadn’t even known I’d been carrying. I guess some part of me had felt like the devil-child that everyone was afraid of, who’d been banished only because no one had wanted to kill a baby. But all these years my real parents had been out there, missing Alina and me, longing for us. They’d hated giving us up and had done so only for our own safety. We were connected by a mother–daughter bond. We were going to be a family again. I had so many questions!

“I don’t trust a bloody thing about them,” Barrons said. “This is bullshit.”

Barrons was perfectly paranoid. Perfect awareness, he called it. It was exactly what I expected him to say. “It is hard to believe,” I murmured.

“Then don’t.”

“Look at her, Barrons. She’s the woman that warded me out at the abbey, the last leader of the Haven. The woman you picked up that night. For heaven’s sake, we look alike!” When I’d first arrived in Dublin, we hadn’t. I’d been soft and curvy and still holding on to a smidge of baby fat in my face. Now I was like her, older, leaner, my face less round, my features more distinct.

He glanced between us. “She could be a cousin.”

“She could also be my mother,” I said drily. “And if she is, I’m not the Unseelie King.” There went the weight of countless sins from my shoulders. Believing I was the ultimate villain, responsible for so many twisted births and billions of deaths, had been a crushing load to carry. “Maybe they’re right, Barrons. Maybe this never was my battle. Maybe Alina and I just got caught in the crossfire. The Book sensed us as part of her bloodline and harassed us, screwed up our lives.”

“Dani killed Alina,” he reminded sharply.

Why did he have to remind me of that now? I turned to scowl at him.

Face contorted, he was staring at me, dark eyes wild, roaring Rowena’s name so loud I was surprised the windows didn’t shatter.

I blinked. He was just Barrons again. Looking at me strangely.

“Are you okay?”

“What did you just say?”

“I said, are you okay?”

“No, what did you say before that?”

“I said Dani killed Alina because of Rowena, never doubt it. What’s wrong? You’re white as a sheet.”

I shook my head, embarrassed. Then I jerked and my head whipped toward the window. “Oh, no!” The Sinsar Dubh had begun moving again, rapidly.

“It’s coming!” Isla cried at the same moment.

“How long?” Pieter demanded.

“Three minutes, maybe less. It’s in a car,” Isla said.

I needed to know we were both sensing it in the same general vicinity. With two of us, we would be harder to deceive. I’d be damned if what had happened the last time we’d tried to corner it was happening again. “Where do you sense it?”

“Northwest of the city. Three miles at the most.”

I was relieved. That was exactly where I felt it, too.

“What part of this place is most securely warded?” Isla asked Barrons.

He gave her a look. “All of it.”

“What’s the plan?” I said.

“You must give your mother the amulet,” Pieter said.

I touched the chain around my neck and looked at Barrons. He took a slow breath and opened his mouth. It stretched wide on a soundless roar.

I blinked and looked again. He was composed and urbane as ever.

“It’s your call,” he said. “You have to decide this one.”

I felt so strange. Mac 1.0, bartender, daydreamer, and professional sun worshipper, would have wanted nothing more than to pass off any and all responsibility to someone else. To be taken care of. Not to be the one taking care. I no longer knew that woman. I liked making the hard decisions and fighting the good fight. Getting to lay down responsibility no longer felt like relinquishing a burden—it felt like being shut out of the most important parts of my life.

“MacKayla, time is of the essence,” Pieter said softly. “You don’t have to fight anymore. We’re here now.”

I looked at Isla. Her blue eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “Listen to your father,” she said. “You’ll never be alone again, darling. Give me the amulet. Release your burden and let me carry it for you. It was never meant to be yours.”

I looked back at Barrons. He was watching me. I knew him. He wouldn’t force my hand.

I did a double take. Who was I kidding? Of course Barrons would try to force my hand on this. He wanted the spell of unmaking to end his son’s life. He’d been hunting it for nearly his entire existence. He would stomp and argue and roar. He’d never get this close only to back off and give me space to make my own decisions.

“Don’t do it,” he snarled. “You promised.”

“The Sinsar Dubh has entered the city,” Isla said simply. “You must decide.”

I could feel it, too, rushing toward us, as if it knew that if it hurried, it could catch us with our pants down, me undecided, all of us exposed by my inability to commit.

I moved toward Isla, playing the chain through my fingers. How could I accept that I didn’t have to fight this battle? I’d been preparing for it. I was ready. Yet here she stood, telling me I didn’t need to worry. I wouldn’t doom the world, and I didn’t need to save it. Others had been preparing for the same moment and were more qualified.

That surreal feeling was back. And what was that buzzing at my ear? I kept thinking I was hearing Barrons roaring, but every time I looked at him, he wasn’t saying a word. “I need a spell from the Book,” I said.

“Once it’s locked up, we can get anything you need. Pieter knows the First Language. It’s how your father and I met, working on ancient scrolls.”

I stared into the face so like my own but older, wiser, more mature. I wanted to say it, needed to do this, at least once. I might never get the chance again. “Mother,” I tried the word on my tongue.

A tremulous, radiant smile curved her lips. “My dear, sweet MacKayla!” she exclaimed.

I wanted to touch her, be in her arms, breathe in the scent of my mother, and know I belonged. I focused on my only memory of her, deeply buried until this moment. I focused on it hard, thinking about how treasured it was. How I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten it all these years. How my child’s mind had taken a single snapshot: Isla O’Connor and Pieter staring at me with tears in their eyes. They’d been standing by a blue station wagon, waving good-bye to us. It was pouring rain, and someone had held a bright pink umbrella with green cartoon flowers above my baby carriage, but the wind had whisked a chill mist beneath it. I’d flailed my tiny fists, cold and crying, and Isla suddenly broke away from Pieter to tuck the blanket more securely around me.