"There is more than one type of fear, little brother. You had a not so healthy taste of that with Georgina and me, and you did your best to forget about it." His gaze drilled into mine, letting me know what he had thought and still did think of that idea. Very damn little. "To push it down where you wouldn't have to look at it, to think about it." He leaned against the wall as I shifted my wary glance away from him to the floor and kept pacing. "Or to deal with it."
I had exactly zero desire to talk about this, but I knew the difference that would make. When I passed the piano this time, I slammed a fist down instead of a few fingers. The discordant crash didn't make me feel any better, but it did make me feel like I had company in my chaos. "I deal," I gritted. "I deal just fine."
"Yes, you're dealing. You're dealing a path of destruction through a home that Promise is quite fond of." Fingers tapped lightly against folded arms as he led into what he'd said before, more than once, although he hadn't said it as often as I'd expected him to. He knew better than I that I wasn't ready to hear it. Not then. "Cal, Robin is alive. Georgina and I are alive. That is what's important—what did happen, not what could've happened."
What did happen, not what could have. Yeah, it was all very Tao and accepting and all that. But, Zen crap aside, it could easily have gone the other way. Over the past year and a half we'd been lucky so many times. That luck, sooner rather than later, would have to run out. The law of averages wasn't going to be our bitch forever.
I touched a finger to the cool keys again, this time tentatively, and then I sat down to play. It wasn't pretty music. It wasn't ugly either. Yet, in a way, it was both. It was alien—that was the best description. Dissonant and illogically strung together, wild note to wilder yet, but it hung together somehow. A symphony from swamps and caves, jeweled bones and forgotten dungeons, living tombs and empty graves—the Darkling places. He had been related to the banshees, a male version whose history had never been recorded, whose true name along with the rest of his gender was lost in time. But like his female cousins, he liked music, and he liked to sing.
On the other hand, despite inheriting our mother's honey and rum voice, I couldn't play or sing a note. That hadn't stopped Darkling from leaving me a present. Unwelcome, unwanted, and unknown up until now. It didn't matter. He was dead, chopped to the finest of pieces. I'd done the chopping. I knew for a fact he was gone.
But the reflection came before I could stop it, at least when he'd been in me, no matter who left, I wasn't ever alone. Schizo as hell, but not alone. It was a thought that left me so repulsed and exposed that I veered away from it instantly. Folding arms on the top of the piano, I rested my chin on them. "I'm used to having all my eggs in one basket." That would be Niko. One steel-shelled egg, one unbreakable basket. God, I hoped.
It was an obscure statement and coming after an exhibition of a freakish musical talent I shouldn't have had, you had to give Niko credit for catching on to it. "The more eggs you have, the more likely one is to break."
"Poached. Scrambled. Pureed in a blender for an over-the-hill boxer. Whatever." I extended an arm and touched the corner of the nearest frame. Promise and a dark-haired little girl, both colored sepia and dressed in clothes from at least a hundred years ago. For the things that I did know of Robin and Promise, there were thousands upon thousands of things that I didn't and might never have the chance to learn.
"I'm not good at this shit, Cyrano. I'm not good at caring, and I'm sure as hell not good at all the crap that conies with it." I looked up at the ceiling, eggshell with a hint of rose. It reminded me of the inner curve of a shell scoured clean by salt water. Full of dawn's purity and glow. "He made me like him, the son of a bitch. And I don't like…didn't like anyone but you. But Goodfellow made me like him and then he goes and proves he's mortal after all. It sucks. It just goddamn sucks." I pushed away from the baby grand and stood. "I'm hungry. You hungry? Want a sandwich? Great. Sandwiches coming up."
"I think you need to avoid sharp objects for a while," Niko ordered as he moved away from the wall. "I would hate for you to ram a butcher's knife in Goodfellow's leg in the hopes he wouldn't force you to like him anymore. Although the aborted attempt to brain him with a candelabra might already have him tipped off to your cunning plan."
"I am so screwed." I sat back down, this time on the floor. Dirty red shirt, damp jeans, and black sneakers, I was a definite test to the stain-repelling skills of the oyster gray, violet, and ebony rug beneath me. "Why do I like him?" I muttered, more to myself than to Nik. "Promise … I have to like her. I get that. She's yours. You're hers. It's a package deal. George …" I shut my mouth. There was no way to continue that sentence without regret, not a single one.