A small glass globe floated up from behind the counter, hovering in the air before it came to rest in the oracle’s palm. Her nails curled over it, and she beckoned to me with her other hand.
“Here is what you seek,” she rasped, dropping the globe into my hand. I blinked in surprise. The glass felt as light and delicate as a bubble resting in my palm, as if I could crush it just by flexing my fingers. “When you are ready, simply shatter the globe, and your memory will be released.
“Now,” she continued, drawing back, “I believe that is everything you need, Meghan Chase. When I see you again, no matter what you choose, you will not be the same.”
“What do you mean by that?”
The oracle smiled. A breath of wind stirred the room, and she dissolved into a swirling cyclone of dust, sweeping through the air and stinging my eyes and throat. Coughing, I turned away, and when I was able to look up again, she was gone.
Trembling, I looked down at the globe in my hand. In the flickering faery light, I could see faint outlines in the reflective surface, images sliding across the glass. Reflections of things not there.
“Well?” came Grimalkin’s voice, as the cat appeared on another counter amid several jars containing dead snakes in amber liquid. “Are you going to smash it or not?”
“Are you sure it’ll come back to me?” I asked, watching a man’s face slide across the glass, followed by a girl on a bike. More images rippled like mirages, too brief and distorted to recognize. “The oracle just told me they’d be released—she didn’t specifically say that they would come back. If I break this now, my memory won’t dissolve into thin air, or get soaked up by some hidden faery memory-soaker, will it?”
Grimalkin sneezed, echoing Ash’s quiet chuckle in the corner. “You’ve been around us too long,” Ash murmured, and I thought I heard a trace of sadness in his voice. I didn’t know if he meant I was being too suspicious, looking for loopholes in a faery bargain, or that he thought that was exactly what I should be doing.
Grimalkin snorted, giving me a disdainful look. “Not all fey seek to deceive you, human,” he said in a bored voice. “As far as I could tell, the oracle’s offer was genuine.” He sniffed and thumped his tail against the counter. “Had she wanted to entrap you, she would have wrapped so many riddles around the offer that you would never have a chance of untangling the true meaning.”
I looked at Ash, and he nodded. “Okay, then,” I said, taking a deep breath. I raised the globe above my head. “Here goes nothing.” And I flung it to the floor with all my might.
The fragile glass shattered against the carpet with an almost musical chime, shards spiraling up to become fragments of light that spun around the room. They merged and coalesced into a thousand images, fluttering through the air like frantic doves. As I watched, breathless, they swirled together and descended like a flock of birds in a horror movie. I was bombarded by an endless stream of images and emotions, all trying to rip into my head at once.
I put my hands to my face, trying to block them out, but it didn’t help. The visions kept coming, flitting through my head like a strobe light. Of a man with lank brown hair, long gentle fingers, and eyes that were always smiling. The images were all of him. Him…pushing me on the park swing. Holding my first bike steady as I wobbled down the sidewalk. Sitting at our old piano, his long fingers flying over the keys, as I sat on the couch and watched him play.
Walking into a tiny green pond, the water closing over his head, as I screamed and screamed until the police arrived.
When it was over, I was kneeling on the floor with Ash’s arms around me, holding me to his chest. I was panting, my hands clenched in his shirt, and his body was rigid against mine. My head felt too full, throbbing like it was about to explode, ready to burst open at the seams.
But I remembered. Everything. I remembered the man who’d looked after me for six years. Who’d raised me, thinking I was his only daughter, not knowing my real heritage. Oberon had called him a stranger, but to hell with that. As far as I was concerned, Paul was my father in everything but blood. Oberon might be my biological dad, but he was never around. He was a stranger who had no interest in my life, who called me daughter but didn’t know me at all. The man who’d read me bedtime stories in a singsong voice, put unicorn bandages on my scraped elbows, and held me on his knee while he played the piano—he was my real dad. And I’d always think of him as such.
“You okay?” Ash’s cool breath tickled my cheek.
I nodded and pulled myself upright. My head still hurt, and there would be many long hours trying to sort out the torrent of images and emotions, but I finally knew what I had to do.
“All right, Grim,” I said, looking up with a new resolve. “I have what I came for. Now I’m ready to see Leanansidhe.”
But there was no answer. Grimalkin had disappeared.
CHAPTER FOUR
GLITCH’S RESISTANCE