53
The sign was heavy, but I was determined.
Although Barrons’ strength would have made things a lot easier, I managed without him. I wasn’t in the mood for an argument.
As I unscrewed the last bracket suspending the gaily painted sign from the brass pole bolted into the brick above the door of the bookstore, it slipped from my hands, fell to the sidewalk, and cracked down the middle.
MACKAYLA’S MANUSCRIPTS AND MISCELLANY bit the dust before a single customer ever looked up and saw the sign.
I was okay with that. It didn’t have the right ring to it. Although I’d loved seeing my name up there, I’d never have gotten comfortable with it. This place was … well, MM&M just didn’t roll off the tongue.
I had no intention of giving him back the bookstore.
I was keeping it forever. And I planned to keep the name, too. I’d never be able to think of it as anything else.
Twenty minutes later, the original sign was restored.
I dusted off my hands, propped the ladder against a column, and stepped back to view my work.
The four-story—I looked up. It was five stories tonight. The five-story building was officially BARRONS BOOKS AND BAUBLES again. Owned by one MacKayla Lane. He’d given me the deed last night.
I walked out into the middle of the street and assessed my bookstore with a critical eye. It was mine to take care of, and I wasn’t yielding one inch of it to vandals or the elements. It had weathered the storm of Unseelie better than most places in the city, protected by wards and a man who could never die.
I remembered the first time I’d seen it. I’d come barreling out of the Dark Zone, terrified, alone, desperate for answers. It had blazed with the holy light of salvation for me that night.
My sanctuary. My home.
The updated fa?ade of dark cherry and brass gleamed. The alcoved entrance, between stately pillars, sported a new light fixture that cast a warm amber glow on the handsome cherry door and stained-glass sidelights.
The tall windows on the sides of the building, framed by matching columns and delicate wrought-iron latticework, didn’t have a single crack, and there were no chips on the pillars. The foundation was solid, strong. Powerful spotlights mounted on the rooftop, controlled by timers, would be coming on any minute now. The lighted sign in the old-fashioned green-tinted windows winked OPEN.
The Dark Zone might be empty, but this place would always stand as a bastion of light, as long as it was mine. I’d needed it. It had saved me. I loved this place.
And the man.
And there was the rub.
It had been days since the showdown beneath the abbey, and we still hadn’t talked about it.
After the king left, we’d all just kind of looked at each other and headed for the door, as if we couldn’t get back to where we felt safe and comfortable fast enough.
Mom and Dad took one look at Barrons and me and decided to go back to Chester’s. I’ve got the smartest, coolest parents. Barrons and I went back to the bookstore, straight to bed. We’d gotten out only when near starvation had forced us.
The finale hadn’t been perfect and certainly not what I’d expected last fall, when we were making our desperate plans to keep the walls up between the realms of Fae and man.
The Sinsar Dubh had been destroyed.
But in the way of Fae things, another had come into being.
The sidhe-seers were furious that they’d been left in charge of the new one, but it’s hard to argue with an absentee king.
Kat had stepped up to the plate, taking over for Rowena, agreeing to lead until the abbey was cleared of Shades and their numbers were partially restored, at which time they would revert to a democratic vote and rebuild the Haven.
I intended to snag a spot in that inner sanctum, where I would lobby for significant changes—first and foremost that we permanently and irrevocably seal the cavern where the Sinsar Dubh was currently frozen in its much-too-exquisite temptation. Line it with iron. Pump it full of concrete.
The Keltar had returned to Scotland, taking Christian with them, but none of us believed we’d seen the last of them.
Before Halloween, we’d all thought life might one day get back to normal. Those days were gone forever.
We’d lost nearly half the world’s population—more than three billion people dead.
The walls were down and I was pretty sure they’d stay that way, with no queen and no one to lead the Seelie. I had no doubt the king was on extended sabbatical.
Jayne and his men were out in force, kicking ass, hell-bent on emptying the streets of Unseelie and the skies of Hunters. I planned to talk to him about that. I wondered if we might be able to negotiate a treaty with the Hunters. I didn’t like the thought of K’Vruck being shot at.
Kat had connected with Post Haste, Inc.’s international branches. She told me that Dark Zones abounded around the world, but Dani’s Shade-Buster recipe had been translated into virtually every language and manufacturing MacHalos was a booming business. In certain parts of the world, you could trade one for a cow. There were millions of surplus houses, cars, electronics, all the things I used to dream about one day owning, lying around out there for the taking. And all I could think was that I might cheerfully give up Barrons’ 911 Porsche turbo for a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice.
IFPs were drifting around like small tornados, but Ryodan and his men knew a way to tether them and had begun weeding the worst out of the city. Not because he cared, Ryodan had informed me coolly, but because they weren’t good for business.
Chester’s was rocking like never before. Today when I was out running errands, some chick had actually chirped, “See you in Faery!” As if she was saying, “Dude, have a good day.”
It was a strange new world.
The war was on, but it was a subdued war. Seelie and Unseelie were fighting each other but keeping it quiet for now, as if they weren’t sure what we might do if they messed up any more of our world and they weren’t ready to find out.
Yet.
The only good Fae is a dead Fae, in my book. PS: Hunters aren’t Fae.
The power was still down in most places. Generators were hot commodities. The cell towers didn’t work—Barrons’ and his men’s phones the mysterious exceptions. The Internet had crashed months ago. Some people were talking about maybe not restoring things to the way they were, going in a new direction that was a little less plugged in. I imagined there’d be a lot of different schools of thought, with enclaves springing up here and there, each espousing their own philosophy and social order.
I had no idea where the future was headed.
But I was glad to be alive and couldn’t think of anywhere I’d rather be than here and now, watching it all unfold.
I felt like Barrons: I’d never get enough of living.
Only yesterday, Ryodan’s men had finally located Tellie, and I’d gotten to speak with her briefly on Barrons’ cell phone. She told me Isla O’Connor really was pregnant with me the night the Book escaped. I had been born. I did have a biological mother. Tellie was on her way here to give me the whole story, would be arriving in a few days.
My parents were healthy and happy. The bad guys bit it and the good guys won the day. This time around.
It was a wonderful life.
With a single painful exception.
There was a child behind my bookstore, beneath the garage, and he was in agony every second he lived.
And there was a father who hadn’t said a word to me about him or the spell since we’d left the cavern beneath the abbey.
I didn’t have the faintest idea why. I’d expected him to demand the spell of unmaking the moment we got back to the bookstore. It was what he’d existed for, been hunting for an eternity.
But he hadn’t, and with each passing day I grew to dread my inevitable confession more. The lie loomed larger, seemed increasingly impossible to retract.
I would never forget the hope in his eyes. The joy in his smile.
I’d put it there. With a lie.
He was never going to forgive me when he found me out.
You can still do it …
I squeezed my eyes shut.
That insidious voice had been torturing me ever since we’d left the abbey: the Sinsar Dubh. I couldn’t decide if it was a memory of what it had said to me when it tempted me to embrace it—or a reality that was actually inside me.
Had the Book really “downloaded” a copy of itself into me while I was still an unformed fetus inside my mother?
Had it really created the perfect host for itself twenty-three years ago, making me a human facsimile of it, waiting for me to mature?
Most important of all: Was the spell to lay his son to rest really inside me?
Could I give it to him? Hear the joy in his laughter again? Free them both? At what cost?
I dug my nails into my palms.
Last night, right before I drifted off to sleep, I’d heard the child/beast howl. Hunger, anguish, eternal misery.
We’d both heard it. He kissed me, pretending he hadn’t. Then later, when he left to go do whatever it was he did for the child, I’d choked back tears of shame and failure.
He’d asked me for one thing. And I hadn’t been strong enough to get it for him and survive the getting.
I opened my eyes and stared at the bookstore, at the sign swaying gently in the breeze. Dusk brushed the store in shades of violet. A tinge of a metallic silver gauzed the windowpanes, one of the many new Fae hues.
Barrons would be back soon. I had no idea where he went when he left. But I’d learned the pattern. When he returned, I would be able to feel his heartbeat.
I didn’t let myself think about doing it. I knew if I thought about it, I never would. I’d chicken out. I let my eyes drift out of focus and took the plunge.
The water was frigid, unwelcoming, black as pitch, black as original sin. I couldn’t see a thing. I kicked deep.
I felt small, young, and afraid.
I kicked deeper.
The lake was enormous. I had miles and miles of dark, icy water inside me. I was surprised my blood didn’t run black and cold.
Melodrama. See you finally got some, a familiar voice purred. How is that flamboyance coming? Universe hates a dull girl.
“Where are you?”
Keep swimming, MacKayla.
“Are you really in here?”
Always have been.
I kicked harder, pushing deeper into the blackness. I couldn’t see a thing. I might as well have been blind.
Suddenly there was light.
Because I said let there be, it said silkily.