He deflated as abruptly as the melodramatic beast was wont. “It’s all going to go horribly wrong,” he wailed. “Everything always does.” He sniffed, violet eyes dewing.
“Don’t be such a pessimist.”
He ruched the fur along his spine and spat a sharp hiss at her, working himself into a snit. “Pessimists are only pessimists when they’re wrong. When we’re right, the world calls us prophets.”
“Ew, fish breath!”
“Your pitiful offerings, my bad breath. Bring me better things to eat.”
“We’ll be fine. You’ll see.”
He shifted his furry bulk around, parking his rump south of her chest (soft spots he wasn’t allowed to pounce ever), his belly so fat he had to spread his great front paws around it. Then he leaned forward and slowly touched his wet nose to hers. “I see you, Yi-yi.”
She smiled. Everything she knew about love she’d learned from this pudgy, cranky, manic-depressive, binge-eating beast that had been her companion through hell and back, too many times to count. He alone had protected her, loved her, fought for her, taught her to believe that life was worth living, even if there was no one there to see you living it.
“I see you, too, Shazam.”
28
“I would give everything I own just to have you back again…”
I’d left her. The woman that looked like my sister and had far too many of her memories and unique characteristics—I just left her there—in the basement where I’d been Pri-ya, sitting in the middle of crates of guns and ammo and various food supplies, looking unbearably lost and sad.
So, Mom and Dad think I’m dead? she’d asked as I was leaving.
They buried you. So did I, I’d flung over my shoulder.
Are they okay, Jr.? Did Mom lose it when she thought I was dead? Was Daddy—
They’re here in Dublin, I’d cut her off coldly. Ask them yourself. Go try to convince them. On second thought, don’t. Stay away from my parents. Don’t you dare go near them.
They’re my parents, too! Mac, you have to believe me. Why would I lie? Who else would I be? What’s wrong? What happened to you? How you did get so…hard?
I’d stormed out. Some part of me had simply shut down and there’d been no turning it back on. I’d gotten “hard,” as she called it, because my sister had been murdered.
For the past twenty-four hours I’d refused to even think about the imposter. I’d done nearly as good a job of keeping it in a box as I did with the Book.
But when it seeped out, it went something like this:
What if it really was her?
My sister, alone out there, and I’d turned my back on Alina in this dangerous, Fae-riddled city?
What if she got hurt? What if she was somehow truly, miraculously alive and ended up getting killed by a black hole or an Unseelie because I’d stormed away and left her alone, too wary, too suspicious, to let myself believe?
I’d have gotten my second chance—and blown it.
I suspected I might kill myself if that turned out to be the case.
What if she went to see my parents? They wouldn’t be as realistic as me. They’d welcome her back blindly. Daddy might start to feel skeptical in time but I guaran-damn-tee if that imposter knocked on their door, they’d let her inside their house in one second flat.
On the other and just as plausible hand: what if it was an imposter sent to fuck me up royally, get me to trust it, only to do something terrible to me in an unguarded moment? Who could get closer to me (and my parents) than my sister?
Or what if I was stuck in one gigantic illusion that hadn’t ended since the night I thought I’d bested the Sinsar Dubh?
Because I longed so desperately for it to be her, to believe that Alina had somehow survived, and I wasn’t stuck in an illusion, I was a hundred times more suspicious of this whole situation. My sister was my ultimate weakness, next to Barrons. She was the perfect way to get to me, to manipulate me. She was the very thing Cruce and Darroc and the Book had all offered me back, at one point or another, to try to tempt me.
I’d lived with Alina’s ghost too long. I may not have made peace with it, but I’d accepted her death. There was a painful closure in that, a door that couldn’t easily be reopened.
She claimed she couldn’t remember a single thing from the moment she’d passed out in that alley until she’d been standing in Temple Bar, a few days ago.
How convenient was that?
You couldn’t refute amnesia. Couldn’t argue a single detail. Because there were no details.
Just exactly what might have happened to her? Was I supposed to believe some fairy godmother (or Faery godmother, to be precise) had swooped in, rescued her moments before she died, healed her then put her on ice until this week? Why would any Fae do that?
Dani believed she’d killed Alina. No, I’d never gotten full details. I didn’t know if she actually remained in that alley until Alina was stone-cold dead or not. Nor did I think Jada would tell me, if I were to ask. And on that note, I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want Jada/Dani having to relive it.