I dove deep, kicked in hard, rejecting fear. I had Barrons and Ryodan in the room with me. What more could I ask as I faced my inner demon?
I swam, holding my breath at first, diving into one towering wave after the next, getting drenched by violently churning water capped by thick foamy brine. I ran out of breath and started struggling against the sensation of suffocation. I forced myself to relax like I had the day I stepped through the Unseelie king’s great mirror in their boudoir and my lungs froze, knowing I had to breathe differently there. Now, I drew the water into my lungs, became one with it.
The waves fought me, buffeted me, as if trying to expel me, but it only strengthened my resolve. Was this why I’d nearly drowned when I first sought it? Because the Book no longer had all that much power—perhaps never had—and didn’t want me to figure that out? And it was throwing up some huge, watery smoke screen to keep me from discovering the truth? Maybe my adamant rejection of it the night it turned me invisible had weakened it somehow. That was, after all, the night it had ceased speaking. And maybe I’d turned visible again because the single spell it offered had been a temporary one, with a finite, albeit damned convenient end date.
I dove deeper, inhaling my icy lake, felt it rushing through my body, filling me with sidhe-seer power. I kicked and thrust and swam, following a gold beacon, forced my way through the chilling undertow and finally drifted lightly down into a dark, shadowy cavern.
Last time I’d been here, the Sinsar Dubh had been crooning to me like a lover, welcoming me, inviting me in.
A towering wall exploded in front of me.
I shattered it with a fist.
Another!
I kicked through it, swinging and cursing.
Wall after wall sprung up and I blasted through them as if my life depended on it.
Whatever the Book didn’t want me to see, I was going to see.
This was ending.
Here, tonight.
I wasn’t leaving this cavern until I knew what I was dealing with.
Wall after wall tumbled, no match for my fury, until there it was: an elaborately carved ebony pedestal upon which lay a shining golden Book.
Open. Just like in the nightmare I’d recently had.
I stood motionless in the cavern.
So—it could open itself. I knew that. No big.
I’d closed it before.
I would close it again.
But first I’d see if it really was possible for me to look at it, understand the words, without using the spell.
Still…if it wasn’t—and I turned into a homicidal maniac?
I almost wavered then. Stood, dripping water for a time, having a hard time persuading myself to move forward.
I could walk away right now. Say I couldn’t find it. Storm back out of my head and let sleeping dogs lie.
I sighed.
And live forever with this eternal instability? Be undermined day after day by fear of the unknown? It was past time for me to face my demons.
Clenching my jaw, I stalked to the pedestal and forced myself to look down. Half expecting I wouldn’t understand a single word. That perhaps there wouldn’t even be any words there. That perhaps my churning sidhe-seer waters had stripped it clean of all forbidden magic.
The blood in my veins turned to ice.
“No,” I breathed.
I would be evil if I’d used it.
I would be crazy.
I would be a psychopath.
I wasn’t any of those things.
At least I didn’t think I was.
“No, damn it, no!” I said again, backing away.
Not a murmur from the Sinsar Dubh, not a chuckle, not a jibe.
Just me alone with the hollow echo of my footfalls.
And my failure.
I’d had no problem reading and understanding the words carved into the Book’s ornate golden pages. The First Language had flowed as easily as English across my mental tongue.
And those words had seemed as familiar as a beloved and often repeated nursery rhyme.
The Sinsar Dubh was open to a spell to resurrect the dead.
29
“I’m just holding on for dear life, won’t look down won’t open my eyes…”
Jada moved through the crisp cool dawn in perfect sync with her environment, eyes closed, feeling her way through the slipstream.
Shazam had taught her that all things emitted frequency, that living beings were essentially receivers that could pick up the vibrations if they could only achieve clarity of mind. Meaning no ego, no past or future, no thoughts at all. Unadulterated sensation. He contended humans lacked the ability to empty themselves, that they were too superficial, and that shallowness was marbled with identity, time/ego obsessed, and given the complexity of her brain, he’d doubted that she would ever get there.
Given the complexity of her brain, she’d been quite certain she would.
And had.
Becoming nothing and no one was something she knew how to do.
Now, she heard with some indefinable sense the dense, simplistic grumble of bricks ahead, the complex whir of moving life, the sleek song of the River Liffey, the soft susurrus of the breeze, and turned minutely to avoid obstacles, melding with the razor edge of buildings.