Faol Ban studied the bread, sniffed at it. He gave Fallon another cool stare, then snatched up the bread.
“It’s okay, right? I think I should’ve used a little more honey, but it’s okay. Anyway, Mallick’s cooking really sucks, so I’m trying.”
She sensed rather than heard movement behind her. Drawing her knife, she whirled to defend the wolf. She saw the shadow of a man.
With the knife in one hand, power rising in the other, she prepared to protect. “If you try to hurt him, I’ll hurt you first.”
“I’d never hurt the wolf god, or you.”
The shadow stepped out of the shadows, and her hand trembled on the hilt of her knife. Inside her chest, her heart stumbled.
“I know you,” she whispered.
“And I know you. You have my eyes, and your mother’s mouth. Look how tall you are, how strong and brave and beautiful.”
Her father, her sire, walked toward her. He seemed taller than she’d imagined him, and leaner than the picture on the book. His hair, dark as hers, waved around a face she’d studied so many times.
“I’m not dreaming. I didn’t go to sleep.”
“You’re not dreaming,” Max told her. “You called for me.”
“I—”
“In your heart. The veil’s thin tonight. Thinner still with your power. And you brought me through.”
Cautious, curious, she reached out and discovered the arm under her hand was solid. “You’re real.”
“Corporeal for a brief time. Will you let me …” He touched a hand to her cheek. His smile bloomed, moved his lips, his face, moved into his eyes. “There you are.”
“You died for me.”
“Protecting you was my right, my purpose, my joy. Walk with me while we have this time. You’ve been happy, and well?”
“I … She loved you. My mother.”
“My sweet girl, I know. And I loved her. We had such a short time together to love, to learn. So much of it, too much of it, riddled with fear and violence. But we had more than that, we had pleasure and laughter, too. And wonder and joy. I fell in love with a pretty witch who’d rather shop for new shoes than practice the Craft, and I watched her grow into a strong, fearless, powerful woman. You were part of that, the change that made us better than we had been.
“But I want to hear about your life. Some I can see, some I can’t. Tell me your happiest memory.”
Tears burned at her throat, guilt twisted her heart. “Learning to ride, I guess. Being allowed to ride by myself the first time.”
“What’s this?” Because he heard the tears, Max turned her face to his. “No, no. Do you think I’d begrudge you a father who’d teach you to ride? Or Lana a man who’d build a life with her?”
“I don’t know.” Had never known.
“How could I love you and begrudge you all he is to you, and you to him? I’m grateful to him.”
“You—you are?”
“I am, and he sure as hell should be grateful to me. I made you with your mother, and with your mother he brought you into the world. Love isn’t finite, Fallon. If you take nothing else from me, take that.”
As he spoke, he stroked a hand over her hair. “Love has no end, no borders, no limits. The more you give, the more there is. Your mother gave you my name, Simon Swift gave you his. He’s your father, and so am I. I’d say that makes you blessed.”
“That’s what Mom says.”
“There you have it,” he said simply. “Is it any wonder I loved her?”
“Dad—Simon—he is grateful. He says you’re a hero, and he owes you for everything that matters most to him. Mom and me, and I have three brothers. I wish you could meet him. That’s weird.”
He laughed, put an arm around her shoulders as they walked. “The world’s full of the strange.”
“You wrote about strange things. I read your books. Mom said you were writing another when you died, and she had to run to protect me and the people of New Hope. What was it about?”
“About love and magicks, the dark and the light of both. About battle and bravery, and the rise of a Savior.”
“I don’t know how to lead people.”
“Neither did I. I’d rather have built a simple life with your mother. Simple seemed precious after the Doom. But I was needed, and so are you. I might wish a simple life for you, Fallon, but the world needs more. You’ll lead, and well. I believe it absolutely.”
“The man in my dream said I had to choose. I did.”
“What man?”
“I’m not sure. I think, maybe, it was the boy grown up. Maybe.”
“And what boy is that?”
“Duncan, I think. From New Hope. I saw him in a different dream.”
“Katie’s Duncan? Hmm.” Dead or not, Max felt a little twinge at the idea of his daughter dreaming about a boy.
“He saved people from the Purity Warriors. They’re the ones who killed you.”
“My brother killed me. The dark he chose killed me. His blood, my blood, yours.” Pausing, he gripped her hand, firmly, looked directly into her eyes.
She felt the link and the power in their joined hands.
“The same blood,” he continued, “yet Eric turned away from light and love and loyalty. He’s never to be trusted, Fallon, or underestimated.”
“Mom thinks he’s dead. She thinks she killed him and that woman.”
“Allegra. I don’t know the answer. Even the dead have questions. But if he lives, what’s in him will do all evil can do to end you. He tainted his blood and all that comes from it. Watch for him. Watch for the crows.”
“I will.” And if he’s still alive, she vowed at that moment, she would end him. “Mallick’s going to teach me to use a sword.”
“Good God.”
“You can’t only fight with magicks. The Wizard King had a sword.”
Max laughed a little. “So he did. Tell me more about your life, your brothers.”
It was amazing. It was magickal to walk and talk with the man she only knew from stories, from a picture on a book. Now she knew the sound of his voice, the way he moved, the things he thought.
Now she knew why the night had called her, had struck that beat inside her. She’d reached for him through the veil; he’d come through for her.
She took him to the faerie glade, where they sat and talked while Taibhse swept in to sit on a branch like a guard, and the wolf who’d tracked them as they walked stayed in the shadows.
When she asked him to tell her of the escape from the great city and all that came after, he didn’t censor his words as she’d always suspected her mother did.
He spoke frankly of the horrors and hardships, of the wonder and weight of feeling his power expand. And when he spoke of his brother, of trying to take Eric’s life, trying to take a life of his own family, she heard both the lingering grief and the cold determination.
“You had to choose.” As she spoke, Fallon leaned against him. “My mother, me, the others you protected.”
“Yes, I had to choose, and there was no question of what was right. But using the gift to cause harm is a hard choice, Fallon. Causing harm to family, to someone who shares your blood, harder still.”
She understood. Wanted to. Tried to. But …
“I’m here because you made that choice in the mountains, and again in New Hope. You died because your brother made his choice.”
“As a leader you’ll face hard choices.”
“Did you wish you didn’t have to be one?”
“All the time.” He turned his head, brushed his lips over her temple. “In the end, we are who we are.”
“You believe that?”
“I do, yeah.”
“Then you should stop feeling even a little bit guilty for trying to kill Eric. In the end, he was what he was.”
Max let out a half laugh. “You got me on that. You’re right.”
“Tell me more about New Hope. Mom’s told us a lot, and sometimes when we use the ham radio Dad got, we hear the reporter.”
“Arlys? Arlys Reid?”
“Yeah, she gives reports on Raiders and the Purity Warriors and rescues and things like that. And other stuff. She changes frequencies a lot, for safety. Dad said he could probably fix it so Mom could talk to her over the radio, but Mom wouldn’t.”
“She worries.”