“But you don’t want them to come back when she can’t.”
I was silent. She had said it; I didn’t have to. I knew the words were wrong. I knew I should be ashamed of feeling that way. It was small and petty and selfish of me, and Li Qin needed me to be better than that. January would have wanted me to be better than that.
Both of them had spent so much time trying to make sure I knew how to be a person—that the intersection of tree and circuit board would form a functioning individual, and not a broken mass of contradictory impulses—and they had succeeded: I was definitely myself.
Sometimes I wondered whether that was a good thing.
A hand touched mine. I glanced up. Li Qin was looking at me, lips drawn downward, dark eyes sad.
“Some days I miss her so much I feel like I’m forgetting how to breathe,” she said softly. “She was air to me. Do you understand? When I went away, I would kiss her until my lungs were full, and then I’d go, but only for as long as it took me to exhale. As soon as I felt like I was going to drown, I would come back. Only this time, I came back, and she had gone ahead, down a path I’m never going to be able to find or follow. She left me. She left you. It doesn’t matter whether she did it on purpose. You’re allowed to be angry, and you’re allowed to be hurt, and I’m going to be angry and hurt right here with you. It’s not fair. It’s awful, and it’s cruel, and it’s unfair.”
“You should hate me,” I said. Her eyes were like mirrors, so dark that they offered me nothing but my own reflection, faintly glowing and ashamed. “I killed her.”
“You didn’t kill her, my little rabbit, my moon-girl.” Li Qin reached out and smoothed my hair away from my face, not seeming to mind when it crackled with static. “You were used by someone who should have known better than to take advantage of an innocent, and because of that, she died. That isn’t the same as killing her. Your hand didn’t hold the knife.”
“It might as well have.”
“April . . .” Li Qin sat back, frowning. “How long have you been carrying this?”
I didn’t answer.
“You didn’t kill her. Gordan killed her. You were a child.”
“Because I chose to be, and now you’re going to bring all the rest of them back, and she’s still going to be dead. If it weren’t my fault, you’d be able to bring her back, too, because that would be fair. That would be right, if this weren’t happening because of me. If—” I stopped. I looked sharply at Li Qin. “How are you going to bring them back?”
“There is an old blood magic ritual. I had to pay . . . well, never mind what I had to pay to find it. It was worth the cost.” Li Qin met my eyes without flinching, her chin raised stubbornly. Whatever the price had been, it had been dear enough to do her harm. That made me uncomfortable. I only had one mother left. No one was supposed to hurt her.
“I got the idea from Alex,” she continued. “If October was able to resurrect the half of him that was still inside his body, it should be possible to bring the rest of them back—even Terrie, who was transferred to the server. As long as the night-haunts haven’t been called to claim the essential spark of magic in the blood of the fallen, it should be possible to put spirit and bone together again, and wake them all. If I could find the right ritual. If a powerful enough blood-worker was willing to help. I had to know. Now that I know, I have to try.”
“October,” I said. “That’s why you are asking her to return here.”
“Yes,” said Li Qin.
“That’s why you bent the luck for her, even knowing how it might rebound. That’s why you offered her so many favors. Because you were looking toward this moment, when you would need her to assist you.”
“Yes.”
“She may refuse.”
“She could,” Li Qin admitted, “but I don’t think she will. If there’s anyone who feels worse about what happened here than you, it’s her. She was sent to save the day. All she saved was ashes.”
I nodded. “How can you be sure this will work?”
“I can’t. It could be one more false hope in a long chain of them—and since this time, we’ll be extracting the captive data from your backups, this could be our last hope. If it doesn’t work, it might be time to talk about burning the bodies.” Li Qin allowed her shoulders to slump. “We bring them back, or we let them go. Either way, this ends. Don’t you want it to be over?”
I did. Very much. But not if it meant that they returned while my mother remained lost forever. “I must see this ritual you claim to have found. I need to understand it.”
“You’re not a blood-worker.”
“Neither are you. If you can learn to understand it, so can I.” I stood. “You are a Duchess by proxy, Mother, but I am a Countess in all ways, and the people you would seek to save are my responsibility. I must be sure that it is safe before I can permit it.”
A flicker of dark amusement crossed Li Qin’s face. “They’re dead, April. I’m not sure safety is their primary concern.”
“Dead, yes, but still intact, and still possessed of possibilities.” I stood as straight as I could, trying to channel my mother. January was never the most rigid of purebloods, but she had been born to the nobility, and her manners had been impeccable, when she had needed them to be. Elliot used to say she could stare down a wall, and there had been respect in his voice. Such arrogance was to be desired, even cultivated, in those who held command. “I will not allow those possibilities to be redacted without sufficient hope of success.”
“I see.” Li Qin actually smiled. As she rose, it was difficult to shake the feeling that I had been in some way manipulated into my current position.
It was not a pleasant feeling. She was not meant to outmaneuver me in my own halls, however much of those halls she had once constructed.
“I’ll have my notes transferred onto the company file server at once,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll find them fascinating, and if you have any questions, I’ll be available via text or phone.”
Li Qin kissed my cheek before turning and bustling out of the cafeteria, leaving me speechless in her wake. What had just happened?
And why, in light of her concession, did I feel as if I had somehow lost?
FIVE