“I know it’s dangerous out there,” my mom said. “But I can’t stand this not knowing! If I just knew for certain she was alive. ”
“Barrons said she was. You were here when he called. ”
Barrons had called my parents? When? How was his phone working? Damn, I wanted his service provider!
“I don’t trust that man one bit. ”
Neither do I, Mom. And I slept with him. My face heated. Sex and Mom are two thoughts that don’t fit comfortably in my head at the same time.
“We have to go to Dublin, Jack. ”
I silently willed a thousand “no”s in my mom’s direction.
Dad sighed. “I tried to go back. Remember?”
I blinked. He had? When? What had happened?
Mom pounced on it. “My point exactly, Jack. You believe that man hypnotized you, planted blocks in your mind that prevented you from bringing her home, forced you to leave, and is somehow keeping you from going back—you couldn’t even get on the plane, you got so sick—but the moment you left the airport you were fine. Three times you tried to go! Yet you accept his word that our daughter is okay?”
You could have knocked me over with a feather. My dad knew Barrons had done something woo-woo to him and actually believed it possible? Daddy didn’t believe in woo-woo things. It was he who’d taught me an abject rejection of all things paranormal. And he and my mother were calmly sipping their drinks, discussing this stuff?
“We can’t go over there now. You heard what the scouts told Officer Deaton. Fae reality has gotten mixed up with ours. The few airplanes that have taken off have either come crashing down in flames or disappeared. ”
“What about a private charter?”
“What good will it do if we die trying to get to her?”
“We have to do something, Jack! I need to know she’s alive. No, I need more than that. We have to tell her. You should have told her then, when you were there, when you had the chance. ”
Told me what? I pressed deeper into the shrubs, all ears.
Dad rubbed his eyes. I could tell by the look on his face that he and Mom had been having this conversation a lot lately. “We promised we’d never talk about it. ”
I nearly beat the bushes with frustration. Talk about what?
“We made other promises we broke,” Mom said pointedly. “That’s what got us into this situation to begin with. ”
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“What would you have had me tell her, Rainey?”
“The truth. ”
Come on, Daddy, spill it.
“What is the truth? One person’s truth is another person’s—”
“Don’t play attorney with me, Jack. I’m not the jury and this isn’t your opening argument,” Mom said dryly.
He opened his mouth and closed it, looking sheepish. After a moment he said, “Mac was having enough problems dealing with Alina’s death. There was no way I was going to tell her about some crazy Irish woman and an even crazier prophecy. Our baby’d been battling depression for months. She had enough on her plate. ”
Prophecy? Mom and Dad knew about the prophecy? Did everyone know about the blasted thing but me?
“What you heard all those years ago when you went digging for Alina’s medical records doesn’t seem so crazy now, does it?” Mom said.
Dad took a sip of bourbon. He exhaled and seemed to deflate. “Christ, Rainey, fifteen years passed. Perfectly normal. ”
“She ranted about fairies. Who wouldn’t have thought she was crazy?”
I’m not sure Dad even heard her. He tossed back the rest of the glass in one swallow. “I let Alina do the one thing I promised the adoption people I’d never let either of them do,” he said roughly.
“We let her do it,” Mom said sharply. “Stop blaming yourself. I let her go to Ireland, too. ”
“You didn’t want to. I pushed. ”
“We both made the decision. We’ve always made the big decisions together. ”
“Well, this was one decision you weren’t there to help me make. When I was in Dublin with Mac, you still weren’t talking to me. I couldn’t even get you on the phone. ”
“I’m sorry,” Mom said after a long pause. “The grief …” She trailed off, and my stomach knotted. She was getting that look in her eyes again. That one that had bruised my heart every day until I’d run away to Dublin.
Daddy looked at her hard, and right before my eyes, he changed. I watched him inflate again, shake off his own emotions, and puff himself up for her. Become her man. Her rock. I smiled. I loved him so much. He’d dragged Mom kicking and screaming from grief once before, and I knew I could rest easy that he would never let grief steal her from him again. No matter what happened to me.
He stood up and stalked over to her. “What would you have had me say, Rainey?” Dad said loudly, jarring her, keeping her from slipping inward. “‘Baby, I’m sorry to tell you this, but according to some ancient prophecy, there’s something wrong with you and you’re going to doom the whole world’?” He snorted, then laughed. “Laugh with me, Rainey. Come on!” He pulled her to her feet. “Not our girl. Not a chance. You know it’s bogus. ”
I gagged. Hand to my mouth, I staggered backward and nearly fell. There was something wrong with me? I was going to doom the whole world?
“Their mother gave them up because she believed it,” Mom fretted.
“That’s what the crazy lady alleged,” Dad said firmly. “She didn’t have a single shred of evidence. I interrogated her thoroughly. She’d never seen this supposed ‘prophecy’ and couldn’t point me in the direction of anyone who had. For Christ’s sake, Rainey, it’s a country that believes in leprechauns, rainbows, and pots of gold! Can I rest my case?”
“But there are fairies, Jack,” Mom persisted. “The crazy woman was right about that. They’re here, now, in our world, destroying it. ”
“Circumstantial. One accurate prediction doesn’t make an entire prophecy. ”
“She said one of our girls would die young and the other would wish she was dead!”
“Alina almost died when she was eight, remember? But she didn’t. That’s young. Just because she died in her twenties doesn’t mean anything else the woman said is true, and it certainly doesn’t mean anything’s wrong with Mac. I think the Fae are far more likely to doom our world than any human is. Besides, I don’t believe in fate, and neither do you. I believe in free will. All the advice I gave her, all the love and wisdom you showered on her, that’s what she has now, and I believe it’s enough. I know our daughter. She’s as good as they come. ”
He reached for her hands and pulled her into his arms. “Babe, she’s alive. I know she is. I can feel it in my heart. I knew when Alina was dead. And I know Mac’s not. ”
“You’re just saying that to make me feel better. ”
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He gave her a faint smile. “Is it working?”
My mom punched him lightly. “Oh! You!”
“I love you, Rainey. I almost lost you when we lost Alina. ” He kissed her. “I won’t lose you now. Maybe there’s some way to get into contact with Barrons again. ”
“If only I knew for certain,” Mom said.
He kissed her again, then she was kissing him back, and I was feeling strangely embarrassed, because my parents were pretty much making out.
Still, watching them was comforting. They had each other, and there was a love between them that would withstand anything. Alina and I had always intuited, with no small wry pique, that, although our parents adored us and would do anything for us, they loved each other more. As far as I was concerned, that was the way it should be. Kids grow up, move on, and find a love of their own. The empty nest shouldn’t leave parents grieving. It should leave them ready and excited to get on with living their own adventure, which would, of course, include many visits to children and grandchildren.
I took one last long look and went to join V’lane.
He moved into step beside me in silence and offered his hand, but I shook my head.
I picked up my stuff, went to the mailbox, and pulled the LM’s photo album out of my backpack. I looked through it for a few moments until I found the perfect picture of Alina, standing in front of the arched entry at Trinity College. She was smiling, openmouthed on a laugh. I smiled back.
I turned it over and scrawled on the back:
She was happy.
I love you, Mom and Dad.
I’ll be home as soon as I can.
Mac.
You may find you have need of me, MacKayla,” said V’lane, as we materialized in the street outside BB&B.
I’d been thinking that very thing. There was no disputing that V’lane was the fastest elevator in the building. Dani was great on the ground but not across oceans. Sifting was an invaluable tool. Even if V’lane appeared only half the times I called him, it would be better than nothing. I would never count on him again, but I would use him if I could.
“I cannot always be checking to see if you do. When my queen does not have me occupied with her tasks, I am busy battling with other Seelie against our dark brethren. They do not consider your earth enough. They seek to wrest our court from us, as well. My queen is in ever-increasing danger, as is my home. ” He turned me in his arms, tilted my face up, and ran a gentle finger over my lips.
I looked up at him. I was still numb from seeing Mom and Dad, from the conversation I’d overheard. I wanted him to give me his name back, and quickly, so I could drag myself inside, shower, and crawl into a warm, familiar bed. Pull the covers up over my head and try with all my might to fall asleep instantly, so I wouldn’t have to think anymore.
Doom the whole world.
No way. Not me. They had the wrong person, wrong prophecy. I shook my head.
He misinterpreted it. “It is a gift,” he said stiffly.
Wounded, proud prince. I touched his face. He’d given me my mom and dad, my whole town, the entire state of Georgia back. “I was shaking my head at something I was thinking, not your words. Yes, I’d like to have your name, V’lane. ”
He gave me that brilliant smile again, then his mouth was on mine. This time, when he kissed me, the unpronounceable Fae name slid sweeter than tupelo honey across my tongue and pooled there, warm and delicious, filling my mouth with a feast of taste and sensation beyond description before melting into the meat of it. Unlike the other times he’d implanted his name in my tongue, it felt natural, unobtrusive. Also unlike those times, I wasn’t battered by an erotic attack, forced into orgasm by his touch. It was an extraordinary kiss, but it invited without invading, gave without taking.
He drew back. “We are learning from each other,” he said. “I begin to understand Adam. ”
I blinked. “The first man? You know about Adam and Eve?” V’lane didn’t seem the kind to study human creation myths.
“No. One of my race that chose to become human,” he clarified. “Ah, Barrons comes growling. ” He gave the startling equivalent of a human snicker and was gone. I reached instinctively for my spear. It was back in the holster. I frowned. I’d forgotten to check. Had it ever been gone?
I turned. “Growling” was a mild word for it. Barrons stood in the doorway, and if looks could kill, I’d have been flayed alive in the street.
“One would think you’d have gotten all the Fae shoved in your mouth you could stand, Ms. Lane. ”
“One would think that I’d gotten all the male shoved in my mouth that I could stand. One day I’m going to choose to kiss a man. Not because I’m being raped and not because I’m being scraped up off a street named Pri-ya and not because I’m being given the mystical equivalent of a cell phone with all the usual cell phone service problems but because I bloody well want to!”
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I pushed past him. He didn’t move an inch. Electricity sizzled where our bodies brushed.
“Tomorrow night. Ten o’clock. Be here, Ms. Lane. ”
“I’m fighting with the sidhe-seers,” I tossed over my shoulder.
“Call it an early night. Or find somewhere else to live. ”
At noon the next day, Dani, all the other sidhe-seers at the abbey, and I were gathered in one of their enormous cafeterias, seated around tables, listening as Rowena addressed the crowd, and, oh, did the woman know how to sway sentiment!
The canny GM was the consummate politician. I listened, committing her tactics to memory. Analyzing the words she chose, how she strung them together, how she played emotion for everything it was worth.
Yes, she said, she would put aside her differences with the young rogue sidhe-seer who’d never been properly trained and whose sister had betrayed the entire world by helping her lover—the villainous Lord Master—free the Unseelie to kill billions of people around the globe, including two hundred of our own. Yes, she would agree to do whatever they felt must be done to win the most important battle humankind had ever faced. She could not in good conscience step aside or take off the robes she’d been wearing for forty-seven years—more than twice as long as the rogue sidhe-seer had even been alive—but she would extend her hand in welcome, if that was what her beloved daughters felt was imperative she do, despite numerous and compelling arguments to the contrary.
After her little speech, I could see doubt on some of the women’s faces again, so I stood and delivered mine. Yes, I would put aside my differences with the old woman who’d turned me away the first night she’d ever met me, without even asking my name, who’d told me in no uncertain terms to go die somewhere else and leave her alone—when it had been obvious I was a sidhe-seer in desperate need of help. Why hadn’t I been one of her “beloved daughters” that night? Was it my fault I’d been raised with no idea what I was? Why hadn’t she taken me in?
But I would forgive her and, yes, I would work with the woman who’d withheld the weapons that could kill Fae, refused to let the sidhe-seers do the job they’d been born to do, and run a constant slander campaign against my sister, whose greatest mistake was being seduced by a Fae-turned-human with hundreds of thousands of years of experience creating illusions and seducing women.
Who among us might not have fallen under such circumstances? They’d met V’lane. If they wanted to throw stones, now was the time to do it, or never. Alina had ultimately seen through the Lord Master’s act and had paid with her life. Again, where had Rowena been when my sister was struggling to understand what she was? How had Alina and I gotten lost in the sidhe-seer shuffle, abandoned to a life with no training?
I was eager to do as Kat suggested, I told them, excited to work together toward common goals, putting the needs of the sidhe-seers first. From this moment forward, I vowed, I would speak no ill of the Grand Mistress, provided she did the same of me.
I sat.
She would cooperate, Rowena said from her podium, despite that I’d continually proven myself unreliable and dangerous, allying myself with the likes of V’lane.
“Excuse me, so did you,” I pointed out.
“Only for the greater good. ”
“You wouldn’t allow me to be part of the greater good. You denied me welcome here. ”
Kat stood. “Stop putting us in the middle! Grand Mistress, we must lay aside our differences. Do you not agree?”
Rowena was still a moment, then nodded tightly.
“Full cooperation?” Kat pressed.
Rowena studied the gathered assembly in silence. I knew the precise moment she acknowledged that she’d lost too much ground with her flock to gain it back here and now. Either the two of us would pull the cart together, or the cart was going to leave us behind. “Yes,” she said tightly.
“Great. ” I shot to my feet. “So, where was the Book being kept, how was it being contained, and how in the world did you lose it?”
The roar in t
he hall was deafening, as I’d expected it to be. This, after all, was the question that had been bandied about these walls in whispers and secrecy for more than twenty years.
I dropped back to my seat, curious to see how she would extricate herself. I had no doubt she would.
“Wicked cool, Mac,” said Dani, grinning. “I think we’ve got her now. ”
I knew we didn’t. Rowena was too clever to be trapped that easily.
When the crowd finally quieted, she informed us with humble gravity that unfortunately such matters were not within her span of authority to discuss. That although I seemed to believe she was solely in charge, the abbey had always been run as a democracy, governed by the Haven, and all her actions and choices had to be approved or rejected by them, particularly in matters of such delicacy and danger. She must meet with the High Council, present our questions, and obey their dictates. Unfortunately (and conveniently for her, I noted dryly), some of them were not in-house at the moment. But as soon as they were …
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“Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,” I muttered. “By the time she gets around to telling us anything, the Unseelie will have killed a billion more humans. ” No matter. I was back in the walls of the abbey. It was time to go to work on plan A. This meeting had been plan B.
I looked at Dani. “You said you’d been trying to get into the Forbidden Libraries. Do you know where all twenty-one of them are?”
Her eyes sparkled.
Dani knew her way around the abbey’s endless maze of stone corridors as well as any sidhe-seer in the first five circles of ascension, she told me proudly. There were seven circles of ascension in total, with the seventh being the Haven itself. Kat and her crew were in only the third. She herself was subject to no such limits, Dani confided smugly. Rowena had set her apart from such matters, as her own personal charge.
“So Rowena told you where all the libraries are?” That just didn’t sound like the GM I knew.
Well, no, Dani hedged, not exactly. So, okay, maybe she’d learned most of what she knew about the abbey before Rowena and the other women figured out that a soft breeze meant she was near, when she’d still been able to snoop freely. What did it matter? She knew, and that was more than any of the others knew! It had taken her years to track down the libraries, and she still wasn’t certain of a couple because she couldn’t get down those corridors, but the way she figured it, they had to be libraries, because what else would Rowena be hiding?
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