“Nina, will you introduce me?”
Chao-Ahn and I both jump, turning to find my mother has materialized out of the darkness behind us. My mother holds out her right hand to Chao-Ahn. Her jacket has parted to reveal a glimpse of her gun.
“You are scary,” Chao-Ahn says.
“You have no idea,” I mutter. “What are you doing lurking out here?”
“I wanted to greet the new Slayers. Also, we have a procedure to follow. None of them have agreed to the rules or completed the entry interview yet. Ladies, if you’ll follow me to the library, Rhys and I will get you processed and settled into rooms.”
“Is there a test?” the timid blond one, Taylor, asks. She looks terrified. “I’m not good at tests. Or interviews.”
“Just some basic geometry,” I say, “and a few essay questions.”
“Really?” Maricruz’s dark eyes are wide with alarm.
“No. Sorry. All you have to do is hear the rules and agree to them. We need a simple majority to allow you in, but I don’t think that’ll be a problem.”
“I’m certain it won’t.” My mother smiles, but she’s never been good at reassuring. Maricruz and Taylor look appropriately intimidated as they follow her in. Chao-Ahn lingers for a few seconds, like she wants to speak with me, but Cillian grabs my arm and draws me to the side.
“Let me talk to Rhys, okay? I’ll take point on this mystery. You’ve got enough going on.”
I nod, melting into his offered hug. It’s a lie for me to accept his reassurances—he’s not taking over this mystery, but he can at least handle his family’s ties to it. I’ll be there to support him, though. “Sure. Thanks.”
One of the van doors closes and Oz comes around the front of it. “Watchers, huh? Anyone related to Giles?”
I shake my head. I have complicated feelings about Rupert Giles. My dad was Buffy’s first Watcher, but Rupert Giles is the one she bonded with. The one who left the Watchers in protest of their policies, and who probably influenced Buffy to turn her back on them as well. I get it now—I really do—but it doesn’t change the weird spikes of resentment I feel when I hear the name Giles, may he rest in peace. “Last of his line. Most of us are.”
“I knew another Watcher. Wesley—”
“Wyndam-Pryce,” we say together, imitating the pretentious pride with which all Wyndam-Pryces deliver their names.
“Sadly, he’s not the last of his line.” My glower is colder than the night as I think about Honora and how she’s corrupted my sister. “Come on. I’ll get you some food, and if you want to spend the night, you’re more than welcome.” He said he was dropping the Slayers off in London, so I assume he’s not looking for a permanent situation here.
“I like food. Thanks.” I lead him through the dim main hall. Which room is Leo in? The dorm wing, where I live? The Council wing, where he stayed with his mother the last time they were here? Not the dungeon, at least. My mother promised.
Imogen isn’t in the kitchen, so I make the only things I know I won’t mess up: toast and tea. I want Oz to leave so I can figure out how I feel in the solitude of my own room and so I can practice what I’m going to say to Artemis when I call her with my demands. I also don’t want him to leave for that exact reason—I don’t want to confront her again. Or, worse, to face my feelings about Leo being alive even though I was never able to face my feelings about him being dead.
Oz sips tea, looking around the dining hall. “I like your castle. I like it better knowing it’s broody vampire–free.”
“Don’t like vampires?”
“Nah, I’m cool with vampires in general. But the broody ones. They make things complicated.”
I should probably go call Artemis right now. But I keep remembering the look she gave me as I was crouched on the hood of that truck. Like I was stupid. She never treated me that way. Honora did, though. What if Artemis rejects my offer?
She won’t. All I’m asking is that she return a book. Or, barring that, tell me what it’s about. She did say she’d fill me in, but I refused to get in the truck. Maybe I should have.
Gods, I’m tired. I haven’t slept in so long. Maybe I’ll wait until morning to call her when I can think more clearly. We all need some rest. I wonder where the Slayers will stay. It seems weird to stick them in the dorms, but also weird to give them the fancy rooms. I briefly considered taking one of the Council wing rooms when we changed everything, but it felt like I was promoting myself. And if I left the dorm wing room I shared with Artemis, it was too close to admitting she was never coming back.
So those rooms stayed empty. I think the new Slayers should take the old Wyndam-Pryce suite. Good riddance to its former occupants. I hope they don’t take the Silvera suite. Though I don’t know if Leo will want to stay in there, surrounded by memories of his mother.
Where is he right now? I can’t believe he’s not dead. And he’s here. And I can’t see him. And I don’t want to see him. But I do want to see him.
“And that’s how I got the nickname Oz.”
“What?”
“I was telling you my life story. It’s a pretty good story. Some dull bits, but I kind of like those.”
I grimace. “Sorry. I have a lot on my mind right now.”
“I noticed. It’s okay.” He finishes his tea and then stands up. “Well, long drive ahead of me. Gotta get home.”
“You sure you aren’t staying?”
“Why would I?”
“Because you’re a werewolf. Are you, though? It was the full moon last night. Wasn’t it? Did Von Alston miscalculate by a day?”
“No. I’m a werewolf. But it’s fine. I’m pretty zen about the whole thing.”
“Really?”
He shrugs. “We all have monsters inside. Mine’s just more literal. You understand.”
I do. More and more lately. If a werewolf is two different things—human and monster—but he’s figured out how to live with both, maybe he can teach me how to be the two different things I am. The healer who wants to fix everything, and the Slayer who increasingly wants to break them.
I lean forward. “How do you stop it taking over?” I’ve never heard of a werewolf being able to avoid transformation. According to our research, it’s not possible. But I’ve learned in the last few months that just because something is written in fancy calligraphy in an old book doesn’t mean it’s true.
“Think of the darkness like a river. If you try to dam it, it might work for a while, but eventually the dam will burst and then it’s all fangs and claws and chasing your ex-girlfriend’s girlfriend through a campus and getting caught and sent to government labs and being experimented on.”
“That … feels like a really specific example.”
“No, I think it’s universal. But back to the river of darkness. Don’t dam it. Channel it. Direct the darkness, let it flow through and past you. Feel it and then release it.”
“But how?”
“Have you tried meditation?”
I wrinkle my face up. “Mm. No. Slayer energy doesn’t really lend itself well to sitting still and letting your mind go blank. That’s when all the maybe we should go find something to kill thoughts sneak in.”
“Well, my other suggestion is moving to the Himalayas and finding yourself a beautiful wife. That one worked out really well for me. For a while, at least. But the darkness always finds you, and things get Slayer-army-and-giant-goddess-level complicated again.”
“So by darkness finding you, you mean Buffy?”
He laughs. “The Buffster messes things up, yeah, but she always shakes out the truth, too. And the truth was, we needed to help instead of isolating ourselves. I thought I had found peace, but really I was letting the darkness gather and pool. So here I am. Helping. Channeling that river. And here I go, back home, until I find another way to help. You can’t stop what’s inside you. If you fight it, it’ll win. Figure out how to live with it, how to direct it instead of letting it drag you in its current. And only you can do
that.”
“Moving to the Himalayas and finding a beautiful wife seems easier.”
“RSVP if you decide to visit.” With an enigmatic smile, Oz grabs the bag of snacks I threw together for him. I walk him out and watch as he drives away, back toward his life. I sit there for a long time afterward. Alone. In the dark.
I know the Slayer energy. I know the contours of that power, the feel of it. What I don’t know is the new jagged edges, the sharp bursts and spikes that feel foreign. The ones that I’ve had since Leo gave the power back to me. When I first became a Slayer, the power would wash over me in a fight and I’d become something—someone—else. But I always snapped back to myself.
Ever since I stopped Leo’s mother and thought I lost him, I can’t seem to find myself to snap back to.
If I want to understand, if I want to channel this darkness instead of being washed away in it, I need to talk to the one person who has held exactly what I have now. And it isn’t the other Slayers.
It’s the boy who stole what had been taken in order to give it back to me.
* * *
It takes me until the next afternoon to work up the guts to decide to talk to Leo. I’m so mad at him, and so relieved he’s not dead, and so mad he let me think he was dead, and so relieved I didn’t accidentally kill him, and a teensy bit afraid I might on-purpose kill him for the last few months of guilt and sadness he let me go through.
I’ve been trying to get ahold of Artemis all morning, but her number keeps going straight to a voicemail box that hasn’t been set up yet. I don’t know what I’ll do if she doesn’t pick up soon. But I can’t delay seeing Leo any longer.
Unfortunately, I need to find him before I can talk to him. I don’t want to ask my mother. Not after she made such reasonable points about why I shouldn’t see Leo. So instead, I choose the person least likely to question or hassle me. Rhys is, unsurprisingly, in the library.
“We voted the Slayers in,” he says, not looking up from his book. “They’re all settled in the Wyndam-Pryce rooms. They seemed very reluctant to agree to learn our castle defense plans, though. It’s concerning. The castle only works if everyone does their part.”
“I’ll talk with them.” Just ask where Leo is. Just ask. “So, um, have you found anything about the puzzle thing?”
“The necklace?” Rhys has it on the table in front of him. Cillian is sitting in the corner, curled up in an armchair with the kitten purring on his lap. He looks half asleep.
“Yeah, and the matching puzzle from Cillian’s shed.”
“Where is that one?”
“His mom wouldn’t give it to us.”
“His mom?” Rhys looks over at Cillian. Cillian’s eyes are suspiciously closed now, where I swear they were open a second before. “His mom is back?”
“Yeah, he—we saw her? Last night? She said the puzzle was Cillian’s dad’s and I’m not sure why he didn’t tell you this …” I trail off. Cillian’s eyes are open now, and he’s glaring at me.
“I told you I would take the lead on this one,” he says.
Rhys has set down his book. Always a bad sign. “Your mom is back? You didn’t think that was worth mentioning? And this is all connected to your father somehow?”
“No! I don’t know. Maybe. Probably not. Just find something in your books.”
“Shouldn’t we go to a source who already has information?”
“We’re not talking to my mum.”
“Why?”
“Why would we?”
“Because I could spend weeks looking through books trying to find something, when your mother could point us in the right direction in a single conversation.”
He could and will spend weeks looking through the books, because the one he needs is gone. But I’m fixing that as soon as Artemis answers the dang phone.
“I don’t want to talk to her.”
“What a privilege, to decide you’d rather not speak with your parent. Some of us aren’t so lucky.” Rhys’s jaw twitches. Both of his parents died when acolytes of the First Evil blew up Watcher headquarters. I put a hand on his shoulder. He shrugs it off.
“You don’t get it.” Cillian sets the kitten on the floor and stands, turning his back to us as he pretends to examine book spines.
“You’re right. I don’t. I’d give anything to be able to ask my mum for help, or advice, or even to just say hello.”
Cillian whirls around, eyes blazing. “But your mum was taken! She didn’t choose to leave, for weeks and months at a time, because you weren’t enough for her!”
“You don’t know that’s why! You haven’t even talked to her!”
“And I’m not going to! I don’t care why she left. God, I can’t believe you’re taking her side. You’re supposed to be on my side.”
Rhys softens. “I am. I always am. But I also know that living mothers—even complicated, messy mothers—are better than the alternative.”
“He has a point,” I say. My own relationship with my mother is fraught and fragile, shifting daily. But I’m glad she’s still around to have a relationship with. “We can talk, if you want, about—”
“No, I’m good. I don’t want to talk with either of you about any of this. If we can’t find out about that symbol in one of these fancy books, then obviously it’s not important and I can keep my memory of my da exactly how I want it to be.”
Ah. Some of Cillian’s anger makes more sense. This isn’t about his mother at all. Not really. If this symbol is something bad, and his father had it, what does that mean for Cillian’s memories of him? I worked so hard to protect my memories of my father. Artemis and I used to trade them back and forth like precious possessions, holding them close so we wouldn’t damage them. And then I became a Slayer and had his Watcher diary and, in a way, grew closer to him than she ever would. But she had always had Mom in a way I didn’t—or at least, that’s what I thought. I didn’t want to give her Dad, too.
Oh, Artemis. Come back so I can fix things. I clutch the phone in my pocket, waiting for it to ring.
“Even if your father was somehow involved, he’s obviously not anymore. Where’s the harm in investigating?” Rhys is trying to be gentle, but I cringe in horror at this tactic. Cillian’s eyes are wide, his mouth a single tight line.
I opt for an abrupt subject change. Talking to Leo can’t be any more charged and awkward than hanging out during what I suspect is Cillian and Rhys’s first real fight. “Hey, where’s Leo?”
“You can’t see him.” Rhys looks down and calmly turns the page in his book.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you can’t see him.”
I snatch the book Rhys is determinedly staring at instead of looking at me.
He glares, pushing his glasses back into place. Cillian is conspicuously silent, sitting back in his corner and turning pages on a demonic bestiary with slightly more aggression than is required.
Rhys tugs his tweed jacket around his trim waist, nervously buttoning and unbuttoning it. I’m always surprised when I catch him in his pajamas and they’re not tweed too. “I mean, your mother specifically instructed us that Leo needs to be kept in isolation.”
“From me?”
“Well, obviously.”
“Last I checked, you and I decided to take over the Watchers Council. We don’t follow them anymore.”
“It’s not the council. It’s your mother. And … I agree with her.”
I flinch away from him as though he’s struck me. “What the hells, Rhys? Why are you so anti-Leo now? You were the one who helped him when he tried to kidnap me to get me away from his mother!”
Cillian slams his book shut. “I’m with Nina. She deserves answers.”
“Sometimes people look for answers in the wrong places!” Rhys snaps. “Or they refuse to find the right answers because it might hurt!”
“Sometimes other people don’t want to help you get answers because they’re being selfish and think they know better than you d
o what you need!”
“Sometimes other people’s parents are both dead and they can’t ever talk to them again, so excuse them if they think their boyfriend should talk to his own mother instead of consulting Watcher texts for what seems to be a family issue!”
“Sometimes you should mind your own business!”
“That’s it! I’m not researching a thing for you until you stop pouting and go speak to your mother!”
I can feel my anger rising, and I don’t have time to deal with wanting to murder someone. Especially not two of my best friends. “Can you two focus?”
“No!” they both shout, turning to me.
Rhys recovers first, looking back down at his book. “Nina, Leo let his mother come here, knowing she was a demon. He let her prey on us. And yes, he helped us in the end, but I don’t think that wipes his slate clean. That day when he told the truth, I was helping him because that meant helping you. And now I’m not going to help you, because it’s the only way I know to help you. Leo is poison. You’ve not been yourself since he ‘died.’ We can pretend otherwise, but it’s true. I don’t want to see how you’ll change now that he’s back. We’ll all be better off once he gets well and we can send him away forever.”
“You know that’s not going to fix things. We have to face our problems. Pretending issues aren’t there when they so obviously are is what got Watchers where we are today. Nowhere. Gone. I’m not going to pretend like Leo isn’t here, or wait for him to get better and leave. He’s one of us, Rhys. If your dad had been a demon, I wouldn’t turn my back on you. If Cillian’s mom turns out to be mixed up in something bad, we’re not turning our back on him.”
“That’s irrelevant.”
“It’s perfectly relevant!”
“You haven’t had to watch yourself suffer for the last few months! He hurt you, and now he’s back, and I won’t see you hurt again!”
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