This is why Y’rill is so different from Shazam. She found her way through her transition. But I never experienced it. When Y’rill shifted forms for me, I remained exactly the same Dani inside, only my skins changed.

  I’m growing and expanding and my cage is too small and it explodes and I explode from it. Roaring fire, I go rocketing into space and dive straight for Shazam’s cage, on the verge of trying out freeze-frame in midair, and I’m just about to close my talons on the bars when—

  Abruptly, I’m frozen in place, frozen in my skin, unable to move at all from the neck down, just like the time V’lane iced Rowena’s body but left her head free so she could talk.

  I turn my head to glare daggers of fire at the bloody interfering Hunters, but they’re staring past me, all twelve of them, and the look on their faces makes me turn, too.

  K’vruck.

  The most ancient of Hunters hovers a few miles away, his great leathery sails churning dark ice. On his back, he carries the enormous, dark, noncorporeal cloud of the Unseelie king. Actually, he’s not completely noncorporeal. Although the king is smudgy and indistinct, his wings are clearly visible.

  The king and K’Vruck are so gargantuan, they seem a small, dark moon in the sky.

  I’ve come to collect my boon, the Unseelie king says.

  The Hunters say nothing for a time then Z’kor replies, Are you certain this is the boon you would claim? There are many others, much larger, you might ask of us, which we would grant.

  It wasn’t a large thing I did for you.

  It was, Z’kor disagrees. No being can decide for another what weight a matter carries.

  This is a large thing to me. You will free them, permitting both to retain their dual forms. You will strip them of the ability to manipulate time. They will be outcast for two centuries, denied the comforts of companionship with other Hunters. In two hundred years, they will be welcomed back into your fold. You will not interfere in their lives, in any way, during those two centuries, and, when they do return, all is forgiven.

  Z’kor says, You need not redeem your boon. We planned to release them anyway.

  Wait, what? They did? But why? I try to blurt the words, but my mouth is no longer capable of forming them, so I send telepathically, I don’t understand! I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m super bloody grateful. But why?

  Z’kor turns its head to me and says, The transgression which concerned us was not Y’rill’s. You have earned your new name. Welcome to our clan, Y’taine. Today, you are born. The moment you are able to control shifting yourself from your original form to Hunter is the true rite of passage. You felt what it did inside you. That is being Hunter.

  Frowning, I say, Are you telling me you would have killed Shazam/Y’rill if I failed to shift? That’s what this was all about? You caged us to force me to shift?

  Not why we caged you. Still, had you not shifted, we would have permitted you to believe we destroyed Shazam/Y’rill, then returned you to Earth, never to see each other again.

  You were never planning to kill Y’rill? Despite my larger view of matters, I’m having a hard time processing this abrupt shift in perception: Y’rill was never on trial.

  I was.

  It was your punishment, Z’kor says, and yours alone. You exploited Y’rill’s love for you to achieve selfish ends. Y’rill was never the one on trial here. Intentions do matter. Yours were not pure.

  I’m abashed and deeply ashamed. I get what they’re saying, and they’re right.

  However, it was love for another that drove you to demand Y’rill continuously shift you. We believe you will learn from today. You have now shifted of your own power and tasted what we are. We believe you worthy of being Hunter.

  I’m so sorry, I say, and I mean it. I did exploit Y’rill’s love for me, pushing her to break more and more rules, without thinking beyond my own hunger to have it all, be human with Ryodan. She kept telling me the Hunters would call due a price. I didn’t listen. As long as I could talk her into it, I kept pressing with that devil-may-care attitude that despises any and all rules. And because Y’rill kept willingly shifting me, I never tasted the depths of a true transformation. Over time, I would have stopped trying so hard to attain it, perhaps never evolved. I was cheating, plain and simple. I was wrong. I see that now.

  Do better.

  I will, I vow intensely.

  Dani Mega O’Malley, Z’kor says gravely, we see you. We are aware of the trials you endured, and the triumphs you’ve achieved. Like Y’rill, we have tasted both your suffering and the enormity of your potential. You are an exceptional being. From time to time, we will make exceptions. But do not test our patience. A wise Hunter would wait a long time before doing so again.

  I nod just as gravely. Can Shazam be Y’rill again?

  Already am, tiny red. I’m proud of you, my young Y’taine.

  My heart glows supernova bright, and I whip my head around to see Y’rill hovering effortlessly behind me, violet lightning and love crackling in her eyes.

  Come, the Unseelie king intones. I will return you to Earth.

  We can fly ourselves, I tell him, realizing I can move again. I vibrate in place then bristle excitedly into formation beside Y’rill.

  Work on her hover, Y’rill, Z’kor chides. She’s dreadful at it. To me, Z’kor says, Not from here, you can’t. The arena where we gather is beyond your ability to reach and will be for quite some time. K’Vruck and the king will return you to Earth.

  Thank you, I tell Z’kor, and all the Hunters.

  They bow their great dark heads, then they’re gone.

  I thump Y’rill with my tail, grinning from ear to ear. You ready, Shaz-ma-taz? I’m so happy, I burst into song: Shaz the mighty fur-beast lived up in the air, watching all of Olean, grouchy as a bear, Dani the Mega O’Malley loved that rascal Shaz—

  You said you would die with me, Y’rill rebukes. Never say that again. I would see you live, always live.

  I see you, Y’rill, and I’m so, so sorry.

  Let’s go home, tiny red.

  K’Vruck and the Unseelie king do something then that my brain can’t process. Their wings expand and expand; then Y’rill and I are wrapped in them, rolling around, spiraling through time and space. From between feathers and leathery scales, I watch planets and stars go shooting by. We rush, faster and faster, then abruptly, we’re not moving at all, but floating, rocking as I imagine it must feel like rocking in a womb, then we’re spiraling off again then—

  We’re on top of Chester’s. Back home in Dublin.

  K’Vruck is gone.

  The Unseelie king diminishes to roughly human size, though he remains indistinct but for the clarity of his wings.

  Y’rill and I shift to our original forms simultaneously, and I beam at Shazam. “My shifting was effortless,” I exclaim. “I can’t wait to do it again.” I drop to my knees, open my arms wide, and Shazam rushes into them, hugging me, sobbing with joy. I bury my face in his fur a long moment, drying the last of tears I didn’t know were on my cheeks. I thought I was going to lose him. Then I thought we both might die. But he’s in my arms, and I will never jeopardize his precious life again, in any form.

  I tip my head back and gaze up at the king, who’s still standing there watching us, and say, “Thank you for bringing us home.”

  He laughs, and his wings begin to shimmer with cobalt fire as he becomes corporeal before my eyes.

  I’ve half a mind to clap a hand up to block my view, concerned it might not be safe to gaze directly upon whatever the Unseelie king truly is without going mad or blind.

  But I don’t, because he’s corporeal now, and my mouth is hanging open.

  And I’m staggered.

  Stupefied.

  Stymied.

  Stunned.

  Speechless, even.

  I’m all the “s” words, I suppose.

  The Unseelie king tosses one more my way. “Always. Stardust,” Ryodan says with a smile.

  52

  My love, my life

  MAC

  I sit in a chair beside Dad’s bed, holding his hand, watching his chest laboriously rise and fall as he wheezes.

  He keeps drifting in and out of sleep.

  I no longer have any doubt the Song of Making reset time, aligning the flow of it to coincide in all realms. My day and a half at Cruce’s castle cost me only an identical amount of time in Dublin.

  My brain is simultaneously whirling and numb.

  The moment we left Cruce’s underground kingdom, I took one last look at Barrons standing next to Masdann then fled for my father’s chamber.

  Barrons understood. I can’t process anything else. I’m all the emotions; exhausted and overwhelmed, angry and relieved, filled with gratefulness, riddled with grief.

  I have a million questions, but they have to wait.

  Barrons removed the spell suspending my father shortly after we returned. Mom is sitting on the opposite side of the bed, holding Dad’s other hand.

  Barrons said he believes my father has two weeks, at most.

  Inwardly, I’m sobbing, but I refuse to let the tears fall. I won’t add one more ounce of sorrow to the room.

  Mom told me all the things Dad said, in one of the awful waking nightmares I had. “Honey, the walls would have come down anyway whether or not you went to Ireland. This would have happened, with or without you, just in some other iteration. It’s not your fault. Who’s to say we wouldn’t have died years ago? Don’t you dare blame yourself! Your daddy and I knew the risks. You and I will get through this. It won’t be easy, it’s going to gut both of us, but we’ll hold on to each other as we grieve and find our way through, together. I love you, Mac.”

  To which Daddy added, with labored breath, “Baby, I had a good run. That’s what you want to be able to say, whether death comes at twenty-eight or at fifty-eight. If you blame yourself for this, I’ll haunt you, petunia. You’re my beautiful, perfect little girl.”

  He’s sleeping now. Their forgiveness and understanding slay me. I love them both so much.

  “Why are there two Barrons?” Rainey Lane says.

  I look at her. There are two Barrons. Oh, God. And I can’t tell them apart. That disturbs me on levels too profound to face. I say, “It’s a long story, and I need more answers before I tell it.” I’ve been thinking, while sitting there, about how to cheat death, and I don’t know where it is yet, but by God, I will find it. I say in a low, urgent voice, “Mom, there’s an Unseelie elixir—”

  “Your father won’t take it.”

  “But it doesn’t take your soul and emotion,” I press heatedly. “It only—”

  “Would make him immortal.”

  “Yes,” I say flatly. “You could take it, too!”

  Rainey meets my gaze, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. Like me, she refuses to add them to the sorrow of our vigil.

  We’re alike, she and I. We’ll both smile right up to the end. We’ll assure Jack Lane we will be just fine. Because that’s who Mom is now, and I’m fiercely proud of her. She’s tempered, composed, graceful. And that’s how they raised me. Lanes are soldiers, we march into battle and live as others fall, but we don’t allow ourselves to get lost in grief because, if you live a long life, death will come, grief will rain down over and again, and the only way to survive it and remain an alive, passionate being is to pay the price of pain every time. It’s always going to hurt. But as long as you’re still capable of suffering, you’re still capable of joy.

  “We have no desire to live forever, honey. We have strong faith. He won’t risk losing Heaven, and neither will I.”

  I leap restlessly to my feet and scan the room, looking for I don’t know what—a hard-core tranquilizer? Someone cleaned the cobwebs from the room. Thank heavens.

  “Will you be giving the Unseelie elixir to the Seelie?” my father says then, and I whirl, scowling.

  I fist my hands. “They did this to you!”

  “My question stands,” Dad, ever the barrister, says with a tired smile.

  I stare at him in mutinous silence. If I say no, he’ll berate me, and I don’t want him wasting his precious breath. If I say yes, I’ll hate me. If I say no, I’ll probably hate me, too. The weight of the waking nightmares I had, where I pretty much K’Vrucked the world in every scenario, the only variation in the details, is a suffocating albatross around my neck. I know what I don’t dare do. I also know what I’ll hate doing.

  “I want to hear it, baby. You know what’s right.”

  Clenching my jaw, I grit, “I’m not doing anything to them. I’m just leaving them alone.”

  “Wrong answer.”

  “They did this to you. I’m not killing them. I’m merely letting Nature take her course.”

  “Wrong answer again. Tell me what your heart knows.”

  I rub my eyes and sigh. “That I can’t judge and convict an entire species based upon the actions of two.”

  “Go on.”

  I feel like I’m on trial, before my father. We both are. Because he’s judging himself as a parent by the decisions I now make.

  “If I can find a way to help them that offers them the possibility for a good life—”

  “—an immortal one like they had,” he interrupts.

  “—I will do all in my power to help them achieve it,” I say woodenly, and I know it’s true. It’s the right thing to do. The problem is the Cauldron doesn’t work, and I can’t just give the Seelie the Unseelie Elixir, assuming I can find it. All the Seelie, with the three exceptions, those three hateful ones who did this to my father, are stark raving mad, overwhelmed by the weight of too many memories. It would be no kindness to make them immortal as they currently are.

  “That’s all I ask, baby. I know you’ll make me proud.”

  He’s asleep again, and tears are about to begin gushing from my eyes. To Mom, I mutter, “I have to pee,” and race from the room.

  I manage to close the door behind before bursting into tears.

  To my consternation, Barrons is standing there, either about to come in or waiting for me to come out. Hastily scrubbing my tears away and turning them back off, I sidle away, pressing against the door. Is he Barrons? Or am I being fooled again?

  “Which is precisely why I’m here,” he says grimly, not missing my reluctance to get close to him. “We’re addressing this. Now.”

  “I need to sleep.” I’m not ready for this. I can’t face anything else.

  His midnight gaze glistens crimson. “I listened to Cruce saying he was going to fuck you while his prince watched.”

  I inhale sharply, realizing we were both deeply traumatized by events. He stood impassively by while Cruce told me the horrid things he was going to do to me, awaiting the perfect moment to strike. While Cruce spoke of his plans to erase Barrons from my mind and heart, rape me, erase me. And he’s right, I don’t trust myself to know which of them is him, and I must. “Fine. What now?”

  “We go talk to Masdann. And put your fears to rest.”

  “Then we put yours to rest, too,” I say quietly. I know what Barrons needs. And I know, even as bone deep exhausted as I am, what I need, too. I need to stretch out next to him, skin to skin. Hold him close and have him hold me, know he’s my Barrons. And if I can remain awake long enough, make love slow, hot, and desperately tender, with the last vestiges of my energy until I pass out in his arms.

  Knowing it’s him. Not an Unseelie prince.

  “I fear nothing,” he growls, offended. Then his mouth twists in a wry smile and he adds, “Except that you might fear me. That I can’t bear. Come.”

  * * *

  Masdann is waiting in Ryodan’s office. As the door whisks open and I glance in, I’m once again stunned by how identical they are. Barrons is standing next to me, yet Barrons is also standing near Ryodan’s desk, staring down at the club below. Both powerful, darkly beautiful, wearing the same face and form.

  When he turns, I wince.

  Their faces are i-fucking-dentical. How will I ever know for a certainty if it’s Barrons at my side, in our bed, not Masdann?

  “Greetings, my queen,” Masdann says with a courtly bow. “I apologize for the deception, but Barrons and I deemed it necessary to protect you.”

  “How many of my dreams did you mess with?”

  “Two.”

  “Which two?” I demand.

  “The afternoon you slumbered on the sofa, when I guided you to show me your encounters with Cruce was the first time. The second was last night as you slumbered in Cruce’s chamber. Though he did not enter the Dreaming with me, he sat in the chamber watching, and to preserve our charade I had to comply with his wishes. What I saw the first time solidified my resolve. You never loved Cruce. You loathed kissing him. You compartmentalized yourself to do so.”

  “When did you and Barrons team up? How did Barrons even find out about you?”

  Barrons says, “He appeared at Chester’s before you left the chamber beyond time.”

  Masdann says, “I told Cruce that Barrons had already departed. Cruce wanted me to test whether I could fool Ryodan. I didn’t want to fool Ryodan. I wanted his hackles up.”

  “He succeeded,” Barrons says. “Ryodan knew it wasn’t me. But only because he knew I’d not yet left the chamber, that I would never leave, until you had.”