Feversong (Fever #9)(61)
“And the other sidhe-seers?” I gently nudged her back to the topic.
“Shauna’s alive, out at the abbey. Cara’s dead, as are Margery and Josie. But the death I most want to avenge is Jo’s.”
My vocal cords were abruptly strung so tight they squeaked like an out of tune violin when I opened my mouth and tried to speak. I had to take several slow, deep breaths before I managed to get out a quiet, “What happened to her?”
Enyo’s nostrils flared, her gaze turning murderous. “None of us know for sure but I can tell you this much—it was a bad death.” She locked eyes with me and said with sudden, savage intensity, “I think about that, you know. In this world, the way things are, you’re a fool if you don’t. What’s a good death, what’s a bad one, and how you want to go when it’s your time. When it’s my time, I want to be doing something that matters, betters the world, and saves people’s lives. I want my death to mean something.” She lapsed into silence, staring off into space, scowling for a long moment, then said in a low, fierce voice, “Jo’s death didn’t mean a damned thing. It looked like an Unseelie stumbled on her while she was searching through the wreckage for food and water to bring us. Whatever did it also put rat poison in the water jugs she’d been collecting. We lost two more sidhe-seers before we figured out that bit of twisted nastiness. If I ever find the Unseelie that killed her, I’ll do to it what it did to her,” she said from between clenched teeth. “Every last fucking bit of it.”
I forced myself to inhale and exhale slowly, carefully. I could change the subject right now. Never ask. Never know. “What did it do to her? I want to know the details,” I said in a voice that must have sounded as terrible to her as it sounded to me. She gave me a weird look, so I added hastily, “How can I help you get even with it if I don’t know what it did?”
She eyed me with new interest and nodded. “You carry the spear and I hear you’re a null. We might work well together.”
I didn’t trust myself to speak so I just nodded back.
Leaning forward, in a voice taut with rage, she told me every detail, interpreting my complete immobility and silence as an appropriate show of abject horror and like-minded rage.
When she finished, she pushed to her feet, bristling with restless energy, told me she was due back at the abbey and would catch up with me later, so we could get to work identifying the monster that had done such horrific things to Jo and go hunt it together.
As the door banged shut, I hung my head and, after a long, wheezing inhale during which so much pain exploded inside my chest that it locked me down from lungs to lips, I doubled over heaving in silent, suffocating convulsions, pounding the floor with my fist. Finally, just when I thought I might die, a sob ripped free from my throat with such force that it burned like fire and I began to cry.
No, I began to keen. No, I began to gnash my teeth and tear at my hair and wail like my Irish ancestors’ legendary banshee.
I knew what monster had killed Jo.
Me.
JADA
I was so irritated, I didn’t even think of accessing the slipstream.
I walked like a Joe, hands shoved deep in my pockets, scowling at the day, muttering beneath my breath, unaware of the passage of either scenery or time until I realized I was standing in the middle of the green at Trinity College.
I stopped walking and took stock of myself. I was feeling dangerously like Dani again. That was unacceptable. I had a world to save. And a personal mission I had to find time for.
The past twenty-four hours felt as surreal as if I’d been battling Silverside again. Although in Dublin thirty-five days had passed, for me it was a mere twenty-four hours, give or take a few, and those twenty-four hours had been jam-packed with crises, each carrying significant emotional currency.
The battle at the abbey. Watching my women die. The fire. Shazam and my meltdown. Ryodan burning himself. The Sweeper capturing us. Mac’s sacrifice. Dealing with the cuff and Cruce. Hacking off Ryodan’s head with my sword. Trying to predict the Sinsar Dubh’s moves. Mac regaining control over the Book, joining us in Ryodan’s office, then losing it again. The Sinsar Dubh grabbing me in that scant split second I’d still been processing Mac’s transformation, swiping the spear and nearly strangling me, the floor dropping out beneath us, falling, getting up and dashing into the White Mansion in a desperate bid to position the stones around her before she reached the queen.
Failing.
The queen passing the True Magic of her race into Mac and shoving her back through the mirror, so we could contain her while she was immobilized. The painful mixture of triumph and grief as I’d watched the blue-black wall flare into life, incarcerating my friend in a prison where I’d had no idea what hell she might suffer. We’d only just reconnected again.
I dropped down onto a bench, turned my face up to faint tendrils of sun that penetrated a dense cloud cover and just breathed.
I smiled faintly, remembering the moment Mac had stepped out of the prison, leaving the Sinsar Dubh behind.
Then I scowled, thinking about “Saint Ryodan.”
Then I got ahold of myself, emptied my mind of everything, centered myself with my breath, stood and performed a kata to reengage my energy. Abandoning myself to the fluid motion, I became nothing but a strong young body capable of fueling a stronger young mind. By the time I permitted myself to remember the past twenty-four hours again, they rolled off me like water from a duck.