The Dire King (Jackaby #4)(80)

I took the ring out of my pocket. I turned it over and over, watching the glow that was Charlie leave little trails of light in my third eye. I focused, as Jackaby had suggested, until there was nothing in my world except that aura. And nothing changed. And Charlie was still dead.

Jackaby’s head bobbed back up a few minutes later.

“I—wha? Who did? Was I sleeping?”

“You were, sir.” I put the ring back in my pocket.

“Mmm. Delightful. I’m looking forward to a lot more of that. What were we saying?”

“Not important,” I said. “I was just looking at all the books. I could never see it before, but they really are meticulously shelved. It’s an elegant gradient of auras.”

“Thank you,” said Jackaby. “Nice to be appreciated.”

“Yes. I can see the magic in them now. All of them. Even the ones out here with the beige auras. Your whole library is magic, isn’t it?”

“Of course it is.”

“Would a book without magic have any aura at all?”

He considered the question. “I have never found a book that did not have at least a little magic in it,” said Jackaby. “They can’t help it. They’re made out of words and sometimes even pictures.”

“The ones toward the back are beautiful,” I said. “They’re so intense.”

“You should go look in the Dangerous Documents section sometime, now that you can really see them. I’ve got a few on thaumaturgy that glow like hot embers, a tome on invocations that pulses like a heartbeat, journals by an artificer that vent magic like hissing steam.”

“Have you any about the afterlife?” I asked before I realized I was thinking it.

There was silence for several seconds. “He’s gone,” Jackaby said.

“I wasn’t—”

“I don’t need to be the Seer to see some things.”

I swallowed the lump forming in my throat. “It isn’t fair,” I said.

“No, it is not.”

“You can’t tell me it isn’t possible for a person to come back,” I said. “We met the boatman—the underworld is a real place. There are souls there—”

“Not his,” said Jackaby. “Charon told us last time. Half humans can’t enter his underworld. They go—well, someplace else. Mag Mell, perhaps? That might just be fairies, though.”

I let that sink in.

Jackaby and I sat in silence for a long while. “Well, I think I’d best be off to get some rest now,” Jackaby said, pushing himself up.

I nodded. “Of course, sir. You have spent twenty years earning it.”

He nodded and patted my shoulder as he left. “Just remember—you’re stronger than you think, Miss Rook. And you’re not alone.”

“Good night, Mr. Jackaby.”

When his footsteps faded up the stairs, I took the ring out again, holding it between my finger and thumb.

He was right. Charlie was gone. Not only was Charlie gone, but when the time came for me to go, Charlie wouldn’t be there waiting for me. He would be—somewhere else. The swelling ache in my chest finally burst, and the lights and auras in front of me blurred with hot tears. A door in my chest quietly closed and locked itself forever.

I don’t know how long I remained in the library—nor whether I had slept at all—but the sky through the window was full of stars when I heard a voice above me.

“Why did you say no?”

I looked up. Perched on the bookshelf was a squat little man all covered in fur. Through my new eyes, I could see the twain’s power and potential spinning within him.

“You could be with him,” he said. “He is your twain. You were given the choice. Why did you say no?”

I wiped my eyes. “You mean, why didn’t I join Charlie in death?”

He nodded. “I often think about my twain. I miss her, every day. I am incomplete without her. I am . . . I am—”

“Lost,” I suggested.

“Lost.” The twain leaned against the inside of the bookcase. “That is love, though, isn’t it? Sacrifice.”

“No,” I said, after a pause. “All due respect to Romeo and Juliet, but I don’t think love is sacrifice at all. Real love is when you let another person make you better. You don’t lose yourself in love—you find yourself there.”

The twain lifted his head.

“Charlie made me feel like a better me,” I continued. “And he made the world better, day by day. It was his gift. And now he’s gone. I can let that gift die with him, or I can make it my gift. I can keep making the world better, day by day. That feels more like love to me.” I wiped my eyes. “Charlie’s gone, and I’m not all right. Not yet. But I intend to keep making myself better, day by day, too.”

I looked up again. The twain had vanished. The sky was already warming to a rich plum outside the window. The sun was rising.





Supplemental Material

The funeral was held at Rosemary’s Green. There were more caskets than I had expected, and some of them were very large. A heady glamour hung over the crowd, although no one else seemed to notice it. Human beings, I realized, made up only half of the mourners at the event. In my eyes, the various otherworlders’ true faces were coupled with the human masks they were presenting and were underscored by their unique auras, as well as wave after wave of heavy emotions. The sensory overload was beginning to make me nauseated.