Chapter 22

After Caitriona went down to wash in the library's bathroom and Neve busied herself looking for wherever Librarian had stashed Griflet, the attic had fallen silent again.

Only Emrys, still unconscious, was left for company. I sat beside him, listening to him struggle for each wheezing breath, staring into the night air.

A single word escaped him, a low murmur rippling with terror.

"… don't …"

"Emrys?" I whispered. I moved to brush his dark hair from his forehead, to see if I could rouse him. Then those words, Don't touch me, the memory of him pulling away like what I'd done had repulsed him, lashed at my raw muddle of feelings.

I brought my hand back into my lap.

"He'll be all right."

Nash stood in the doorway, hunched slightly to accommodate the slant of the roof. In his hands were two steaming mugs of coffee. The smell of it all but purred through me, setting off a deep longing.

"How would you know?" I muttered.

"Fever hasn't set in yet, which means the ointment's doing its job staving off infection," Nash said, hesitating a moment before he sat down next to me.

The coffee mug was right in front of my face, my exhausted body was begging for it, but my petulance was stronger. "I don't want that. I won't be able to sleep."

Nash raised an eyebrow.

Okay, no, my body and mind had hit the point of exhaustion where not even caffeine was powerful enough to keep me upright. My words were starting to slur.

I took it from him, but I wasn't happy about it. I rummaged through my workbag, bracing myself for Nash to comment on the fact that it used to be his.

Instead, he eyed Emrys's scars with a look of curiosity that made me feel protective against my will. "Don't remember Endymion's favorite toy being quite this banged up."

"He's the one who did this to his son," I said, fighting the knot building in my throat. The thick scars were darker, more pronounced against Emrys's ashen skin, crisscrossing his body like a map of suffering.

"Ah" was all Nash had to say to that.

"Is that why you warned me to stay away from him?" I asked. "Endymion?"

"The man had ice for a heart long before he joined the Wild Hunt," Nash said. "When I heard he was spinning up the old Order of the Silver Stick nonsense, I made it a point to keep us away from the guild as much as possible."

Nash watched as I ripped open a soggy instant coffee packet from my bag and dumped that into the mug—drip coffee alone had never had enough flavor for me. Gripping the handle, I gave it a few careful shakes, trying to swirl the powder into the liquid. Nash looked on, horrified.

"Bloody roses, you still drink that stuff, Tamsy?" he said with a startled laugh. "You'll give yourself a heart attack."

"If you didn't want me to drink it, you shouldn't have given it to me when I was a kid," I said. "And anyway, it tastes better."

"It tastes like it was brewed in a festering wound," he said, taking a long drink of his own. "You need to eat something."

"I'm fine. "

Next to me, a small bowl of dried fruit and nuts sat untouched. I'd never had a problem with it before, but the thought of eating a dead Hollower's food just then turned my stomach.

"You're not fine. You're all skin and bones," he said. "You'll need your strength if you're planning to run off and do something foolishly brave."

I scowled, knowing he had a point.

"Is this supposed to be your version of parenting?" I bit back.

"Just common sense," Nash said, drinking his coffee. He looked down at Emrys again, rubbing a hand over his mouth. This time, he kept his thoughts to himself.

"It really is you, isn't it?" I said, hating the throb of emotion in my voice.

"Of course it's me," he said, exasperated. "Ask your questions, Tamsin, I can all but hear them knocking around your mind."

"Fine," I said. "How are you alive?"

"You found the coin," he said. "You already know."

"The one you said to bury with bone and ash?" I pressed. Emrys and I had found it hidden beneath a stone at the ruins of Tintagel, but nothing had happened when we'd followed Nash's note with instructions on what to do with the silver coin.

Apparently something had happened after all.

Nash nodded. "And I thank the gods you did. When you got the fixings just right, the coin's magic was triggered. It made my body anew and called my sorry soul back from the darkness between worlds."

"I am the dream of the dead …," I said quietly. The inscription on the coin whose meaning had eluded us.

It seemed so obvious now. The dream of the dead was … new life.

"You could read it?" Nash asked sharply. His eyes widened almost imperceptibly, his skin taking on an ashen quality. It wasn't the anger I'd expected.

"Yeah, I solved that problem myself," I told him. "And gave myself the One Vision, since you refused to find a way."

He seemed to relax at that, though he hardly looked pleased .

"Why not just bury the coin yourself if you thought you might die?" I asked, unable to keep the bitterness out of my tone.

"Well, for one thing, I didn't think old Myfanwy had it in her to cut me with a poisoned blade so she could keep both the ring and Arthur's dagger," Nash said ruefully. "Should have seen that coming, considering I was going to kill her for the ring."

I started at that. "You would have … you would have killed a sorceress?" For me?

He grunted. "It was the only way to take full possession of the ring; you—"

"—have to kill the bearer," I finished. "I know."

Nash nodded, rubbing his mouth again. "The original plan was that I'd get the ring, have you kill me to take possession of it, and your curse would be broken, and I'd be revived with the coin, good as new."

My horror was so acute, I was momentarily speechless. "You expected me—at ten years old—to be capable of killing you?"

"You hated me enough for it, didn't you?" he asked quietly.

I drew in a sharp breath.

"Didn't matter in the end," Nash said. "I was prepared to kill the sorceress, and I was prepared to have her kin come after me for it. But the ring … the moment I touched it, I knew it needed to be purified. Only the High Priestess of Avalon was capable of such a feat. But the poison from Myfanwy's blade started to take hold shortly after I crossed into Avalon … Should have known something was wrong when the Hag of the Mist wouldn't take my blood offering."

"And you just … expected me to find the coin you buried at Tintagel and put all of the pieces together with the barest of clues?" I continued in disbelief.

"It was my last coin—I had to take certain measures to protect it until the time was right," he said. "I also thought you might find it a trifle faster, given all I'd taught you."

I all but heard the snap in my ears as the last fraying thread of my patience gave way. "I was a child ! "

"An incredibly clever child," Nash said. "Too clever by half, even. I didn't want to involve you until it became necessary, and I couldn't leave a message for someone else to find. I thought you'd work it out."

"How was I supposed to do that when you didn't even tell us you were leaving?" I demanded, the words like knives. "You never gave us any indication you were coming back!"

Nash's hand lowered, setting his coffee cup down. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. "You … thought I meant to leave you … forever?"

I didn't answer. I didn't have to.

The man drew in a sharp breath, pressing the back of his hand against his forehead.

"You said it was your last coin," I said. "How many did you have?"

"Nine," he said, and I scoffed. Of course. It was almost too perfect. "And before you ask, I got them from a sorceress whose mother smuggled them out of Avalon. Fair trade."

"What, you didn't go into that one planning to kill her, too?"

This time, he scowled at me.

"And all this because you're convinced I'm cursed, when there's absolutely no evidence of that," I said, shaking my head. "You really are something."

"Your curse exists whether you believe it or not."

I didn't want to talk about that. I'd come close enough to death these last few days to actually start believing it too.

"Where did you go when you left the apartment?" I asked.

"To Rook House," Nash said. "I got in a mighty tussle with Madrigal's pooka. Not exactly a fair fight when one of the participants can turn into a lion, now is it?"

"So you didn't get inside," I said. "And you didn't get the ring back."

"Course not. I ran for my life, and it was still a damned near thing," Nash said. "Then I got word from the Bonecutter you'd gone to see her, asking me to come get you out of her hair."

I bristled. "We weren't just dropping in. We had business. "

"I'm sure you did. I've never known her to like unwelcome dropins, though. I could have told you that, if you'd just stayed put and waited for me to come back."

I wasn't about to get into this argument again.

"Is she still under that curse?" he asked, scratching at his stubble. "The one that makes her look like an ever-so-slightly demonic child?"

So it is a curse, I thought. Pride would never let me reveal I hadn't found a way to confirm that myself.

"Looks like it," I answered.

I drank down more of the thick sludge of coffee, letting its bitterness fill me. The old bones of the library's town house groaned as they shifted and settled again.

A hard wind was blowing in from the harbor, and a ghostly choir of moaning bled through the cracks in the walls. Sadness stole through me once more.

The first night we'd heard the wind, wrapped up in our blankets, terrified about what our lives would become, Cabell had started giving each of those "voices" a name—Philbert, Grumbleton, Moorna—and suddenly, we were laughing and crying and laughing.

"This is where we lived," I heard myself say. "After you … left."

Nash lowered his mug, resting it against his knee as he looked around, absorbing the cobwebs, the exposed beams, the beginnings of dry rot. "Librarian took care of you, then? He's always been a sweetie."

I nodded, my jaw sawing back and forth as I bit back resentment. It was awful, all of this—sitting here like it was one of our old campfires, hearing the rumble of Nash's voice, taking in his familiar earthy, leathery smell. His old jacket, the one my brother had worn for years, had been lost to Avalon, and his new one didn't have that same softness, the lived-in quality that only came after decades.

"You took care of your brother," Nash said. "I'm proud of you."

He could not have hurt me more if he'd ripped the heart from my chest.

For years … years … I would have killed to hear him say those exact words. But there was no truth to them now. I hadn't been able to protect Cabell when it mattered most.

"I saw him," I told Nash. "Twice."

"Hmm? Once with the hunt, I suppose?"

"Yes," I said. "And again at Rivenoak. I tried to talk to him there, but he wouldn't hear me out. Cabell … he …"

"Go on," Nash said. His pale eyes were clear, focused, and for the first time maybe ever, I felt he was truly hearing what I was telling him.

"Cab ran alongside the hunt as a hound, and he seemed so … natural. Free. " I traced a finger over the chipped rim of my mug. "Was his curse that he was forced to shift into human form?"

"He's not cursed at all, Tamsy," Nash said with unbearable gentleness. "He never was."

I stared down into the bottomless black of my coffee.

"Is that his true form?" I asked.

"What is true but what we choose to be?" Nash mused. "When I found him on the moors that night, he was a pup, but I recognized him for what he was—one of the C?n Annwn."

Despite the heat of the coffee, a chill prickled my skin. The hounds of Annwn.

"Why didn't you just tell us that?" I demanded. "Why pretend like the curse was on him?"

"You may not understand it," Nash said, "and I know you think I'm about as trustworthy as an eel, but you were children at the time. And I thought—well, I didn't want him to long for a place he could never return to. There's an unkindness to that, too."

Crossing my arms over my chest, I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, some part of me still in disbelief that the bastard was here, sitting beside me.

"Gods forgive me, I know I was harsh on you at times," he said. "That I could be a distant, moody old bastard when it came down to it. I didn't always know how to give you the affection you might have needed, or how to console you … I'm not a soft man, I know this. "

"I'd say that's an understatement," I said, my hands curling into fists in my lap.

"But I didn't realize how distant I'd been," Nash continued, "because I never imagined in all my worst nightmares that you'd believe I'd left you on purpose. That you weren't wanted. I look at myself now and realize I've become that thing I always feared most: an old man with regrets." He shifted, looking down at his hands in his lap. "I'm sorry."

I drew in a deep breath, not trusting my voice to speak. It was all of the things I'd been so desperate to hear—that I'd felt starved for, that had shaped me as surely as any knife.

There was a time when I'd believed he would come back, and I'd rehearsed what I'd say to him over and over, carefully carving my anger and devastation into arrows. Now that I had the chance to shoot them … I couldn't.

It hurt. It still hurt so badly.

"Cabell will return to us in time," Nash said. "But he must choose that form again. That life. He is drawn to Lord Death because of what he is, but he will step away from that darkness because of who he is."

"He won't," I said. "You haven't seen him. And after what he's done … the others might never forgive him."

"Forgiveness isn't meant to be easy," Nash said. "It's got to be earned. But it has to start somewhere. Look for the sign, it'll come."

"What's that you used to say? One swallow doesn't make a summer?" I said. "You didn't see what I saw."

"Maybe so, but I know the boy," Nash said. "I raised him from the time he was a pup, same as you."

"If he's a Ci Annwn, how did he get to this world?" I asked.

"I assume his line was left behind when the pathways to the Other-lands closed," Nash said. "And he was the last of his kind here."

"And what about me?" I asked. "Where did I come from?"

Nash's face hardened. "I've told you the tale. It's not one I'm fond of repeating."

"You told me you won me in a game of cards in Boston," I said. " Who were my parents? What's my family name? If I'm old enough to know about my curse, I'm old enough for that piece of truth."

"You want the truth?" he said, drawing himself up and off the floor. "The truth is, I don't know. I never thought to ask."

"You're lying," I said incredulously. "Why are you lying?"

I could have screamed at the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. The others seemed to realize they'd wandered into a private moment, because they froze awkwardly midway through the door.

"Should we … come back later?" Neve asked carefully.

"Ladies," Nash said. "Come on in and settle down for the night."

"We're not done with our conversation," I told him.

"Aren't we?" he shot back. "I think you should all—"

Whatever he'd intended to say cut off with his sharp gasp. His face turned livid as he dropped his empty coffee mug and launched himself toward the stairs. Caitriona lashed a protective arm out in front of Neve.

"What are you doing?" I shouted.

But Nash hadn't been going for Neve—his focus had been on the kitten nestled between her hands. Gripping him by the scruff, Nash freed Griflet and, with a guttural growl, flung the kitten toward the center of the attic.

Neve's scream was strangled off as the cat's shape exploded into bands of light and pressure, becoming little more than air until it began to reassemble itself into different forms—a bird, a snake, something like human, his face striking as he turned toward us with dark, feverish eyes that gleamed like flecks of obsidian. That form was still burned in my mind as it shifted one final time into a spider.

"Grab it!" Nash barked.

He and Caitriona lunged forward, but the spider had already darted past their feet and scurried down the stairs. Caitriona rushed out after it, her steps pounding down into the foyer.

I knew there was no point. The creature was gone.