The magic poured into Cody, who stood, quietly smiling, his eyes searching the sky as if he saw the dance of angels or the order of the universe there. Cody lifted his hands. Magic, light and dark, rolled up his arms, just as it had rolled up mine, carving dark whorls of multicolored ribbons from the tip of his fingertips on one arm, up to the side of his jaw, and light whorls of multicolored ribbons from the tip of his fingertips on his left arm.
Dad shimmered, the glyphs on his body flaring bright, then fading and fading until they were ashen gray.
Leander and Isabelle faded too, taken apart by the price of magic, dissolved, spent, used up, until they were gone, their soul nothing but dust that scattered in the breeze.
And then Dad stepped out of Stone. Stone very quickly folded back into the shape of a gargoyle, my gargoyle. He shook his big head and sneezed.
He was alive! That was good. So good.
“Allison Angel,” Dad said.
I looked over at him. There was just one Dad standing there. And for the first time in my life, I saw my father. All of him. His whole soul and mind.
The stern furrow was still there in his brow, and the lines at his eyes that seemed made from sorrow rather than joy. But there was a spark to his eyes, a glint that made me wonder what secrets he still held, what joys he had experienced. He had a kindness, a humanness to him I had never seen.
But now that I did, I understood why someone would be drawn to him. Why someone might love him.
I suddenly wished I had known him. Wished this could have been the man who raised me.
“Dad?” I said.
“I gave you this flower a long time ago,” he said. He was still holding the pink rose. “I want you to promise me you won’t let go of it so easily again.”
I nodded. Held out my hand.
“I have done…regretful things. So many…” His voice was filled with sorrow. “I cannot change the choices I have made. But this last choice is for you. For your life. For your world. For your love. Do not waste them, never let go, never stop fighting, daughter. Time is taken from us all too quickly. Even those of us with the best of plans. And my plans were always the best.
“I love you, Allison. My beautiful daughter. I am proud of you.” He smiled and there were tears in his eyes.
And then he threw the rose. Not toward me, but toward my body.
I turned, stretching out to try to catch it.
Cody said a word. Dad said a word, and suddenly the world was fading away, washed in watercolor hues. I was caught in that, like a leaf carried by a soft wind. Watched as the world turned sideways, watched as I was rested gently into my body. Watched as Dad knelt beside me, his hand over my heart, as the pink light of the rose, my small magic, was placed once again in my body.
I wanted to ask him what he was doing, why I was lying here, but all he said was, “Good-bye, Allison Angel.”
I tried to open my mouth. Couldn’t find a way to do so.
Dad stood, glanced once at the world around him, then, with a satisfied nod, faded away.
The world started up again like someone had just slammed on a switch.
I inhaled, air in my lungs hot as fire as I screamed through the pain that wrapped around every inch of me.
And then Zayvion was there, his voice whispering ragged, soft words to me, the most comforting sound in the world. I wanted to tell him I loved him. I wanted to kiss him one last time with my lips, hold him with the arms of my very recently unbreathing body.
A body that was still burned and broken from magic.
My eyes were working though. And I opened them to see that beautiful, bloody man of mine. His eyes were brown, empty of all magic, filled with pain and sorrow. I wanted to tell him I was okay. It was okay. That at least Dad had stopped Leander and Isabelle.
And that he had given up Stone, given up immortality, given up holding all magic in his hands.
Which meant we won.
We had really, finally won.
Go, us.
“I love you,” Zay said, over and over again. “Don’t leave me, Allie. God, please don’t leave me.” He was crying.
I couldn’t say anything. Couldn’t move.
Cody came into the range of my vision, standing so I saw him over Zayvion’s shoulder.
He wore magic, beautiful soft hues in every color of the rainbow, around him like a cloak. He looked ageless, both a young boy and a wise man, his blue eyes filled with joy and peace.
“It’s all right, Allie,” he said. “Everything’s going to be okay now.”
And then he began singing. A very soft lullaby. It wasn’t a song I had ever heard before, but I knew it carried magic. And I knew what that magic, light and dark joined together with the pure untouched magic of St. Johns, would do. He used his fingertips to paint very specific spells in the air.
Healing.
Not just for me.
To heal the world. Dark and light magic were woven together again as they were always meant to be and cast for the first time by a child of Soul Complements, a savant. Cody was a rarity in this world. A brilliant artist with magic.
I wanted to stay awake, to see the world Cody was about to bring into life, but that song took away my pain, my worries, and rocked me gently to sleep.
Chapter Twenty-three
I woke up in a bed, the smell of roses all around me. I opened my eyes.
It was my bed, my room. And I was not alone. Zayvion lay on his side next to me, his hand resting on my stomach, his breathing easy and deep. He was asleep.
Soft amber light filtered through my window, and I thought it might be evening turning toward night. I had no idea what day it was. I thought about waking Zayvion and asking him a lot of questions, but instead, I just slid my fingers between his, and held tight as I fell back to sleep.
When I next woke, it was to a clatter of cups.
Zay was bringing in a tray with two coffee cups, the coffeepot, two bowls and plates. Smelled like toast and maybe oatmeal. The dishes clattered again as he set the whole thing down on the top of my dresser, his back turned toward me.
He had his shirt off. I expected him to be bruised, burned, and stitched up. But other than moving a little stiffly, he looked all in one piece.
Healed.
Alive.
Gorgeous.
“Morning,” I said softly.
He half turned, a soft smile putting light in his beautiful brown eyes. “Morning. I thought you’d wake up if I brought you coffee.”
“How long since…” My mind flashed with everything that had happened, the pain, the magic, the death. And then it all sort of went white, pushed to one side so the memories weren’t so overwhelming. All that pain and trauma were right there, but behind a velvet rope line, waiting their turn for me to deal with them one at a time. When I wanted to. When I was strong enough.
“Since St. Johns?” Zay said. “Three days. Which you’ve mostly slept through. Maeve’s been here, and Violet. Dr. Fischer said you’d probably wake up sometime today. I thought I’d celebrate with breakfast.”
He got everything situated on the tray and brought it over to the bed.
“Think you can sit?” he asked.
“For coffee and breakfast in bed? Oh, baby.” I pushed up gingerly, vaguely remembering a broken wrist and other wounds.
Like a hole in my chest.
Holy shit. I’d been dead.
I pulled at my T-shirt, lifting it up so I could see my chest. My usual scars were there, bullet wounds that I’d gotten used to. But right over my solar plexus was a shiny line about as wide as my thumb was thick. From that scar other lines, maybe eight or so, reached up between my breasts to arc just below my collarbone.
Almost like someone had tried to trace the lines of a bouquet of flowers there.
“Good morning to you too,” Zayvion said, nodding toward my breasts.
I looked up at his smile, realized I’d just flashed him, and tugged my shirt back down. “So, I have a new scar.”
/>
He nodded. “You were hit by magic. Leander and Isabelle…hurt you. Do you remember that?”
I did, though that was still over there, with the other awful memories on the other side of the rope. And I wasn’t sure I could deal with those before breakfast.
“I remember.”
Zay got the tray settled, and then sat on the bed with me, grunting as he tucked up his legs crisscross.
“I remember you were hurt too. Badly,” I said.
He retrieved a bowl of oatmeal and handed it to me, then took the other for himself. “I was. Eat first.” He nodded to my bowl.
I stuck a spoonful of oatmeal in my mouth, then forgot about trying to ask him things and ate.
“Cody took magic,” Zay said after we’d both made a good dent in our food. “Dark and light.”
I reached for a cup of coffee, caught my breath on the pain in my ribs. I wasn’t in agony—far from it. But I still wasn’t fully recovered.
Zay smoothly retrieved the coffee cup for me with a look that said I should slow down and take it easy. Then he took the other cup for himself, and snagged up a piece of toast for both of us.
“Marmalade,” I said. “You really went all out, didn’t you?”
“Nothing but the best for my love.” Zay finished his toast. Then shook his head. “Cody stood as the Focal for dark and light magic. All these years, and Cody was the one who was strong enough to join light and dark magic. No wonder Leander and Isabelle wanted him Closed, broken, and dead.”
“Is he okay?” Dad had said there wasn’t any living person who could hold both light and dark magic long enough for it to rejoin.
“He’s fine. Except, no, let’s finish breakfast. I’ll tell you later. Also, there’s a meeting today.”
“Except what?” I asked.
“He can’t use magic now.”
“What? Why not? Did you take the ability away from him? Did you let the Authority take the ability away from him again?”
“No. Allie.” He sort of sighed and brushed his hand back over his head. When he looked at me again, he was very serious. “Things have changed. Let’s eat. Take a shower. Then we’ll go to the meeting in a few hours. I’ll tell you everything I know, which isn’t really all that much.”
Oh. From the sound of his voice, we hadn’t won. We hadn’t claimed victory without also claiming very high losses.
And while the memories of it all remained distant, my emotions—anger, sorrow, loss, fear, hope—cut that velvet rope and came swirling into my mind.
It was too much. I swallowed hard, trying to push it all away.
“Shower?” I stood, put my hand on the wall to keep myself steady.
Too many days running, fighting, throwing magic around like it didn’t cost anything, like it wouldn’t all catch up with me some day and make me hurt, hit me all at once. I was standing, but not for long.
Zay stood and put his arm around my waist.
I’d seen him exhausted before. He wasn’t there yet, but he wasn’t all that far from it. And he’d been sleeping for three days too.
I put my arm around him, and we leaned on each other, making our way down the hall to the bathroom.
Zayvion started the water while I got out of the shirt and jammie pants I must have been wearing for a while.
I shivered even though the room was warm and quickly getting steamy.
Zay had shucked out of his pants and pulled the shower curtain aside.
I got in the shower, and so did he.
The water was warm and gentle. Then his arms were around me and mine were around him, and I was crying, even though I didn’t know why, but I couldn’t stop, couldn’t hold him close enough as I trembled.
I wanted the water to wash the fear and death and loss away. I wanted to feel safe and whole again.
I had died. I’d been so close to losing him, to never feeling him in my arms again.
And now that I was alive, now that the reality of that was right here, breathing, his heartbeat and mine beating with the same rhythm, I could not stop thinking of how close I’d come to losing him.
He didn’t say anything. Neither did I. We both knew what we had. What we’d almost lost. How incredibly lucky we were.
There were no happy endings for Soul Complements.
Maybe there was now.
It took a while before I stopped crying. Took a while for my shaking to ease. And then I was so tired that washing my hair seemed like an insurmountable chore.
We managed, Zay washing my hair for me, me washing his back for him. After I toweled dry, I shuffled back to bed and crawled under the covers.
Zay shut off the water, turned off the lights, and moved the breakfast tray off the bed. Just before I fell asleep I heard him call someone on his phone and tell them we weren’t going to make it today, but that we’d try to be there tomorrow.
Then I rolled over, tucking my head on his wide chest, my ear pressed so I could hear his heartbeat, my leg over his as his arm wrapped around me.
I didn’t want to leave this bed, didn’t want to face the real world right now. Maybe not for a long time.
Thankfully, sleep pulled me, all too willingly, down into soft darkness.
A cold nose pushed my hand open, then something that felt like a quarter pressed on the center of my palm.
I ignored it.
I heard the soft clink of a coin set on coin, still in the center of my palm.
Pause, then another coin went clink.
I was starting to feel the weight.
Clink. Coin number four in my hand.
I opened my eyes.
Stone sat next to the bed, his wings very carefully pressed against his back and his ears up. In his fingers he had a quarter, which he delicately stacked on top of the other four quarters on my palm.
“Stone?” I mumbled.
Hearing his name, he cooed and blinked his big round eyes. I could tell he was happy to see me. I was happy to see him too.
I did, however, wonder where he was getting those quarters.
Stone trotted off down the hall, then returned in a flash, another quarter in his hand. He sat, and placed it carefully in my hand on top of the others.
Someone must be out in the living room.
I curled my fingers around the coins and Stone gurgled approvingly, then tromped out of the room again.
Zay was sleeping soundly on his back, his arm over his eyes. No coins in his hand.
I got up carefully, made it to the door, and pulled on my robe. I walked out toward the living room.
Someone was lounging on my couch. That someone was Shame.
God, it was good to see him alive.
Stone sat in front of him and waited for another quarter.
“Did you just pay my gargoyle to wake me up?”
Shame looked over at me.
Pale, his face was all angles, too thin, but strangely vibrant, his eyes a very dark green. He raised one eyebrow and smiled. “Maybe.”
“You cut your hair.” I sat on the other side of the couch. His hair was combed back in the slick style of the nineteen forties or fifties. Looked good on him.
“Got singed. Was time for a change anyway. Like?”
“I do. I can see your eyes better.”
Stone shifted so he was sitting in front of me, waiting for me to put my hand out. I gave him all my quarters. “You can go stack these if you want, Stoney.” I rubbed his head.
Instead of running off to go make a mess, he settled down right where he was and rested his head on the couch between Shame and me.
I petted his head and he crooned softly. I thought about asking how everyone was, but I knew if I did, I’d have to deal with it. Deal with everything we’d been through. Face some pretty terrible things.
I didn’t want to face any of it right now.
“Came by to take you to the meeting,” he said. “Mum said you and Zay need to be there today.”
“Is she the head of the Authority now?”
/> Shame shrugged. “Things are unsettled. And you?” he said. “I’ve never seen you so quiet.”
I tucked my feet up and looked over at him. He was quiet too, studying me as if he were holding his breath for my answer. Over his left shoulder, I could see Eleanor’s ghost in front of one of my bookshelves, scanning the books there.
“What happened?” I asked.
“When, exactly?”
“Just the end of it. The end of the fight with Leander and Isabelle.”
He turned his face so that the cool yellow light of morning coming through the window washed his skin in yellow, leaving his eyes and the curve under his cheekbone in lavender shadow.
“We had them held off, but that was about it. The way they used magic”—he shook his head—“didn’t think we’d survive it, honestly. Your da did something. Something with Stone, right?”
“He possessed him, and then tried to join light and dark magic.”
Shame whistled, low. “Always knew he had balls. Also that he was a bit mental.”
“Did he kill Leander and Isabelle?”
He shook his head. “I blacked out. When I came to, Cody was standing on one side of you, and your da was a ghost, standing on the other. Didn’t see Leander and Isabelle anywhere. About that time, Zay reached your side. You were so still, Allie. Covered in blood. I thought you were dead.”
“I think I was,” I said quietly.
He didn’t say anything for a while. Then, “Found your way back on your own this time, didn’t you?”
“I guess I did.”
“I brought you this.” Shame twisted and pulled a box out from beside him. It was about the size of a shoe box, but made of wood. Across the top in my father’s clean handwriting were the words: ALLISON ANGEL’S BOX OF DREAMS.
It was the box my dad had given me when I was a little girl. The box he had put a lock on and hidden away in his safe at his house. I had forgotten it until Shame, Zay, and I found it a few months ago. I didn’t even remember what was in it.
“Found it in the trunk of my car,” he said. “Thought you’d want it.”
I nodded. “I do. I think I do.”
He handed me the box and I held it a moment, wondering what I might have put in here, and why Dad would have thought it important enough to lock away.