“I need to head out to the abbey. I’ve wasted too much time already.”

“It’s good to take a break every now and then, Mega. Just like your vacation on Dada. Thanks for telling me about it. I want to hear about other worlds, too, like where you went from there. I want to hear about all of them.” He shook his head with a look that was equal parts admiration and unabashed envy. “Christ, I’ve only ever seen one bloody world. You’ve seen what, hundreds? Thousands? Mega, when this is over, let’s go off world. Let’s go adventuring! We can do anything, go anywhere!”

I raided his little pantry in back, grabbed a few dozen protein bars, crammed all but one in my backpack, ripped it open, and headed for the door.

“Sure,” I forced out through a tight throat.

“See you tonight, Pinky?” he called after me.

We used to crack ourselves up calling each other Pinky and the Brain in a much simpler time, hatching our schemes to take over the world.

He’d kissed me last night. I’d slept over. The abbey was a ruin and none of my old hidey-holes had appealed. I’d been someone else when I stayed in those places, someone I’d never be again.

I’d slept on the couch despite his insistence I take the bed and he’d take the couch.

I shaped a No, I’m busy, with my lips, prepared to toss it over my shoulder. Instantly, a vision exploded in my head: dropping by tomorrow to find him dead. Last word he’d ever heard from me a “No.”

His heart was my cage.

Dictating my actions. Making me think hard about everything I said and did. Knowing it was going to end badly no matter what I said or did. How was I supposed to care about someone I knew I wouldn’t get to keep? By any logic, it was stupid. Self-destructive. Pointless. Bring on the erosion. I’d said to him last night, You do know you’re going to die before me, right? He’d laughed and said, Wow, that’s arrogant, Mega. I don’t take nearly the risks you do. Nobody ever knows how long anybody is going to live. Stop thinking about it. I don’t. Live in the moment. You always used to.

Back then it was enough. I’d believed my moments infinite. Jackie Paper was never going to leave Puff alone.

“Sure thing, Brain.” I kicked up into the slipstream.

MAC

I got a little slice of heaven that afternoon.

In a lovely townhouse, with a brightly painted red door, adorned by colorful planters filled with sopping wet blooms in every window, on the north side of the River Liffey, I had lunch with my sister Alina and my parents.

The Lane family reunion couldn’t have been more perfect.

When I knocked on the door, Mom opened it, burst into tears of joy, and exclaimed over her shoulder, “Jack, Jack, come quickly! Our baby’s here!”

Then my daddy and sister were both in the doorway and I was engulfed in Jack Lane’s fierce bear hug that smelled just like it always did of peppermint and aftershave, then Alina and Mom had their arms around both of us and we stood in a group hug, crying and laughing, and my heart had nearly exploded from trying to hold so much joy.

The many horrors of the past year melted away in that embrace and it felt for a few moments as if the Lanes had merely gotten together in Ireland for a family vacation. My sister had never died, I’d never killed, and the world wasn’t about to end.

Not. But it still felt pretty damned wonderful.

They told me Alina had found them weeks ago, and although they’d been disbelieving, even hostile at first, that “nice Mr. Ryodan had come by,” taken her away and done a blood test that proved she was indisputably their daughter. (I didn’t tell them he’d no doubt bitten her, not drawn blood, and exchanged a glance with Alina, who winked at me before we shared a private smile.) Daddy said they would have eventually believed it was her, even without a test of any kind, because he knew his girls.

Mom made fried chicken (Mr. Ryodan had sent a pantryful of other groceries—“Mr. Ryodan” really knew how to work the moms), biscuits, and greens, followed by the best peach pie I’d ever tasted.

We sat around the small table in the tall-ceilinged, bright kitchen, laughing and talking, reveling in the one thing we’d believed we would never get to do again—be a family making normal, family small talk. Mom made me unbraid my hair and told me it was too platinum for my coloring, and whatever hair vitamins I was taking, I might want to back off unless I wanted to turn into something from a fairy tale, like Rapunzel. I didn’t tell her I’d already turned into something from a fairy tale. Figured I’d save that doozy for later. I noticed Alina wasn’t wearing her engagement ring anymore and I didn’t miss the fleeting sadness that occasionally crossed her face, like when Mom teased her about that handsome man Mr. Ryodan sent to drop supplies off a few days ago. I made a mental note to ask my sister which of the Nine it had been. Last thing I wanted was Alina hooking up with one of them, although, I mused…that Jason Statham look-alike was totally hot and, well, Alina wasn’t any more normal than me. Well, slightly more normal but not all that much. Daddy had lost weight, laboring with District Ten on various projects, and looked more handsome and robust than ever. Mom was no longer part of WeCare. They’d up and closed their doors out of the blue with no explanation. She’d turned her efforts to a local outreach center instead, which oversaw multiple greenhouses and was developing dozens of local farms.

After lunch we sat in the dark blue parlor that sported wing-backed chairs, a lovely chandelier, tall windows, and white wainscoting, gathered near a softly hissing gas fire as I filled them in on why I’d been gone so long (omitting a LOT). When I told them how I’d defeated the Sinsar Dubh and left it trapped in the boudoir, my daddy’s eyes had gleamed with pride. “That’s my girl,” he told me fiercely. “I knew you wouldn’t doom the world.”