She said again, “He’s real. You have to believe me. That’s part of the promise you’re making me.”

“You weren’t alone the whole time?” I longed to believe that. I hated the thought that she’d spent five and a half years battling enemies all by herself.

“No. Well, except for when he vanishes. And he’s amazing in a fight. Well, as long he stays focused and doesn’t have one of his pessimistic meltdowns. He hates being alone. And he’s alone again.” She added softly, “He loves me. He never said it but I know. It’s what he means when he says he sees me. And I can’t let him down. I can’t fail him. You have to tell him you see him, okay? Just keep telling the air that you see him. He’ll come out. And if I don’t make it, Mac, you have to love him. Promise me you’ll take care of him.”

I tried to wrap my brain around what she was telling me. I wanted to believe it was true, that she wasn’t broken and she wasn’t crazy. That she’d actually lost someone and it had been killing her inside. That in fact it had devastated her so deeply, she’d pretended he was a stuffed animal. She had feelings, deep ones. A sudden happiness filled me. Whether or not Shazam was real, Dani felt loved—and loved in return.

“There’s nothing wrong with your heart, honey,” I said softly.

“It’s broken,” she whispered. “I can’t go forward with Shazam behind me. I don’t know how.”

God, I knew that feeling! A sister, a parent, a lover, an animal. It didn’t matter where you put your unconditional love, once given, the stealing away of it was an assault to every sense. Smells were the worst—they could ambush you, put you smack back in the middle of the hottest part of the grief. The scent of a peaches-and-cream candle. The brand of deodorant she’d used. Her pillow back home. The smell of the bookstore in the evening, when I’d believed Barrons was dead. When you love too hard, you can lose the will to live without them. Everywhere you look is a great big sucking absence of what you once had and will never have again. And life gets weirdly flat and too sharp and painful at the same time, and nothing feels right and everything cuts.

There was a sudden rattling in the distance, and I inhaled sharply.

“It’s coming,” she whispered.

“Promise me a favor now,” I whispered.

“Anything,” she vowed.

“If you have a chance to escape, if you suddenly find yourself free, run like hell and leave me behind.”

“Anything but that, Mac.”

“I promised you, damn it,” I hissed. “Now you promise me, and mean it. If you have the chance to escape, turn your back on me and run as fast as you can.”

“I don’t run anymore.”

“Promise me. Say it.”

She remained silent. The only sound was the whine and clatter of our would-be tormentor approaching.

“Quid pro quo or I won’t keep my promise,” I threatened. “I won’t save Shazam if I get out.”

“Coerced promises aren’t fair, Mac. You know that.”

“Please,” I said softly. “It won’t mean anything if what I do goes wrong and we both die. One of us has to make it.”

She said nothing for a moment, then said stiffly, “I promise to do what I think is best.”

I laughed softly. That was Dani. Not Jada at all. And it was enough because I knew Dani: survival at any cost.

I heard the screech of metal and knew we didn’t have much time. I closed my eyes, leapt and dove into my black lake.

“What are you doing, Mac?” she said sharply, no longer bothering to be quiet. I knew why. There was an ominous portent to the sound of the approaching Sweeper. It was no longer ambling. It was moving with briskness and focus. Our “operations” were about to begin. Whether we were awake or not.

“What I should have done the moment you jumped through that Silver,” I said. “Believing in the good magic, too.”

She was quiet; as if trying to think of what to say. Finally she said, simply, “I don’t want to lose you, too.”

“I thought you didn’t like me,” I reminded. Chittering, coming closer. Rustling. I swam hard, focusing on the shaft of golden light slicing through the murky water.

“I don’t sometimes,” she said irritably. “But we’re…”

“Sisters?” I said as I drifted lightly to my feet in the black cavern. She’d come after me. She’d looked out that window, decided I was in trouble, and shoved aside whatever it was she’d gotten out of bed to do—go save Shazam?—and come after me instead.

“Peas. Pod. Whatever you’re doing, think hard about it.”

Peas in the Mega-pod, she’d once called us. My heart expanded, so full of love for her it hurt. “I have.”

“And know I’ve got your back.”

“Back at you, kid,” I said lightly. But I’d had to say it loud, to make myself heard over the jarring approach of the Sweeper.

“I’m not a kid anymore.”

“Don’t we all know that,” I said dryly. I dashed into the cavern, the shining, resplendent black rock chamber that housed the enormous power that had kept me immobilized by fear for far too long.

No more.

I had no idea which of my three suppositions was right, and no longer cared. The only thing that mattered to me was that Dani lived. That she went on to love. To save “Shazam” if he actually existed, to grow up and take lovers, regain her wonder and freedom of emotion and wholeness of heart.