We’d put Ryodan in Barrons’s study on a mattress he’d dragged down from upstairs.

You could put him in the bedroom next to Jada, I’d suggested.

He won’t want her to see him like this.

I don’t think she’s seeing much of anything, I’d pointed out.

I don’t think she has been for a while. He’d glanced pointedly at the heavily smoked stuffed animal I was holding on my lap as we headed back for Dublin in one of the Nine’s Hummers.

I’d tucked it into her arms as I’d tucked her into my bed.

And I’d seen the only faint signs of life in her as she sighed and curled herself tightly around it. She muttered something then that sounded like, “I see you, yee-yee.”

My heart had felt raw and inflamed inside my chest, on the verge of rupturing, as I’d watched her. Mea culpa. I hated myself even more than I had before for chasing her into the Silvers that day. I was only now beginning to fully understand what those years had cost her.

And I’d thought then, staring down at her, what if Alina isn’t really dead? That would mean I’d chased Dani into the hall—and she hadn’t even killed my sister.

For a few really hellish moments there I’d wanted to go curl up somewhere and quietly die.

But I’d shaken it off. My dying wouldn’t do a thing for Dani. And she was all that mattered.

Lor strode past me and I followed him into Barrons’s study.

I dropped into a chair behind the desk and looked warily at Ryodan. Barrons was draping filmy pieces of fabric drenched in some silvery liquid on his charred body, murmuring softly while he worked.

“He’s awake,” Barrons said.

I hadn’t needed to be told. I was watching him shiver with pain as Barrons laid the barely-there pieces of glowing cloth against his raw flesh. One of the Nine shivering with pain was a terrible thing to see.

“Do you think maybe you should knock him out for his own good?” I said uneasily.

Lor laughed. “I’ve thought that on more than one occasion.”

“He wants to be awake,” Barrons murmured.

“Can he talk?”

“Yes,” Ryodan rasped.

“Can you tell us what happened?”

He made a wet sighing sound. “She flew into that…bloody abbey like…a mother bear obsessed…with her cub. I thought…five and a half years is a long time…maybe she’d had a child…brought it back.”

Oh, God, I thought, appalled, I hadn’t even thought of that! Had the bear belonged to a child? Her child? Just what had Dani gone through in the Silvers?

“I kept circling her, trying to keep…her from…burning, but she acted like…she didn’t even feel the heat. Christ…I could barely breathe. Beams were falling, stone was crumbling.”

“Why the fuck didn’t you change?” Lor growled with a quick look at me.

“I know,” I said to him levelly. “Surely you know I know.”

“Dunno why you’re still alive, though,” he said coolly.

“Not in…front of her.” Ryodan gurgled harshly.

“Precisely,” Lor said, shooting me a look.

I ignored him. “Are you sure he’s okay talking?” I asked Barrons worriedly.

Barrons gave me a look. “If he’s doing it, he wants to be.”

“Go on,” I urged Ryodan.

“Need to tell. You…need to know.”

“He won’t be conscious when I’ve finished,” Barrons told me. “For some time.”

“She kept saying she…had to save…Shazam. That she wouldn’t have…survived without him and she wasn’t…losing him. She wasn’t leaving him. Ever. She fucked up once and…wasn’t fucking up again. She was…ah, fuck. It was…it was like looking at her at fourteen again. All eyes and heart…blazing in her face. And she started to cry.”

Lor said softly, “You never could stand that.”

Ryodan lay shuddering while Barrons worked, then gathered his strength and went on. “She tore the damned room…apart looking for…something. I couldn’t figure out what. The place was a bloody mess…must’ve exploded when the fire started. All kinds of…weapons, ammo…kept trying to push it away from the fire and…keep her from burning. Food everywhere…a filthy pillowcase with ducks on it and…rotting fish all over the place. Fucking fish. I kept thinking what the fuck…was with the fish?”

Rotting fish? I frowned, unable to process it.

“Finally, she…screamed and dove toward the bed and I thought…so, her kid is under there…it’s okay…I’ll get them out.”

He fell silent again and closed his eyes.

“And she pulled out the stuffed animal,” I said miserably.

“Yes,” he whispered.

“How did she end up unconscious?”

“Me.”

“You hit her?” Lor growled, half rising.

“I was a bloody…fucking idiot. Should’ve known better.”

“What did you do?” I exclaimed.

“When I saw…what she was holding…cooing to it like it was…fucking alive, I…” He trailed off. Then after a long moment he hissed, “I took it from her, ripped it open, and showed her it was just a…a stuffed animal.”

“And she snapped,” Barrons said quietly.