“You know who he is, right? He told you, I heard him.”
At least… she was pretty sure she had? Things remained blurry.
Rhamp shrugged. “There were a lot of things said last night. And you know, given everything that’s happening right now, I think it’s bestthat we should just let it all go. I mean, if you’re serious about never seeing him again—”
“I am.”
“Then talking about it is just going to kick up a lot of drama that no one needs. Besides, like I’d be in a big hurry to tell everyone I’d just dated the Omega’s grandson?”
“I wish you wouldn’t put it like that,” she muttered. “Although it is the truth.”
“So we don’t say anything. He was just a human as far as they know. By the time they got there, he was nowhere to be seen. Let’s just keep it clean.”
Lyric found herself nodding. At this point, she only wanted to put the whole thing behind her anyway. Her grief and sadness were so profound, almost as profound as her sense of betrayal, and she also found it difficult that she’d never guessed any of it. It was only now, as she relived certain exchanges on things, that she saw the clues that had been there all along.
Forgettable by design, wasn’t that what he’d said in the beginning? Forgettable on purpose was more like it.
Brushing under her eyes, she listened to the steady beat of the monitor behind her, proof positive—her being conscious aside—that she was, in fact, alive and kicking.
“So I went to the Fade,” she blurted. As her brother’s head ripped up, she nodded. “I saw the door… the knob… the whole thing. AndGranmahmen.”
“She was there?”
Lyric nodded again. “And she smiled a lot. She wants us to know she’s waiting for us, but to take our time down here.”
She could still picture it all, hear that voice, see the buffering clouds all around. “It’s beautiful up there. Better than mortal life, for sure.”
Rhamp cleared his throat. “I, ah, I don’t know what I would have done… if you hadn’t come back.”
Reaching out, she squeezed his hand. “Well, the good thing is, we don’t need to think about that, do we.”
“No, we don’t,” he echoed.
With a brisk nod, he released a breath, as if she’d given him permission to put the whole nightmare aside, stuff it down deep, and never dwell on those moments again. The radical compartamentalization wasn’t quite what she’d been going for, but if that was the way he handled it, what else could she do?
Other than make sure she stayed alive.
“How did you three know I was there?” she asked.
“We tracked twolessersto the address.”
“Ah. Yes. Guess they’d been called in for backup by the one who knocked on Dev’s door.”
With a sudden shiver, she wondered about the slayers they’d seen all around that property. Had Dev been recruiting them, working with the—
“I’m sorry,” she said roughly.
“What for?”
“Everything.”
She thought about him calling her a Barbie, and that had been an insult. But she also recognized that she was a long, long way from making any decision about going out in the field. Yes, she would do the training, yes, she would work hard, but transformations in life were about so much more than getting spoon-fed some insta-wisdom from a woman strutting around on a purple stage and telling you what you wanted to hear. Or at least, what you thought you wanted to hear.
Real change required work, not just inspiration, and true growth was more than some fantasy about being a hero. And yet… as she thought about what she’d done for Allhan, and then remembered helping Rhamp at theirgranmahmen’s bedside—and as she recalled especially the moment she’d jumped in front of a bullet to save L.W., she decided the fallen angel and her dearly departed namesake were right.
She was capable of things that mattered, and others knew, too.
L.W. had certainly thanked her for saving his life, and so had the great Blind King himself.
