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“She’s napping,” he told me softly, then moved on to the basement door. Time for him to tend Ryan/Szerain.
I found paper and a pencil, then settled at the table to drink awesome hot chocolate and sketch the ring as best I could. The house wasn’t exactly quiet—the sound of whatever game
Bryce was playing mixed with the hum of the washing machine and the whirr of the air conditioner—but it all wound together into a comforting white noise of home and family. An odd family, to be sure.
After about half an hour I decided there wasn’t much more I could do with my raggedy sketch of the ring. I quietly entered the office and slid it onto Paul’s desk. He didn’t even twitch in acknowledgment of my presence, eyes totally locked on the screen. I bit back a low laugh as I returned to the kitchen, then pulled my phone out and sent him a text to tell him the sketch was in front of him. A minute later I heard, “Got it!” from the office. Now to see what he could come up with.
Jill came out of the guest room and gave me a smile. “I hate to admit it, but you were right. I needed to know about Zack’s demon-ness.”
“Yes, you did,” I agreed. “For the bean’s sake as well.” I gave her a smile. “Anyway, I’m glad that’s over with. You staying for the night?”
She shook her head. “I don’t have a change of clothes here, and I’d rather sleep in my own bed than wake up early to go home and get ready for work.” She slung her purse over her shoulder and gave me an exaggerated mock scowl. “Also, Zack and I talked about the whole moving in thing again, and,” she rolled her eyes and sighed, “I told him I’d think about it.”
“Cool,” I said. “I’ll add you to the chore rotation list.”
She snorted. “I knew you had an ulterior motive.”
“Always. Give me a call tomorrow, okay?”
“If you’re lucky,” she said with a laugh, then departed..
Pleased, I returned to my seat at the kitchen table and busied myself with arcane homework—boring-but-necessary stuff that wasn’t anywhere near as cool as tracing glowing sigils, but was essential in order to understand the fundamentals and theory and why certain strands linked only in certain ways, etc.
Sometime around midnight, Zack finally came up from the basement and closed the door quietly behind him. I looked up as he approached, but I didn’t say anything. I still wasn’t sure how he felt about what I’d done.
“A warning would have been preferable,” he said, but gave me a smile as he dropped into the chair across from me.
Relieved, I returned his smile with a wry one of my own. “I was afraid that a warning would give either of you a chance to escape.” I shrugged. “And I figured it was time.”
“Time for Jill, perhaps,” he said. “It was not ideal for me.”
I angled my head, regarded him. “When would it have been ideal?”
He sighed, passed a hand over his face. “With warning, in a day or two. Still not ideal, but not detrimental. And yes,” he said with a faint nod as if reading my thoughts, “I could have refused today, but then where would that have left Jill?” Regret flickered in his eyes. “Hurting more.”
Spreading my hands on the table, I carefully mulled over his words. “I honestly didn’t know how you’d react to my pushing the issue,” I admitted. “You haven’t allowed me into your thought processes and plans lately. And, at that point, I was more concerned about Jill.” I took a deeper breath. “That said, I apologize for putting undue stress on you.”
He regarded me in silence, for long enough that I began to conclude he wasn’t going to respond at all. But then he laid a hand on top of mine. “You are right,” he said quietly.
Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how scared I was that he might reject me. I sucked in a ragged breath that was perilously close to a sob and turned my hand over to clasp his. “When you talked about Ryan, the real Ryan, something broke inside me,” I said. “I see Szerain coming out more and more, and I tell myself I know Ryan’s not real, that he’s only an overlay, but I couldn’t make myself believe that he’d be going away.” My throat tightened. “But now I know he will. Someday, probably not too far off, Ryan will be gone. He’ll really be dead.” I felt tears slide down my face. “And I’m sitting here watching my best friend die, and he doesn’t even know it.” I was crying in earnest now as I looked up at Zack. “Promise me,” I said almost desperately. “Promise me you’ll let me say goodbye to him before . . . he’s gone forever. Please.” My voice cracked on the last word, and I fell silent.
“Yes, I promise.” His fingers closed around mine. “I am deeply sorry,” he said, sounding as if he was apologizing for more than the current topic.
I gripped his hand while I cried, feeling the full grief of the loss of Ryan for the first time. It wouldn’t be the same with Szerain. It could never be the same. I struggled to get a hold of myself before Bryce heard me bawling and came to investigate, but it was a lost cause.
Keeping a firm hold on my hand, Zack stood, tugged me to my feet and led me out to the back porch. As soon as the door closed behind us, he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close.
And then I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I clung to him as I sobbed into his chest and let it all out. He held me, somehow giving me the comfort of being enfolded in wings even though he was most certainly in human form.
Gradually, I quieted to sniffles, though I kept my head leaned against him.
“It is unfair and unjust,” he said gently. “And, from my perspective, the opposite.”
“The opposite?” I tipped my head back to look into his face. “I don’t understand.”
“Ryan masks the one I know,” he said. “The one I . . .” He exhaled, troubled sadness in his eyes. “The one I know.”
“Oh, I see.” It was, indeed, the opposite viewpoint of mine. “I don’t understand why you can’t be his ptarl.”
