The whole thing made Lily nervous. Rule had considered paying cash, but decided it would leave him with too little cushion. This purchase was on him, mostly. Lily sure couldn’t afford the kind of place they needed, Leidolf didn’t have the funds, and it was not something Nokolai could help with. So they’d be signing a mortgage. One whopping big mortgage, even with Rule making a whopping big down payment. Land did not come cheap.
Tonight, though—tonight was for Rule. Rule and Nokolai.
Lupi made a big deal about New Year’s Eve. At least Nokolai did. Christmas they considered more of a private time, one you spent with family or friends, but New Year’s Eve was for clan. They had a big bonfire, lots of food, dancing, and music, and everyone came who could. You were supposed to bring something to toss on the bonfire, something that stood for whatever you wanted to let go of along with the old year. People starting adding their whatevers around eleven so everyone would have a chance to finish before midnight, when the Rhej would ring a big old cowbell to let everyone know.
This was Cynna’s first time to have that duty. She was kind of nervous about it.
Some of the letting-go objects were funny, like Hostess cupcakes Emma tossed on the fire with a shout of “Junk food!” Some were a mystery to everyone else, like the small rubber ball José contributed. Several lupi gave him a hard time for stinking up the place—rubber smells awful when it burns—but he just smiled. A lot of people simply brought a piece of paper with something written on it.
That’s what Rule did. Lily didn’t know what he’d written on it, but he’d nodded as it turned black and burned.
Lily brought a stone from her necklace—the one that was supposed to keep ghosts away. It wouldn’t burn, but it was the idea that counted, she figured. She knew what she was letting go of as she chunked it on the flames. If she’d had to put a word to it, she would have said, “judgment,” but it was both more and less than that.
Drummond hadn’t come back.
When Lily was nine years old, a monster had stolen her and her friend. He’d raped and killed Sarah. Lily was alive because of a cop who got there in time. Since she was nine years old, she’d known two things: there were monsters who looked like people. And one day she would become a cop and protect the real people from the monsters. By the time she joined the force, she’d understood that the monsters were real people, too—twisted and warped and bad, but people. But her goal hadn’t changed.
When Lily was eight years old, she’d wanted the monster who killed Sarah dead. She’d wanted to be the one who killed him. That was one of the few things she’d been able to say about what happened to her, and it had alarmed her mother. The therapist they’d sent her to had wanted to talk about feelings, not actions. She hadn’t known what to say to a child who dreamed of murder.
Grandmother had. She’d patted Lily on the back and said, “Of course you wish to kill him. However, you cannot. Now go kill the weeds in my garden. Pull them out by the roots. Pull out the grass, too. Kill as much of it as you can.”
Lily still loved to garden.
It had taken another twenty years for her to understand there had been another reason for her to become a cop. She’d needed the rules. She was capable of killing, and she’d needed to know exactly what the rules were so she wouldn’t kill unless it was absolutely necessary.
She stood in the circle of Rule’s arm and watched the bonfire, feeling its heat on her face. Two people had brought fiddles and were starting to play. She’d dance in a bit. Her head hadn’t been concussed, and if her ribs were still bruised, that wouldn’t matter. Rule’s gunshot wound—which he had not told her about until she saw it—was fully healed. So she’d dance with Rule, and with others, too. She’d lived, and he had, and everyone here tonight had made it through this year in spite of the war. They would celebrate that.
Some hadn’t made it through the year. Too many.
Lily wasn’t sure if she would have killed Benessarai if Drummond hadn’t shown up to exact that promise, but maybe. Maybe she would. That was not a comfortable thing to know about herself. If she’d killed him, it wouldn’t have been because she had to, or even for the pragmatic reason that it was damn hard to imprison a sidhe with his skills. She’d have done it because she could, and he deserved death for what he’d done.
She still thought he deserved to die, but it wasn’t up to her. It never had been up to her. That’s what she’d tossed on the fire a few minutes ago.
Sometimes the bad guys did redeem themselves, wholly and completely. That’s what she’d learned from Drummond. That’s why it wasn’t up to her.
“This is going to sound stupid,” she said, “but I kind of miss him.”
“Miss who?”
“Drummond.”
“You’re right. That sounds pretty stupid.”
She elbowed him. “You’re supposed to reassure me.”
“Can’t. I tossed that sort of thing on the fire just now.”
She turned in his arms to look at him directly, looping her arms around his neck loosely. “I’m guessing you don’t mean you’ve given up reassuring me.”
He ran a finger along the side of her face, which was still a bit swollen. “I gave up thinking I can make better choices for you than you can. Being less than honest with you. And in all honesty, it does sound pretty dumb for you to—”
Rule was really ticklish under his arms. She got him good, and of course he retaliated, so they were both laughing when Cynna rang the cowbell good and loud, welcoming in the new year.
EPILOGUE
IN a place that was not quite a place as we think of them, two people were doing what, here, people often do in a bed.
No, not that. Though their reunion had been joyous and prolonged and had included plenty of sex—or something as like to sex as makes no difference, even though they did not have bodies as we know bodies—just now they were sleeping. Or enjoying something very like sleep, but enough of the circumlocutions. We have no way of truly understanding that place, so we’ll continue from this point on as if they were here and use the terms we know…
He woke first. That was habit and normal and familiar and quite wonderful. It gave him the chance to watch her sleep when he had thought he’d never have such a moment again.
A restless man most of the time, this morning—and it was morning, in all the ways that matter—he was at peace. At least until she woke and smiled at him. She touched his cheek, tracing furrows put there by a life lived hard and mostly right, though when he’d gone wrong, he’d done so spectacularly. As she’d told him tartly at one point, for they’d talked as well as making love. “When are you leaving?” she asked.
He scowled. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, please. When have you ever been able to relax and enjoy a vacation?”
He blinked. “Vacation? They, uh, said this was a place of rest. I thought…it’s beautiful here.”
“It is. Very beautiful.” She was laughing at him now. “Rest, vacation—whatever we call it, this isn’t a place to stay forever. Though some people enjoy resting, or so I’ve heard.”
He didn’t relax at her teasing. “I, uh, I’ve been offered a job.”
“I felt sure you would be. Come on, let’s get up. I’m hungry.”
They fixed breakfast together, just as they had for most of their lives. Those other lives, that is, but that’s a distinction without a difference. He told her a bit about the job.