I AM NOT EVIL.

Then why do you destroy?

CLARIFY.

You do heinous things.

EXPOUND.

You kill.

THOSE THAT ARE KILLED BECOME ANOTHER THING.

Yes, dead! Destroyed.

DEFINE DESTROY.

To demolish, damage, ruin, kill.

DEFINE CREATE.

To give rise to, fashion something from nothing, take raw material and invent something new.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS NOTHING. ALL IS SOMETHING. WHERE DOES YOUR “RAW MATERIAL” COME FROM? WAS IT NOT SOMETHING BEFORE YOU FORCED IT TO BECOME SOMETHING ELSE?

Clay is just a lump of clay before an artist molds it into a beautiful vase.

LUMP. BEAUTIFUL. OPINION. SUBJECTIVE. THE CLAY WAS SOMETHING. PERHAPS YOU WERE AS UNIMPRESSED WITH IT AS I AM BY HUMANS, YET YOU CANNOT DENY IT WAS ITS ESSENTIAL SELF. YOU SMASHED IT, STRETCHED IT, PULLED IT, SMELTED IT, DYED IT, AND FORCED IT TO BECOME SOMETHING ELSE. YOU IMPOSED YOUR WILL UPON IT. AND YOU CALL THIS CREATION?

I TAKE A BEING AND MAKE ITS MOLECULES REST. HOW IS THAT NOT CREATION? IT WAS ONE THING AND IS ANOTHER. ONCE IT ATE, NOW IT IS EATEN. DID I NOT CREATE SUSTENANCE FOR ANOTHER WITH ITS NEW STATE? CAN THERE BE ANY ACT OF CREATION THAT DOES NOT FIRST DESTROY? VILLAGES FALL. CITIES RISE. HUMANS DIE. LIFE SPRINGS FROM THE SOIL WHEREIN THEY LIE. IS NOT ANY ACT OF DESTRUCTION, SHOULD TIME ENOUGH PASS, AN ACT OF CREATION?

—CONVERSATIONS WITH THE SINSAR DUBH

36

Happy birthday!” I cried, as I opened the front door of BB&B. When Dani stepped inside, I stuck a pointy party hat on her head, snapped the elastic string beneath her chin, and handed her a party horn.

“Gotta be kidding me, Mac. It was months ago.” She looked embarrassed, but I saw the sparkle in her eyes. “V’lane said you wanted me. Gotta love that, dude—a Fae prince comes looking for the Mega! What’s up? Ain’t seen you for a while.”

I led her to Party Central in the back of the bookstore, where a fire leapt, music played, and I’d piled wrapped packages on a table.

Her eyes widened. “This all for me? Ain’t never had a party.”

“We’ve got potato chips, pizza, cake, cookies, and candy, and all the sweets are triple chocolate fudge, chocolate mousse, or chocolate chip. We’re going to be total couch potatoes, open presents, gorge, and watch movies.”

“Like you and Alina used to?”

“Just like.” I put my arm around her shoulder. “But first things first. Sit down and stay right there.”

I hurried back to the front of the store, removed the cake from the fridge, stuck fourteen candles on it, and lit them.

I was proud of my cake. I’d taken my time icing it, with swoops and swirls, then decorated it with shavings of bittersweet chocolate.

“You’ve got to make a wish and blow out the candles.” I placed it on the coffee table in front of her.

She stared down at the cake with a dubious expression, and for a moment all I could think was, Please don’t smash it into the ceiling. It had taken me all afternoon and three tries to bake one that had finally turned out well.

She looked at me, squeezed her eyes shut, and screwed her face into a pucker of fierce determination.

“Don’t hurt yourself, honey. It’s just a wish,” I teased.

But she wished like she did everything else: one hundred fifty percent. She stood there so long I was beginning to suspect she had a little bit of an attorney in her and was adding codicils and caveats.

Then her eyes popped open and she flashed me that cocky grin. She nearly blew the icing off the cake. “Means it’ll hafta come true, right? Cause I blew ’em out?”

“Haven’t you had a birthday cake before, Dani?”

She jerked her head.

“From this day forward, there will be at least one birthday cake for Dani Mega O’Malley each year,” I proclaimed solemnly.

She beamed, cut the cake, and plunked two huge wedges on plates. I added cookies and a handful of candy.

“Dude,” she said happily, licking the knife, “what are we gonna watch first?”

Since I came to Dublin, there haven’t been many moments in my life when I’ve been able to sit back, relax, and forget.

Tonight was one of them. It was bliss. For a stolen evening, I was Mac again. Eating good food, enjoying good company, pretending I didn’t have a care in the world. One thing I’ve learned is that the harder your life gets, the gentler you have to be with yourself when you finally get some downtime, or you can’t be strong when you need to be.

We watched a dark comedy and laughed our petunias off, while I painted her stubby fingernails black.

“What’s this?” I said, noticing her bracelet.

Her cheeks pinked. “Ain’t nothing. Dancer gave it to me.”

“Who’s Dancer? You have a boyfriend?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Ain’t like that.”

“What’s it like?”

“Dancer’s cool, but he ain’t … he’s got … just a friend.”

Yeah, right. The Mega had blushed. Dancer was more than a friend. “How’d you meet him?”

She wriggled uncomfortably. “We watching this movie or being sissies?”

I picked up the remote and hit the pause button. “Sisters, not sissies. Spill, Dani. Who’s Dancer?”

“You never tell me nothing about your sex life,” she said crossly. “Bet you and Alina talked about sex all the time.”

I sat up straight, alarmed. “Are you having a sex life?”

“Nah, man. Ain’t ready yet. Just saying. Wanna talk like sisters, gotta do more than read me the riot act.”

I breathed again. She’d been forced to grow up so fast. I wanted some part of her life to unfold slowly, perfectly, with roses and romance. Not in the heat of the moment, with the console of a Camaro digging into the small of her back and some guy she barely knew on top of her, but in a way that she’d remember forever. “Remember when I said we were overdue for a talk?”

“And here comes the lecture,” she muttered. “Dude, ears up, they didn’t tell us all the important stuff about the prophecy. Left out a lot.”

She sprang it on me out of the blue, derailing me completely, as she’d known she would.

“And you’re just now telling me this?”

She poked out her bottom lip. “Was getting around to it. You’re the one that wanted to talk stupid stuff while I was trying to be professional-like. Just heard it myself. Ain’t been hanging around the abbey much. Moved out long time ago.”