She got out cups, and the honey Fallon loved. “It was the day Mallick came. The new year. The end of Year One. When we were alone again, the three of us, I told him I loved him and wanted our lives together to really begin. That was our first time together. And when he touched me, finally, I was just me.”
“You never told me.”
“It would have been just a pretty story before. Now you understand. We’re lucky, you and I, to love and be loved by good men. Through all this, the war, the loss, the victories, we can still be women in love with good men.”
She set out the tea, added cookies, and sat to talk, to listen.
“I wasn’t sure I’d know what to do—I mean other than the mechanics. There’s so much more.”
On a laugh, Lana bit into a cookie. “Thank the goddess for that.”
“Or that it would feel so good. Everything. We were still banged up and bloody, and it didn’t matter.”
“Might have added to it,” Lana replied.
“Then in the shower, we…” She trailed off, stirred honey into her tea. “Is it weird hearing this?”
“I’m patting myself on the back right now for being the kind of mother whose daughter feels comfortable talking to her about this. But … let’s not share the details with your father.”
Talk about awkward, Fallon thought. “Will he know, like you?”
“Unlikely. Let me ease him into it.”
Better, Fallon thought, much better to leave that part to her mother. “Good idea. Oh, I forgot. When we, the first time, when we— Well, the light just exploded. It burst everywhere, and through me, through him. Outside, the tree behind the memorial stone changed. It’s a tree of life, like Mallick’s.”
“Ah.” Lana sat back. “That explains it. Our memorial tree, it did the same. I thought it was a sign of victory, but now I see. Then again, love’s a victory.” She put her hand over Fallon’s. “Without it, all the battles mean nothing.”
“There’ll be more battles.”
“But you’ll go into them with one more thing to fight for.”
“I was worried it would make me weak, but I was wrong. I feel stronger. I’ll need to be. There are things coming—I can’t see clearly, but coming. A flame from the north, a madness brewing, a blackened soul behind a mask of innocence. Can you see? A bolt through a faithful heart. The black dragon bringing its long shadow to smother hope. What bargains must be made, what loss suffered, what sacrifice given for the light to burn through the dark?”
Fallon lowered her head. “I can’t see, but I know it’s coming.”
“When it does, we’ll meet it.” Lana took both of Fallon’s hands. “Every one of us.”
“There’s so much more I need to talk to you about. You, Dad, Travis. Ethan, too. Even before we meet with the rest of the commanders, and the New Hope Originals.”
Lana looked over as the door opened. Simon came in. “You’re in luck. We’ll just—” Something in his face stopped her. “Ethan.”
Simon walked to Lana, laid a hand on her shoulder. “He’s fine. He headed over to Eddie’s. Babe, it’s Joe.”
“Oh. I’ll—”
“Lana, Ethan says it’s time.”
“Oh no. But—”
“He said Joe’s ready. He just needs Eddie to let him go.”
Tears swam into Lana’s eyes. “I need to be there.”
“Go.” Fallon stood. “You go. We’ll finish making dinner. Go be with Joe.”
Lana didn’t hesitate, she didn’t rush for her coat. She flashed.
She found Eddie, Fred, all the kids sitting on the floor of the living room in the farmhouse. Joe’s head rested in Eddie’s lap. Ethan, her strong, sweet boy, knelt, stroking a hand over Joe as the dog’s breath labored in and out.
She knelt beside him, laid a hand on the old, faithful dog. And knew her son was right. It was time. She met Eddie’s eyes, and her heart broke at the hope in them.
“He won’t eat. Maybe you could…”
“He’s so tired, and everything aches.” Ethan spoke gently, stroking, stroking. “He won’t leave you until you say it’s okay. He’ll fight not to rest because the love’s so strong. He still dreams. He dreams of chasing balls and sticks, and going for long walks, playing with you, with kids.”
With hands gentle, tireless, Ethan comforted the dog, read Joe’s heart. “Jem and Scout and Hobo run and play, but he can only watch. He wants to run again, play again, but he won’t unless you tell him it’s okay. He misses Lupa, and knows Lupa’s waiting for him, waiting to wrestle with him and run with him. But you need to tell him he can go.”
“Do you believe that?” Eddie swiped at the tears on his cheeks. “That he’ll go somewhere he can run and chase balls, play with Lupa. Do you really believe that?”
“I know that. Our Harper and Lee are there now. They want to meet him.”
“Can he have a red ball?” Willow buried her curly red head against her mother’s shoulder. “Can he please have a red ball?”
“Of course he can.” Weeping, Fred pressed a kiss to Willow’s hair. She took Eddie’s hand, kissed it.
“Okay. Okay. Y’all say good-bye now.” Eddie took a breath as Joe looked up at him with eyes full of love and trust. “You saved my life. I guess we saved each other. We’ve sure had some adventures, haven’t we, boy? You go ahead now. You take a rest, and let it all go. Then you find Lupa, and meet Harper and Lee, and all the rest. You chase yourself some squirrels.”
Joe licked Eddie’s hand and on a sigh, he went to sleep.
Later, as she walked back home in a borrowed coat, she put an arm around Ethan’s shoulders. “He couldn’t have done it, couldn’t have let Joe go, without you, Ethan. I’m not sure I could have, either.”
“I didn’t want to let him go, but he needed to.” He glanced back. “They’re lighting candles in the windows to help him find his way.”
“We’ll light them, too. Look.” She gestured ahead. “We already have.”
“He’ll come back, you know. Find his way back after a while. Back to Eddie. People do, some animals do, when they love enough.”
He looked at her. It gave Lana a jolt to realize her baby boy now stood eye to eye with her. “It’s why they can’t beat us. I don’t know why they want to kill us, destroy everything that’s good. I can feel what they feel, but I can’t understand it. I know they can hurt us, take from us, but they can’t beat us because we can love a good dog enough to let him go even when it hurts. They can burn the land, but we’ll plant it. They can burn it again, but we’ll plant it again. They can’t stop us. They can’t win.”
“Oh, Ethan.” She drew him closer as they walked toward the lights in the windows. “That’s exactly what I needed to hear tonight.”
“I need you to let me go with Fallon.”
“Not what I needed to hear.”
“They need support staff to deal with the horses, the hunting and fighting dogs. I can fight, but I’d be more useful freeing up a better soldier. You— It’s time, Mom, for you to let me go.”
“You’ve already talked to your father.”
“Now I’m talking to you. All of you go, and I stay.”
“What you do here is—”
“Important, sure. But I’m not a kid anymore, and I have abilities that can and will help during a fight. I need to use them. You need to let me.”
“The gods ask for so damn much.” She looked up at the stars. “Talk to Fallon. I won’t stand in your way. Give me this. We have dinner without any talk of war. We’ll tell Joe stories. After, we’ll talk about this, and whatever your sister needs to tell us.”
“Is she going to tell us she and Duncan got naked?”
“I— Ethan!” His grin brought back her baby boy. “How do you know about that?”
“A little bird told me.”
She had to laugh. “You’re one of the few who can say that and literally mean it. Just keep that to yourself.” She paused at the door. “I’m serious.”
“Dad doesn’t know.”
“Just Joe stories,” she repeated, and opened the door.
After the meal, with the dishes cleared and all the stories dulling the sharpest edge of grief, Lana poured wine for herself and Fallon. Travis, back from Arlington, got a beer for himself and Simon.
Ethan looked at the tea in his cup.
“Why can’t I have a beer? Fallon had a beer when she was my age.”
“A bit older,” Lana corrected.
“And she’d just decked a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound man,” Simon recalled. “No magickal assistance. You do that, I’ll personally serve you your first beer. Meanwhile…”
“Meanwhile,” Fallon repeated. “There are some things I want to go over here before the formal meeting. I want to hear about the status of the wounded, and the rescues, but before that, I need to talk to you about the POWs.”
“We’ve debriefed about sixty so far,” Simon told her. “Some hard-asses in there. And some who were conscripted, if that’s what we’re calling being rounded up and forced into service. You’ve got some barely older than Ethan, taken from their families, put into training camps where they’re hammered every day about the Uncanny threat. And most of them, nearly all, have family, magickal family members.”
“They turn them, or try to, against us.” Eyes hard, Travis tipped back his beer. “To them we’re the same as the DUs. Shit, plenty of them are waiting for us to torture them the way they do us, or just call down a lightning strike and kill them on the spot.”
“They’re indoctrinated, brainwashed. We know this.” Fallon lifted a hand. “We can, and have, successfully turned some back. It’s vital we continue trying. But for those committed to wiping us out, we need another solution. For some, like Hargrove, that’s life in prison. We can’t sentence potentially thousands more to the same. There can be a choice, for us, for them.”