“Holy human surfboards, you caught a perfect wave every time!” Dancer exploded when they paused, back in town, near the River Liffey. “Not one rough start or stop. We didn’t hit a bloody thing!” His beautiful eyes were brilliant with excitement. “That was incredible! You’ve gotten massively better at freeze-framing.”

“I learned a few things Silverside.” She winced inwardly at his Batman quip. She’d given them up long ago. Shortly after she’d accepted that Ryodan had never read a single comic and had no idea the lengths to which Batman and his fearless sidekick would go for each other.

“No kidding. It felt different. Instead of trying to force yourself into something that didn’t want us there, you were in sync with it. One with the force.”

She had Shazam to thank. She would never have survived without her cranky, mopey wizard/bear/cat manic-depressive binge-eater.

He was watching her. “Did you meet anyone in there? Did you have friends?”

“A few. I don’t want to talk about it.” Some things were private. She’d lost too much. She wasn’t losing anything else. Feeling suddenly drained, she grabbed a couple of power bars from her pack, ripped them open, dropped down on a nearby bench, and shoved one after another into her mouth. She missed the glistening silvery pods Shazam had encouraged her to eat on the planet with the dancing vines, the ones that had kept her fueled for days. She’d filled her pack with them before she left that world and had been rationing them for herself since. Back on this world, food didn’t pack nearly the energy punch as it had on many in the Silvers. Too much processing, not enough purity. Or maybe Earth just didn’t have any raw elemental magic in the soil anymore.

They sat in silence for a time, watching the river roll by.

When Dancer touched her hand, she moved it quickly. Nearly stiffened but caught herself.

“Easy, wild thing.”

She looked at him. “Is that what you think I am?” Others thought her rigid, passionless.

“I see it in your eyes. Deep. You bank it. Wilder than you were before. And, I have to say I like it. But you’re something else, too. Softer in some places.”

He was clearly deranged. There was nothing soft about her.

He put his hand on the bench between them, palm up, fingers relaxed, and gave her a look. It was an invitation. His hand would stay or go, as she wished.

How long had it been since she’d twined her fingers with someone’s, felt that click as they locked into place, the heat of someone’s palm against hers? The feeling that she wasn’t alone, that someone was in life with her. Young, they’d raced through the streets, holding hands and carrying bombs and laughing their asses off.

“When we’re kids,” Dancer said, “we’re made of steel. And we think we’re invincible but stuff happens and that steel gets stretched and pulled and twisted into impossible shapes. Most people are torn apart by the time they’re married and have kids of their own. But some people, the few, figure out how to let that steel heat and bend. And in all the places other people break, they get stronger.”

Eyes narrowed, curious, she moved her hand to his, placed it on top, palm to palm. He didn’t try to lace their fingers together. Just sat there, her hand resting lightly on his. She suspended the moment, absorbed it, tried to wrap her brain around it. But brains didn’t wrap well around hands.

“How did you get wise?” she said. “Nothing ever happened to you. Until the walls fell, your life was charmed.” She didn’t mean to sound cutting. It was simply the truth. It had fascinated and bewildered the teen she’d been. They’d been so much alike, sprung from opposite sides of a wide track. She’d had a nightmarish childhood, and his had been storybook perfect. Yet they’d understood everything about each other without ever having to say much of anything.

“I’ve got a bloody IQ through the bloody roof,” he said dryly. “Besides, you don’t have to suffer what other people have in order to understand. Not if you have half a brain and a willing heart. And where you’re concerned, Mega, my heart’s always been willing. I hate that you got lost in the Silvers and I didn’t even know it. I hate that you suffered. But I can’t say I’m sorry you grew up.”

She stared out over the water, saying nothing. She had no idea what to say. He wanted to be more than friends. He’d made that clear today. She wasn’t there. One day, maybe she could be. In the meantime this was oddly…well, odd. And a little…nice. She’d known the closest thing to safe she’d ever felt, years ago with Dancer.

But there was something in her that was—as others believed—rigid and unyielding, something that couldn’t bear the thought of bending even one inch. And touching and caring meant bending. There was a place inside her where she simply couldn’t let go. She’d let go of the wrong things.

They thought she was fearless. She wished that were true. There were things she feared.

She’d thought the day she got back to Dublin would be the best day of her life.

It had been one of the worst. The cost had been too high.

She drew her hand back to her lap.

Dancer stood up. “What do you say we work on our own map of the anomalies? Screw Ryodan and his monopoly on information.”

And just like that her sorrow ebbed and she stood like the young, strong woman she was, not the woman handicapped by tears locked in a box deep inside her. Fully aware, as Ryodan had said, that it was impossible to seal away a single emotion. Fully aware the price of no pain was no joy.

Because if those tears ever started to flow, she’d drown.

—

Jada hurried through the abbey, books tucked beneath her arm. She had two hours before she would head to Chester’s. She’d spent the day putting up her papers and mapping black holes around Dublin. On the way back to the abbey, she’d stood outside the funnel cloud that surrounded BB&B, staring up at it, forcing herself to remain cold, logical, an arrow toward the goal. Nothing more.

They had their agenda on Earth. She had her own elsewhere.

She wanted to go back into the Unseelie king’s library but wasn’t willing to lose more time Earthside. One never knew the price of stepping through a Silver. Besides, until she spoke with Barrons, she had no way of deciding which Silver would take her into the White Mansion. Five and a half years Silverside and she’d never managed to learn a bloody thing about the mirrors that could so dispassionately give or take life.