We half carried Severin over to the pool. I gave my father a hug. He and my mother kissed.

I averted my eyes and knelt beside Severin.

"What? Can't stand to see your parents kiss?" he teased.

I gazed into the pool. Instead of our reflections I saw my house in Vancouver. It was like we were watching a remote image. As if the pond in the backyard was a camera and this pool was the monitor.

I leaned in and brushed the sweaty hairs from Severin's brow. His face was slick with sweat. I felt a release and joy. So much fear and dread finally disappeared. My feelings threatened to overwhelm me and I pulled way.

I gazed up at my parents. My father for a moment looked like his old self. Then his eyes went dull again. My mother patted him on the back and then turned to me.

"N'Lina," she said.

There was so much that we had to say to each other. So much that had been denied us by treachery, politics and war. And my unflinching quest for revenge. But I thought that we'd get it all back eventually. After all we were sort of immortal.

I stepped forward to hug her.

Then my mother's face went from joy and bliss to horror. "N'Lina!" she shouted.

I turned and there she was. J'Tara and some of her guards stood at the edge of the pool. They held crossbows. The bolts were tipped with black iron.

J'Tara shouted, "Fire!" They loosed their crossbows at us.

A hand grasped me from behind. It jerked me to the side and threw me down.

"Mother!" I screamed. It was too late.

A'Lona Wolfstriker jumped in front of me and my father. The crossbow bolts. .h.i.t her in the chest. I felt each strike as if it were my own body being pierced. I lost all feeling in my torso, and in my limbs. A terrible numbness came over me. Inside I refused to accept it.

My mother twisted around as if in slow motion. It was like she was dancing a beautifully b.l.o.o.d.y ballet.

"Nina!" Severin yelled. I saw him grab my father.

My father's face was a mask of horror and grief. Severin picked him up despite his leg and hobbled to the water. "She's dead! Come on!" Severin plunged into the pool with my father.

I saw my mother sink to her knees. I still couldn't feel anything. There was no pain. No grief. I stared into her lovely eyes. The light behind them faded.

"Take care of Jason." Her voice a hoa.r.s.e whisper as blood dripped from her mouth.

I'd seen so many people die in the hospital. There's a moment where they just stop. Everything that they ever were goes away to some place where we can't follow. And all that's left is a sh.e.l.l.

I saw my mother became that sh.e.l.l as her body crumpled to the ground.

And that's when I screamed. I screamed from the very bottom of everything I was. From the essence of my soul. The trees shook and J'Tara and her minions fell back. I howled and tears ran down my face. I did not recognize the sound of my own voice. The pain erupted from me and I didn't even try to stop it.

The forest wept alongside me.

The spirits of the trees begged me to flee.

I staggered backwards then dived into the pool after Severin and my father.

Chapter 22.

The water rushed over me. I reached for the surface and came up in what was left of my garden. A hand reached out for me and pulled me up. It was Severin.

Without a word we went straight to work, grabbing shovels and piling dirt into the pond. Severin tried to help as best as he could with a crossbow bolt in his back. This far from Nightfall my armor no longer stayed on by itself. It kept falling off a piece at a time. Eventually I ran back into the house to put something on. I found my dad sitting at the kitchen table. He looked shattered, stunned. I silently prayed that he would soon forget.

I came back out to the garden in shorts and a T shirt. The pond was half buried. Severin leaned against his shovel for support.

"Get inside and don't bleed on the rug," I said.

"I'm fine," he argued.

"Check on my father, then."

Severin got up and limped to the house.

I picked up the shovel and threw on the last few piles of dirt.

I thought about my mother as the pond vanished. It was like I was burying her. I cried as I worked. Tears stained my t-shirt right through. I had sworn to break her fingers when I first set off for Nightfall, now I wept for her. I cried like I was eight years old again and dad had just told me my mother had to leave. I didn't understand back then and I couldn't understand now. I'd found her again. I wasn't even looking for my mother and I'd found her. But now she was gone. It wasn't fair.

The last shovelful of dirt plopped down. I stood before a mound that had once been a pond. But I wasn't finished. Severin had brought over some lengths of steel rebar weeks ago, back when we were both sitting and patiently waiting for this portal to open. I found them near the garden fence. It hurt to pick them up. It made me sick just to be near this much iron. I didn't care. I swallowed down the rising bile and pushed through.

As I walked over to the dirt mound they felt almost red hot in my hands. Obviously, I was more sensitive to iron now. I threw the rebar on top of the mound. I went back and got some more despite the pain. The metal crisscrossed the buried pond. If J'Tara or anyone tried to come through that would stop them.

Then I went back inside. Severin was seated on a backwards chair. My father hadn't moved.

"Has he said anything?" I asked.

"No," said Severin.

Suddenly my father stood up. "Nina," he said. "Look at what you've done to the garden."

"I know, Da," I said.

"Wait till your mother sees this. She'll be furious," he said.

I choked back a sob. "Come on, Da." I took him by the hand and led him to his room.

When I returned Severin said, "I'm sorry about your mother."

I couldn't talk about that yet. Not now at any rate. "Let's get you st.i.tched up," I said.

I found my medical bag and had Severin lie on his side on my bed. Taking him to the ER was out of the question. I washed out the spot where the crossbow bolt had entered his body. On the opposite side of his abdomen I saw the silver tip about to break through.

"You're lucky. It's a good place for this wound," I said.

"I don't feel that lucky," he muttered.

"You're going to feel a lot worse," I told him.

"Why?"

"The tip is barbed. I can't pull out the shaft yet, it'll tear you up."

"Oh." He was sweating and running a fever.

"What helps silver poisoning?" I asked.

"Getting the silver out."

"Smart a.s.s."

Finally he said, "St. John's Wort."

"Seriously?" The insanely expensive and trendy supermarket nearby sold St. John's Wort and a number of other herbal remedies in pill form. I still had a few in my medicine chest. I thought they might help my father with his condition.

I had him take a few pills then gave him a wooden spoon to bite down on. He took the pills but refused the spoon.

"Have it your way," I said.

Then I pushed down on the crossbow bolt. I kept pushing until the silver head burst through on the other side. I was able to snap it off with garden shears. Then I pulled the wooden bolt minus the barbed head out of his body. Then it was matter of gauze, sutures, needle. After my time in the ER a gaping hole in a man's side was no big deal.

After it was done we were both exhausted. I let him have the bed. His blood was all over it anyway. I found the couch and curled up on it. I wiped away the last few tears and drifted off to sleep.

Chapter 23.

I woke up surprised to be in my own house. I had to remind myself I was no longer in Nightfall. There were no guards waiting outside my room. I was back in Vancouver.

I checked myself in a nearby mirror. My wings were as incandescent as they were in Nightfall. My skin was still bone white but it didn't glow. Still I couldn't go to the grocery store looking like this. I found some of my pre-made glamor portion on the coffee table and choked it down. My wings folded up and vanished. My skin took on a normal flesh color.

The smell of bacon and pancakes wafted to my nose. I went into the kitchen and found my father cooking breakfast. He had a smile on his face.

"Good morning N'Lina," he said using my fae name.

"Good morning, Da," I sat down at the kitchen table. "What do you remember?"

"I remember you like waffles for breakfast," he said. "But I couldn't find the waffle iron so I made pancakes instead. And bacon. And coffee."

He'd forgotten it all; Nightfall, the war, my mother. I envied him.

I heard a moan and Severin shuffled in. I had left him a pair of my father's pants and one of his shirts and that was what Severin was wearing now even though it was a little too small for him.

"N'Lina," he said. "You have a boy over? You didn't tell me."

Severin sat down beside me. "How is he?"

My father served him a short stack with two pieces of bacon. "Eat up young man," he said. "I'm pleased to meet you. I don't believe we've met. That's a very nice shirt by the way."

Severin c.o.c.ked his head at me and said, "Ah, I see."

"It's like nothing happened as far as he's concerned."

But something had happened.

A few days later I went outside to check on the portal. It was still buried and crossed with iron. Severin joined me. He'd been staying at the house to heal.

"You did a good job," Severin said. "Sorry I couldn't help more."

There were no more tears for my mother. I was cried out for now. Inside I listened to my father whistling while he made himself some tea.

"How do I tell him?" I asked. "Sooner or later he'll ask about my mother."

"He won't remember anything you say to him for long," Severin said. "And soon it won't matter anyway."

I knew what he meant. Soon my father would reach the end. He was in the final stages of being fae-struck.

Severin cupped my face in his hands. "Nina," he said. "Don't think about any of that now. Give yourself a break. Forget for a little bit."

Then he kissed me. And I let him lead me up to my bedroom, undress me and make love to me. We lay in each other's arms for hours without speaking. It was enough.

Afterwards, I found my dad sitting in the garden.

"Isn't it lovely?" he asked.

It looked like a hurricane had been through there. But I didn't point that out.

"Yes, Da. It's beautiful." I sat down beside him.

"It's not your fault, Nina," he told me.

"What isn't?" I asked only half listening.

He said, "I knew what I was doing. So did your mother. We both knew what would happen to us but we went ahead. The really strange thing we did know why at first. Then you were born and it all made sense. And we were overjoyed."

I couldn't speak or move. His words cut to my very soul.