I pull back and look at him. “Your point?”

“You’re a creator, not a destroyer. Destruction destroys the destroyer. Always. Eventually. And badly.”

“Your point?”

“The Sinsar Dubh has leeched onto you. There’s no place you can run. The battle goes with you.”

“But I could minimize the fallout.”

“Only to yourself. You might not care as much if it were a stranger on some other world that the Book killed, but I doubt the stranger would care any less, nor would the people who care about that stranger.”

“Okay, not getting this. On the one hand, with the exception of creators, you just told me all people are essentially dickheads. Now you’re arguing for those dickheads.”

“I argue for nothing. I’m merely stating that whether you destroy here or on another world, you’re still destroying. That’s your battle—to destroy or not. Once you start splitting hairs, trying to convince yourself some things are more acceptable to destroy, you’ve already lost the most important war. There’s no advantage in moving your battle to unknown terrain.”

“You think I should stay here and fight, even if it costs the lives of people I love?”

“Your battle is half won. You’re sitting here with me. The Sinsar Dubh isn’t. Make that permanent.”

“But you’re not telling me how.”

“What does the Sinsar Dubh want?”

“I don’t know.” That’s what I’d been wondering before he came in. Trying to figure out its end goal so I could intercept and undermine.

“Yes, you do. It wants to be in the world, living, in control of itself. What do you want?”

“The same thing.”

“Why?”

“Because I could be happy if things ever stopped going wrong!”

“Things never stop going wrong. Life isn’t about waiting for peace to arrive, it’s about learning to thrive in the midst of war. There’s always another one on the way.” He was silent a moment then said, “Why does the Sinsar Dubh want to live?”

“Damned if I know,” I mutter. “Because it’s greedy? Bored? The alternative is not living?”

“Why do you?”

I look at him. Because I love people, I don’t say. And I want to spend the rest of my life with you, see what you do next, celebrate your victories, grieve your losses, make love to you. God, why am I always my clearest only when it looks like I might lose everything?

Because you still believe you can have everything, his dark eyes say. You can’t. We have nothing. Only the current moment. Once you understand that, you know what’s sacred and not, and never lose sight of it again.

“But you have forever. You have every moment.”

“No. Like you, I have but this one. Death isn’t the only foe that steals from you the things you prize. You think a monster has control of you.”

“It does.”

“It is in control only by your consent.”

Bristling, I unlace my fingers from his, rake my hands through my wet hair and say, “That’s not true. I didn’t choose the Book. I didn’t let it in. It took me as a fetus. There was no consenting or refusing.”

“There is now.”

“And your beast was so easy to subdue.” I say, acid-sweet and pissed. He’s acting like it should be simple. Like, why haven’t I defeated it yet?

“Never said it was. But I did it. And I didn’t sit around brooding, vacillating between committing suicide and running away. Both are unforgivable in my book.”

“Stay the hell out of my head,” I snap.

“How did you regain control?”

I worry my lower lip with my teeth for a moment then admit, “I don’t know that I did. It may have simply fallen asleep.”

“Wondered if that would happen.”

“But I was figuring things out at the same time. It was growing weaker and I was growing stronger.”

“And once it has rested?”

“That’s the million dollar question. So, how do I fight it?”

“Become it.”

I stare at him in disbelief.

“Remember the runes that fortified the Unseelie prison walls? They draw strength from resistance. Don’t resist. Become.” He stands and extends his hand. “Come.”

I push up from the floor. “Where are we going?”

“I’m taking you back to Chester’s.” He pauses then says, “Where we will contain you with the stones.”

I stiffen. “You just gave me a pep talk about fighting it. Now you’re going to shut me down? You have no idea what that might do to me, or the Book. It could put us both in suspended animation and I won’t be able to fight it.”

“It may suspend only the Book.”

“Right. Leaving me fully cognizant. Trapped. Forever,” I say sharply. I’d accepted this fate once before. But I was making headway. I was certain I could win this battle, if I just had enough time.

“You said yourself you don’t know if the Book will seize control of you again the moment it awakens.”

My jaw juts. “Maybe I’ve beat it.”

“I don’t like this any more than you do, Mac.”

“I’m bloody well certain I like it far less,” I say heatedly. “You’re not the one about to get locked away.”

“No, I’m the just the one who has to endure you being locked away. There’s no possibility I might be suspended while you suffer. I’ll be aware of every bloody moment of it.”

I wince. Put that way, it sounds a lot like what he went through with his son.

“Ryodan’s out of play, Jada’s holding it together by sheer force of will, the sidhe-seers are in a complete meltdown at Chester’s, Dageus is a major fucking mess, and we have no idea how to stop the black holes. We need something off our plate, and the Book is the thing most likely to cause immediate, catastrophic damage.” His dark gaze shutters. “You’ve not yet done anything as the Book that you won’t be able to forgive yourself for,” he says carefully. “In time.”

I’m still so pissed off by his “off our plate” comment I barely hear him. As if I’m an unappetizing vegetable to be scraped into a Tupperware container and stuck in the fridge. “Then what? I wait passively until you either save the world or don’t? And if you do, you’ll free me to resume my fight? And if you don’t, I’ll get sucked into oblivion by a black hole?” I say irritably. I don’t want to be locked away. I don’t want to be passive. I wasted weeks of my life I can never get back being miserably passive and defeatist. Belatedly, his final comment sinks in and I stare up at him, horrified, because he just made it very clear I’ve already done something I’m going to hate myself for. My irritation is doused by a crushing wave of remorse. I’ve killed someone. Someone I knew. Someone that mattered to me. I close my eyes.