Feversong

“What does this tell us about how to get rid of them?”

“That the Song of Making is likely the only thing that has a chance.” He was silent a moment and his eyes got that dreamy, faraway look that told me he was happily pondering a highly abstract concept. “A melody of creation—think of it, Mega!” he exclaimed. “That math and frequency might actually be capable, on some level we don’t understand, of creating new things, repairing damaged ones!” He shook his head. “There’s something about the concept that resonates with me. Makes sense on a gut level but it’s so bloody far beyond my ability to interpret and elucidate that I feel like a child, staring up at the night sky, wondering what the Milky Way is. Regardless, the fabric of our world is unraveling and has to be stitched back together again somehow, and I believe the song the Fae used to know is the only thing that’s going to work. An Unseelie created the holes. It seems quid pro quo that a Seelie must repair them. Maybe, if we had a few centuries to work on the song we’d get somewhere, but I don’t think we have a tenth that much time.”

“Months,” I told him grimly. “Perhaps even less.”

His eyes widened. “You know that for sure?”

I nodded.

He plunged his hands into his hair, raking it back. “Mega, we’re at a complete impasse with the song. We need some kind of clue, a fragment of the melody, then at least I’d understand what I’m aiming for, and stand a chance at figuring out what the bloody hell it is!”

I pressed a hand to my forehead. It was hot. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d eaten and was abruptly aware I was dangerously hungry. “Do you have anything high calorie to eat around here?”

“Always.” He led me to a small room off the back of the laboratory where a fridge was loaded with food. There were boxes and boxes of chilled protein bars. Peanut butter. Even beef jerky and milk!

“Where did you get all this?” I reached for the glass jar of milk, topped with a yellow layer of heavy cream, mouth watering.

“Ryodan,” he said, and rolled his eyes. “He’s bloody well taken over the bloody world and suddenly everyone has food. Which means he had it all along and just wasn’t sharing. Got this, too.” With his foot he nudged a box toward me, filled with canned goods.

Chocolate syrup! I unscrewed the top off the milk, squeezed the chocolate in, recapped the glass bottle and shook the milk hard enough to mix. I guzzled it for several long seconds, only stopping with a twinge of embarrassment when there were a few inches left to ask him hastily, “Did you want any of this?” When he shook his head, smiling faintly, I finished it, and chased it with two protein bars. That was better. I could feel myself cooling down already.

“We have the queen,” I told him.

“What?” he exploded. “And you’re just now telling me this? Where is she? How did you get her to come back here?”

I filled him in on what had happened in the past day, my time, omitting the parts about my meltdown and Shazam and killing Ryodan and Mac calling me a cunt.

He was pacing, repeatedly raking his hands through his hair by the time I finished. “I need to talk to Mac. Now. Like, this very instant.”

“If Mac had any information about the song, she’d already be here, sharing it. I think it’s going to take time for her to decipher what the queen passed on and figure out how to use it.”

“Time is the one thing we don’t have,” he said darkly.

When I left, after promising to return later that night so he could demonstrate his latest invention—“And maybe we could take it out for a test drive,” he’d said, eyes sparkling—I headed down the hall and was about to access the slipstream when I saw Caoimhe hurrying down the corridor toward me. The moment she saw me, her eyes filled with glacial hostility. I considered kicking up and blasting past her with an elbow casually protruding but that was something Dani would have done so I sludged along in slow-mo.

We approached each other with equal coolness. I couldn’t help but wonder if she was his girlfriend now. She sure acted like she was. Or his keeper.

We drew up a few feet apart. “You,” she said with icy disdain.

“Caoimhe,” I said tonelessly.

“Why did you even bother coming back? We don’t need you. And I sure as hell don’t want you here. It was a grand month without you around.”

“I’m just his friend,” I said in a voice void of inflection.

“No you’re not,” she spat. “If you were his ‘friend’ you wouldn’t cause him so much worry, make him take so many careless risks. If you were his ‘friend’ you’d realize he may have a super brain but he’s no bloody superhero. A true friend wouldn’t subject him to constant disappearances and reckless shenanigans with no consideration whatsoever for what’s good for him!”

I studied her objectively, trying to define the origin of her hostility. It seemed as if it had to be more than mere jealousy, and I didn’t see any reason for her to be jealous of me. “I’ve never kissed him,” I finally said, thinking that might defuse the tension between us. Discord was illogical. We had too many problems already. We couldn’t afford to create more for ourselves.

She tossed her head impatiently. “Oooh! You think that’s what this is about? I’m jealous? Why don’t you try pulling your selfish head out of your selfish ass? Yes, I love Dancer. I freely admit it. Most of the women here do, he’s damn near impossible not to love. Funny, sweet, thoughtful, brilliant. But this is about his well-being not mine. That’s what love is, how it behaves, but you obviously don’t know a thing about it. The only person you love is yourself. Did you make plans to dash off and indulge in another one of your little adventures with him tonight? Whiz him about at speeds he was never meant to endure while you ‘goof off’ and play at being superheroes together?”