But Adam did. “Is it over?”
Shadowman’s gaze slid to Adam, leaving her bereft. “Chaos is back where it belongs.”
Her father inclined his head again to her. The tide of shadows lapped strongly at her body, as if to draw her into its sea. Through its dense waves she could feel the solid press of Adam’s body, and deeper to the core of his emotion.
“How did this happen in the first place?” Adam’s tone was hard, demanding. The pain of his loss was so acute, Talia wondered that he didn’t shake his fist in Death’s face. She thought of her own mother, taken at her birth, Aunt Maggie, Melanie, Patty, Custo. Death everywhere.
Shadowman canted his head, but not in contrition. “I parted the veils between life and death when I had no call to do so. Chaos escaped and took root in the mortal world.”
“You—? Why?” Adam’s voice was coarse with strain.
“I loved a woman.”
“Was it worth it?” Adam mocked Death.
Shadowman’s gaze shifted to Adam again. “Is Talia worth it?”
Adam’s body went rigid behind her, anger—and something else—surging within him.
Talia felt herself grow old with a hideous knowledge that blotted everything else out. Shadowman and her mother—the fairy tale—ending in a scourge.
“All those people died because of me?” Her broken whisper carried clearly across the veils. The scythe clattered to the deck. If Adam weren’t behind her, she might have fallen with it.
“Did you kill them?” Death’s pretty face was impassive.
“No, but—”
Shadowman raised a hand. “Then, no. The demon escaped to the world because of me. I should have been the one to face him, but I was bound by my own transgression.”
“All those lives lost because…” Talia couldn’t finish the sentence. She swallowed the words. How could Adam love her now? How could he love her when the same act that brought her into the world destroyed his family?
Talia straightened slightly, pulling her weight from Adam’s body with a step forward so that she couldn’t feel him anymore. Shadow succored her.
“The demon’s children made their own choices. Not even chaos could compel them to join him without their consent. Their actions are theirs and theirs alone.”
“And the ones they fed on?” There was no mistaking the bitterness in Adam’s voice.
“Crossed. They are where they belong.”
“And the wraiths that got away?” Adam shot back.
“Must be sundered as well, the souls within them freed.”
Talia drew the shadows more tightly around her, willing its chill folds to freeze the aching part of her into numbness.
“Are you ready, then?” Shadowman asked her. Of course, he noticed her separation from Adam and interpreted it correctly.
Adam reached for her and met only shadow. “What do you mean?”
“I mean to take my daughter home.”
The darkness broke into vibrant colors the likes of which Talia had only seen in snatches of dreams, and yet, their hues were familiar. Music filled the air, drowning out the noise on deck. She heard a song at once sweet and sorrowful, sung in a round unending.
“What? You can’t have her.” Adam may as well have been shouting at the wind.
“For your unparalleled aid,” Shadowman continued, “I grant you the immortality that these others sought, but without their sharp hunger.”
“You mean without Talia,” Adam corrected. “No. You hear me. NO.”
“Talia is fae, and as such, belongs in Shadow.”
“She is half fae, half mortal, and all mine.”
Talia turned at Adam’s declaration. From her dark vantage she regarded him. Adam was distinctly different than she—in shadow that fact was very clear. He was clay, animated by the internal core of his will. And just then his will burned bright enough to force her fae eyes to squint. Bright enough to quell the shadow around her. Bright enough to find and grip her hand.
Through their crossed palms a current of energy flowed—an anchor, a lifeline, a connection that did not discriminate between fae and mortal. She was his and he was hers.
And he wasn’t letting her go.
The intensity of his vow made clear that he didn’t hold her accountable for the hurts to his family. On the contrary, Talia understood his deep trust, a soul recognition, that superseded what they’d endured. It was more than enough.
“Whatever moments you hope to steal now, your union cannot last.” Shadowman’s voice carried the weight of personal experience. “The time will come when Talia must bide in Twilight and you must pass beyond.”
Adam pulled her into his embrace and locked his arms around her. He was flesh and bone and fragile mortality, but she never felt safer in her life.
“You breached a barrier once; when the time comes, you watch us do it,” Adam said.
“I am Death, and I know it cannot be done.”
“I am alive, and I know it can. We’ll find the way.”