Epilogue

Thanks to my dad’s skillful use of the standing stones, it took us only three days of easy travel to reach the Avalon border. Titania had offered to send a couple of her Knights with us for security, but my dad had declined the offer. No, I wasn’t what you’d call completely safe. Despite his nasty personality, Henry surely had friends who would hate me forever for killing him, and we had no way of knowing if Mab still wanted me dead or not.

“The extra security would be nice,” my dad told me, “but I suspect the Knights would be there more as spies than protectors, and I’d rather do without.”

When he put it that way, I couldn’t help but agree. Besides, the six of us all by ourselves could travel at a quicker pace than we could if we had another handful of Knights—and their supplies—with us.

That last terrible day in the woods seemed to have changed something between Ethan and Keane. Not that they suddenly liked each other or anything—they still bickered enough to make themselves truly annoying—but I no longer got the feeling they might burst into violence at any moment. Even when Kimber and Keane weren’t as sneaky about stealing kisses as they thought.

When I saw how Keane looked at her when she wasn’t looking, I stopped worrying that he was using her to get to Ethan. Maybe it had started out that way, but it was definitely more than that now.

Everyone was still pretty mad at me for all the secrets I’d kept, particularly Kimber. But I got the feeling it was the kind of mad that would fade away in time. I’d come close to completely destroying our friendship, and I knew it. I couldn’t swear I’d never keep a secret from her again—after all, I was still keeping a secret, enforced by the Erlking’s geis—but I was going to make every effort to be as open with her as humanly possible.

You might think now that I had an arrangement with Titania, my dad would finally ease up on some of the paranoid security measures he’d been taking to keep me protected. Like maybe he would let me live with him in his real, normal house instead of keeping me entombed in my underground safe house. Or that he might decide I no longer needed a bodyguard twenty-four/seven. If you think that, you don’t know my dad.

Sure, I’m in a much safer position than I was before my trip to Faerie. Before going to Faerie, we’d thought both Queens wanted me dead. Maybe Mab still does, but even if Titania might prefer I be dead, she isn’t going to try to arrange it. I pointed out to my dad that everyone now knew how dangerous I was in my own right. At which point my dad pointed out that now that people know about my spell, they’ll be much more able to avoid it. I’ll still always be vulnerable to the surprise attack, or to overwhelming numbers.

Dad has a point, but I can’t help wondering if maybe some of the security stuff is just a way of keeping me from being alone with Ethan. There are times when Dad treats me like he thinks of me as a responsible adult, but as soon as Ethan enters the picture, I become a little girl again. Dad won’t forbid me from seeing Ethan, no matter how little he approves, but he’s going to make damn sure the two of us never have enough privacy for things to go too far. (Dad’s definition of “too far” being anything past first base, as far as I can tell.) Apparently now that I no longer have my agreement with the Erlking forcing me to chastity, my dad is convinced I’ll turn into a sex-crazed teen and let Ethan get away with anything he damn well pleases.

I’d never admit it out loud, but in some ways, I’m glad for my dad’s overprotectiveness. I love Ethan, and I love knowing that I’m no longer under the Erkling’s thumb. I love knowing that when I’m ready, we can go all the way. But I know I’m not ready yet, and as long as my dad doesn’t give us alone time, I don’t have to tell Ethan that.

I’m trying to be more trusting these days, I really am. But it’s not so easy to change who I am at my core. I tell myself that Ethan would be just fine with waiting until I’m ready, and most of the time I actually believe it. But there’s a part of me that fears if I tell him no, he’ll start pushing. Or worse, that he’ll dump me. If this thing between us is ever going to go to the next level, I’m going to have to face that fear eventually. But for the time being, I’m perfectly happy to let my dad’s rules and regulations make it a moot point.

Which brings me to my mom.

I wish I could say I returned home to Avalon to find my mom a changed woman, sober and vowing to stay that way. I wish I could say that our tempestuous parting had finally broken through the walls of denial and shown her that her drinking didn’t only hurt her, it hurt me as well. I wish that fearing she would lose me were enough to give her the will to get her life under control.

Unfortunately, I can’t say any of those things. My mom was living in an apartment my dad had rented for her, seeing as she was too flat broke to afford anything on her own. Dad took me to see her on the very day we made it back from Avalon, but she didn’t answer when we rang the doorbell. Dad wasn’t overly concerned with her right to privacy, so he used his magic to coax the lock open and let us in.

We found my mom on the floor in the bathroom. Taking a shower when you’re too drunk to stand up can be hazardous to your health. My mom had apparently tripped over the edge of the tub trying to get out and had broken her hip. She’d been lying there just over twenty-four hours when my dad and I found her. I shudder to think what might have happened if we’d stayed in Faerie a day or two longer. I don’t think anyone would have found her until too late, and I couldn’t thank my dad enough for deciding to go in even though she hadn’t answered the door.

Thanks to the magic of the Fae healers, Mom’s broken hip was little more than an inconvenience, one they could mend in a few hours. The alcohol poisoning was another matter, something the Fae healers couldn’t treat, which meant Mom got to spend some quality time in the hospital.

On the day Dad and I brought her in, she was in and out of consciousness, but even when she was conscious, she wasn’t what you’d call coherent. I spent several hours by her bedside, crying when she was unconscious, then trying to put on a brave face when she woke up. I needn’t have bothered with the brave face—she didn’t remember anything between one period of wakefulness and the next, though I wasn’t sure if that was because of the lingering effects of alcohol or because of whatever drugs the doctors were feeding through her IV. Dad eventually coaxed me out of the hospital, and I spent the night at his house for the first time since I’d moved into my safe house.

Needless to say, this wasn’t the kind of homecoming I’d had in mind.

When I went to visit Mom in the hospital again the next day, it was to find her awake and, if not alert, at least coherent. Dad stepped out of the room when he saw that Mom was awake, giving me some private time alone with her. I wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or panicked.

She looked terrible, of course. Her skin was unusually pale, her hair greasy and lank, her eyes sunken. She still had an IV in her arm, but at least she didn’t have an oxygen tube in her nose. Everything about this was my worst nightmare come true. And the worst part was that she’d done this to herself.

I hugged myself as I stared at her pale and sickly face, but there was no sting in my eyes, no tightening of my throat. Just a hollow, hopeless feeling in the middle of my chest. I might have thought that she’d feel bad about what she’d done to herself while I was gone, that she might be embarrassed by it or even downright ashamed. I expected her to avoid eye contact and look guilty, but instead, her face lit up when she saw me and she gave a little cry of joy.

“Dana! You’re back!” She reached out her arms to me, expecting me to rush into them and hug her. Apparently, she had no memory of having seen me the day before. The happy flush in her cheeks made her look almost healthy, but I didn’t go to her. I should have been glad she was alive—and somewhere deep inside, I know I was—but I was in too much pain to acknowledge it.

“I don’t understand, Mom,” I said, shaking my head. “How can you do this to yourself? Don’t you care that you almost died?”

She blinked at me as if she couldn’t possibly imagine what I was talking about, her arms slowly sinking as she realized I wasn’t going to let her hug me. “I broke a bone, honey. That’s not the same as almost dying. And I’m fine now.” She tried another bright smile, but I still kept my distance.

“If Dad and I had been in Faerie any longer, you’d be dead,” I said. “All because you couldn’t stay off the booze for just a couple of weeks.”

She dismissed that argument with a wave. “Don’t be overdramatic. I fell in the shower. It happens to people all the time. I’ll just have to get one of those rubber bath mats.”

My jaw dropped as I realized what she was implying. “So you think that was just some kind of random accident? Something that could have happened to anybody?”

She frowned at me. “Of course, honey. It was clumsy and stupid of me, but—”

“Mom, you were drunk out of your mind. So drunk you couldn’t even walk. That’s why you fell. All the rubber mats in the world wouldn’t have helped you.”

“I was not drunk,” she said with a look of offended dignity.

Oh. My. God. In the face of all this, she was still going to deny she had a drinking problem? “If you weren’t drunk, then why was there an empty bottle of gin in the bathroom?”

“I’d had a drink or two,” she said dismissively, “but that doesn’t mean I was drunk. I just needed to unwind a little.”

“Because everyone knows casual drinkers often take bottles of booze into the bathroom with them.”

“Enough, Dana. I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

I seriously considered grabbing the first breakable object I could get my hands on and throwing it across the room. “You’re in the hospital for alcohol poisoning,” I said through gritted teeth. “You were unconscious or hallucinating most of the day yesterday. The doctor said you had a blood alcohol level of point-two-one percent when we brought you in. And you’re going to lie there and tell me it was all just an innocent little accident, something that could have happened to anyone. Is that it?”

No matter how deeply in denial she was, I can’t possibly believe she didn’t know she had a problem. But no amount of insurmountable evidence was going to budge her. I wanted to strangle her. I wanted to hug her. I wanted to beg and plead and cry. I wanted to force her into rehab, or get her declared incompetent again and back under my father’s care.

I didn’t do any of those things. When my mom merely lay in her hospital bed in mulish silence, my shoulders slumped, and I thought that maybe, just maybe, it was time for me to accept the inevitable: my mom wasn’t going to quit drinking until it killed her. And there was nothing I could do but sit there and watch it happen.

*   *   *

I was in a foul mood when I left my mom’s room, angry and scared and on the verge of tears. My dad wasn’t standing guard outside the door, as I’d expected. The waiting room was only a few yards down the hall, but I was still pleasantly surprised that he’d given me that much freedom. Maybe he’d stepped back from full red alert for once. I took a few deep breaths to get my emotions under control, then headed to the waiting room.

But it wasn’t my dad I found sitting in that waiting room. It was Kimber, Keane, and Ethan. I stood there in openmouthed shock, so surprised to see them I didn’t know what to say. There was a moment of somewhat awkward silence before Kimber stepped forward, smiling gently.

“Your dad thought you could use some company,” she explained. “We’re not supposed to leave the hospital, and you have to call him to come pick you up when you’re ready to go, but we can maybe hang out in the cafeteria for a while. I don’t know about you, but I could go for a nice spot of tea.”

I probably made my “ugh, tea” face, because Ethan suddenly put in, “Or coffee. I’m sure they have some coffee down there, though I can’t promise it’s any good.”

Keane frowned. “I thought girls were supposed to eat ice cream when they’re feeling blue.”

“You’re right,” Ethan agreed, then mimicked Keane’s mock-puzzled look. “Or is it chocolate?”

Kimber laughed and rolled her eyes, hooking my elbow with hers and nudging me down the hall toward the elevators. “You can have mocha ice cream and get all the good stuff at once,” she told me. “I’ll have that spot of tea, and the boys can have whatever it is manly-men consider comfort food. Hot dogs? Beef jerky?”

“Pizza,” I suggested with a tentative smile. “I think boys eat pizza with lots of greasy meat products like sausage on top.”

“Hey!” Ethan protested. “Don’t disrespect my sausage!”

Keane gave a snort of laughter. “But your sausage is always up to no good.”

Ethan’s eyes narrowed dangerously, and I thought for a moment the truce was over. Then he shook off whatever annoyance he was feeling. “Shall I make another crude sausage joke that might offend the girls, or should I just let it go?” His cheeks colored as he recognized how his words could be twisted in the context of this conversation. “Er, that is—”

We all laughed before he could finish backpedaling.

*   *   *

My friends’ intervention didn’t stop with their visit to the hospital. A couple of days later, Kimber dragged me to an Alateen meeting, which she’d found through a little Internet research. Sitting around talking to other teens with alcoholic family members isn’t exactly easy for me. I’ve been keeping that particular dark secret so long that it’s hard for me to open up. But since Kimber dragged me to that first meeting, I’ve been going once a week. Sometimes Kimber comes with me for moral support, sometimes Ethan does. I still grumble about going, but I have to admit, it helps to know I’m not alone. It helps even more that my friends are so accepting and willing to help.

I’m hearing the message more and more that I can’t save my mom from herself. It’s the same thing the Erlking told me when I wanted to save Elizabeth. You can’t save everyone, his voice sometimes whispers in my head. Maybe he’s right. Maybe they’re all right. But every time I halfway decide to give up, I remember that I managed to save Ethan from the Erlking’s clutches when everyone told me it couldn’t be done.

I am not going to give up on my mom. They say that where there’s a will, there’s a way. Well, I have one hell of a strong will. And even if it turns out there really is no way, I know I’ll survive. I’m not alone anymore. I’ve got my dad, and Ethan, and my friends. Before I’d come to Avalon, I couldn’t have conceived of leaning on anyone, of asking anyone for help. Doing so will probably never come easy for me. But now I know I can do it, and it does help. And that makes all the difference in the world.