I headed for the front door with no bag, no wallet, and nothing but my spare keys, which I had stashed in the safe with Ivy’s living-will papers. Someone had brought my car home, but I had yet to find my bag.

“Hey!” Jenks said from the table. “Where are you going?”

My pulse hammered, and my steps jarred all the way up my spine. “Eden Park. Alone. I’ll be back after sunrise. Unless I’m dragged into the ever-after,” I added, sounding dry, sarcastic, and bitter. The clatter of pixy wings following made me tense.

“Rachel—”

“Let her go,” Ivy said softly, and he dropped back. “She’s never had to deal with a situation there was no way to win. I better call Rynn,” she said as she headed down the hall. “Then go to the store to stock up. The shops might be closing for a while. There might be riots if the city has to reorganize the lower power structure. This is going to be a rough week. The I.S. is going to be too busy to pick its collective nose.”

I passed through the bat-filled sanctuary thinking I wasn’t going to be around to see it.

Thirty-two

It was cold, sitting on the top of the bench’s back the way I was, my feet on the seat as I looked out from Eden Park over the gray Ohio River and across the Hollows. The sun was near rising, and the Hollows was hazy with a pinkish-gray mist. I was thinking—waiting, really. Just the fact that I was sitting here was a clear indication that the thinking portion of my life was done. Now I had to do something.

So I sat on the top of the bench and shivered in my short leather jacket and jeans, my boots doing little to stop the cold of a November morning. My breath made little puffs that existed about as long as my racing thoughts did: thoughts of my dad, my mom, Takata, Kisten, Trent trapped in the ever-after, Ivy trusting me to fix this, Jenks wanting to be a part of it.

Frowning, I dropped my eyes and brushed a smudge of dirt off my boot. My dad had brought me up here upon occasion. Usually it was when he and my mom were arguing or she had fallen into a funk, during which she would always smile and give me a kiss when I asked what was wrong. Now I wondered if her occasional depression had come from thinking about Takata.

I exhaled, watching the thought leave me like the mist from my breath and vanish into the collective consciousness. My mother had quietly gone off her rocker trying to divorce herself from the reality of bearing Takata’s children while being lovingly married to my dad. She had loved them both, and seeing Takata in Robbie and me every day must have been a self-inflicted torture.