A Crack in Everything (20 page)

‘It was Mum,’ said Dylan, entering the kitchen and heading straight for the fridge. He pulled out a bottle of beer and opened it. Without a moment’s pause he drained it and slammed it down on the counter. ‘I need to go home. I need to let them see I’m okay.’

Jinx glanced at Izzy, but she didn’t know what to say. Dylan looked far from okay. He looked like someone with a death-wish. And that thought alone terrified her.

‘You should.’ She tried the words even as she said them and found they didn’t ring true. Some selfish part of her didn’t want him to leave. But she didn’t want him to be any more involved than he already was. The price was high enough already and Dylan … she just knew he’d do something stupid.
Really stupid. He was in so much pain, and no one thought when they were in that sort of internal agony, did they? She ought to know.

Dylan chewed on his lower lip. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

The jangle of his ringtone cut the silence again and Dylan fumbled in his pocket, cursing it until he brought out his phone. He frowned as he flicked it open. ‘Silver? Where are you?’ The frown deepened as he turned to Jinx and offered him the phone. ‘She wants to talk to you.’

Jinx took it from him, the size of the thing ridiculous in his large hand. ‘Silver?’

They all heard her voice – unnaturally tinny and distant – but carrying so much pain and distress. ‘I’m at our hollow. With Holly. She’s furious, Jinx. I’ve never seen her so angry. I don’t think I can reason with her this time. You’re the only one I can trust, Jinx. The only one. You have to help me.’

Chapter Twenty-One

The Merrow's Kiss

I
t hadn't taken Jinx long to find another gate to the Sídhe-ways.

‘They stand out in your world to us,' he said, as he strode along the footpath. ‘Like a patch of icy air in an otherwise warm room, or that sort of shudder you get when … when … how do you say it?' He fumbled for a phrase.

‘When someone walks over your grave?'

‘That's it. Yes. Morbid lot, humans.'

Well
, Izzy thought,
if you had to worry about age and death maybe you'd be morbid too
. But she didn't say it.

Had Mari thought about death? Had she even imagined it might happen to her, years from now, let alone when it did? Izzy's chest squeezed itself more tightly around her insides and she tried to push the thought away. Maybe she was right to be feeling morbid. Maybe she should be thinking about death a
whole lot more.

A short walk took them down through leafy suburbs to Sandycove, past the squat Martello Tower to a point where the rocks were swallowed by the angry sea. It was still early morning and there were no cars on the road, no sign of life at all. The real world was asleep and dreaming. Blissfully unaware.

Izzy trotted along beside Jinx, determined to keep up with his long strides. He didn't slow and that, as much as anything else, told her he didn't want her there. The kindness was bleeding away from him again. Frustration, fear and the nightmare of what might have happened to Silver had robbed him of that. The threat to her own family kept her going, made her stay with him, because he was the only chance she had to help them right now.

‘You don't have to do this.' He used exactly the same words as he had the dozen or more previous times. She'd lost track of how often he'd said it, or how often she had given the same answer.

‘Yes, I do.'

This time though, that wasn't enough for him. ‘As Brí's daughter—'

‘I am
not
Brí's daughter.'

‘—you are Holly's enemy. She'll use you against Brí, or kill you, or …' He broke off with a frustrated growl and picked up the pace, as if he could leave her behind by just outdistancing her, as if she wouldn't follow him. ‘With both the spark and the identity of your mother, your blood-mother, Holly will
do anything to take you. Please, Izzy, let me do this alone.'

‘I need the grail. For Dad.'

He paused on the street corner as a car roared by them.

‘And the timing of his accident doesn't bother you?'

The way he said ‘
accident
' told her he thought it nothing of the kind. And he was right. The one person she would trust to protect and guide her had been taken away at the very moment she needed him most.

She dug her fists into her pockets. ‘I need the grail. More than ever. Don't you see? If I can heal him, he can explain, he can help, and he can—'

‘Be your father.' There was a ripple of compassion in his voice. She reached out for his hand and he took hers without protest. Her fingers felt very small and cold in comparison to his. Her skin looked too pale against his patterned skin, marking him as Cú Sídhe and her as … as what? Not like him, anyway. She glanced up. Silvery eyes glinted at her from beneath the black hair that had fallen over his face, and the metal piercings he wore – so much a part of him that she barely noticed them anymore – caught the sunlight, gleaming. He looked so fierce, and yet somehow not fierce at all. Vulnerable.

The sea crashed onto the rocks, a roar of invincible nature.

‘What happened to your dad, Jinx?'

‘He died.' His hand slipped rapidly free of hers and he stepped back. ‘Come on then, if you must.'

‘Holly killed him, didn't she?'

His shoulders stiffened and he looked into the distance, unwilling to meet her eyes as he spoke. ‘He was Brí's man, trespassing in Holly's stronghold, probably with the intention of killing her. That's what they all say anyway. And he was a thief. He ran off with Holly's daughter. I don't know if that makes him a thief, but that's all they ever told me – a thief and an assassin. He went back for my mother. I don't know. I presume Holly caught him, executed him. And claimed me in recompense, as part of the
einechlan
due to her for the insult.' She stared at him blankly. ‘The honour price,' he explained and then gave another of those little growl-like sighs of frustration. ‘I don't remember much before that. I was too young. It's ancient history I've done my best to forget and I don't want to talk about it.'

Dylan's phone, tucked in Izzy's pocket, chimed, filling the silence and giving him an excuse to stop. Dylan had insisted she take it before he left for home, for a confrontation with his parents, for the grief that awaited him.

Mari's name came up and Izzy's heart nearly stopped. Her hands shook as she brought up the message.

‘It's Dylan,' Izzy told Jinx as she read the text. He'd found her phone. Tears stung Izzy's eyes at the thought of what it might have taken out of him to use it. ‘Are we there yet?'

‘Yes. Over there.' He pointed towards the shore and when she squinted against the morning sun, she could almost make it out, like a heat haze around the top of a large boulder which loomed over a wide, shallow pool. The blue of the sky reflected
in the water. The gateway shimmered, slightly distorting her vision, and around its edges faint sparkles crept outwards until they bled into the human world.

Izzy sent one word –
yes
– back to Dylan and tucked the phone away. ‘Let's go then.'

It was further than it looked. They scrambled over rocks, skirting deep pools and the soft mush of stranded seaweed, slick and glossy, treacherous underfoot. The wind rose, pulling at their hair and clothes, and the previously fine summer's morning could have been a lifetime away. Jinx cursed almost continuously now, a litany of obscenities as they edged closer to the rock. The sea roared back at him.

‘They're trying to stop us,' he told her as the wind rose to a scream around them. Back on the road, the trees barely moved and the sun shone. But here, at the foot of the boulder, they'd entered a localised hurricane.

‘Who?' The sudden squall pulled her voice away the moment it left her lips, but somehow he heard her anyway.

‘Whoever controls the gate. They're stirring up the elements against us to drive us off.'

‘Not Brí?'

Under her feet, the rocks pitched sideways and she fell with a cry, landing hard on her knees. Jinx's hand closed on her upper arm, hauling her back up.

‘Best not mention her here. She's not exactly a good neighbour.' He pulled her against him and the mark on her neck gave one of those shudders. Not a warning, or at least not a
warning of danger. And not just the mark either. Her whole body. ‘Not her. There are other factions in control here – sea fae who have no love for the rest of us, nor any reason to love us. Just stay close.'

Secure against him, his arms wrapped around her, Izzy closed her eyes and let the feeling wash over her. Safe, content, triumphant. Even if it couldn't last. For this moment, for just now …

‘Isabel, beware your feelings. He can't be trusted.'
Pity stained the angel's voice. The sound turned whatever Izzy had just been feeling to ashes in the pit of her stomach.

‘We'd better go on,' she whispered and Jinx released her, his withdrawal as reluctant as her own. Or maybe that was wishful thinking on her part.

He didn't let go of her hand though. More for balance and safety, certainly, but that didn't matter. She was ridiculously, and profoundly, grateful.

They stood before the shimmering gate and Jinx raised his free hand, tracing some sort of sigil in the air. Sparks of light followed his fingertips like scratches in reality.

Izzy swallowed hard until her ears popped as the air around was sucked away. ‘What's on the other side?'

‘Somewhere like this,' he replied. ‘And not.' Without further explanation, he pulled her through behind him.

And not
. That was the freaking understatement of the year. Though the basic landscape remained the same – the rocks, the sea, the hill rising in the distance, the shoreline to the
rocky point of the Forty Foot and the wide sweep of Scotsman's Bay beyond it – the world around her had transformed.

The houses were gone, but that was the least of it. So were the roads, the walls and all the familiar landmarks of mankind. Flowers rioted along the edge of the dirt track leading inland. The sea turned calm, like a mirror, reflecting all around it in perfect symmetry. Too calm. Too quiet. Unnatural. Izzy turned around in a circle, staring with eyes too wide. She knew this place, knew every nuance of this land. And it was changed, swept away and replaced with something other. Like her life. Like what she had thought was her life. Replaced with madness.

The tide was further in too, surrounding the boulder on which they stood, cutting off the gate from the mainland. The sea whirled around them, deep and green, too dark to see the bottom. They were marooned.

After a couple of seconds studying the shore Izzy realised there were houses, but not as she knew them. Shacks hugged the shoreline, made of flotsam and jetsam – old spars and barrels, tin drums and buoys, ragged nets and something that might once have been a shopping trolley. They occupied a position half in, half out of the water, all but submerged.

She turned at the sound of a splash behind her, but the water was just as still as before. Dark shapes moved beneath the surface, shadows within the mirror of the sea. A head popped out, glossy mahogany, almost black. A seal. Izzy pushed back the sliver of alarm worming its way through her. Just a seal. It
regarded her with eyes like obsidian marbles.

Another splash sounded, and another, and suddenly they were surrounded by dozens of seals, all of them watching the rock, studying Izzy and Jinx with calm, impenetrable eyes.

‘Jinx?'

‘Selkies,' he told her in a voice too calm for comfort. Purposeful, dangerously quiet. That
I-don't-want-to-worry-you-but
… calm. ‘Just be quiet and don't make any sudden movements. Don't scare them off or make them angry. Just hold on to me. They can help us. I'm told their elder is the Oracle of the Sea. Maybe he can guide us.'

‘How did the sea come in so fast?'

‘Because they told it to. Don't insult them. What does
quiet
mean, Izzy?'

‘But they're just—'

He swept her into his arms too fast for her to dodge him. His hand clamped over her mouth while the other pinned her against his chest again.

Seals
, she wanted to scream at him.
Just seals
. You saw them all the time along this stretch of coast, especially near the harbours or fishing points. Anywhere they could pick up a free meal of fish.
Just seals
.

And then, from somewhere far off and unseen, a voice began to sing.

Jinx shuddered, a great quivering of his still, hard body that ran from his feet right up his legs and torso and along the arms holding her. Even his fingertips trembled. Izzy had never
heard music like it, sweet and high, almost hypnotic in its beauty.

The selkies splashed in the water, which now rippled and moved like mercury. With no more than an agitated flip and turn, they vanished beneath the growing waves. Gone, as if they had never been there. The voice, however, sang on. Slowly, inch by inch, Jinx released her. She watched him, bemused, as he slid to his knees on the rock, using his arms to support his body so he could search the surface of the water.

‘Jinx? You okay?'

He didn't hear her, or didn't react if he did. The urge to kick him rose inside her and she almost did it. Right square on that too-finely sculpted ass to send him face first into the water that captivated him so. But out of the corner of her eye, she saw something approaching and it drove all thoughts of petty vengeance and mischief from her mind.

Like seaweed, drifting towards their position. Green and gold tangles in the water. But seaweed didn't move, as far as she knew. It certainly didn't change direction, or speed up. The voice, weaving its charms and wiles, stole all sense of urgency from her. She stared at the something that moved through the water, its music twined around it.

Another voice joined the first, and another. She saw the splash of a tail, a flicker of iridescent scales touched by sunlight, and then – impossibly – a hand, a shoulder, the curve of an ear, an open mouth.

They sang in intricate harmonies worthy of a madrigal,
voices that bewitched and pleasured and made her mind wonder and her heart ache. Izzy found herself kneeling at Jinx's side. She glanced at him, to see if this music enchanted him as it did her.

The music stripped all the hard edges from his expressions, honed those sharp angles to untold beauty. He gazed in rapt wonder into the water. Izzy frowned as something inside her ate away at the periphery of the music's spell. He'd never looked at her like that. No one had. She'd never seen such adoration focused her way, and she wanted it. She wanted it more than anything else she could imagine.