Even after I ran out of subjects to babble about, Rio held onto my hand and closed her eyes while I pet her hair. She made her breathing deep and focused. The ionized field around us thinned and shrank into her as she calmed down. Even though my legs went numb, I sat there with her. I stayed.

“That’s enough.” Rio let go of me and folded both her hands on her stomach. “Be on your way.”

“You sure?”

She smiled. “Yes.”

I stood up on my wobbly legs and shook them to get their blood flowing again. Rio laid there in peaceful rest, her exposed skin still looking like old fruit. But I had to tear myself away and face Daire. He’d helped me, and he deserved the truth. I’d have to confess and take a risk on him. Wasn’t that what he’d already done for me?

I walked down the hall to the ivy-framed mirror and stepped on through.

The moon shining into his room added to the glow of the ceiling’s crystals. I found Daire sleeping at his desk, using his folded arms as a pillow. The little star flowers there—lily vines, Kerry Lilies, whatever they were called—drooped over his head like they were tired too. None of his flowers ever wilted, though. And how long had he been there? I went over and patted his back.

He groaned and squinted up at me. The sharp angles of his face seemed starker, and he had the same dark circles under his eyes as I had when I didn’t sleep enough.

“Hey, that’s going to kill your back.” I gently turned him to the center of his room. “Come on, get to the bed.”

“I’ve been like this since coming home from Tara.” He twisted his back, and his spine popped in three different places. “I think a full day constitutes enough sleep.”

“Tell that to those bags,” I muttered as I leaned against the lip of Daire’s desk and ran my thumb under his eye. I’d never seen him with any signs of wear like a normal person, like me.

“Speak for yourself.” He covered a yawn with his hand and held his forehead. Was he suffering from some kind of headache or hangover?

“Mine are old, and I had a very injured person to watch last night.” Speaking of injured people, I inspected the rest of him. His green shirt had full sleeves and all of its gold embroidery intact without any holes or splotchy parts. The faint scorch I’d noticed on his cheek when he’d rammed against Rio’s shield had faded. “How’re your burns anyways?”

“The lighter ones have righted themselves.” He rolled up his sleeve and showed off the arm he’d used to pass me extra juice and keep me awake. It was still red with a few broken blisters and flaking skin, but could’ve been a bad sunburn. A big improvement. “This one is on its way.”

“What about your mom?”

“Unchanged. I doubt she’ll even remember the incident.” He squeezed my hand with his damaged fingers. “And you? I can hardly believe Riona used such invasive magic on you, no matter the circumstances.”

“It’s the first time she’s asked permission, so it’s not as bad as when I first got here.” I gave him a stiff shrug and checked my nails for any dirt under them. Maybe treating it like nothing meant he wouldn’t freak out at me.

“Wait, you let her do that?”

“I let her use me, yeah.”

“Did you know how she intended to use you?”

“No, but by the time it happened, I saw where she was taking it.” I raked back my bangs, harder than I had to. I’d gone over how to explain it in my head. Every way I’d phrased it missed something. It made sense to me, but I couldn’t blame him for not seeing it the same way. “I didn’t think she would actually go through with it, like a bluff.”

“The fact it could come out of her mouth meant she wasn’t bluffing.” He let go of me like I was a hot stove and scrambled to his feet.

“Look, I don’t agree with what she did, but I can’t fault her for it either.” I sighed and forced myself to look him in the eye. “If killing your mom was the point, then she wouldn’t be alive. It was easy to predict you guys would cave, and Rio used that to save our lives and make sure we were safe from Bodb. It was smart.”

“She manipulates you into almost killing an innocent woman and gains your approval? What wiles has my sister been using on you?” His skin glowed brighter, like when he’d looked for magic on Rio at Tara. Was he checking me for a wire? I stuck it out and waited while he did his examination. The light settled back over his skin and his tense shoulders relaxed an inch.

“It’s just me.” I said. “No Rio.”

“That’s the problem,” Daire said, his eyebrows pinching together. I was a mystery puzzle without a picture on the box and he was the stubborn person solving me to prove he hadn’t wasted his money. “She may have gone through an ordeal, but we were on our way out without her intervention. We could have separated you from her and regrouped. I would have found another way to wake her. Make no mistake, she has had an appetite for vengeance against my family since before I was born. Do not underestimate the stubbornness of a Aos Si with a grudge. Even if she has shown you a softer side, no amount of kindness from you will sway her from completing her revenge.”

“Did you know she wasn’t going to campaign before this?” I pushed off the desk and crowded into his space so he had to look down at me. My way of seeing things wasn’t totally in the right, but none of this was. I’d made a choice in a no-win situation, and it panned out. He couldn’t guilt me for doing my best. “She wanted to be left alone. The only reason your plan to get out of here is still on is because of her grudge. Her stunt guaranteed I can go get the treasures you need without getting killed by your twisted family. And Etain is still very alive and rotting in that little cell, as miserable as ever. So yeah, maybe I am in Rio’s corner on this one.”

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Daire held his stomach like he wanted to throw up. I was right and he knew it. “You sound as if you’re defending a lover.”

“Not the point.”

“Don’t tell me you’re becoming fond of her.”

“So what if I am? What does that have to do with anything?”

“It complicates everything.” Daire grabbed both my shoulders. His tone had the same worry I’d get from Abuela when she saw me getting into trouble, the same concern Mom had when she told me she wanted to help take care of me. “She is an ancient, supernatural trickster you have known for little more than a month. She’s still responsible for stealing you away from everything you know and love. Yes, she has hidden depths, but you have only just begun to explore them. It’s not a rabid animal’s fault it’s been caged. That doesn’t mean it won’t hurt you when you try to care for it. You cannot take her to dinner with your family and see a Saturday night picture show afterwards. If you stay with her, she will cling to you until there’s nothing left.”

“That’s my business, not yours.” I edged a more comfortable distance away from him.

“Do you still want to get back to the life you left? See Jennifer?”

“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t visit you and play ‘spy’ for Rio.” My head pounded as I tried to follow the tangled mess of secrets and information I had to keep track of. “Now I’m a double agent, and those always get caught.”

“My family has me playing informant toward you as well.” Daire clenched his jaw as he shifted his weight to his other foot. “All while I have to figure out a way to prevent myself from dying and somehow keeping my mother intact enough so she will have a chance of surviving in the human world a mite longer. She may not even live through crossing over. But all I can seem to do is sit here waiting and orchestrating. I’m trapped in my own home when I would rather be the one out there doing something.”

“That means we still need each other. Yesterday has to be water under the bridge.” I held out my hand. We’d made a deal, and he was still my best shot at getting out, with or without Rio. “We need to keep going ahead. No bad feelings toward each other about what your sister did.”

“So long as you agree to better question her requests from here on out.” He shook on it, and looked at the gesture with more reverence than I expected. “And don’t let your budding feelings distract you from your mission.”

“It’s a deal.” I let my arm drop. “Now we should figure out how to make this James Bond thing work.”

“Indeed.” Daire walked to his bed and plopped on the edge. He made a little flourish in the air and I braced myself for something to pop up under me or shove me into a chair. Nothing happened. The chair I expected only shivered a little. Daire grit his teeth with strain and frustration, sweat gathering on his forehead.

The chair hopped. It didn’t look happy about it.

I finished the job and dragged the seat the rest of the way.

Daire fell back against his mountain of pillows with his eyes wide and scared. He panted harder than before.

“What happened?” I bent over him instead of sitting. He didn’t usually have to try that hard, did he? “You lose your mojo or something?”

“Something to that effect.” Daire managed to lift himself up and fold his legs in front of him. He fiddled with a clump of his hair. It was the same pretty blonde except for a few wiry white streaks.

Had those always been there and I’d never noticed them? “Do you dye that, or are you having a gray day?”

“You mean gray hairs?”

I nodded.

He grabbed his chest and his breathing sped up like he was ready to hyperventilate.

“Daire, relax. Even I get them sometimes.” I knelt on the mattress beside him. “They pop up now and again for everybody.”

“Not for me.” He plucked out one of the white hairs and held it up in front of him. It was thin and brittle, the same kind Abuela covered up every time she dyed her roots. His shoulders went so stiff they shook the longer he stared at that hair. Pretty soon he’d have a full blown panic attack. “Aos Si don’t age past their prime. This shouldn’t be happening!”

“Easy.” I pushed on both of his knees, giving him something else to feel and focus on. “Fold your legs like this. Tuck your head. That a boy. Now slow, deep breaths. Good. Keep going. Just focus on a pillow. Focus on my voice.”

I kept talking him through how to breathe: in for four, hold for four, out for four. It was amateur stuff from the therapist that had helped Mom before. He held onto me, white knuckled. What had that comment triggered?

Minutes passed. His rigid posture drooped as he sucked in air.

“Okay,” I started. “What’s going on?”

“The Key.” Daire whimpered as his attention wavered to the limp flowers edging his desk. Terrified tears started in his eyes and clumped his blonde eyelashes together. “I… I’m dying.”

“How? What do you mean?” My first guess for the grays had been that he was half human and had to deal with the same little annoying parts as me. But if he hadn’t had them ever, and he’d been alive as long as everybody else in that place…

“When the Key vanishes, so do I.” He closed his fist around the gray hair in his hand and crushed it. “I didn’t think it would start already. I thought I had more time.”

“Shit Daire, you should’ve told me that part.” Right when I thought our situation couldn’t get any worse. But he was barely holding it together, and I owed him big for saving my life. It was time to return the favor. I forced his fist open and nudged his face away from it to see me instead. “We’ve got a plan for fixing this. It’s going to work.”

“But—”

“It’s going to work.” I’d repeat it as many times as I had to until both of us believed it. “Before that, you’re alive and we’ve got now to focus on. One step at a time, alright?”

All he managed was nodding along. He gulped, and his quivering chin tightened up. He searched my face like he was drowning, and I was the one who decided if he survived or not. I’d felt that lost and weak at Tara. The end was coming and I’d tried so hard to resist it. Was that how I’d looked when he took my hand through Rio’s toxic cloud?

“You trust me?” I asked.

“I don’t have much choice, do I?”

“I don’t have to stick by you. I could try to figure something out with Rio instead. Or maybe I stay here and learn to live with it. But I want to go home and see Mom again. You’re my best bet. I chose you.” I cupped his face between my hands, keeping his attention on me and only me. I’d been supporting my family my whole life, and doing the same for him had never come easier. “If you can’t find some other spell or ask your family for help, then you can give up and accept you had a good, long life. Do you want that?”

“No.” Daire sniffled and swallowed hard. “I want to stay with Mother. I want to show Uncle Aengus that I can save myself. I want to prove to Father that he’s wrong about everything.”

“Then what’s your choice?”

“I… I choose to trust you.”

In a place stuck in time, it was hard to tell how long it’d been since my biggest problem was figuring out how to balance taking care of Mom and an incoming series of double shifts. Those issues seemed so small compared to nursing a dangerous crush on my kidnapper while helping to save the dying brother she hated. Soon I’d have to convince her to let me follow her around as she tried to gain political influence against a whole family with a huge head start. Then came stealing some magical artifacts under her nose.

How would it end? I had no idea. But I had to believe I’d make it through, for me and now for Daire.