I’m sure,” Jenks said, darting about as Trent got off and I rolled to sit up.
“Holy Goddess spit,” Zack said, and Buddy came out to sniff me, his tail waving apologetically. “Landon only mumbled a lot when he talked to the baku.”
My face flashed warm, and I sat between the couch and the knocked-over table, horrified. The things I had said. Embarrassed and afraid, I looked at Trent. His back was to me as he righted the table, but he was slumped and looked depressed and beaten down.
“Trent?” I said hesitantly, and he didn’t turn. “I didn’t say those things. It was the baku.” Which wasn’t entirely true. Every ugly feeling that had poured through me and found voice had been in my thoughts before. It had been me, but it was a me lacking the understanding, or perhaps the ability, to forgive and love.
“I know.” He came close to extend a hand to help me rise. “But they’re true.”
“Were,” I said firmly as I fitted my hand into his and he pulled me up. “Maybe once, but they aren’t now. Trent, I’m sorry,” I added as he let go. I couldn’t let Trent think that what I’d said was true. I loved him. What had happened before mattered, but only in that we’d overcome it.
“There’s nothing to forgive,” he said, but his smile was thin as he looked at the crack in the back of the fireplace. “This was . . . not helpful,” he said, and I nodded, wishing he would come around the table, take me into a hug, anything.
“I said it would be a mistake.” Quen stalked to the end table, stoic as he took a tissue to wipe his face.
“It wasn’t a mistake. It just didn’t work like we wanted it to,” I said as I sat down, wondering if this was what Madam Curie had felt like when her research killed her.
“Looks like a mistake to me,” Zack said as he lifted Buddy up onto the chair with him.
“I still say we can catch it. It’s like antimatter, maybe,” I said, remembering the feelings I’d had. They were mine, but mine untempered by love or forgiveness. Perhaps the baku was opposite to a soul, canceling mine out. “Antimatter exists,” I said when Quen scoffed, then winced, a hand going to his nose.
“Perhaps, but anti-souls do not,” Quen muttered as he reached for another tissue. “Zack, put that dog back on the floor.”
My face throbbed where Quen had hit me. “At least we know you can talk to it,” I said as I sat down and gingerly felt my face. Thanks a lot, Quen.
“Okay. But not you. Not again,” Jenks said, unusually close as if to reassure himself it was still me.
“Agreed.” I looked at Trent, now slumped on the edge of the couch with his elbows on his knees.
And then my head snapped up as I remembered. I had possessed the baku’s knowledge when it had been in me. I knew how Trent’s mom and Quen had tried to capture it. “Uh, guys? I saw how the Order trapped it. I’m not making a zombie out of anyone, but, Trent, your mom and Quen nearly had it on their own with a circle. If we can circle it, we can put it in a bottle.”
“Zombie!” Jenks exclaimed as Trent looked up, hope smoothing his brow. “The Order uses zombies to catch the baku?”
I nodded. “Zombies are the living dead. Not awake, not asleep, and unlike vampires, they have souls to trap it and no will to kick it out. Because of what they are, once it’s stuck in one, it can’t escape even if it wants to.”
Quen grunted in surprise, but Trent clearly wasn’t convinced. “You can’t catch an energy being in a circle,” he said warily. “It just slips through the spaces between.”
“But that’s what they did,” I insisted, then scooted to the edge of the couch. “They combined their circles into one impenetrable one. I saw them do it. Hell, I remember being angry at being trapped in it. I simply don’t know how they did it. Maybe it’s in her other journals.”
Together we turned to Quen. He had been there. Done it.
“Sa’han . . . ,” Quen said, and at his pained voice, Trent’s gaze went past him to the fireplace, an unknown emotion pinching his brow.
“I’m done discussing this with you,” Trent said, his voice raspy with anger. I stood, my gut twisting as he pulled on the ley line