you know I would have hated it.’
He smiled. ‘Yes, you would have. And that’s what I realized. There was the Jane I wanted you to be, and the Jane you really are. The Jane you are would have hated my new life. And it wasn’t fair of me to want to remake you.’
Part of me was stunned at Ryu’s admission, but part of me wasn’t. He’d always been willing to admit when he was wrong. It’s one of the reasons I’d liked him so much.
He was a good almost-vampire, if not the almost-vampire for me.
In my response I tried to acknowledge all I was feeling, but with a joke.
‘I hope you liked the real Jane a little, too?’
He took my hand from across the table, but it wasn’t a seductive gesture. He was being as open and honest as I’d ever seen him, which says a lot about our former relationship.
And about whatever our new relationship, our friendship, was developing into.
‘I did, Jane. I liked you so much. And I still do.’
‘I like you, too, Ryu,’ I said, squeezing his hand affectionately. Then I withdrew, and asked the real question.
‘So why, exactly, do you want to help? And what do you mean by help?’
Ryu burst out with his weird barking laugh, cutting a big piece of steak. I took a bite of my tuna melt, still ravenous. I’d eaten scads of Tracy’s sandwiches, but then gone for a quick swim in the Sow before showering to meet Ryu, who was already in the area. I figured I’d earned another meal, at least.
Swallowing his mouthful, Ryu answered. ‘I mean help, as in help. So whatever you want me to do, or whatever you need. I know everything that happened, of course, and I’m assuming you want to get Anyan back?’
Relief flooded through me at his words, and the easy way he said them.
‘Yes. And that’s okay with you?’
Ryu cut off another piece of steak but spoke before taking his bite. ‘Of course. I figured that’s what you’d want. And I think that’s the right course.’
I felt my eyebrow drifting up of its own accord. ‘You do? You’re not thinking like the Alfar, that I should kill Anyan?’
Ryu held up a hand, gesturing for me to wait until he could speak without his mouth full.
‘The way I see it,’ he said when he’d swallowed, ‘is that the Alfar have been doing their thing with the Red and the White for long enough now. And look where it’s gotten us. Nowhere. They’re still around, still wreaking havoc; only now the stakes are higher. We can’t brush their shenanigans under the rug any longer, not with human technology. Our world is in chaos after Notre Dame, and it’s just going to get worse. They need to be stopped, for good this time.’
‘But not by killing Anyan?’ I asked skeptically.
‘Obviously not,’ Ryu said, giving me a level look. ‘Think about it, Jane. The Red and the White have been killed about a million times. Has it worked?’
I couldn’t help it then. I looked down at my own plate and voiced my worst fear. ‘But they’re in real bodies now,’ I said, my voice small. ‘Maybe that means they can really be killed.’
Instead of agreeing with that idea, Ryu openly scoffed.
‘That makes no sense. If anything, now we know how little a body, even their own bodies, means to the Red and the White.’
Looking up to meet Ryu’s eyes, I felt another rush of excitement. ‘Iris said the same thing. I mean, she didn’t, but sort of. I mean, she brought up the idea that we had to figure out what the Red and the White are. Like, are they bodies, or souls, or spirits, or whatever.’
‘They have to be the latter,’ Ryu said. ‘It’s the only explanation. It’s why they could communicate, even when they were supposedly dead and cut up, with the people they manipulated. It’s why they could enter Morrigan and Anyan. We never thought of it that way because they would always come back to their own bones, their own bodies. But they’re not things, they’re … woo-woo things.’ Ryu wiggled his fingers in the air when he said ‘woo-woo’, like a person imitating a ghost.
‘So if we kill Anyan or Morrigan…’ I started.
‘All we do is release the spirits again, to find another host,’ finished Ryu.
To my embarrassment, tears rose in my eyes. I was definitely making up for my not crying immediately after everything happened, by crying at everything today.
Ryu’s