I push up from the floor. “Where are we going?”

“I’m taking you back to Chester’s.” He pauses then says, “Where we will contain you with the stones.”

I stiffen. “You just gave me a pep talk about fighting it. Now you’re going to shut me down? You have no idea what that might do to me, or the Book. It could put us both in suspended animation and I won’t be able to fight it.”

“It may suspend only the Book.”

“Right. Leaving me fully cognizant. Trapped. Forever,” I say sharply. I’d accepted this fate once before. But I was making headway. I was certain I could win this battle, if I just had enough time.

“You said yourself you don’t know if the Book will seize control of you again the moment it awakens.”

My jaw juts. “Maybe I’ve beat it.”

“I don’t like this any more than you do, Mac.”

“I’m bloody well certain I like it far less,” I say heatedly. “You’re not the one about to get locked away.”

“No, I’m the just the one who has to endure you being locked away. There’s no possibility I might be suspended while you suffer. I’ll be aware of every bloody moment of it.”

I wince. Put that way, it sounds a lot like what he went through with his son.

“Ryodan’s out of play, Jada’s holding it together by sheer force of will, the sidhe-seers are in a complete meltdown at Chester’s, Dageus is a major fucking mess, and we have no idea how to stop the black holes. We need something off our plate, and the Book is the thing most likely to cause immediate, catastrophic damage.” His dark gaze shutters. “You’ve not yet done anything as the Book that you won’t be able to forgive yourself for,” he says carefully. “In time.”

I’m still so pissed off by his “off our plate” comment I barely hear him. As if I’m an unappetizing vegetable to be scraped into a Tupperware container and stuck in the fridge. “Then what? I wait passively until you either save the world or don’t? And if you do, you’ll free me to resume my fight? And if you don’t, I’ll get sucked into oblivion by a black hole?” I say irritably. I don’t want to be locked away. I don’t want to be passive. I wasted weeks of my life I can never get back being miserably passive and defeatist. Belatedly, his final comment sinks in and I stare up at him, horrified, because he just made it very clear I’ve already done something I’m going to hate myself for. My irritation is doused by a crushing wave of remorse. I’ve killed someone. Someone I knew. Someone that mattered to me. I close my eyes.

“Now you understand why we must do it. Not only is it possible the Book could destroy our planet far more quickly than the black holes, there are things it could do while in possession of your body that would leave you irrevocably scarred. I don’t mean physically. Once you’re contained, I’ll move you to a place where I can remove the stones and you’ll have the freedom to fight.”

I open my eyes. “What do you mean? What kind of place?” Who did I kill? I fist my hands at my sides, desperate to know. Desperate not to know. He’d specifically said Jada and my parents were “fine.” So, it was someone else. Not one of the Nine, because they would be reborn. Sidhe-seers? Children? Innocent bystanders? Christian? Jayne? All of them? Did I slaughter thousands in a single crushing blow?

“A place where your battle can take as long as it must without consequence, without you having to worry about destroying worlds. Even those you think don’t matter,” he adds dryly.

“And you just so happen to know a place like that?” I narrow my eyes. “Oh, God, you were so certain I’d fail, so sure I’d open the Book that you prepared for it!”

“You had an undiscovered country inside you. That gave you two options: pretend it doesn’t exist and never set foot inside it, even though you know it’s governed by a maniacal little Hitler determined to chip away at your borders and conquer you—or march in and start a war. I’d have been disappointed had you done anything less.”

He’d just put into words exactly how I’d felt from the moment I realized the Book was inside me, and both options had terrified me. I’d begun leaning more and more toward the “starting a war” option. Then, at least, I wouldn’t be vacillating. Living in fear of two options would always be harder than biting the bullet and choosing one to confront.

Because living in fear isn’t living.

“But you stopped me from taking a spell for your son. I could have marched in then.”

He smiles faintly. “I never said I was in a hurry for you to start a war. Come.” He extends his hand again.

Instead of taking it, I reach up, lace my fingers in his dark hair and pull his head down. Brush my lips to his, a whisper of a kiss, breath and warmth, barely any friction. I lean against him, motionless, opening all my senses, absorbing the moment, every nuance, committing it to my memory in flawless detail so once I’m trapped in whatever manner I’m about to be trapped, I can re-create him, us together, in my mind. I tip my head back and put all my love in my eyes. Let it pile up and blaze there.

He stares down at me a long moment. A muscle works in his jaw and crimson sparks flare deep in his irises. “Your bloody timing bloody sucks,” he says tightly.

“I thought we’d just established this moment is all we have. That means my timing can never suck,” I say lightly.