"It's Gin," I finally said. "Can we talk?"
Chapter 30
The next day was Christmas Eve. The Pork Pit wasn't officially open for business, so I'd given all of the waitstaff the day off with pay, but Sophia and I had a few last-minute orders to see to before we closed down for the holiday. And I had some last-minute shopping to do, because I still hadn't decided on a present for Owen, and time was running out.
In between cooking and giving people their party orders, I kept one eye on the clock on the wall, counting down the hours until my visitor arrived. Finally, three o'clock rolled around. At one minute after, the front door opened, causing the bell to chime, and she stepped into my restaurant.
Detective Bria Coolidge. My baby sister.
She looked as cool and professional as ever in her long coat, sweater, jeans, and boots. Her badge glinted a warm gold on her leather belt next to her gun. She stood in the doorway, as if she wasn't quite sure what she was doing here. That made two of us.
Sophia and I both looked over at her. Then the dwarf turned her flat, black eyes to mine and gave me a small, encouraging nod.
"Back," Sophia grunted in her broken voice, disappearing through the swinging doors to give us some privacy.
I wiped my hands on a dishrag, stepped around the counter, and approached my sister. "I'm glad you came. "
Bria just shrugged, as though she didn't trust herself to speak yet.
I locked the front door behind her so we wouldn't be interrupted. We settled ourselves at one of the booths next to the storefront windows-the same booth that Jonah McAllister and Elektra LaFleur had sat in when they'd come into the restaurant a few days ago. This time, though, the irony didn't bother me. Because LaFleur was dead, and I wasn't.
"Do you want anything to eat? Something to drink?" I asked.
Bria shook her head and looked at me, clearly wanting me to go ahead and say whatever was on my mind. Okay. I could do that. I hoped.
I drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out. And then, I started, telling her all the things I'd longed to for so long now.
"I called you so late last night because I had a dream about you-about the night that Mab murdered our mother and Annabella," I said in a low voice.
Bria frowned, as though she didn't quite believe me. "You had a dream? About me? About that night?"
I nodded. "I've been having them a lot lately. For a couple of months now. Only they're not really dreams, so much as memories of that night. Last night, I dreamed about when I went to find you, after I used my magic to collapse our house. I remember picking through the rubble, trying to find you in that secret playroom under the stairs, but realizing that the stairs had collapsed along with the rest of the house, and finding only blood instead. So much blood. "
My voice dropped to a whisper, and I had to swallow once before I was able to go on. "I woke up screaming then, because I thought you were dead, that I'd killed you with my magic. It's a dream I've had a lot over the years. "
Something flashed in Bria's blue eyes. It might have been guilt, but I ignored it. If I didn't get the words out now, I didn't know if they would ever come to me again.
So I sat there and told Bria everything.
How I thought that she'd been dead for the last seventeen years until Fletcher Lane had left me a folder of information about my family's murder with Bria's picture
inside. How I'd searched for her with no success, and then had been startled to discover that she'd come back to Ashland on her own-as a detective with the police department, no less. How I struggled with how to tell her who I really was and all the things I'd done in the meantime to protect her from Mab. All the people I'd killed to keep her safe.
And then I told her the real reason our mother and older sister had died that night-because Mab thought a member of the Snow family, a girl with both Ice and Stone magic, was destined to kill her someday.
"She thought that I was you, didn't she?" Bria asked. "That I had both Ice and Stone magic?"
I nodded. "From what I've been able to piece together, yes. "
"And that's why she wants me dead now. " Her voice was cold and flat. "Because she thinks I'll kill her one day with my magic. "
I nodded again.
To my surprise, Bria threw her head back and let out a short, bitter laugh. "Well, I suppose that serves me right for being such a coward in the first place. "
"What does?"
"Because I ran away that night," Bria said in a low tone. "Like the coward that I was. "