Halloween. I saw Eleanor. She said that your body was wearing out and that you had to burn to keep from dying. Maybe this is just you, wearing out."
"I don't feel worn out. I feel--" I was afraid to say it.
James ran his fingers over the back of one of my hands, looking at it as if it was enormously important. "I know. Look--Nuala."
He hesitated. "Eleanor said something else. She said, if you wanted to keep your memories, there was a way."
My stomach lurched, like with nerves. "Why would she care? "
"I don't know. Can she lie?"
I shook my head; the grass rustled under my head. I thought about what Brendan and Una had told me. "No. But she can leave things out."
James made a face. "Yeah. Yeah, that's what I thought too. She said if I said your name seven times while you were burning, you'd keep your memories."
"My real name?" But what I was thinking was, my memories?
James nodded.
"Do you even know what that means?"
He said, "I have a vague idea that it's a really bad idea for your name to get out, right? Like people could use it to make you rob convenience stores, perform illicit sex acts, watch Steven
Seagal movies, and otherwise do things that you wouldn't ever do."
"Which is why I'd never tell anyone," I said.
He looked down at his hand again, his eyelashes hiding his eyes.
"Yeah, I know."
"Except you." I sat up so that my eyes were level with his. "But you have to promise me."
James' eyes were wide, either innocent or bewildered. I had never seen his face wear either expression. "Promise what?"
"Promise you won't make me... do those things."
"Nuala," James said, solemnly, "I would never make you watch
Steven Seagal movies."
He didn't know. How big of a deal this was. Nobody told a human their real name. Nobody. "Promise me you... promise me that..." I couldn't think of what to make him promise. As if the promise of a human meant anything anyway. They could lie with impunity.
James leaned in and I thought for a moment he was going to kiss me. Instead, he just wrapped his arms around me and lay the side of his face against my face. I could feel his heartbeat, slow and steady and warm, going at half the speed of mine, and his breath, uneven and short on my cheek. A kiss could never mean the same thing as this. "Nuala," he said, and his voice was low and funny--hoarse. "Don't be afraid of me. You don't have to tell me. But I-- I would do this for you, if you wanted. I know there has to be some sort of catch, but I'd try."
I closed my eyes. It was too much. The possibility of keeping my memories, the faeries' words at the dance last night, the danger of telling my name, the shape of his words in my ear. I had never meant it to go this far.
I squeezed my eyes shut so hard I saw flickering grayish lights behind my eyelids. "Amhrán-Liath-na-Méine."
I felt light-headed right after I said it. I'd really said it out loud.
I'd really done it.
James squeezed me tighter as if it would stop me from shaking.
He whispered, "Thank goodness. I thought you were going to say Izzy Leopard and then I would start laughing and then you would kill me."
"You are such a jerk," I said, but I was relieved. Scared totally out of my mind, but relieved.
James let me go. I hurriedly made sure I had full control of my facial expression before he did. He leaned back and repositioned his legs. "My butt's falling asleep. Do you think it would be really bad if I pronounced it wrong? I mean, it's not exactly an easy name like 'Jane Doe,' is it?"
"This is serious!" I sounded fiercer than I meant to. I shouldn't snap. I knew he cracked jokes even when he was serious, but it was hard to remember that when I didn't have his thoughts to back me up.
"I know it's serious, killer," he said. "Maybe the most serious thing I've ever done."
We both jerked when his phone rang, in his pocket. James pulled out it and frowned at the screen. "It's Sullivan."
He flipped it open and leaned close to me so that the phone was sandwiched between his ear and mine. "Yeah?"
James?
"Why does everyone ask that?" demanded James. "Yes, its me.
Sullivan's voice sounded far away. "Your voice sounds different on the phone. Is she still there?"
"Of course she is."
"Look. I'm sorry I'm taking so long to get up there. There's-damn. Hold on." A pause. "Sorry. Look, can you drive her into town? To the deli there? Get a table outside. One of the iron ones. Can she take that?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. Okay. I'll see you there in, like, fifteen minutes." Sullivan hesitated again. "James--" Another pause, and then a sigh.
"James, don't tell any of the other students. Have you seen
Deirdre Monaghan lately?"
James
All around us, the birds sang and cars whirred past the deli and the day was beautiful.
I set my hands on the table, very carefully, and worried Nuala's stone between my fingers. I wanted so badly to write guilt on my skin that I could almost taste the letters in my mouth.
Bitter.
"It wasn't fair of Sullivan to tell you that," Nuala said. She glared at the waitress, who'd returned with our glasses of water.