The situations she’d been driven through had been like successively hotter fires, refining away the bits of this and that, over and over, until everything was burned away but the pure, bare metal sought. Sought by whom and for what, she had no idea. Whether by some strict, near-merciless divine providence or by the uncaring forces of history winnowing down the masses to the hardiest survivors, she didn’t know. For all she knew, it was a bit of both, leavened by blind chance.

It was the story of her life. Other people saved the world. Shari O’Neal had all she could do and more just saving her kids.

Which brought her to her meeting with Cally.

“I don’t suppose Papa told you how we were supposed to feed, clothe, house and pay DAG?” Shari asked. “Not to mention their dependents?”

“Why are we handling that?” Cally asked. “Half of them are Bane Sidhe. Okay, most of those are O’Neals or Sundays but it’s still on Nathan.” She paused and regarded the woman. “Right?”

“No,” Shari said, shrugging. “It’s a bit like a puppy. We brought them in, we have to deal with them. Nathan was clear about that.”

“Well, he could have brought it up with me,” Cally said.

“He brought it up with The O’Neal,” Shari said, making quote marks. “So I was hoping that Papa told you what he had in mind. He told me he had a plan, but not what the plan was.”

Cally grabbed her head and squeezed for a moment. She was just coming to terms with having to manage the Clan. Adding DAG to the load was going to be a nightmare.

“Nope,” she said. “Not a clue. But the ones that aren’t here on the island are with the Bane Sidhe, right?”

“Most,” Shari said, biting her lip. “And that’s another thing. They’re out in the cold now and most of them don’t have any real experience of that. I’m… worried about them. There are going to be repercussions to the Epetar… thing.”