Page 118 of Lovesick Titan

Danny groaned, using the show of annoyance to turn away and brush the tears from his eyes, not to hide them from Andre—Andre saw—but to wipe the slate clean for now, ready to move forward.

“What’s all that?” Mal asked. It looked like a jumbled pile of junk Andre had scattered over the table.

“There wasn’t much left after the implosion,” Andre said, spreading the items out, one by one, including a few larger pieces of rounded glass. “We found some things later that wouldn’t have been native to the mirror world, so must have been expelled like you guys. There were remains of the mannequin,” he held up what Mal saw was a plastic hand, “a chair,” the leg of the chair, “and this,” a sparkle of black fabric from—

“The Invisible Man,” Danny said with a frown.

Mal sat up straighter. The remains were flimsy, wrecked shreds, but still, it came with a few too many bad memories.

“I can remake it,” Andre said and held up both hands when Mal and Danny both began to protest. “Don’t say no, I have good reason for wanting to, but we can talk about that later. There’s one more thing Ludgate must have been keeping in the mirror world that I wanted to show you.” Sifting through the pile a little further, from beneath morescraps of the sparkly black fabric, he finally unwrapped something about the size of a fist that shimmered far more brilliantly than any piece of glass.

The Winterheart Diamond.

Mal marveled at it as Andre handled the jewel with all the care of a major-league pitcher, tossing it into the air before coming forward to hand it to Danny.

“I forgot all about this,” he said, cradling the diamond in two hands in utter contradiction to Andre. He stared at the way it glittered, then held it out to Mal.

Taking it, Mal twisted it against the light. Beautiful. He’d spent a good many months preparing to steal this thing, and couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face.

“You can’t keep it,” Danny said.

“You’re the one who handed it to me.” Mal brought the diamond to his chest like a greedy child, enjoying the pout from Danny and roll of his eyes. “It is technically still missing. No one would ever know.”

“Uhh…” Andre raised his hand.

Mal shot him an unamused look.

“Please don’t get arrested the second after you saved the city,” Danny reprimanded.

“Now you’re just spoiling my fun on purpose,” Mal said but slowly uncurled his arm and held the diamond out again. He watched it pass from Danny to Andre and then return to the table with the rest of the ‘debris’.

It would be so easy to reclaim it at some point. Mal was already plotting about five different ways it could go ‘missing’, when John appeared in the doorway.

“Dad,” Danny lit up, despite having seen each other plenty the past several days. “Lynn’s about to steal me away. Did you want—”

“Actually, I was hoping to talk to Cho for a few minutes, if that’s all right. Alone.”

Mal stiffened. Before now, John had been kind enough to keep the shovel talk to a firm glare and mutual understanding to never discuss the details.

“Uhh…sure,” Danny said, looking at Mal helplessly before getting up and walking with his sluggish gait to meet Lynn at the door. “I’ll, umm…see you soon, okay?”

As John entered with a diplomatic smile, Mal propped himself up a bit better against the pillows behind him. “How can I help you, Detective?” he asked.

“After all that’s gone on around here, I think you can call me ‘John’. If I can call you ‘Malcolm’?”

“You can call me ‘Mal’,” Mal offered, if the man was going to insist on first names.

“Well then,Mal, don’t think I’m here to corner you. You don’t have to say anything. Any reservations you might have, anything you think you need to say to me, only needs to be said to Danny. This is his life. He can decide what he wants. If that’syou, I won’t be the one telling him to change his mind. That is an impossible task as it is,” he chuckled.

Mal fell into chuckles with him and quietly admitted, “I don’t want him to change his mind.”

“Good. Then maybe you can convince him to move some of his things into your apartment.”

“What?”

John chuckled again. “He’ll recover better there. I know my son. He’ll want to be close to you after all this. Once you’re both allowed to leave, let him dote on you a while. For a week, at least. I know he’ll want that, he just doesn’t always know how to ask for what he wants.”

Mal had purposely been avoiding thinking about what came after being laid up in the morgue because itwasscary, just as Danny had said—all the unknowns. But he would be lying if he said he didn’t feel warmed by the thought of Danny being there when he came home. Making dinner for him. Curling up on the sofa together. Being normal and domestic while still being them.

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