“What?”
“So what? What does that change?”
“Ever since he gave it to me, I’ve felt different. Wrong. So mad and so scared and so guilty.”
“And what does feeling that way get you?”
I can barely breathe. “I don’t know. But I can’t handle having extra darkness. It was so hard to accept being a Slayer, and now I have to face even more?”
“Change we don’t choose is hard. Trauma puts things inside your soul you never asked for. Sure, sometimes it’s demonic. But sometimes it’s just growing up.”
“I’ve done terrible things, though.”
“Did you think you’d get through life as a Slayer living in sunshine? That you’d never have to spill blood? That you’d never have to grapple with the death that’s your calling?”
“You don’t understand.”
“Oh, honey, I do. I promise. We live in the darkness. Fight it or embrace it. But accept that even in a world of powers and gods and Slayers, nothing is going to magically heal you and make you the person you used to be. And would you want it to, if it meant sacrificing everything you’ve learned and become?”
My voice breaks. “Maybe.” I wasn’t happy, but at least I still had Artemis.
She considers it. “Fair enough. I might too. But we don’t have that choice. We’re Slayers. We’re imbued with darkness. We live in it, and with it, and sometimes it’s more than we can handle and we become it.” A figure flashes next to her, a pleasant-looking middle-aged man in a suit. She doesn’t look at him. A knife appears on the desk, an ornate, double-bladed, wicked-looking piece meant to kill and cause as much pain as possible in the process. “You can’t go back. You can’t undo whatever triggered this extra bad you’re struggling through. So discover the new you. Learn to live with her. To love her, when you’re ready. And find people who will go on this journey, too. Because not everyone will, but the ones who do—you fight for them and they fight for you.”
“I still wish we could hit reset, though. Start over.”
“Nah, not me. Then I’d be back in jail. Or worse, in Boston.”
“Oh my gods.” My Watcher research finally clicks into place. I’ve been so distracted I didn’t put it together. “You’re Faith.”
“In the flesh. Well, sort of. I guess not really, because, dream. But yeah. You know that I know what I’m talking about.” Faith leans forward, her dark eyes boring into mine. “You can’t handle the pain and anger inside you? Welcome to the club. You’re so much more than that, though. Maybe you messed up. You’ll mess up again. But you’re doing the best you can, and that’s not nothing, you know?”
“But what do I do? I don’t know how to fix everything.”
“You can’t. Not ever. Part of this job is recognizing that. There’s evil in the world, and suffering, and loss, and there’s nothing you can do to fix it all. So you do the best you can, and then you figure out how to live with it. Because you have to keep going, even on the days when it feels impossible, and it would be so much easier to just …” She trails off, looking to the side where the man is smiling warmly at her. She shakes her head and he flickers out of existence. “The darkness isn’t going anywhere. But there’s a difference between walking through it and becoming it. It doesn’t control you. You got more of it than you should? Good. Use it. Use it all.”
She picks up the knife and tosses it to me. I catch it. In my hand, it’s shifted from a wicked tool of pain into a simple wooden stake. “Do the job,” I say.
“Do the job. Save the world. Don’t lose what makes you you in the process. And, above all, look good doing it.” She winks at me. Then the desk disappears, along with the office. We’re in a cemetery, but it doesn’t feel menacing. It feels right.
“Thank you.” I wrap my arms around her.
“Oh, sweetheart, I am not a hugger. Okay. Fine. But do not tell the other Slayers. A girl’s got a reputation, you know.” She pats my back. “You got this. Five by five. And next time you’re in London, look me up, okay? We’ll go get drunk. Wait, how old are you?”
“Oh my god, Faith,” a familiar voice says. “Are you hugging her?”
“Dammit, B, now you show up?”
I straighten as Faith shoves me away. Buffy is standing with her arms folded, amused. She nods at me. “World still ending?”
“Yeah. Or ending again, I guess.”
“It does that. You good?”
I look at Faith. If she can do this, so can I. “Not yet. But I will be.”
“Look at you, Faith, being all mentor-y.”
“Shut up.” Faith rolls her eyes. Sineya appears behind her, glowering.