It wasn't a particularly good photograph.
He had been looking almost suspiciously at the man taking the impromptu picture, his smile uncertain. She had been laughing at his narrowed blue eyes, her face turned away from the camera to tease her father. The lighting had been poor and the picture taker had been nervous.
But it was the last photograph she had of them together.
And so it had become her favorite anyway.
Zatanna realized that her carefully manicured hands were shaking. She closed them tightly into fists and forced her gaze from her father's face, trying not to look at herself in the dressing room mirror.
After all she had done to bring him back, the years of searching for the family book which held the resurrection incantation, the magical wishes she'd granted as bribing favors to piece each clue together, the sacrifices she had made in her life to prepare herself to die as the required offering—after it all, there was at last nothing.
I am truly alone now.
And in bitter irony it was her own choice.
She felt the pain in her heart expanding, threatening to break out of her control again and she gritted her teeth, refusing to let any more tears fall.
It had not been her father's destiny to die that day. It had been hers. His absolute love had dared to change Fate itself. Her death in exchange for her father's life would have merely returned everything back to its proper order. And it had felt right. After all, her love for her father was no less than his love for her. So, the choice had been easy. One born of grief and love and perhaps no small amount of guilt. No daughter ever wanted her father to die for her.
But in the end, she had to allow it.
It was the only choice she had.
Because Clark had been right that night on the rooftop when foolish brave Chloe had ran out of the roof access stairwell without looking and got herself caught within the exchange matrix of the resurrection incantation.
Zatanna knew who her father had wanted her to be.
A daughter worthy of a father's pride.
And while she had been willing to die for her father, she knew she could not murder for him. He had raised her to be better than that.
So, after everything she had done to save him, in the end, she had quietly heartbrokenly closed the door and left her father in death.
Because she couldn't save him and still remain his daughter.
Her vision blurred and she forced her gaze away from the photograph.
Zatanna reached out and gently touched the worn tome beside her. Even through her stage gloves she could feel the Power imbued in the book. Its ancient time stained pages held all that she had left of the Zatara line. Her heritage from generations of magic wielders.
She understood painfully now why her father had done everything.
Her father had Sight. He knew things would happen before they did. It was how he had been able to exchange his life for hers. It was what let him see that she would try and undo his sacrifice. And the father that he was, the father that would willingly give up his life once for his daughter, was no less willing to give up his life a second time. So he had done everything he could to prevent her from resurrecting him.
His deliberate restriction of her magical training, and with it her Power, had slowed her recovery of the book just long enough for it to come to Luther's private holding facility in Metropolis. Where she would cross the path of a particular hero whose heart was strong enough and pure enough to remind her that she had to do what was right instead of what she so very much wanted.
All so her father could save her again because he had known she would only think of saving him.
Zatanna shook her long black tresses in rueful fondness.
The things the Zatara line does for love.
She took a long deep steadying breath and straightened her black coated shoulders.
The book had allowed her to at last grant her own wish. But one wish was all her magic could grant anyone. And she had not found another way in the book to resurrect her father. Which meant it was at last over.
He was truly gone.
She was truly alone.
And now . . . now she had an unexpected bought back again life to live.
It felt a little strange and more than a little unnervingly exhilarating really. She had prepared herself for death so long that this sudden turn of events left her feeling more than a little disoriented. Everything she had done had been for one cause, to save her father. Now that the chance was gone, she had to decide what to do with her life.
She knew she would keep their illusionist show. She needed something of him to hold to—and something to occupy her days and nights.
But it did not seem enough anymore. And it wasn't.
At least not after Clark, Oliver and Chloe.
They had shown her another dimension of possibility. A way to use her growing Power and increasing magical skills for something besides parlor tricks and stage performances.
A way to become more of the daughter her father had raised her to be.
To make a difference in the world for good.
Because she could.
Her father's cause was gone, but she would honor him by choosing a new worthy one.
She had thought hard about it that long grieving night after the rooftop and by dawn she had known how she would start. It was why she had given Oliver her card and her promise. But first, she had some unfinished Zatara business to deal with.
Her winter blue eyes glinted in amusement now at the book.
Her father had bound within one of the pages the entirety of his journal. And the responsible somber older man she had known had once been a passionate and impetuous young man. With a mischievous and hard justice sense of magic's use. He had not suffered fools or those he found to be villains lightly—and he had left a number of rather interesting curses throughout the world. Most on mundane items he had cleverly arranged to come into the possession of those he deemed needing of punishment.
Unfortunately, cursed objects did not 'wear off' over time—and because her father in his youth had failed to consider the responsibility of keying the objects to his specific justice targets, there was now an uncomfortable number of active dangerous objects scattered about just waiting for some unlucky or stupid soul to accidentally contact them and activate their respective curses.
Not something that would be taken lightly by the Magi if it was discovered. Nor something she wanted the Zatara name to be known for in the modern tension between those of Power and those not. She had already composed a list from his journal of the objects and their last known locations. It would be the right way to begin using her awakening Power before she stepped into the path Clark, Oliver and Chloe had shown her.
The path of something more than a mere illusionist.
The path of a hero.
She'd start with his earliest cursed object—a spoon—and work her way to his last—a comic book. That way she took on the strongest and most dangerous objects after she had some solid experience first. It wasn't as if she had back up, after all.
She thought suddenly again of her new allies. Especially Clark.
And smiled an entirely different sort of smile, her long black lashes lowering over her pale blue eyes and her fair skin flushing.
Perhaps she did.
Maybe Clark wouldn't mind being her back up if she needed it.
Zatanna reached out and ever so gently ran her fingers over her father's face in the photograph, remembering again that day.
And then her thoughts returned once more to that night on the rooftop.
"I'll make you proud, father." She vowed softly. "Your sacrifice won't be in vain. I promise."
It was time to return to Shadowcrest.
Her eyes flared electric blue with the Power as she looked at her father's face in the picture.
"Rehtaf, I evol uoy."
He had bought her time twice now.
And she was going to use it right.