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“Why? I was there—”
“And you gave your statement last night. I don’t know what the hell you’re even doing here.”
“Supporting my master.”
“Supporting—she is not your master!”
“Yeah, well. We’re in negotiations.”
And suddenly something shifted behind Marlowe’s eyes. The rich brown went dark and flat and dead, and I put a hand on Ray’s arm because he did not need to make a wrong move right now. Not that I thought it was too likely. He’d frozen in place, the bones in his wrist going completely rigid. It was like I was gripping a statue.
Until Marlowe said: “Get. Out.”
Ray got out.
Sometimes he could be smart.
There was a momentary lull while coffee cups were refilled and Marlowe presumably choked down his desire to kill everyone in sight.
“If it’s something that they can do naturally, then why does it drive them mad?” I finally asked.
“There is nothing natural about what Jonathan does,” Louis-Cesare said.
But Radu shook his head. “A mage consuming someone else’s magic is no more unnatural than a human taking drugs. The problem is the amount.”
“Jonathan is overdosing?” I guessed.
“In a way, yes. But he doesn’t really have a choice at this point. It is possible to extend a mage’s life, but it requires a great deal of energy. And as the years pass, the amount needed grows, as their human side breaks down and they become more and more dependent on magic to survive. Considering his age, it is safe to say that Jonathan receives all or almost all of his life energy from magic, and his body cannot possibly produce so much on its own.”
“But it’s still just magic.”
“Yes, but it isn’t his, you see. And mages are supposed to feed off a mix of food and magical sources. When they start feeding their bodies only magic, it throws off that balance. And when they begin feeding them multiple different types of magic, since it is not usually possible to obtain as much as they require from a single source, and when some of those types are not even human…”
“They short-circuit their brains.”
“Something like that. It’s very much like a human taking too many drugs, and mixing them in ways they weren’t designed to be mixed. It rarely ends well.”
“None of which is the point,” Marlowe said severely.
“The point is, where is he getting it?” Mircea said.
Marlowe nodded. “He is hemorrhaging magic every moment, simply by existing. Not to mention any spells he may do, and if he was the one behind last night’s fiasco—” He threw up his hands. “Even were he on the premises—”
“He wasn’t,” I replied. “At least, that’s what he said.”
“He was likely telling you the truth. He is not one to risk his own neck,” Louis-Cesare said bitterly.
“Which means he was having to project over a distance,” Marlowe said. “Which requires even more energy. Someone, somewhere, is feeding him a great deal of power. A very great deal.”
“Which may well be why we haven’t heard from him,” Radu pointed out. “He doesn’t need Louis-Cesare if he is being fed, so to speak, by someone else.”
“But why?” I asked. “What does a smuggling ring need with an ancient, crazy necromancer?”
“This isn’t about a smuggling ring!” Marlowe snapped.
Mircea agreed. “Smugglers work best in secret, trying to hide their tracks and avoid the authorities. They rarely provoke them, and certainly not in such ways.”
“Then who does?” I asked.
