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“Okay, so we turn it over,” Zheng said. “At least we know Aeslinn goes night-night—”
“And how many of his people?” I demanded. “How many of the fey in general? You’ve seen those things! We can’t turn them loose on anyone, not to mention that the only person who can control them is their maker—”
“We don’t know that!”
“—who is a dangerous dark mage!”
“He’s a dark mage.” Zheng hiked a thumb at Ranbir, who’d been sitting quietly all this time. “But he turned this over to us.”
“I’m more of a medium gray,” Ranbir said modestly.
“Why did you turn it over?” I asked. “And why did you leave us, anyway?”
“I had the map. It also serves as a communication device, and Jonathan texted me. He offered me a fortune to betray you—”
“But you betrayed him instead.”
He shrugged. “I know the type. This much power in his hands?” He shook his head. “I like money, but it doesn’t do you much good if there’s no world left to spend it in.”
Zheng scowled. “Tree hugger.”
“Pragmatist.”
“Whatever. Point is, I am not going to burn for this, okay?” He looked at Louis-Cesare and I. “You want it your way, fine, then pull my nuts out of the fire. And you might want to think about your own while you’re at it. The consul isn’t going to be any happier with either of you.”
He glanced at Ranbir. “And she’ll outright kill you.”
“That would be . . . distressing.”
“So, what do you want?” I asked. “A next level mentalist who can erase this from all our memories, someone we trust enough to do it, and somebody who isn’t gonna do it, and then abscond with an army and take over the world. Is that what you’re asking for?”
Zheng crossed his arms and gave me his best glare. “I will not burn. Find a—”
There was a knock on the door.
“What the hell?” Zheng was on his feet in an instant, furious. “When I say we’re not to be disturbed, I mean it, damn it!”
“Please do not blame your men,” came a familiar, soothing voice through the flimsy wood. “They simply . . . forgot.”
The door opened and I turned around to see Hassani standing there, looking like an angel in brilliantly white robes.
“How did you get here?” I asked.
“Bahram and Rashid are good boys. A bit rambunctious at times, it is true, but they have a useful talent. Together, they can summon a portal from anywhere they have been to anywhere they are. They cannot hold it for long and it takes two of them to channel enough power, so it is not a very useful master’s gift for them. But I have made use of it, many times.”
“You said to call you—”
“And I am sure you would have, eventually. But it seems that you need my help now.”
“Your help?”
I suddenly remembered what he said when he came in. And then I remembered something else: all he’d suffered, and that his people had suffered, at the hand of a so-called god. There was nobody in the world I trusted more to know the dangers of absolute power, and to avoid them like the fucking plague.
“Tell me you’re a mentalist,” I said, fervently.
“I am not, as it happens. I do know one, however.” He stepped aside, and—
“Maha?”
