“And how are you going to do that?” I asked.
“Not me. You, Leda. You are going to do it.”
“Assuming blacking out all the world’s magic is possible, which I doubt—”
“Oh, it is very possible. You just need to know how to do it.”
“The curse. That’s why you created the curse,” I realized. “To make people afraid to access their magic because using that magic almost surely meant their death.” I considered her closely. “You’re a telepath. We labeled this thing a curse, like it was made from fairy magic. But the curse isn’t fairy magic, is it? It’s telepathic magic. The curse is…well, it’s nothing but an idea. Your spell planted the idea in people’s heads that their magic had turned against them. And so their magic does turn against them. Idea becomes reality.”
Faith just kept knitting; her creation, whatever it was, was all the way down to her lap by now. “Ideas are very powerful. My idea, the idea of the curse, has silenced the world’s magic. But not yet all of it.”
“The gods and demons still use magic,” I said.
“And so do the monsters.”
“Good luck silencing the monsters,” I told her. “The Legion of Angels has been trying to accomplish that for centuries. Their magic is too chaotic, too wild.”
“That’s where you come in, Angel of Chaos. You have power over the beasts. You’re just going to do what you did to the monsters at the Silver Shore. Just like I told you to do.”
The Silver Shore…
“You…you put those dreams of Nero in my mind.”
“Of him, of his father, and of your father.”
“Damiel, the real Damiel just now at the gala, he said he never trained me in telepathic resistance. For days, you have been putting the image of Damiel in my mind, making me think he was training me…” I shook my head. “But he seemed so real.”
“I drew on your memories of him,” Faith told me. “I prompted your mind to create a Damiel Dragonsire real enough to fool itself.”
“So my mind was effectively fooling itself.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
I tried to work through what she’d said. “Faris was in my dreams. Except that was you too. Because of those dreams, I thought my mind was too weak to keep out the gods and demons. So I sought out Damiel’s help to make me stronger. But it was never Damiel; it was you. And you used those training sessions, those mental attacks, to weaken my mind.” I chewed on my lower lip. “And what of my dreams of Nero? Were those fake too?”
“Naturally. Emotional turmoil weakens mental defenses.”
I scowled at her. “You don’t have a shred of decency in you, do you, Faith?”
Anger flashed in her eyes. “I am decent. Do you think I wanted to do all this? Believe me, I didn’t. But I have no choice. It’s the only way.”
“How can killing that many people and making everyone afraid to use their magic possibly be the only way to anything?” I demanded.
Faith shook her head. “You don’t understand. It is the only way. For a few minutes, I can’t have anyone on Earth use any magic.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the only way to find my brother!”
I twirled my finger around. “Backtrack. What does no one using their magic have to do with finding your brother?”
She expelled a frustrated sigh. “I told you he went missing and I couldn’t find him. Well, I actually do know who took him. It was the Guardians.”
“Your brother is a telepath too, isn’t he? Like you.”
“He is,” she confirmed.
“And he’s as powerful as you?”
“Yes.”
That explained why the Guardians had taken him. They were collecting powerful supernaturals. Well, Faith was the most powerful telepath I’d ever met. Her magic was so seamless, so perfect. She’d completely fooled me.
“And now you’re trying to rescue your brother from the Guardians,” I said.
“Yes.”
“But, seriously, what does no one on Earth using their magic have to do with finding him?”
“All the magic in the world, it’s so noisy.” She waved her hands on either side of her head, sending ripples across her knitting. “Like an ocean of crashing waves, always moving, never resting. I need it to be quiet, so I can focus on a very particular magic. The Guardians’ magic.”
If she could do that, it meant Faith wasn’t just a powerful telepath; she was also a unicorn, a magic sensor. It was one of the eight kinds of passive magic that Cadence and Damiel had described to me.
“So you’re trying to find the Guardians’ Sanctuary,” I said.
“Finding it is not the problem. I know exactly where their Sanctuary is. It’s here, on Earth.”
I’d been told the Guardians’ Sanctuary was in a different realm.
“The Sanctuary is in a different realm, just not on a different world,” she said.
She’d read my thoughts again. Damn it!
“Their Sanctuary is here. It’s actually many smaller sanctuaries. They are hiding in plain sight, where the gods have no power.”
In plain sight…where the gods have no power…
“The plains of monsters,” I realized.
“Wow, you actually are as smart as people say.” She sounded surprised.
“The Guardians are living on the plains of monsters?”
“Well, not exactly on the plains of monsters. Their Sanctuary of sanctuaries exists in a slightly different dimension, just a little offset from our own. That’s why it’s impossible for people to get there, even using teleportation magic. Right now, the only ways in or out are tiny gateways we can’t see or feel.” She knitted as fast as she spoke, and her creation was taking shape; it looked like a chain. “All the wild magic from the monsters masks the Guardians’ Sanctuary and seals it off from us. And the busy magic across the world makes those gateways even more impossible to find.”
“It’s so noisy,” I repeated her earlier words.
“Right,” Faith said. “But if I could silence all the world’s magic for a short while, including all the monsters’ magic, then in the silence, I could find the narrow, barely-perceptible passage into the Guardians’ secret place. I could find a way to my brother. So you see, Leda, this really is the only way to save him. And I will save him, make no mistake about that.”
“Even if saving your brother means killing tons of other people?”
“Yes.” Faith’s eyes sparkled with the madness of unwavering determination.
“You’re right, Faith. I don’t understand,” I told her. “Like you, I had my brother taken from me, stolen by the Guardians. And also like you, I am determined to rescue him.” I slammed my fist into my open palm. “But not by sacrificing everyone else. You would bring down the whole world to get your brother back? That’s not right.”
“You sing of virtue, but for all your efforts, you still haven’t gotten your brother back,” she replied. “He’s been gone for two years, and you’ve made no progress at all. So what if you gain the power of Ghost’s Whisper? Telepathic magic might help you find him, but it won’t help you save him. Because you can’t get into the Guardians’ Sanctuary. The only way to save your brother, my brother, and all the others trapped there is by doing things my way. And my way requires sacrifice. You know what they say. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.”