The unmaking of worlds. Something stands between Genetrix and its twin. The Dark One will excise it, and the worlds will be crushed together, and that will be the end of all.”
Sloane’s body jerked to attention. She thought of the thread of light she had seen connecting Genetrix to Earth, at the bottom of the Chicago River.
This world and its twin. The Needle.
The low croak went on. “The Dark One of Genetrix will be hidden, but not secret, with a thirst that will never be slaked.” Sibyl, standing before her cassette player, was mouthing the words along with the recording. “Their Equal is the hope of Genetrix, born marred by magic and mastered by a power previously unknown to us.”
Sloane watched Sibyl’s fingers tapping her leg, as if the prophecy were a song and she was dancing to it. Perhaps it was—perhaps the light threads she had seen made music, like the strings of a violin or a guitar, and the music came to Sibyl in prophecies.
“Twice will Equals greet each other anew, and the fate of the worlds is in their hands.”
Mox was staring at his hands, clasped between his knees so tightly his knuckles had gone white.
The Sibyl of the recording spoke the last line again but so quietly that Sloane could hardly hear it, and then the tape stopped.
“Your eye,” Sloane said. “You’re marred by magic.”
Sibyl was still standing behind her, but she found herself speaking only to Mox.
Mox nodded. He seemed unsteady, like he might shake apart at any moment. “Nero was my teacher for a decade,” Mox said, lower lip trembling slightly. “He betrayed me.” His eyes were locked on Sloane’s, the fault in his iris now imperceptible again without the light shining through it. “He murdered the army meant for the Chosen One, the first Army of Flickering. He blamed it on me. Twisted the prophecy against me.”
The words scraped out of his throat, sending a chill down Sloane’s spine. She thought of the Resurrectionist’s long fingers working stiff thread through the soldier’s detached arm and drawing it tight, of the desperate way he had screamed Ziva’s name in the street near the safe house. If his raised soldiers were the army meant for the Chosen One, then of course he had known them before they died, had trusted them to stand with him against an evil he didn’t comprehend.
Nero. The man with the unquenchable thirst.
They would meet on the battleground of Genetrix, and the fate of the world—the worlds—was in their hands.
EXCERPT FROM
The Magic of Cruelty
by Erica Perez
In his book The Manifestation of Impossible Wants: A New Theory of Magic, Arthur Solowell makes the bold claim that “desire cannot be threatened or manipulated into being.” While I agree that simple threats do not produce reliable magical results, it is naive to suggest that coercion is never effective in influencing magic. Perhaps Mr. Solowell was fortunate enough to grow up in a community of moral adults who never exerted their influence against children, but I was not. I saw the way that cruel parents shaped my peers and, therefore, their desires.
And it came in all forms too. Sometimes a strict religious upbringing turned an open mind into a closed one that could perform only basic, practical workings. Sometimes utter neglect created a complete disregard for boundaries, pushing someone to involve other people in unethical workings. Pressure to succeed at the highest level turned friends away from creativity and imagination in their magic. Emotional abuse twisted a person’s work to become more brutal, less finessed. One of my most talented friends lost the ability to do workings entirely and now lives in St. Louis, a haven city.
A desire is not a whim, as Solowell aptly states. But a desire is not immovable, unchangeable. The variable to consider is power. Who has power over the individual in question? Does anyone have too much power? Are any of those in power abusive spouses, family members, or friends? Is the individual particularly susceptible to manipulation, with a desire to please—or simply to avoid pain? Have they been isolated from their peers or the outside world? We must learn to recognize the signs. We cannot pretend this problem doesn’t exist. The future of our children depends on it.
35
THERE WASN’T MUCH to say after that, so Sibyl invited Sloane and Mox to stay for dinner, likely to fill the silence. Sloane accepted because she didn’t know what else to do. So they were all trapped together in the little house,