Page 12 of A Case of Possession
“Ignorewhat? Why would anyone think that?”
“It’s stupid,” Stephen said. “It’s mostly a misunderstanding, really. It’s you.”
“Me?”
Stephen sighed. “Lucien, every time we, you know, do anything, it leaves me flying. You, in me, the Magpie Lord, the power. I can’t hide it. Peoplenotice. I’ve got a source of external power and nobody knows what it is and…”
He tailed off. Crane waited, unsure of his meaning, and then abruptly realized what he didn’t want to say.
“Are you telling me your colleagues think you’re stripping people?” Crane had seen firsthand the effects of that practice, when warlocks used other people as sources of power and drained the life from them in the process. Stephen had told him that particular exploitation was what defined a warlock. “But for God’s sake, Stephen, you wouldn’t do that. Surely they know you wouldn’t.”
Stephen winced. “There’s nothing else obvious to explain the power.Idon’t have an explanation. What are they supposed to think?”
“Can’t you just tell them the truth?” Crane thought about that for two seconds and added, “Your partner, at least. Without going into detail.”
“I could tell Esther what happens when you take me to bed, yes,” Stephen said. “I really don’t want to. Or I could simply explain that you are an immense source of power and hope she doesn’t ask how I get at it, although of course she would. But yes, either way, I could tell her you’re the source, and then she could take it back to the Council to explain why I shouldn’t be on a watch list.”
“Right. And you’re not doing this because…?”
Stephen twisted round to face him. “Have you forgotten what happened the last time practitioners knew about the power in your blood?”
“They were warlocks.”
“They were practitioners. Lucien, you’re a human source like none other. And you know how desperate we can get. You’ve seen it. The hunger for power makes the drive for money or sex look like a, ahobby, and you’re a walking fountain of it. Don’t you see? It would be like telling a pack of hungry dogs about a particularly juicy bone.” He gave a half-laugh. “For God’s sake. If word got round about what happens when we go to bed, there’d be a queue all down the street for your services. You’d have half the Council ready to bend over for you.”
“How good-looking are your Council?”
“Not.”
“Damn.”
“It’s the least of your worries,” Stephen said. “Because the other half would already be thinking of how to get their hands on your blood, without consideration of your preferences.”
“This is your Council you’re talking about. They must be reputable people, surely?”
“Oh, it would all be reputable. There would be a ‘need for study’. A ‘consideration of the Magpie Lord’s legacy’. An ‘assessment of the greater good’. But it would mean they’d get their hands on you and not let go. Maybe they might let me see you—”
“Let?”
“I do not trust my colleagues in this matter.” Stephen’s voice was thin. “That’s the size of it, Lucien. I think that too many people would want a piece of you, for what they can do through you, and I couldn’t protect you from the best of them, let alone the worst.”
Crane ran his fingers through Stephen’s hair. “But would this bloody magpie business have to get out? Couldn’t your partner explain for you without discussing the specifics?”
“Perhaps. I don’t know. It would be a lot to put on her. It would be her duty to pass it on the Council, of course, but she makes her own judgements. She might cover for me if I told her everything. It’s just…” A long pause. “I don’t want to do that.”
“I thought you trusted her.”
“I do,” Stephen said. “We trust each other with our lives. Literally. If I were to tell anyone, it would be her. But she still has me on a watch list, because she has to accept that I might turn. And I still don’t want to tell her, because it’s safer if nobody knows but me.” His lips curved into something the same shape as a smile. “One can’t be sentimental about practitioners, you see. Anyone can fall.”
Crane shut his eyes against the misery in Stephen’s face. “I don’t want you sacrificing yourself to protect me. I’m not subject to your bloody Council.”
“Let’s keep it that way. And I’m not sacrificing myself. I’m not abusing my powers, I’m not a warlock, and I won’t be caught, because I’m not doing anything wrong. This watch-list business is a stupid misunderstanding, nothing more. It’s just that it limits my options if I should run into trouble. That’s all I’m worried about.”
It clearly wasn’t all. Crane sighed. “I can’t stop you from being arrested, I suppose, but if you are, you do know that I will apply the entire resources of my wealth to dealing with it. Including the services of a firm of lawyers who are more like moray eels than human beings.”
“Yes.”
Crane frowned at the flat tone. “Stephen, I mean it. I won’t let you go to trial, let alone prison. I can prevent that and I will.”
