Gods fucking damn. I hated him for putting me in this position. Again. But Emma's life hung in the balance. Nothing mattered more to me than saving her life.
So, begrudgingly, I muttered, "Fine. If this somehow saves her life, I promise, I'll do anything—even keep my mouth shut."
He sighed and began pacing, then after a moment crossed to a bench overlooking the lake, sat down, and stared up at the sky—carefully avoiding my eyes. Clasping his hands together,he finally spoke. “How much do you know about the Great Exposure?”
I blinked. What the hell did the exposure have to do with Emma? Unsure of where his story was headed, I decided to go with it for the time being. "Uhm, I know we're getting pretty close now. We've mapped out the countries where we have a consensus?—"
"Do you know when we started to plan it and why?" he cut me off.
I hesitated, careful not to spill any secrets of my own. "About fifteen years ago."
Julian bit the inside of his cheek, then continued in a softer voice. “We've been around as long as non-magical creatures have. There's no reason why NMC’s can live without any restrictions while we must keep ourselves in hiding.”
I exhaled impatiently. "I know all this; that's why we're working toward exposure."
"Yes, but what you don't know is that over time, the buildup of such frustration, such angst…it can make you do things—things you're not proud of, things you regret, and bigger and worse things than you ever imagined yourself capable of.”
He rose to his feet again and started pacing. “You've been on this earth not even half a cycle. I can't even count how much time I've been around without becoming depressed. And yes, I could go see a Healer and end it all if I weren't such a coward. Which I am, undoubtedly."
He then turned to me, and I saw what seemed like tears brimming in his eyes.
"What do you know about the Battle of '59?" he asked quietly.
My brows lifted. "Not much. I know magi fought other magi—the only time in history. Both sides lost thousands, and those who survived had their memories wiped—like Stephen. No one really remembers what the war was about to begin with, asidefrom some magi wanting to expose us to humans and others fighting them."
Julian nodded, sadness in his expression. "That's what most people would answer, I gather."
My patience started thinning. What did the Battle of '59 have to do with saving Emma’s life?
Julian noticed my annoyance and quickly moved on. "During World War II, magi fought among the Allied forces. We helped liberate Europe, and we felt we had never been so close to humans as during and after that war."
I nodded half-heartedly, having no real interest in a history lesson.
"Our closeness with them in the late forties is actually what led to the Battle of '59," he continued, speaking too slowly. "You have to understand, humans were at a point of tolerance they had never been before. They had endured a form of discrimination that had been horrific, and they wanted nothing to do with anything that remotely suggested discrimination.”
“Even segregation in other parts of the world was starting to mellow, and by 1955, they had formed universal treaties and declarations about human rights, to make sure such an event would never happen again. So, we as a community thought maybe, that was the time to…expose ourselves to them."
I motioned my hand for him to hurry up.
"We orchestrated an Exposure," he explained. "Though not asgreatas the one you're all trying to achieve right now. We localized it to Europe, which we thought to be the center of tolerance. The Leader of Coastal took it upon himself to persuade his Council and the rest is fairly the same as it has been going now, except of course, there was no consensus.”
The Leader of Coastal. Back then, that was George. Who was now leading its Resistants. I still had no idea where Julian was going with this.
“But we overestimated the human capacity for understanding translation. As much as we had hoped to be accepted, to live in coexistence, it did not happen. Not even fourteen years after WWII, nemecis turned on us. Every maga and magus they could find—persecuted. By 1959, we were fully at war with European humans.”
Julian stared lifelessly in front of him, visibly haunted by the memories.
I stared, the scale of his revelation sinking in. “So there was a war—but not magi against magi?”
He shook his head. “It was magi versus humans.”
I reeled. “Why the fuck would anyone lie about that?”
Julian simply shrugged, as if the answer were obvious. "To preserve tolerance and peace. To avoid retaliation.”
He translated a small flame with a flick of his fingers, letting it dance between his knuckles before extinguishing it. Then he spoke.
“We erased everything—human memories, magi memories. I wiped Stephen’s mind myself. He asked me to—pleaded, even. He didn’t want to live with the knowledge of what humans were capable of. Ironically, he's now more committed than ever to achieving global exposure.”
