Julian snorted. “Didn’t see that one coming.”
I kept my mouth shut on that last comment. No need to tell Julian Stephen was actually a Resistant himself.
Julian dragged in a slow breath, his eyes distant. Then, with a flick of his fingers, he translated a little mooshy ball into his hand—plain, black, and worn around the edges. He began squeezing it slowly, rhythmically, like it was the only thing keeping his thoughts from unraveling.
“We rewrote history,” he said quietly. “Allowed only a handful—myself included—to remember, just to ensure exposure would never be attempted again.” He gave the objectanother hard squeeze. “But I kept believing in it. I want to coexist. Always have, always will.”
I nodded, still completely in the dark about what any of this had to do with Emma. But I was starting to sense she was part of something far bigger than I’d ever imagined.
“After the battle of ’59, while pledging to keep our world from ever exposing itself again in public,” Julian continued, “I assembled a covert team in the shadows. Six magi, all on this earth for over six cycles: four Specialists, one Leader, and one Healer. Our sole mission: to find a path to exposure. To acceptance by humans.” He gave a small, tired smirk that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Sounds simple enough, right?”
I eyed him carefully. He looked so…defeated.
“For years, we studied every case of individual exposure. Interviewed magi married to humans. Tried to understand what led to tolerance.” His fingers curled tighter around the ball. “But it always came down to one thing—we were too different. Too powerful. Too long-lived. Humans would never accept us.”
He paused, his shoulders sagging beneath the weight of memory.
“The gap between our species was simply too vast for any coexistence,” he continued, absently rotating the ball in one hand. “It’s crucial to remember that for humans, technological advancements have taken a tremendous leap forward in the last fifty years. Before that, even basic forms of electricity were considered ‘dangerous’ or ‘abnormal.’”
He gave a bitter, humorless chuckle and wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his sleeve.
“Can you imagine their reactions if we had presented them with a Nexus in the Middle Ages?” he asked. “Or even a lightbulb?”
His grip tightened again—this time not in stress, but in decision.
“So, we thought… What if we lessened the difference?” His voice dropped, quieter. “What if we could offer humans the choice to be like us?”
I stared at him, hanging on every word now, completely absorbed in his confession.
Then, in a single motion, Julian released the stress ball and let it vanish from his hand. A bottle of vodka replaced it with a quiet pop. He unscrewed the cap and took a long, deliberate sip.
“What the hell did you do?” I whispered.
He drank again, then offered me the bottle.
He stared at the label for a second, then set the bottle down beside him with more force than necessary, the dull clunk against the bench echoing his frustration.
“It took us longer than expected,” he said, rubbing his palms together, “but we finally figured out a way to implant our energy in humans.”
He looked straight at me, and I stared back at him.
What. The. Fuck.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“If we could replicate our powers for humans, we could give people thechoiceof whether or not they wanted to be like us. It sounded so simple and noble back then,” he said, voice hitching with emotion. “We just wanted to include everyone. Coexist!”
There was a desperation in his tone now—an urgency like heneededme to understand him, to see the hope that used to be there.
“I’m sorry,” I interrupted, blinking at him. “But are you telling me you wanted to create magi out of humans?”
He nodded, slowly, his hand drifting back to the bottle like it might anchor him.
And in his silence, I saw it—shame, thick and suffocating, eating him alive.
"Oh my gods…" I gasped, utterly shocked. “How is that even possible?”
"It’s not. We had to bend the rules of nature to achieve what we did. The problem with playing one of the Gods, though, is you forget your own limits, you forget about human limits.”
