And still there was Kincaid. With his gun.
She looked up to see Hartgrave, back on his feet, casting in her direction. Magic crackled around her, forming a protective bubble like Willi’s.
“Don’t touch it!” Hartgrave said.
She almost argued. His arms shook; his face shone with sweat. But she had to give him a chance to get the gun.
“Sir,” Shaw croaked. “Help—help me ...”
Kincaid didn’t even look at her. He turned to Hartgrave, and only the grim press of the wizard’s lips suggested the situation was not to his liking.
“We’re long overdue for a rational conversation, don’t you think?” Kincaid said.
“Go to hell,” Hartgrave said, the words rasping.
Kincaid made a casual gesture toward the bubble around Willi and Bernie. His spell ate a hole right through it, sending Willi sprawling in an effort to avoid a similar fate. Bernie, still flat on his back, didn’t react.
She swallowed with effort, throat dry, body overheated, and refused to consider what Bernie’s lack of movement probably meant.
“No, not this again,” Kincaid said, and she jerked around in time to see the gun—hovering in the air—leap back into his hand. There it stayed, though Hartgrave’soutstretched hands spoke to his continued efforts to spellcast it away.
He was so tired, and Kincaid was not.
“You always were a challenge,” the wizard said. He sounded almost paternal. Emily shuddered.
“Were you always a sociopath?” Hartgrave inquired.
“Alexander.”
“Oh? You have a different definition of someone who kills people solely because they realize they can use magic?”
Kincaid holstered his gun and clasped his hands behind his back, which showed how confident he was in his armor. Even after what had happened to Crawford and Shaw, he had no fear.
“That’s shortsighted thinking and you know it,” Kincaid said pleasantly.
“Shortsighted?Shortsighted?”
“The die was cast once someone foolishly introduced magic into computer chips. I’ve only ever tried to manage it in a way that allows the world to continue in the manner to which it has become accustomed, while preventing the total anarchy magic would otherwise cause. How could governments handle a citizenry that cannot be incarcerated? How would authorities prevent warring in the streets?”
It was a twisted version of Hartgrave’s argument the night before. It sounded as if Kincaid genuinely believed what he was saying.
“I’m saving lives,” he said. “Billions of them. If a few must be ended to make that possible, I really have no choice, don’t you see?”
Willi reacted with an inhuman sound of grief and rage. The phrase struck her like a physical blow as well.No choice. That was what she’d thought about her own situation. That was why she’d resolved to kill these three wizards, why two were dead or dying already.
Hartgrave gave a bitter laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous. What about a magical crisis-response team rather than a den of assassins?”
“This is the only reliable method. You know that.”
“There’salwaysa choice,” Hartgrave insisted. “You chose evil.”
“I chose you, if you’ll recall—”
“Oh, I do recall.” Hartgrave curled his fingers into fists. “I recall that every day. What did you see in me that shouted ‘Organization material’? I was a selfish, angry little sod, was that it?”
Emily clenched her own hands to restrain herself from barreling through and throwing herself in front of him. Was he trying to provoke the man?
Kincaid sighed. “I thought you had the intelligence to appreciate the need for this work.”
