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Silence stretched between us while he tried to win me over with the full effect of his sad, bleeding-heart eyes. He reminded me of an Alsatian—cute to look at from afar, but ready to bite your hand off if you got too close. Honestly, I was mostly stalling for time as I attempted to form some kind of response to his cry for help.

Finally, I straightened my back and lifted my chin, the way my mom always did when faced with a hard decision. “I might’ve considered it at another time, but I’m not just going to forget about all the terrible things you’ve done. My friend survived, but you still killed her. And you’ve now kidnapped me twice. Don’t you think it’s a little too late for you to ask for my help?” He was doing exactly as I’d advised him in the fishery, to just ask, but I couldn’t get rid of the image of a deathly pale, motionless, fallen Genie. It didn’t matter that she’d been resurrected. She’d still died for long enough for me to feel the loss of her, and that trauma clung to me like a tangle of barbed wire, even without the kidnappings and his people’s hatred of mine to add the bitter cherry on top.

He emulated my stance, sitting up taller. “Then yer as heartless as I was told yer kind are. Ye only care about yer kind, and the rest of us who ain’t magic can go te hell.” His eyes narrowed, a stubborn pride hardening the lines of his sculpted face. “Ye say I should’ve asked outright, like it would’ve been so easy. Like ye wouldn’t have tried te mindwipe me if ye found out I knew about witchy folk. Ye seem te be forgettin’, I’ve seen people after they’ve had their memories scooped out, and it ain’t a pretty sight. It ain’t morally right, neither, but witches don’t care about that, do they? Ye don’t have any morals, unless it’s te do with yer own people. If I told ye that witches would get infected by this curse, I bet ye’d be jumpin’ out yer seat te help me. But I ain’t a liar, so I’m not about te make stuff up.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or punch him again. Did he really think he had the moral high ground, after what he’d done? And the irony was that he wasn’t even right. Yes, there were non-magicals who’d had their minds wiped in exceptional circumstances, but there were also non-magicals like my aunt who worked for the magical world as an educator and an envoy. Besides, mindwiping was generally only performed to avoid the wider non-magical world finding out about us and waging a fear-fueled war against us.

“I don’t know where you’re getting your intel, but you’ve clearly got the wrong idea about us.” I turned the frozen peas over on my knuckles to keep myself from punching him again. “We’ve helped countless non-magicals like you, and we’ve done it without mindwiping. Usually we just ask for voluntary silence, so non-magicals don’t get trigger-happy and try to wipe us off the face of the Earth.”

“Oh, ‘cause ye wouldn’t fry the lot of us first with them sparks ye shoot out your hands!” he shot back.

I clenched my jaw. “I don’t shoot sparks out of my hands. I don’t have any abilities at all, other than vomiting up monsters. I thought I was non-magical, too, until I turned eighteen. Someone put a curse on me that makes me vomit said monsters. So, don’t pretend you’ve got some monopoly on unwanted curses.”

He tilted his head, his eyes widening slightly. “Do these monsters ye throw up hurt people?”

“Occasionally, if I’m not fast enough to catch them,” I replied, thinking of my first Purge—the hydra that had almost bitten off Kes’s head. But that was a long time ago now, and my control had improved exponentially since then. “But I don’t hurt people. Not like you do.”

He growled in the back of his throat and I flinched, terrified he was going to turn again, but he didn’t. “That ain’t me. Aren’t ye listenin’ te a word I’m sayin’? Ye should understand better than anyone where I’m comin’ from. The Fear Dearg hurts people, not me. And don’t start harpin’ on about that car battery again. That were a terrible idea on my part, but I’d never have used it on ye. It were supposed to intimidate ye, and then I went an electrocuted meself, so I s’pose I got me just desserts on that one.” He brushed a curl out of his eye.

I eyed him coolly. “Yes, I do understand that something like this, totally beyond your control, is terrifying. What I don’t understand is why you keep coming to me when you’ve clearly been brainwashed to hate magical people? Do you think you can just use me the way you use stolen magical items against the people who made them? I haven’t forgotten the Atomic Cuffs. You have to show respect to gain respect, and you haven’t given me any reason to want to help you. How do I know you won’t just kill me after you’re done with me?”

He slammed his fist into the garish velvet of the sofa. “We ain’t like yer lot. That ain’t what we do.”

There are broken souls in the States who’d beg to differ. I bit my tongue, not wanting to reveal too much about what I knew regarding the missing magical cases my parents were working on. If Reid was part of the same organization who’d tortured those poor people, then saying the wrong thing could put my mom and dad, as well as others at the SDC, in danger. The Veritas or the witch hunters or whoever they were would know that magicals were onto them, and I couldn’t let that happen.

“Ye just said that yer kind has helped normal people before, so why not me? Can’t ye just… look past yer anger toward me, and think about the other people who’re in trouble? They’re turnin’ into Fear Deargs, too. People close te me.” He gripped the edge of the sofa until his knuckles whitened, his face tensing with stress. “Innocent people are gettin’ sick and some are close te dyin’, while there’s others who might do what I did te yer friend, against their will. Remember, not everyone has some magic fella around te bring them back te life when that happens, like yer friend did.”

My mouth gaped, rendered speechless for the second time today. I hadn’t realized the contagious part of his curse could actually kill the people it infected. Not everyone had the ability to overcome the symptoms. The strong would likely survive, while the weak perished, their bodies consumed by the monster of Chaos. But there were no preventative measures for something like this, other than total avoidance. Even then, once the Fear Dearg took over, it didn’t care what its host wanted. It ran wild. I’d already seen that for myself. And the idea of having a horde of Fear Deargs running loose, infecting anyone and everyone they came into contact with, petrified me.

He’s got a valid point. It only took one—him—to kill Genie.And he hadn’t been in control when that happened. If this got out of hand and spread outside of his Veritas folks, it would kill countless people, either from the infection itself or because of the monster they became. Plus, if these were weird human-monster hybrids, then it wasn’t likely they’d fit into our jurisdiction as monster hunters. Nobody at the Institute would have the authority to capture them, and even if they managed to get permission from the powers that be, I imagined that would cause a major headache for magical and non-magical relations—unless the curse could be reversed somehow. Then it might be a case of temporary capture, followed by treatment and release. And, probably, some necessary mindwiping. I kept my thoughts to myself, as they would only bolster Reid’s prejudice that we were cruel, selfish, non-magical haters.

I cleared my throat. “By innocent people, do you mean witch hunters?”

“It don’t matter what they do for a livin’. They don’t deserve te be in this situation because some witch meddled with me, and I infected them. And we won’t be able te keep it contained forever. It’s already snowballin’.” He glanced down at a battered-looking watch on his wrist, his knee jiggling as if he was on a tight deadline. “This is vengeance or somethin’, from a witch who knew I was onto them and didn’t want no secrets gettin’ exposed.”

Part of mewondered if he was right. Desperate times called for desperate measures, as Reid himself had shown. Perhaps there was someone out there who’d gotten sick of being tailed by him, or his witch hunter pals, and had decided to hit him with some payback. Although, if the goal of the curse was to keep the magical world from being exposed, it didn’t seem like a very wise way to go about it. No, it seemed far more likely that it was retaliation of some kind.

“Then you probably already know who did this to you.” I fought to hide any smidgen of sympathy I might’ve felt for his plight. “I suggest you go through what I’m sure is a list of magicals you’ve been tracking, and circle the one you’ve pissed off the most. That’s where you’ll find your answer, and then you can harass them for a cure instead of me.”

He massaged the back of his neck. “You think I haven’t already tried that? I told you, I’m at a dead end with this. That’s why I’m speakin’ te ye.”

My kidnapper and his witch hunter buddies had done wrong by pursuing magicals, but if a magical had saddled Reid with this curse out of spite, then we weren’t entirely innocent, either. I felt myself wavering, and weirder still, I couldn’t ignore what he’d said earlier, that we were in similar boats. He’d been forced into becoming a dangerous monster the same way I’d been forced into Purging them. Maybe I’d lost the plot, but there was a trickle of sympathy in me that was flowing faster by the minute. Besides, agreeing to help him didn’t mean helping him, per se; more importantly, I would be helping out people who were the subsidiary victims of what had been done to him. That was a far easier pill to swallow… unless I was right about these “innocents” being witch hunters. Still, he’d said they wouldn’t be able to keep it contained forever within the Veritas, and I did not want this curse spreading into the general population. Maybe that was worth helping out the bad guys, for the future sake of the true innocents—the non-magicals who had no idea Chaos and curses existed.

I hesitated, hardly able to believe what I was about to say. “Okay. You’re cursed. I’m cursed. And no, I don’t want a horde of Fear Deargs on the loose, either, bringing death and suffering into the wider world. So, say I did help you—I’d need some assurances first.”

“Like what?” He lifted an eyebrow in suspicion.

“One: if the people who are suffering are witch hunters, you don’t say a word to them about me or anyone else I bring in to figure this out. Come up with an excuse, say you got the cure from a random magical but they escaped afterward, whatever you want. Two: once you’re cured, you don’t come anywhere near this part of the world again. Three: you don’t tell a soul what you saw my friend do to save my other friend. You don’t mention the resurrection, you don’t try to use it for your own ends, you don’t say anything. Four: stop tying me up and kidnapping me to get what you want. Or anyone else, for that matter. From now on, you send word to me in a normal way, and I’ll decide if I want to meet with you. Five: you listen to me and try to educate yourself on magical-kind, and don’t try anything funny. Six: you swallow your pride and learn to respect us and what we do. That means no name calling, and no showing prejudice against us—or else this agreement is off. If you don’t abide by those rules, then I’ll inform my people and have them treat you accordingly. And it won’t go well for you, I can assure you.” I rattled the words out, quickfire, then waited for his response.

I knew the monster hunters wouldn’t actually be able to do much about Reid and his merry men, whoever and wherever they might be, but I needed to make the Institute and its defenses sound formidable. I had to make sure he understood that there were some high stakes in operation here, and if he tried to play me, I’d unleash a horde of ruthless, magical warriors on him and the organization he worked for. He’d used enough intimidation tactics on me; it was time he got a taste of his own medicine.

I didn’t know where I’d even begin, removing a curse like this.It would take some investigating, and trying to convince Nathan and Genie that this was a good idea would probably result in men in white coats running to take me away. But I had the instinctive feeling that helping him would benefit us, if only to stop a bigger, more dangerous catastrophe further down the line.

Reid’s mouth spread into a relieved smile, transforming his face into a vision of warmth. His umber eyes glittered with gratitude. “Thank ye. I ain’t one for poetry or pretty words, so I don’t know how te say it in a better way, but… ye’ve no idea what this means te me.” He grinned wider. “As for yer assurances—I’ll abide by them, but I’ve got one of me own.”

“What?” I squinted warily.

“Promise ye’ll not try and pulverize me again. Me face is a lot nicer when I don’t look like I’ve just lost a barfight.” He chuckled, and I was annoyed to find the sound endearing. “And I’d like te be able to breathe without me ribs stingin’.”

I nodded. “I’ll do my best.”

“I’ve already put me number in yer phone so ye can get in touch with me. I thought about puttin’ it under ‘bastard,’ since that’s what ye kept callin’ me the other day, but I settled on me actual name instead.” He dug in the pocket of his jeans for my phone, handing it back to me. “Ye know, for a witch, ye ain’t so bad.”

“For a non-magical, you’re not on my list of favorites,” I retorted, irritated by the automatic tug that wanted to curve my lips into a smile.

He laughed. “Maybe I’ll creep up the ranks. Stranger things have happened. Us, sittin’ here without stranglin’ each other, for one.”

“If I didn’t have somewhere to be, there might’ve still been time for that.” I refused to be sucked in by his sudden shift into easygoing charm, no matter how much he smoldered at me with his smiley eyes. I’d agreed to help him as a favor to his curse’s victims, so the effects couldn’t cause any more damage, and that was where it ended. This was a twisted doctor/patient scenario, nothing more.

“I’ll not see ye out, in case that resurrectin’ fella spots me.” He stayed sitting. “But… thanks again. I mean it. Maybe it’s the non-magical part of ye that makes ye a good person.”

I arched a withering eyebrow at him as I got up. “Or maybe you’ve just let yourself believe we’re villains when we’re nothing of the sort. Oh, and that’s you breaking rule number six already.”

“Ah… sorry. That one’ll take some getting’ used te.”

“I’ll let it slide in the pursuit of educating you. Magicals might have abilities, but it doesn’t mean we’re the enemy. You’d see that if you’d open your mind a bit and commit to rule six.” I walked to the door and glanced back. “If we wanted to hurt non-magicals or exert our dominance, don’t you think we would have done so already? We don’t keep the secret of our existence to be sneaky. We keep it so it doesn’t start a war that would see massive losses on both sides. People fear things they can’t explain, and that fear leads to violence. We’re just trying to protect all of us from getting nuked. Think about that.” I left him with those parting words and headed out of the trailer to find Nathan.

He’s going to think I’ve gone insane. But I’d made my decision to help this guy, and I wasn’t the sort of person who went back on her word. As I made my way through the outskirts of the market toward the hubbub of the main aisles, a poem sprang to mind. The words of Adam Lindsay Gordon bolstered my resolve:

Life is mostly froth and bubble,

Two things stand like stone.

Kindness in another’s trouble,

Courage in your own.