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My armored, fire-spitting, colossal creation dropped to all fours, the click of his huge claws on the hard floor a foreboding omen as he approached Reid. I stood surrounded by the remaining ashes of Gren, my pixies perched on my shoulders, unable to utter a single sound to stop my new Purge from attacking the man I’d come here to help. I knew I should say something, but my head felt too fuzzy with fury and grief and betrayal and the draining fatigue of Purging something so… gargantuan. There was no other word for him. Weirder still, he seemed to be the living embodiment of all those intense emotions that hammered through my veins: the anger, the resentment, the hurt, the loss, the wrenching anguish of having my na?ve kindness turned against me, seeing my friends injured because they’d wanted to protect me. In a twisted way, this monster made sense. Why else would I have Purged a battle-ready warrior, if not to defend the people and beings that I loved most from those who’d made themselves my enemies?

As my monster edged closer to the last man standing, I headed toward Nathan and Genie. Reid wouldn’t be able to outrun the Purge beast, even if he suddenly changed his mind and decided he wanted out. It gave me the opportunity I needed to check on my friends, to make sure they weren’t… dead. I knelt beside Genie first, then Nathan, pressing my fingers to their necks. Two strong pulses gave me a sliver of comfort that I hadn’t lost them.

Satisfied, though aware that I needed to get them back to the Institute soon, I turned back to join my monster in front of Reid.

“I just wanted to help. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.” Words finally tumbled out of my mouth as I neared my monster. Atlas, I would call him, because he looked like he really might’ve been able to bear the weight of the celestial heavens on his massive shoulders.

Atlas growled a few inches from Reid’s face. Smoke puffed out of his nostrils as his leonine head drew back, his jaws opening in a bone-shaking roar. I wasn’t even close to Reid, but I could feel the heat of Atlas’s fiery breath. Still, Reid didn’t move. He just kept standing there, staring into the eyes of the creature that could kill him at any moment.

“Neither did I,” Reid replied calmly.

I walked the length of Atlas’s long, spiny body, coming to a halt beside the monster’s head and reaching out to place a hand between two of his three horns. He still seemed to be listening to me on some telepathic level. As though hearing this thought, he glanced at me with flaming red eyes and gave a quiet snort. I am here for you, it communicated. He was waiting on me to decide what I wanted to do with Reid. The roaring and the smoke and the hot breath were just intimidation tactics to keep Reid in line until I made up my mind.

“Is this how Veritas repays kindness?” I asked Reid. “Your people killed my monster and hurt my friends. I know that’s all he was to your kind—a beast—but I gave him life, and they obliterated him.” My voice shook with sadness, a lump lodged in my throat as I glanced back at the last specks of ash and the still-unconscious bodies of Genie and Nathan. “Do you have any idea how that feels?”

Reid nodded toward Atlas. “I can guess. He’s yer rage and pain in living form, right? Fire and brimstone.”

“No… He might be the embodiment of what I’m feeling, but there’s no fire in here.” I beat my palm against my chest. “It’s ice. That’s what betrayal feels like, and that’s what regret feels like. There’s no warmth in it.”

“I’m sorry, Persie.” He used my shortened name for the first time, his voice soft and sorrowful. “I ain’t goin’ te run like them cowards. I owe it te ye, te face ye—person te person. Even if there’s a fire-breathin’ lion sort of creature starin’ at me, too.”

I held my nerve. “Are you any better than them? You didn’t lift a finger to help.”

“I know.” He lowered his gaze. “And I’m sorry for that, an’ all. See, I meant what I said about keepin’ me word. I wasn’t goin’ te fight ye after the good ye did, but I had te keep me word te Veritas, as well. That’s why I couldn’t fight with ye, either. I’m between a rock and a hard place, and I’ll have a lot of explainin’ te do when I return to headquarters. But… what them bastards did were wrong, and there ain’t no two ways about it.”

“I doubt your organization will see it like that. Isn’t this part of your manifesto—to show us magicals that we’re nothing? That you’re not afraid of us? I imagine there’ll be a parade when those scumbags tell everyone what they tried to do here today. That they ‘used’ a magical for their own benefit, then attempted to turn the tables,” I spat, my anger rising. Atlas growled loudly, gnashing his fangs at Reid.

Reid put his hands up in a placatory gesture. “That ain’t true, Persie. My supposed ‘colleagues’ showed that they’ve lost all sense of morality when they attacked ye and yer mates, and all that after ye’d just broken that curse for them. It makes me sick te me stomach. It were disgustin’ te watch, and they ain’t honorable in the slightest. That ain’t part of our code.” His eyes flitted from me to Atlas, and back again. “I’ll make sure they’re punished for this. Me da will agree, once he hears what I have te say.”

“Your father, the leader of the organization that hates us?” I mustered a cold laugh. Beside me, Atlas expelled two tiny fireballs from his nostrils, which burst into glinting red sparks a few inches from Reid’s feet.

Reid stepped back, almost flat to the decaying wall. “He’s only the leader of the Irish branch. He ain’t the biggest cheese. And there’s a vast difference between me da, Michael Darcy, and the people ye met today. Me da doesn’t hate for hate’s sake. He just wants a world without secrets—a level playin’ field, with no one lurkin’ in the shadows, foxin’ us folks without magic. He don’t think it’s right that somethin’ so huge is bein’ hidden from average people. He sees yer kind as a tickin’ time bomb that our sort deserve te be able te defend ourselves against, but not outright enemies. If he found out ye’d helped us, he’d thank ye himself, and he’d have accepted yer terms. He’d have done the same as me, agreein’ te leave this place alone in return for yer aid.”

“And you don’t think that non-magicals would wipe us off the face of the Earth if they did find out we existed?” Now that I’d seen the witch hunters using all kinds of devices against us, the need to stay hidden felt all the more prudent.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Nobody can, unless that reveal gets made, and we see firsthand how things play out. I like te think that everyone would be surprised by the outcome. I’m not talkin’ total harmony, but maybe it’d be more peaceful than ye reckon.”

Everyone always hates the bigger fish. Genie’s words came back to me. Atlantis had been on the surface for twenty years now, but the wariness and suspicion of the wider magical world had never faded. The peace between that bubble and the rest of the world was fragile at best, a tinderbox at worst. Is that all Reid hoped for? A tenuous harmony between magicals and non-magicals that could erupt into conflict at any moment? Baby steps toward integration had occurred over the years, my Auntie Ryann being a prime example. True, the non-magicals who were allowed to know about the magical world were sworn to secrecy, or faced the prospect of a mind-wiping, but it was a move in the right direction. Slow and steady. A sudden reveal definitely wasn’t the way to go. That would only lead to terror, and terror led to violence.

“I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one,” I said, preparing to deliver one last jab. “Although, you might find yourself wondering which side you should be on in the near future. Will your people really be able to trust you now that you have magic flowing through you?”

He sighed. “I know I’m still under this curse, but at least I’m the only one carryin’ it now. I’m forever grateful for that. One monster is easier te deal with than a load of ‘em, and I’ll just have te try and find a way to get more control over it so I don’t hurt anyone again.”

“That’s not what I meant.” I smiled sardonically.

His eyes narrowed. “Eh?”

“You’re more like me than you think.” I scratched between Atlas’s horns absently, my heart swelling with an unexpected sense of schadenfreude. “My unconscious friend over there found something out.” I nodded toward Nathan. “The person who cursed you must’ve believed what you believed: that you were nothing but a non-magical. However—and I hate to be the bearer of bad news—the curse wouldn’t have reacted the way it did if you were a non-magical. The contagious aspect of the curse came from a reaction with latent magic inside you. It’s why these types of curses aren’t supposed to be used on magicals, because the side effects can go haywire. That means you’re either a full-magical, a half-magical, or a dormant-magical. Any way you shake it, you’re a magical.” I delivered this last bit of news with pleasure.

All the color drained from Reid’s face, his eyes flashing with fear. “No,” he said quietly.

“No? To which part?” I pressed. “The facts are there, Reid. It’s up to you if you choose to accept them or not.”

He shook his head forcefully. “No… yer lyin’. I’m human. I’m normal. I ain’t one of yer sort. It’s yer magic that’s all kinds of wrong, it ain’t me, so don’t ye dare try and trick me.”

“It’s not a trick. Think back to your childhood,” I urged, watching him shift uncomfortably. “Did anything ever happen that you couldn’t explain? Have you ever felt something, like an electric current running through your body, that felt strange and inexplicable? Did you have a relative who could do things nobody else could, and passed it off as sleight of hand or a trick of the eye? You can deny it all you want, but your curse wouldn’t have infected anyone else if you were ‘normal,’ as you put it.”

Reid’s expression darkened, his eyelids flickering as though he’d seen something distressing. Perhaps he had, deep in the well of his memory. Only he knew what, but it looked to me like some cogs were whirring.

“No,” he repeated more firmly, shaking his head to dismiss any lingering disturbing thoughts. Looking pointedly away, he pushed past me, heading for the exit. Atlas shot me a look, asking what I wanted him to do. I knew I ought to send Atlas after him, but I couldn’t bring myself to do so. I’d given Reid something to think about, regardless of his monosyllabic denial. Perhaps, after he’d had time to mull things over, we’d meet again. Or maybe we wouldn’t. Maybe, knowing that there was a chance he was one of us, he would put as much distance between himself and magical kind as possible. Either way, I wondered if this was the last I’d ever see of Reid Darcy: his tall, broad silhouette melding into the shadows and disappearing completely.

But, right now, I had two far more important people to worry about. I turned to Atlas. “Can you help me with my friends?”

He gave a snort and prowled across the ground toward them. Thanks to him, we’d won our first battle against the witch hunters. And I hoped, with self-aware naivety, that his appearance would achieve the initial part of the deal—that the witch hunters would leave this part of the world alone in return for our Fear Dearg antidote.

And if they came for us again… Well, I had a feeling I’d just unlocked the ability to Purge at will. And I had a lot more where Atlas came from.