“I know. And that’s what’s bothering me. It’s just—I’ve been told for seven years that Paras—all of them—are the enemy. There weren’t shades of Paranormals. There weren’t good and bad. They were just the enemy. And I certainly didn’t meet any Paras who laid down their weapons, who tried to help us. I lost friends, most of my city, my family. They tried to annihilate us.”
“The enemy who just helped you.”
“Exactly. And I don’t know what to do with that. Moses said we were too stupid to tell good guys from bad. What did he mean by that?”
“That it’s easier to pretend humans are good and Paras are bad. That makes dealing with threats easier. It makes housing them easier. And it makes killing them easier.”
That explained part of why he’d made me come into Devil’s Isle. He didn’t really need me to fix the video, but he’d wanted me to meet Moses. To see the neighborhood. To get a sense of it, and the people who lived there. Had he showed me some exceptions? Sure. On the other hand . . . “They did attack us.”
“As you’ve seen tonight, there’s more to it than that. Humans aren’t good because they’re human. And Paras aren’t bad because they’re Paras.”
“And Sensitives?” I asked, looking up at him. “What are they?”
He looked at me steadily. “That depends on the Sensitive. The point is, there are options.”
When he didn’t say anything else, I figured he was done playing Devil’s Isle tour guide and it was my cue to say good night.
“Thank you for helping me with the videos. If you’ll point me back toward the gate, I’ll get out of your way.”
“You’re not leaving. Not until we find someone who has time to deal with you. To teach you.”
I nearly stumbled. “Wait, you mean tonight?”
“This is serious magic, Claire. Serious and potentially deadly, to you and others.”
I managed to control my temper, but only just. “I know how serious it is. I live and work in the French Quarter, surrounded by monitors that make sure I don’t accidentally use magic I didn’t even know I had. That I shouldn’t have in the first place.” That I’m my own enemy for having.
“And how did it feel tonight after you dealt with the wraiths?”
The question, and the intensity in his eyes, made me shift uncomfortably. But I kept my gaze on him. I wasn’t about to look away. “I refueled.”
“A snack isn’t going to fix the problem. Long term, you’ll keep absorbing magic until it destroys you. Until it is a cancer that knows only how to grow and destroys you from the inside out. Being in denial isn’t going to help you.”
“I’m not in denial. I’m—I just need a minute.” I shook my head, trying to clear it. I was feeling overwhelmed, trying to reorient myself in a world that had just completely flipped on its head. “This is just happening really fast.”
Liam paused. “Why did you help the girl, when you could have been spotted?”
“I didn’t have a choice. She knocked me over.”
Liam just kept looking at me, his silence saying he wasn’t buying my answer.
I sighed. “Because she needed help.”
“So she did, and you helped her. You made a choice. Now you face the consequences.” His voice softened. “Do you really think you can go back to living in denial after what you’ve seen tonight?”
I looked away from him, trying to get my bearings, trying to center myself again. I wasn’t entirely sure what I had seen tonight. So yes, I did want to go back. I wanted to crawl into bed, sleep for ten or twelve hours, and wake up in the morning to a dull day with nothing but MRE shipments to worry about.
On the other hand, MRE shipments weren’t interesting on their best day. In pretty important ways, life had all but stopped for me when my dad died. I’d kept the store running. That had been my focus, at least until I met Tadji and Gunnar. They’d brought me out of my shell, but there still wasn’t much to life in the Zone. Except, at least right now, a lot of fear.
Hell. Maybe if I could learn how to deal with the magic, keep myself from becoming a wraith and being locked into Devil’s Isle, I wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore.
I looked back at Liam. “What, exactly, do you have in mind?”
“Come on,” he said. “I want to show you something.”
? ? ?
We walked deeper into the neighborhood in silence, down a narrow street of film-covered buildings, with residents huddled pitifully in doorways. There were more temporary shelters in this part of the Marigny, more Paras milling around with vacant expressions—or clear hatred in their eyes. A man with cragged gray skin leaned against a wall, small, dirty wings folded behind him, peeking through a dirty gray trench coat. His copper eyes, pupils slitted like a snake’s, watched us warily as we moved.
This was a prison, and we were the captors, which made us the enemy.