paw is just taking it. Giving it to him …”
Luna was silent. I looked up to see that her brow was furrowed, thinking. “Wait,” she said. “You can’t take a mage’s power without killing him? Is that right?”
“Yeah.”
Luna stared into space for a second, then her forehead cleared and she nodded. “I’ll be right back.”
I turned my head to watch as Luna walked over to the guard lying on the floor. She hesitated, then shook her head and reached down to pull something from the man’s belt. It slid from its sheath with a quiet hiss and as I saw the light glint off it I realised it was a knife. Luna rose and came back, holding the blade awkwardly. I watched as she edged around me, keeping her distance so that she wouldn’t pass too close. And I kept watching as she walked up the corridor towards where I’d last seen Martin.
Only then did I put it together. “No, Luna, wait!”
Luna looked at me, her expression a mixture of anger and something else.
“You— You don’t have to do this.”
Luna’s voice was tight, on edge. “We’ve got to do something.”
I shook my head. “No.” All of a sudden I knew what to do. “There’s another way.”
Martin had stopped screaming. He was lying curled up on his side, scratches on the floor where his shoes had scraped. His fingers were clenched, dug into his face, and blood trickled between them in a ghastly mask. He’d lost the gun but was still gripping the monkey’s paw, his knuckles white on the lacquered tube. His breath was coming in short gasps and he didn’t seem to know we were there.
Luna and I looked down at him for a second. “What happened?” Luna asked.
“He got what he wished for,” I said absently. Thousands and millions of futures, pouring into his mind. There’s a reason diviners are rare. I spent years building the mental discipline to be able to use my power without going mad. When I look into the future, it’s like seeing through a lens: sometimes narrow and focused, sometimes wide and blurred, but always sorting, ordering, picking the futures I need and blocking out the rest. Martin didn’t have a lens. He had all my power without any of my skill. He was seeing everything at once.
I knelt next to him. Deep scratches showed on Martin’s face from where he’d clawed at his eyes, but his eyes stared blindly into space. “Martin,” I said. I could keep talking and thinking as long as I stayed focused, but it was a struggle. I kept wanting to sink back into darkness and I didn’t know how long I could keep it up. “The magic’s killing you. You’ve still got the monkey’s paw. Wish it back.”
No response. Martin’s eyes didn’t flicker, and his breathing stayed the same, hoarse and ragged.
“Can he hear us?” Luna asked.
I shook my head. Martin had to be most of the way to insane. He probably couldn’t even tell the difference between future and present anymore. “So?” Luna said.
I took a breath. “Give me that knife.”
Luna set it down on the floor with a clink. I fumbled behind me and missed it twice before looking back around to pick it up, then turned back to Martin. My thoughts were starting to fray at the edges and I knew I didn’t have much time. I took a deep breath, and focused. For this to work, I would have to genuinely mean to go through with it.
I forced myself to go back through my memories, thinking of how Martin had betrayed me and Luna. How he’d lied to us from the beginning, tried to use us, taking everything he could and leaving us to our deaths. Then I brought the knife forward in my good arm. The steel blade flashed in the light as I put it to Martin’s throat for one quick, measured slash.
My magic senses danger by seeing the futures in which I’m hurt. As I see the futures in which I’m injured or killed, I change the decisions that lead to them. But it’s painful. To avoid a future in which I die, I have to experience it. I’ve learnt to shield myself from the psychic shock of those visions, taking only a hazy glance, enough to know how to avoid that future and no more.
Martin didn’t have a shield. In that instant, as I made the decision to kill him, Martin got to experience a million futures of me cutting his throat, a million visions of his own death, every one in perfect detail.
The scream from Martin’s throat was like nothing on earth. I jumped back as he spasmed, every muscle in his body flailing, and his voice hurt my ears.
And just that fast, it happened. My magic snapped back into me like a rubber band, the visions flooding back into my mind, glowing lines of light branching out into the darkness. I knew where I’d see Luna if I turned around to look at her. I knew the wound on my arm was painful but not fatal; it would hurt but I’d be able to keep using the arm if I forced myself. And I knew Martin was about to collapse in front of me.
Martin collapsed. I leant against the wall, closing my eyes, feeling my thoughts piecing themselves together again bit by bit. The relief was incredible and I shivered as I remembered the feeling of darkness. I was sure I’d just gotten the material for a whole new set of nightmares.
“Alex?” Luna asked.
“I’m okay,” I said. A stray memory nagged at me: Hadn’t that guard hit me, with that last burst of fire? I checked and this time my divination magic found an answer: two small holes in my cloak. My mist cloak had saved me, its camouflage blurring my outline just enough to make the shots miss. I patted it affectionately, then checked my watch. Fifteen minutes. “We’d better go.”
Luna was staring down at Martin and when she spoke her voice was toneless. “Are those protections still working?”
Martin was unconscious, lying still on the floor, and as I looked into the futures in which Luna or I moved in to finish him, I saw that nothing would stop us. The monkey’s paw had taken back all that it had given. “They’re gone.”
