“Have a few centuries to train me?”
“Not even a few hours,” Dex said, shaking his head. “Time still flows for my nephew. Every second he is in the Sanctuary, he’s one second closer to discovering my ruse. Once he does, he will begin to unravel and grow stronger.”
“When did you create the simulacrum?” I asked, still shocked by how real it felt. “I didn’t see you…”
“When you saw me gesture,” Dex said. “Right before your blast.”
It took a few seconds for my brain to catch up.
“What the hell, Dex?” I asked, raising my voice. “What was the mind-game for?”
“Tell me why you didn’t take the opportunity,” Dex asked, his voice stern. “I was open and I had tried to kill you. I even threatened your hellhound.”
“I know. Trust me, it was tempting,” I said. “I thought you were lying, until I saw the gate.”
“It could have been a ruse to get your guard down,” he answered. “Get you to stop attacking, then end you.”
“Yes, true,” I said, “I may have pushed it, if you hadn’t been deflecting my magic missile of might with one hand.”
“That, and your ‘magic missile’ was mightily melting your arm off,” Dex added with a glance at my destroyed jacket. “Is that why you stopped? Fear I was too powerful?”
“It was wrong,” I said after a moment of thought. “I wanted to, but it was wrong.”
“You wanted to?” he asked, narrowing his gaze. “Was it you, or the power?”
“More like the power made it easier to consider obliterating you,” I said. “Would it have worked?”
“Your magic missile feeds off your life-force, which is limited in this place,” he answered. “What do you think?”
“I think you lost your damn mind,” I said. “Why the theatrics?”
“That choice you just made…it’s what every mage in a schism faces,” Dex said, gazing into the gate. “Control the power or surrender to it.”
“Monty told me once: power isn’t good or evil,” I said. “He said that it all comes down to how it’s wielded.”
“My nephew is young, stubborn, and ill-informed,” Dex said, his voice low. “Make no mistake about it: some power, some sources, are evil, corrupting influences.”
“So you’re saying some power is evil?”
“Aye, lad,” Dex said with a nod. “Unless you can think like evil, really understand it, then you’re defenseless. Evil will go and do things that seem unimaginable. If you can’t meet it and stop it…it will win.”
“Is that what he’s going through right now?” I asked. “That power tugging at him to surrender?”
“On a massive scale—which is why I’m keeping him hidden,” Dex said. “He couldn’t mask himself now, even if he wanted to.”
“Evers would find him if he were out in the open?”
“With ease,” Dex said with a nod. “The same way you should be able to.”
“Through there?” I asked, pointing at the gate. “This is the doorway?”
“Aye, through that gate you’ll find my nephew,” Dex said, his expression hard. “He will try to harm you if he crosses over to the dark. He was right about one thing, though.”
“What?”
“The power he is facing is not good or evil.”
“You just said…”
“We are the sources, boy. Every single one of us has darkness within,” Dex answered. “Even him…especially him.”
“That sounds about as clear as fog,” I answered, exasperated. “How do I bring him back?”
“Right now, he’s walking the razor,” Dex said, looking at the gate runes. “You need to bring him back the same way you resisted the impulse to attack me.”
“Great idea,” I said, frustrated and still upset at the deception. Truthfully, I was more upset by the fact that I had fallen for it. The simulacrum had me totally fooled. “How do I do that?”
He looked down at my hand and pointed at Ebonsoul.
“You need to use your weapon.”
“What? Are you sure you didn’t hit your head somewhere?”
“You are his shieldbearer. That, along with your totem and the siphon, should work.”
“Should work?”
“Wielding energy is an…imprecise exercise at the best of times,” Dex said. “Mages risk unleashing chaos every time we cast.”
“Then why take the risk, if it’s so dangerous?”
He gave me a slow smile.
“Because it’s bloody fun,” he said, growing serious. “That combination you have may be the only thing that works on him at this point.”
“Great, I have the tools; that doesn’t tell me how to use them to help Monty.”
“No one can tell you how to do that,” Dex said. “All anyone can do is give you the tools and help you understand how they work. Ultimately, you have to use them to truly understand them.”
“I still don’t understand how any of this works.”
“Rubbish, boy,” Dex said, waving my words away and walking toward the gate. “If you paid attention, you’d realize you know more than you think. Stop diminishing your ability because”—he wiggled his fingers in the air—“you aren’t a mage.”
“But I’m not,” I said. “I don’t do any of those things you and Monty can do.”
“So what? You think being a mage just means being able to wield power?”
“No,” I said slowly as I recalled the pull, the allure of the power. “It means knowing when to use the power as well.”
He tapped the center of his forehead and pointed at me.
“You’re starting to see…finally. There’s some hope for you after all.”
“I’m not seeing much clearly,” I said slowly, feeling the jumble of thoughts bounce around my head like so many puzzle pieces trying to fit together. “Mages choose to use the power they have. The power that is around us. Its expression depends on the mage.”
“Good to see something stuck in that thick skull of yours,” Dex said with a nod. “Remember, mages use the power…not the other way around. That is where my nephew is right now. That’s what it means to walk the razor of a shift. If he steps into darkness, the power will corrupt and use him. Ultimately…”
“Destroying him.”
“Aye,” Dex said. “I won’t let it get that far. If you fail…I won’t.”
I didn’t have to ask what he meant by that. We stopped in front
