“Your life has reached this point of disaster because of the choices you have made, and the choices you have made have stemmed from the type of person you have tried to be. You have attempted to be, for want of a better phrase, a ‘nice guy.’ Compassionate, loyal, a protector of the weak, et cetera. I won’t address the question of how you can view yourself in this manner while having killed more people in your career than most Dark mages do in their entire lives. What matters is that nearly all of your worst decisions have directly stemmed from being too nice—or, to be more accurate, being insufficiently ruthless. Your attempted betrayal as my apprentice. Your alienation of Levistus. Your failed attempts to protect Anne from crimes for which she is self-evidently guilty. Take Levistus, since that is the most blatant. As I understand it, during the White Rose affair, Levistus specifically warned you of what the consequences would be if you acted against his interests. You ignored him, and he quite predictably responded by having you sentenced to death. You survived only due to my intervention. Let me be very clear, Alex: both your sentence and the ensuing pursuit were entirely your own fault. Levistus was more powerful than you, and you could not afford to make an enemy of him, yet you did. You then compounded your error by failing to strengthen your own position. All because you were unwilling to make the necessary sacrifices.
“Now take your current situation with Anne. Under Light laws, the Council are fully entitled to sentence you and Anne to death. A Light mage would say that you have broken the Concord and must face the penalty. A Dark mage would point out that the real issue is that the Council have the ability to enforce their decisions on you and Anne, while you do not have any ability to enforce your will on them in return. A Dark mage in such a position would have taken action to ensure that any attack by the Council would be defeated. By refusing to follow either the Light path or the Dark, you have failed at both. And once again, I am the one cleaning up your mistakes.”
Richard leant forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Listen to me, Alex. Your way of doing things does not work. Being nice does not work. The world is not ruled by those who are nice. The world is ruled by those who understand power and how to use it. That you are sitting here is proof of this. You no longer have the luxury of depending on me to bail you out of trouble. Except in your case the problem goes further, because this is not about you. It is about Anne.
“Anne, like you, still believes that one should be nice. In her case, however, much of the strength of that belief stems from her relationship with you. If you had not been there that day in Sagash’s shadow realm, she would have accepted my offer. But you were there, and you advised her against it, and she listened, because she trusts you.
“And that brings us to the present. I need Anne to host the jinn. I cannot persuade her to do so voluntarily. Neither can Morden, nor Vihaela, nor anyone else. Except you. And that is why you are here. Because for better or for worse, you are the one person able to convince her to take this action of her own free will. So we come to the point of decision. Will you cooperate, or not?”
I looked at Richard. Richard looked back at me.
“You want me to convince Anne to host the jinn,” I said.
“I want you to make Anne host the jinn. The precise method, I leave to you.”
“She’s not going to do something like that because I ask her.”
“Alex, you’re not inviting her on a date. I’m not talking about asking her. Anne has been tempted by the jinn’s power many times, and at present she is resisting that temptation, and the keystone of that resistance is her relationship with you. I want you to destroy that keystone. Please do not insult my intelligence by asking how. You are more than capable of solving that problem yourself.”
“If Anne calls on that jinn again, she won’t be able to get it out,” I said. “She’ll lose herself.”
“To an extent.”
“There’s no way she’d do that willingly. You’re asking me to force her.”
“Yes.”
I took a deep breath. “What’ll happen to her?”
“She will fight on the front lines in the war to overthrow the Light Council,” Richard said. “I can’t promise she’ll be entirely safe, but I fully expect her to survive. Actually, with that jinn, she’ll be considerably safer than she has been with you. You will have access to her as long as it does not interfere with her duties. Provided she wants to see you, of course. Depending on the means you use to convince her, you may find it wise to allow a cooling-off period before attempting to resume your relationship. But I think she will come to understand the necessity of your actions given time.”
“Except that it won’t be her,” I said quietly. “Will it? She’ll be some combination of your slave and the jinn’s puppet.”
Richard held out his hands, palms upwards, in an equivocal gesture.
“What happens to her afterwards?”
“I have no objection to making some quality-of-life efforts on her behalf. However, the job comes first.”
I took a breath. “Was this what you did to Rachel?”
Richard raised an eyebrow.
“That thing inside her head,” I said. I’d caught a glimpse of it once, a long time ago, while visiting Rachel’s Elsewhere. Back then, I hadn’t understood what it was, but all of a sudden, it made sense. “It’s a jinn, isn’t it? Were you planning this, right from the start? Was she the prototype?”
“More accurately, it was a possibility I was considering,” Richard said. “I had taken certain steps to facilitate the process, but before I could take action, Rachel linked with a jinn on her own. The results were . . . mixed, but she did provide some valuable insights about the necessary conditions in the forging of a human-jinn bond.”
“You’ve got one too, haven’t you?” I said. “That was what you were using in the fighting in the Vault.”
“You’re stalling, Alex.”
I was running out of cards to play. “You know the jinn isn’t going to follow your orders,” I said. “It hates humans. All of them.”
“I will take care of the jinn.”
“How are—?”
“That is not your concern. Enough questions.”
“One more question,” I said. “What if I say no?”
“I’m afraid you don’t quite understand,” Richard said. “You are going to help me. Your choice is whether to do so willingly. I don’t often give people second chances. I gave you two, and you turned them both down. Understand clearly that this is your last. Should you reject this final offer, there will be no more reprieves. I will take the necessary steps to gain what I need without your cooperation. You will not enjoy the experience.
“And so you come to the point of decision. Assist me, and bring Anne under my control. Or refuse, and suffer the consequences. There is no third option. Choose.”
I found myself remembering that conversation with Dark Anne in Elsewhere. She’d told me that I’d never convinced anyone with my words, that no one ever listened when I talked about what I believed in. Maybe she’d been so vehement because Anne was one of the few people who had listened. And that was why Richard wanted to use me now. To manipulate her, trick her, or break her the way I’d done with my enemies in the past.