"You know, you're pretty uptight, even for a Catalyst."

I shot Juhan a displeased stare, and got only a playful smile in response.

With a sigh, I set my paper coffee cup down on the bench beside me.

Well, to call it "coffee" was a bit of a lie. It was mostly whipped cream and syrup, with just a dash of coffee. The dark liquid sloshing around in Juhan's cup was the only actual coffee between the two of us.

"How would you know?" I asked, letting my gaze wander over the garden's rolling green hills. Instead of taking him to the large downtown art museum, as had originally been the plan, I'd had Juhan drive far north, to a private sculpture garden. True to his word, he'd let me alter the morning's itinerary without complaint, even though a sleepy park likely hadn't even made it onto his sightseeing list. His only change to my plans has been a brief stop for drive-through coffee.

Juhan's smile twisted into a smirk. "Because I have my own Catalyst back home, and he's much more relaxed than this."

"Oh?" I glanced back, watching him gulp down more of the steaming liquid. He had to have a mouth of steel. "Would he be so relaxed if you had asked him to sleep with a stranger who was also a mage?"

He sputtered, which quickly devolved into coughing. Juhan pounded at his chest as he tried to clear his airway of waylaid coffee, and I got the pleasure of seeing small tears spring into the corners of his eyes as he hunched over.

"Warn me," he gasped, then coughed again, before shaking his head. "Before you make a joke like that."

It was my turn to smirk, sipping delicately at my drink. "It wasn't a joke."

Those hazel eyes bulged. "What?"

I lifted both my brows, taking another sip.

"Severine," he insisted, his voice still rasping. "I mean it, for real this time."

"It wasn't a joke," I repeated, cradling my drink in both hands. "I didn't think you'd be a mage when he brought it up, but he must have already known."

"Brendan couldn't have meant— Wait. Would it have been a normal request if I hadn't been a mage? Is it normal for him to ask you to sleep with people?"

I turned my head, meeting those striking hazel eyes. "Don't you sleep with yours?"

"Pete is married," he snapped back. There were angry sparks in his eyes, as if the amber bits had caught fire, and the outer green rings were dark as gathering storm clouds. "And monogamous. And not interested in men. And even if we weren't those three things, no, I still wouldn't ask him to sleep with anyone, myself included."

Interesting how riled up he was at the idea. I tipped my head. "How many new Catalysts have you found via your test?"

Juhan blinked at the sudden change of subject, frowning. "Two, so far."

Two was a lot. There were only nine known Catalysts in Brendan's whole territory. Even one additional Catalyst would be a significant boon. As best I knew, the Parkkonens had only had six — plus two brought them up to eight. That was enough to rival Brendan, especially considering one of his nine was nearly useless. "How did you find them?"

"We announced the company was hiring 'special assistants' and posted an outrageous salary." He was watching me closely as he spoke, and I could see the gears turning behind his eyes. He knew my line of questioning was headed somewhere, but he couldn't quite pinpoint where or why. "Then we tested every candidate that applied. It took us a year, and even flying some people in from out of state, just to find the two."

"Did they know, beforehand? What they are?"

His mouth pulled into a flat line as he considered the question. Probably wondering if I was trying to pull trade secrets out of him — though if I had been, I was being terribly unsubtle about it. At last, he huffed, gave a small shake of his head. "They suspected, thought they were different in some way, but they didn't know. Not until the test confirmed it."

"And what if they hadn't taken the job, after the test? After you had confirmed what they are?"

Juhan's mouth opened, then closed without saying a word. When it opened again, there was an annoyed edge to his words. "You're asking a lot of questions about this."

I nodded. "I am. But this is the last one."

"We would have kept their information on file," he answered, and I could hear the suspicion in every syllable. "We'd check back after a few months to see if they'd changed their minds, and then every year or so after that. Keep the door open, if they were ever so inclined. Why do you ask?"

My lips curved into something that might be called a smile, save it cradled an empty chill the way another's expression would brim with warmth. "I don't think Brendan will take 'no' for an answer."

"What do you mean by that?" Such caution in him, such confusion.

"I mean," I responded, picking my coffee back up. "I don't think he'd let a known Catalyst turn down the job offer, even if he had to force the issue. With physical force, if he had to."

Disbelief was first to his features, but it didn't linger for long. It was chased away by offense, as if my words were some kind of direct insult. Last something graver, more serious, a kind of dark determination. "That wouldn't make sense. It would ruin his reputation. What Catalyst would offer to work for him, if he was known to keep others against their will?"

"Why would it matter?" I stared down into what was left of my syrupy concoction, swirling it in the paper cup. This time, I didn't bother to watch Juhan as I spoke. "Mages have to keep their reputations clean, to be known to treat their Catalysts well, so future Catalysts will be willing to come forward. But why bother with that hassle if you can reveal who is and isn't a Catalyst, whether they want you to or not? He could simply hunt them down like prey, keep hauling them in no matter how bad his reputation got."

Shocked silence. Clothes rustled as he shifted on the bench; I heard the sound of him swallowing heavily. "No," he started, then repeated it with more conviction. "No, he couldn't. He wouldn't. Catalysts have to be willing. It's impossible to force the power out of them."

He wasn't wrong. Catalysts don't enhance their Wielder's power simply by existing. We have to choose to activate the ability. It's a conscious choice on our parts; it cannot be ripped from us as if it were a fruit to be harvested from a tree. Though that certainly hasn't stopped mages from trying more crude methods over the ages, such as threats or even physical violence.

Many mages have also met a sudden end when a disgruntled Catalyst chose to withdraw their support at a key moment in battle.

And still…

I gave a slow, thoughtful nod. "He already has his three Catalysts, two of whom have been bound and loyal to him for more than a human lifetime. An uncooperative Catalyst would be his subordinates' problem to solve. Besides, mages haven't dueled since before I was born. It's not like they're risking death if their Catalyst is unhappy with them."

"Mages still duel," he muttered, a strange sour tone surfacing in his voice, enough to make my gaze flick back to his face. "Just because Brendan has been wheeling and dealing his way out of them for over fifty years doesn't mean they don't happen, just that he's rusty at them." Seething hazels met my own eyes. There was a dent in his paper coffee cup from where he'd gripped it too tightly. "Do you really mean it, Severine? Do you honestly think he'd force a Catalyst to serve him against their will?"

Such earnestness in his voice, almost as if it were a plea for me to rescind my earlier conclusion. To tell him that the monster under the bed — or rather, up in the gilded office — wasn't real. But when I thought about it, only one answer came to mind. "Brendan loves power, not people."

Juhan abruptly stood. "I need to update my father."

I gestured to the nearly empty garden. There was a young couple and their dog playing fetch at the other end of the property, but otherwise our only companions were the twisted metal and glossy ceramics that formed the outdoor sculptures. I doubted they cared what Juhan had to say.

He strode off, digging a cell phone out of his pocket. The distance was just enough to keep me from hearing the exact words of the conversation, but not the angry, hissing tone of his voice, punctuated by the long pauses for his father's responses.

So, Ernst was still very much in control of the Parkkonen clan. That didn't surprise me; sometimes only the frailties of mortality forced some parents to hand the reins down to their children. With near-immortal lifespans, mages didn't have to worry about their legacy — they would still be living to see it unfold. Assuming they didn't get killed somewhere along the way, of course.

When Juhan returned, I rose to greet him. "Walk with me?"

Irritation was still raw on his face, making me wonder if his father's reaction had not been to his liking, but he still offered me his arm. This time I took it without hesitation, letting my fingers curl around the tense strength of his forearm. Angry, so angry, almost like a swarm of gnats buzzing through him.

There's a place inside of me that's still and cold; not arctic slopes, for winds blow fierce across glaciers, but something even more frozen, like the dark, still waters under the ice. Something to do with being a Catalyst, I suspected. Activating our abilities made us burn hot, feverish even — a Catalyst who pushed herself too hard risked heat stroke or worse — and so it was perhaps something that helped to balance that out, keep us alive. I had never risked asking about it, in case it wasn't normal, in case it was just one more way in which I was a lesser Catalyst.

But I knew I could ever so lightly skim those inner waters, pull some of that frigid energy from them, let it flow through me — let it flow out of me. I'd done it with Brendan before, at first by accident, later on purpose, taking just the slightest edge of some of his most heated rages. He'd almost caught me, once, almost suspected I had been up to something; ever since then I'd been even more cautious, even more sparing with the skill. I could only begin to imagine Brendan's wrath if he realized I had been manipulating him. But perhaps, if I was exceptionally subtle, Juhan wouldn't notice…

After a few minutes of walking, he released a slow sigh. "I see why you like this park. It's a calming place."

"It's always been my refuge," I answered, closing back off that frozen void. I could still feel the muscled arm under my fingers, but it was all a relaxed, easy strength. "Let's walk a little longer?"