“I thought we’d agreed not to involve your friends in all of this.”

“I didn’t have any choice.”

“That was foolish and dangerous.”

Victoria’s tone was irritable, as if she was talking to a wayward student she didn’t have time for right now. The two of us were sitting in a large wooden gazebo near to the mansion, a clear, star-filled sky above us. As soon as we’d arrived, I’d explained the situation. They had taken Marian below for her own protection. Jess was being treated for shock and had been led away by a couple of Victoria’s men without protest. Bill was also being seen to. The mansion was on high alert, Victoria making sure that security protocols were in effect, as I’d told her we might soon be under attack.

I guessed it wouldn’t take long for the MLF to catch up with us.

Now Victoria and I were sitting alone, and I’d brought her up to speed on everything. Who the cursed one was. What had happened at the end of the Second World War. The djinn realm being locked off, the effect that had had on magic. The demon army waiting on the other side.

Victoria had listened without comment. She’d been involved with the supernatural for her entire life, so nothing I said surprised her.

“It worked,” I said, still defending my choice of bringing Jess and Dee into all of this.

Part of me was still reeling at the loss of Dee. I felt numb. My mind refused to believe he was gone. Tomorrow we’d be back in school as normal, and all of this would have been one long nightmare. Dee would be playing his usual pranks, Jess and I would somehow be together, Mum would be cooking a rubbish vegan lasagne. Everything would be back to normal, with extra sunshine and bluebirds singing in the background.

“Yes,” Victoria conceded. “I suppose it did.”

I was wrapped in a blanket, but the air was still freezing. My breath left my mouth in little white puffs. I blew into my hands to warm them up. Victoria poured us some tea from an ornate silver tea-pot. She hadn’t commented on the damage done to the limo.

“And what do you think about all of this, Ethan?” she asked after I’d finished telling her everything.

“What do you mean?”

Victoria smiled. Or smirked. I was too tired to tell the difference. Tired and numb and cold. Victoria was being weird. I’d become accustomed to her occasional oddness, but this felt different.

“Well,” she continued, “Scientifically you have to admit it’s fascinating. The possibility of other dimensions. The possibility that we could travel to them. I’ve spent years studying my brother’s powers, trying to analyse them, where they come from, how they function. Trying to measure the energies he manipulates to perform his magic. I’ve come as close as any human has to comprehending the very soul itself, Ethan. To proving such a thing exists.”

I wasn’t in the mood for a science lecture right now.

“I see,” I said, although I didn’t.

I shivered. Where was Victoria going with this?

“What do you believe in, Ethan?” she asked. “In your heart?”

I frowned.

“I... well, I guess I believe in doing the right thing.”

“Is that so?”

Victoria sat back, smiled as if she was enjoying a private joke at my expense.

“Yes. I mean, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Doing the right thing? Saving lives? Helping people?”

“Being a hero?” Victoria teased.

No, that wasn’t right. She wasn’t teasing. She was taunting me. The smile on her face wasn’t a smile. It was a smirk.

I sat up as a queasy sensation rolled into my stomach.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

I’d just told Victoria about the magic realm, but here she was discussing it as if she’d been studying it for years. The reason she hadn’t been surprised at anything I’d related to her was simple; she’d already known about it. Which led me to wonder how much else she’d already known about but had feigned ignorance of?

“Where’s Marian?”

“She’s perfectly safe, underground,” Victoria said. Her phone rang, and she held up an apologetic finger at me. She listened to what was said on the other end.

“Good. As expected,” she replied, “Try for ten more minutes. Then move onto phase two. I want as many readings as possible.”

She put the phone down. “Where were we?”

“Magic,” I said cautiously, “And belief.”

Phase two?

“Good. I’m glad you’re paying attention. Now let me tell you what I believe in, Ethan.”

“Saving people’s lives?”

“That’s never quite as simple as it sounds, though, is it?” Victoria replied, “As the three cursed ones discovered, to save lives, other lives sometimes have to be sacrificed. Like rats in medical experiments. Hundreds of millions of them are killed every year in the search for new cures.”

“But that’s different.”

“Is it? It doesn’t matter. Saving lives isn’t at the core of who I am. It’s more of a side effect, in some ways. What I truly believe in is pushing past boundaries, Ethan. Finding scientific, personal, and social frontiers to explore. In discovering our limits and then pushing beyond them until we find the next limit - and then going beyond that. That’s how we make progress. That’s how we evolve. Do you understand? Imagine the first person who ever looked up at the moon and said ‘one day, I’ll go there.’ Who do you think it was? How many centuries before that single thought was turned into an actual reality?”

The queasy feeling in my stomach was getting stronger by the second. What was ‘Phase two’? Why was Victoria smirking like someone who had won a long game? Her body language, her expressions, her tone of voice were all off. Gone was the concern and care I’d become accustomed to. In its place was something harder. Crueller.

Why did I feel like an animal which had walked into a hunter’s trap?

“Can you imagine how much modern science could do if we could truly understand and manipulate magical energy? If the barrier to the djinn realm was removed? How many lives might be saved, including my brother’s? Would that be such a bad thing?”

Victoria’s decrepit brother. Vincent. The brother who was dying because of what had happened to magic in the meantime.

Every doubt, every reservation, every hesitation I’d ever had about Victoria came crashing into my suddenly too alert mind. I didn’t want to believe it, but the revelations and realisations were piling up hard and fast.

Major Wilson’s words came back to me like a freight train; Victoria Pryce is not to be trusted under any circumstances.

What was the rest of it? What had he said?

She’s devious, manipulative, and will do and say anything to get what she wants.

“I want to see Marian,” I stated, my tone flat.

“Very well,” Victoria replied. “But before that, you need to understand the world is complex, Ethan. Sometimes doing the right thing is not as simple as it seems. And sometimes what we call ‘doing the right thing’ is merely a way to avoid overcoming our own limits. There’s a war, Ethan.”

“Yes, I know there’s a war…”

“You know nothing at all, Ethan. You have no idea who the real enemies are. You have no idea what needs to be done to defeat them, or the price that must be paid.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Ethan, if you hear one thing, if you learn one thing from me, it’s this: We must always seek to overcome our limits. And we must always, always, fight against those who seek to impose limits upon us. At every step, every turn, every corner, we need to push back against those who say ‘no’”

“Victoria, what are you…”

“Listen to me Ethan. There will always be someone to pull you down, at every step, every turn. Whatever you choose, there will always be someone saying ‘no, you can’t’ . You must resist at every turn. You must fight them, no matter what.”

“Victoria, what is going on? What have you done?”

Victoria waved an impatient hand to silence me. Her mask was slipping away second by second, because she was wilfully discarding it. She was no longer concerned with keeping up appearances. No longer concerned with the half-truths and outright lies that she’d been spinning me for weeks.

I know a predator when I see one, Mum had said.

Victoria smiled at me and in that moment I knew a predator when I saw one, too.

“What have you done, Victoria?”

My voice was hoarse.

“Ethan, as I already told you, I’ll do anything for my brother.”

The cold and numbness had been replaced by outright fear now. Sitting opposite Victoria, beneath the gazebo at midnight, I was overcome with a sudden sense of how alien she was to me. The dawning realisation that I’d been played by her right from the start was as sharp as the knife I’d taken to my stomach.

“Oh, stop looking so dumbstruck and think carefully about how you answer my next question. I like you, Ethan, and I want you on my side. I want you by my side. Together, we could do great things. You’ve proved how resourceful you are, how focused, if a touch naïve. Work with me, and I’ll make sure you never want for anything.”

She reached out to brush her fingers across my hand.

“So, tell me, Ethan. Will you stand beside me?”

The sickness in my stomach was so intense I wanted to throw up. I’d been played. The thought kept repeating like a tune you can’t get out of your head.

I’ve been played. I’ve been played. I’ve been played...

“I want to see Marian,” I repeated through gritted teeth. “Whatever you’re up to, it isn’t right, Victoria.”

Victoria sighed with disappointment. She sat back and waved her hand. Three of her soldiers appeared.

All three of them were armed with assault rifles.