Chapter Forty

“No!”

Johan had been unsure of what to do as the newcomers attacked. All he’d been able to think of was self-protection, using his magic to shield himself from their attacks. But then a curse had stuck Elaine and she’d turned to glass and ...

She’d shattered.

He didn’t know what would happen to someone who was transfigured into an inanimate object, which was then destroyed. A person who died in an animal form returned to human upon death, he knew, but what about a shattered form? Should she be spread across the ground in a thousand bloody pieces or was she merely trapped, eternally suffering? There was no way to know, merely ... she was dead. His one friend, the one person who had cared for him and taught him and had been willing to give up her job to offer him an apprenticeship was dead ...

Brilliant magic crackled over his protective bubble, seeking a way in. Johan gritted his teeth, feeling cold anger burning through his body, then concentrated on precisely what he wanted to happen. A magician, waving his wand frantically as he threw curse after curse, exploded into a shower of rats, which scattered in all directions. Another vanished with a pop, so completely that air rushed in to fill the space where he had been. A third caught fire and screamed, held alive and aware as the flames burned his body to ash; Johan ignored the screams, hunting for the remaining magicians. The fourth was tossed into the air and thrown far from the city. A fifth magician, trying to run, collapsed as every bone in his body shattered into dust.

Johan took a step forward, then stopped. A sixth magician was cowering on the ground, shaking madly. Johan gestured, willing the wizard to float up into the air and spun him around; somehow, he was unsurprised to discover that he recognised him. Jamal might have shorn his hair, but there was no mistaking the face or eyes. Or maybe he had finally just mastered the art of seeing through glamours.

“Well,” he said, bitterly. “Look who I found.”

Jamal stared at him, his eyes shocked and uncomprehending. Johan stared back at his brother, cursing himself for a fool. He should have killed Jamal at the Waving Wand, even though the owner would have tried to curse him into next week. If he had, Elaine would still be alive. If he had ... he fought down the urge to scream. She’d given him everything and he’d turned her into a target. Jamal and his gang of thugs had killed her as surely as they’d killed the mundanes, back when the whole affair had begun. Had it really only been three weeks ago? It felt like years.

“You swore that you would not hurt anyone else,” he snapped, glaring at his brother. “Why didn’t you die?”

Jamal cackled, blood pouring from his mouth as he spoke. “You’re not a mundane any longer,” he said, between gasps. “You’re a freak.”

Johan felt the urge to just rip Jamal apart with his bare hands starting to rise up within him. Somehow, he managed to force it aside. Jamal was right; his oath had only protected mundanes, not magicians ... it might not even protect a Powerless. But Johan was no longer powerless. And he’d let his brother live.

“You’ll kill our father,” he protested, as the implications dawned on him. “You killed Elaine. That’s murder.”

Jamal laughed, bitterly. “Killing traitors is not murder,” he said. “And you are still a freak.”

Johan stared at him in shock. Killing Elaine wouldn’t break Jamal’s oath, but it would definitely break their father’s oath to keep his son from engaging in criminal activity. Their father would die, leaving Jamal – who was still the Prime Heir – Head of House Conidian, his position unchallengeable. Had Jamal calculated that he could still come out ahead, Johan asked himself, or had he merely escaped justice one final time? It would be far harder to send the Head of a Great House to the headsman than even a firstborn son.

“Why?” He hissed. “Why did you do this?”

“Had to be done, you freak,” Jamal said. “You ...”

Johan reached out and gripped his neck. “Tell me,” he demanded. Jamal’s eyes went blank, as if someone had cast a hypnotic curse on him. Johan had, he realised. His need to know the truth had led him to accidentally enslave Jamal’s mind. “Why did you come after us? Why did you kill Elaine?”

“Father ordered me to kill you,” Jamal said, his voice dazed. There was no possibility of deceit. “You’re a danger to everyone now. For the good of the house, you have to die.”

“No,” Johan said. The very thought was staggering. “He couldn’t ...”

But he knew his father too well. Everything he did was for the good of the family, everything from keeping Johan a prisoner to indulging Jamal, making sure that the former stayed out of sight and the latter was ready to step into his father’s shoes at a moment’s notice. There had been dangerously powerful magicians before, but none of them had ever offered the prospect of turning the entire world upside down, not like Johan.

“You talked to the Leveller scum,” Jamal said. “What would happen if you allied with them?”

“What indeed?” Johan asked. “And you ... why did I let you live?”

He stared down at his brother, broken and humiliated, and felt cold rage driving him forward. The web of life shimmered in front of him, showing him precisely how Jamal drew on magic and shaped it into spells. No longer caring if he hurt Jamal – or himself – Johan reached out and snapped Jamal’s connection to the web. His brother howled, the shock snapping him out of his near-trance; Johan let go of him and watched, dispassionately, as he fell to the ground, hands scrabbling at the stone.

“No power,” he said, softly. “You’re a Powerless.”

Jamal pulled himself to his feet – somehow – and hurled himself at Johan, who stepped to one side. His elder brother had always been too dependent on magic for everything from protection to fighting; Johan had had to learn to be quick on his feet, just to avoid the first few hexes cast by his siblings. It was easy to step aside and stick out a foot, tripping Jamal over and sending him falling back to the ground.

“No more respect,” Johan sneered. “No more fear. No more prospect of taking over from father. Nothing, but a lifetime spent as a prisoner – if indeed you last long enough to return home. I dare say that there are thousands of people who want a little revenge on you now.”

He kicked Jamal, then turned to look at where Elaine had fallen. She deserved a proper grave, but there was no time. If his father had been prepared to send Jamal out to kill him, risking his own death if the oath bit, he would have something else prepared in case Jamal failed. Johan took one last look, silently promising his dead friend bloody vengeance, then turned and started to walk towards the family house. Like so many other places in the Golden City, it was only a few minutes’ walk away.

There were few people on the streets; most of them barely noticed him, even though his face was twisted by fury. His magic was somehow pushing their attention away, he realised numbly; he was glad of it as he walked up the street towards the family’s house. The Inquisitors would certainly try to stop him if they knew what he had become and he didn’t want to be stopped, or be forced to fight Dread and his compatriots. Or perhaps he did; despite their own oaths, the Inquisitors had allowed Jamal and his friends to go free. If Johan had killed five of them and broken Jamal, that left four ...

Assuming that there were only ever ten of them, a voice whispered, at the back of his mind. Do you really think that Jamal was the only one with such extreme views? Or that his friends were the only ones who looked to inherit nothing, but their names and their magic?

The voice was right, he realised. There would be others, others who thought that their power gave them the right to prey on people who couldn’t defend themselves. And they would no doubt cheer Elaine’s death, because she had been a low-power magician. They were in for a shock, he told himself, as he kept walking forward. Johan would deal with them. Johan would judge them. And, if they were unworthy of their magic, Johan would strip it from them. They would no longer be able to use their magic to earn honours and awards they did not deserve.

He stopped in front of the door and paused, then pushed himself forward. The wards didn’t rise up to try to stop him, although he was unsure if they simply thought he was allowed to enter or if he’d knocked them down without meaning to knock them down. He felt a pang of grief as he remembered talking to Elaine about how frustrating his powers were – he was never truly sure if he was doing something – and all the experiments they’d planned to try to test the limits. But now she was dead ...

No one will die like that again, he promised her, as he twisted the door knob. Unsurprisingly, it opened; he decided that the wards had merely been configured to allow him to return, if he saw fit. His father’s attempts to force him back wouldn’t have worked if he couldn’t get back into the house. The thought made him snort as he stepped inside, then closed the door behind him. Once, he would have scurried back to his room as quickly as possible, hoping to escape the unwanted attentions of his father or siblings. Now ... now he could take his time and enjoy himself.

“Master Johan,” a voice said, in surprise. “You’re back!”

Johan turned to see May standing there. She had never been the worst of the maids, but she’d always looked down on him, even though he was her master’s child. And why not, he knew, when she picked up her attitude from the way his family treated him. Jamal had had his fun with May, Johan knew, but nothing could ever have enticed the girl into his bed. What had the powerless Johan to offer her?

“Yes,” he said. He concentrated; her clothes ripped as they were torn away from her body by an invisible force. Her breasts, the ones she had used to taunt him, sprang free, bobbling in front of his eyes. “I’m back.”

May stared at him, then turned to flee. Johan stuck her feet to the floor, sending her flying forward to crash to the ground. Magic surged through her, blurring the boundary between her body and the floor. She let out a screech of pain that almost made him think better of what he had done, then cold rage pushed him onwards. Leaving her behind – naked, trapped and helpless – he walked onwards to his father’s study. This time, the door was firmly locked. Johan closed his eyes and concentrated again, focusing on an image of the door crumbling to dust. When he opened them, the door was nothing more than falling sawdust. The wards had shattered at the merest touch of his magic.

Dimly, he remembered the children who’d died because of his mistake and wondered what would happen to the house. But it was hard to care.

His father looked up, his eyes widening in horror as Johan stepped into the room. One hand reached for the wand at his belt; Johan ignored it, even though he kept part of his mind focused on the protective bubble surrounding him. As far as he knew, he was no more invulnerable than Elaine or anyone else. A knife dipped in fast-acting poison would kill him as surely as any curse or spell.

“Elaine is dead,” Johan sad, flatly. “The Head Librarian, a person who was also a Privy Councillor, is dead. Your son killed her on your orders.”

It wasn’t entirely true – Johan had no idea who had fired the fatal curse, although he certainly couldn’t think of any good reason not to blame Jamal – but as long as his father believed it ...

“No,” his father said. Sweat was pouring down his brow as he fought to stave off the consequences of his oath. “I gave no such orders.”

“But you ordered them to kill me, father,” Johan said. His rage was gone, replaced by a cold dispassionate calm that was worse than anger. He could do anything now and feel absolutely nothing. “You broke the most important rule of the family. We do not turn on each other.”

“There was nothing else I could do,” his father said. “Where are they?”

“Jamal has lost his magic,” Johan sneered. His father recoiled backwards, as if he’d been slapped. “The others ... they died. I killed them.”

Once, the thought would have bothered him. He’d wracked himself with guilt when he’d blamed himself for the death of innocent children – and nearly losing Elaine to Hawthorne. Now ... it didn’t bother him at all.

“You sent your eldest son to a fate I’m sure he considers worth than death,” Johan snapped, when his father didn’t react. “You could have lost your ties to whatever other families helped produce that gang of thugs. And you broke your oath! Why? Was it really so important to have me back in your clutches?”

“I was so scared when I realised that you were powerless,” his father said. “But I couldn’t bear to lose you. I kept you close, fearing for your life and the family’s safety. You rebelled against me because you didn’t understand that it was all for your own good.”

“I spent a week as a doll before someone could be bothered to free me,” Johan said, with deadly menace. “And there were some things Jamal did that I refuse to mention, some jokes that were never funny to anyone with a decent mind. How was that for my own good?”

He allowed his voice to harden. “You allowed me to be tortured because you thought I deserved it for failing you,” he added. “You felt that I was to blame for my own condition, even though I am your child; the gods know you spent enough money on paternity tests when I was found to be powerless. I think you hated me because you thought I proved that your blood was weak. You were ashamed of me.”

His father was starting to gasp in pain. No matter his struggles, his oath was slowly killing him, drawing on his magic to rip the life out of his body. The magic Duncan Conidian had mastered and used as a tool to rise to the highest levels of society was turning on him, like a tame animal that had finally had enough of being beaten and kicked. It was strange, Johan realised, as he peered into the web of life; piece by piece, the magic was turning venomous. And yet it was still part of his father’s mind.

“There is an option, father,” Johan said, very calmly. “I can take your magic. Your oath will not kill you if there is no magic to drive it. But you would never be able to cast a spell again.”

His father shuddered, convulsing. For a moment, Johan thought that he was too late for his father, then somehow he managed to open his eyes. It was hard to tell, Johan realised, just which way he would jump. To abandon his magic would mean abandoning his place in society, leaving Charity or Johan himself to take over House Conidian. But to keep it would mean certain death. The longer he struggled, the more pain he would be in before the oath finally overwhelmed him.

“You would live as I did,” Johan added. “You would be powerless.”

“No,” his father gasped. “I won’t ...”

“Yes, you will,” Johan said. It was easy now to snip his father free of the web of life. The oath vanished at the same instant, along with his father’s magic. “Killing you would be so easy, but you can serve as an object lesson instead.”

He felt a keening echoing through the house as the wards started to react to his father’s sudden absence. They were no longer linked to him – and they couldn’t seek out the Prime Heir. He had no magic either. Johan smiled as his father stared at him in horror, then lifted a finger. His father floated up into the air and drifted over towards the door.

Years ago, Jamal had dared the younger Johan to sit in his father’s chair. A security spell had frozen him the moment he’d sat down, then his father – alerted by the wards – had thrashed him soundly for entering his study without permission. Jamal, of course, had gotten away with it completely. Now ... Johan moved around the desk, cancelling the wards as he went, and sat down at his father’s desk. It might as well be his now. The wards fizzled around him, then slipped back into neutral mode. They’d probably accept Charity, but no one else.

“Stand up,” he ordered, once he had lowered his father to the ground. By now, the Inquisitors would probably have found Elaine’s remains – and Jamal, if he hadn’t crawled away to die somewhere. It wouldn’t take a genius detective to tell where he’d gone. “I want you to take a message to the Inquisitors.”

His father was moaning in shock. Johan snorted, disgusted; this was how his father dealt with only a tiny taste of Johan’s life? No, he had never truly realised what being powerless meant in a magical household. How could he have? It was completely outside his experience.

Until now, Johan told himself.

He shaped his thoughts, casting a compulsion charm. “This is what I want you to tell them,” he said. Elaine would be avenged – and so would all the others who had been hurt and humiliated by magicians. “Listen carefully.”