Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
STEPHEN
My silver haze swirled around the room, the tendrils curling in my peripheral vision—a conscious choice. A tether. A reminder I wasn’t the only one to be exposed.
“What do you mean, you were the plan?” Emma’s voice faltered, caught between confusion and a sharper edge—anxiety, maybe—as her attention clung to James’s like an anchor.
“Emma.” I kept my tone steady, calm. “What I did—using a blue portal to visit the future—shouldn’t have been possible. I can hardly explain it myself.”
I paused and let the weight of those words settle. “Simply telling people what I saw wasn’t an option.”
Her brows pulled together. “Because you’d get into trouble?” she asked with a quiet innocence that made my chest ache.
I smiled, but there was sadness in it. “No. Because no one would believe me.”
She stilled. The sharp mind behind those eyes working faster than she let on. “Why not show them? Like you did me?”
I inclined my head. “Yes, if there had been enough time, that could have worked. But then…” I hesitated.
She caught on immediately. “Then you wouldn’t have had any control over how they tried to prevent the future. It would have been out of your hands.”
My smile deepened. Gods, she was quick. “As I’ve told you before, my dear, you have a keen mind.” I exhaled slowly. “Telling only James and Caden allowed me to handle things the way I saw fit.”
I rose to my feet and started pacing the room.
"For thirteen years, I wanted the consensus yes, but I also wanted our world to reveal itself to humans. I wanted no longer to live in hiding. Until I realized what a massive mistake it would be. But by then, it was too late. Every path I took led to the same outcome. No matter what I did, no matter who opposed the consensus, the Great Exposure was inevitable. The LiaPrisms would be handed over. The Trackers would come to exist.”
I took in a deep breath, trying to steady my own nerves. That deadline was still looming and we were nowhere closer to avert it. “All I could do was try to slow it down.”
Emma took a breath, probably trying to steady herself. “So you saw the future. You found out humans will track our translation, use it to eradicate us. Then what?”
I glanced at James, still sitting stiff as an ox, with his jaw locked tight. Then at Caden, who, in contrast, looked bored out of his mind. My two boys. As different as night and day.
“Then I formed a two-part plan. One involving James. One involving Caden.”
I gave James the floor with a single nod before easing back into my seat.
He shifted in his seat, and reached for Emma’s hand, but she didn’t take it. A hesitation. A wall forming between them.
Our lies had already started creating a rift.
A rift that could not exist.
I watched James as he spoke, sounding strong despite the truth he was unraveling. He was careful, deliberate, but beneath the controlled exterior, I could see the burden he carried, the relentless pressure of everything he had done, and the things he had yet to confess.
“You have to understand, Emma,” he began, keeping his tone measured. “The future is complicated. It’s not like we could see it coming and make it stop. By the time Stephen figured out what was going to happen, it was already too late to prevent a global reveal from happening.”
I resisted the urge to sigh. It had taken me years to piece together the events leading to the Great Exposure. Every thread I pulled unraveled another buried scheme, another quiet manipulation—each one only dragging us closer to the mess we would be tangled in.
James paused, gauging Emma’s reaction, looking for any sign she understood. I knew she wouldn’t—not yet. Not when she had been kept in the dark for so long.
“We thought if we could gather enough Resistants—people opposing the Great Exposure—we could delay the inevitable, buy ourselves some time. The goal was to hold off the consensus, to stop the Collectives from agreeing to expose our existence to the entire Human World. We figured we could keep things in check if we simply slowed the process down.”
I folded my arms, and watched Emma carefully. I had been through this conversation before, though never quite like this. Seeing it unfold through her eyes made it feel different. More personal.
Emma’s brain was already racing to form the questions I knew were coming. But James wasn’t nearly done.
“We started working quietly, reaching out to people who shared our concerns. We wanted to avoid a war between magi and humans, but also between magi and other magi.”
I nodded in agreement. It had always been the goal—to prevent an irreversible fracture between our worlds, but things rarely went according to plan.
James shot to his feet, then started pacing the room, the blunt edge of frustration bleeding into his words.
“We never anticipated the rise of the Radicals.” He ran a hand through his hair, his movements restless, like he was trying to outrun his own thoughts.
“Some of the Resistants we’d been talking to felt we were moving too cautiously, that we were too soft.
They splintered off, gathered, organized—and somehow, fuck knows how, they got their hands on an Amplifier. ”
He stopped abruptly, then turned to Emma, the guilt in his look raw and misplaced. “We underestimated them. I… I underestimated them.”
I shook my head, refusing to let him carry that burden alone. “You are not responsible for other people’s choices.”
His shoulders squared as if bracing for a blow. “I am when I’ve backed them into a corner.”
I rose to my feet, then closed the space between us and grabbed his arms forcefully.
“You didn’t force them to do anything, James.
You told them to oppose the consensus, to hold off the Great Exposure as long as they could.
You never once said, ‘And while you’re at it, why don’t you get your hands on a weapon of mass destruction and attack any Collective unwilling to deny a consensus? ’”
No matter how much he blamed himself, this wasn’t on him.
I released him and watched as James’s fists clenched; his entire body was coiled like a predator about to strike. “I should’ve killed them all before—”
“Before what?” I cut in, keeping my voice flat and unyielding. “Before they found the Amplifier?” I shook my head. “There was no way you could’ve known.”
“Before they hurt her!” he exploded, flinging his arm toward Emma. “I don’t give a shit about the other Collectives! I should’ve killed them all before they laid a single fucking hand on her!”
I exhaled deeply. He was spiraling, and I had no idea how to pull him back. I turned to Caden, stupidly hopeful he’d step in, that he’d say something—anything—to help.
Caden arched a brow, completely unbothered. “Gods, James, you’ve gotten a real penchant for drama since I last saw you.”
I shot him a look, as I felt my patience thinning. “Really?”
He shrugged, unrepentant. “What do you want me to do? Hold his hand? Pat his back? Then what—scratch his belly?”
“You’re an ass,” Emma hissed, not being entirely wrong.
Caden’s smile was all sharp edges, never reaching his eyes. “Never claimed I wasn’t.”
Emma’s nostrils flared, but I had to hand it to her—she kept her cool. Unlike James, who was true to form, a boiling pot of fury about to spill over.
Sensing the impending explosion, I stepped in. “When I figured out the sensors you saw were embedded with the essence of LiaPrisms, we knew we couldn’t let that technology fall into their hands. The only way to ensure it wouldn’t?” My gaze swept over them. “Destroy every last one.”
“All of them?” Emma’s voice was barely above a whisper, but the disbelief in it was loud.
James nodded. Caden, meanwhile, was staring out the window like he’d just discovered astronomy.
“How?” she asked, still trying to process it all.
James let out a breath and sank back into his chair.
“As First Offensive, I only had access to the one in Cyclos. But as Leader, I was expected to travel—to go on a diplomatic tour around the world. Which meant I’d have access to every single one.
And once I was close enough…” His jaw tightened. “I could destroy them all.”
Emma stared at him—struggling against the quiet rise of confusion and the unrushed bloom of understanding.
“Which is why you ran for Leadership,” she murmured, more to herself than to him.
James hesitated, measuring his words, calculating how much to reveal at once.
“Yes,” he admitted finally. “But not immediately. My reputation was…”
Caden finally turned, smirking like this was all some grand joke. “One of total destruction.”
The man had the comic timing of a graveyard.
“Coming from a peaceful pacifist like yourself, that sure means a lot,” Emma shot back, her sarcasm on point.
James ignored them both. “Anyway, with my background, Leadership was never on the table. Not unless we made it a spectacle. A grand gesture. I had to become a hero first.”
I glanced at Emma. The gears in her head were already turning, piecing it together. She would figure it out—she always did.
Her eyes narrowed. “Dale?”
James smiled—small, unsurprised. “Yes. Dale was a good man. A decent one. But more than anything, he was a pawn.” His voice didn’t waver.
“I had some of my Offensives and Jackson—who I trust more than anyone—abduct him from the Diamond City. Then I ‘found’ him. ‘Saved’ him. Played the hero I’ve never really been. ”
Emma’s expression didn’t crack, but I saw it—the flicker of realization, the quick calculations running through her mind.
James took a slow breath, letting his words settle.
“It got me the Board’s vote. Earned me the support of the United Chiefs.
Which swung the Council in my favor. Within months, I went from First Offensive to Leader.
” He leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his knees.
“Meanwhile, I’ve been trying to track and find the LiaPrisms. But it hasn’t been easy. ”
Emma’s brows pulled together. “And what about the Humanborns? How will you find them if you’re destroying the only thing that reveals them to us?”
I leaned in slightly. “We’re keeping one for ourselves. Expanding its range in secret. We hope it will be enough.”
Emma stilled. Silence stretched between us, taut and heavy. Then she lifted her gaze to James, her voice quieter now. “Your haze. It’s cerulean. Does that have anything to do with this?”
James blinked, caught off guard for the first time. She never missed a thing.
He nodded. “Yes. After seeing what the future held, stopping it became my life’s mission—and my translation simply adapted.
It’s rare, but it happens. My haze shifted, taking on the light of a blue portal.
A constant reminder of the choice I made.
” He exhaled slowly. “Before that, it was a darker shade of gray.”
Emma’s brows drew together. “Is there any specific reason it would change color?”
James shook his head. “We never found out.
Every magus has a unique shade of a certain color haze.
It's as identifying as a fingerprint. Yellow often points to healing. A shade of blue, usually signals ambition. Red, like yours, always means enormous power. The darker the shade, the greater the strength.”
He paused, then added quietly, “My former gray one... It reflected more of who I was, morally speaking. Personally, I think the mission started to overflow my character—and somehow, the color changed.”
“And no one noticed?”
James shrugged, leaning back with an easy arrogance that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Oh, they noticed.” A smirk ghosted his lips. “They just weren’t stupid enough to ask.”
Emma sat up straighter, arms crossing, her expression unreadable.
I watched her.
James did too.
So did Caden.
She was processing.
We didn’t break the silence, and neither did she.
Some truths don’t need to be rushed.
As Emma sat silent, taking in everything James had thrown at her, I watched the way her fingers curled into her palms, the slight twitch in her jaw—the only real tells that she was processing instead of reacting.
James, on the other hand, looked like a man bracing for a storm, his leg bouncing, breath uneven.
When Emma finally looked up at him, her expression had changed. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t relief. It was more like a fragile tension, living somewhere between hope and hurt.
James exhaled like he’d been holding his breath for years. “I had to keep it a secret, even from you,” he said, voice hoarse, guilt woven into every syllable.
Emma gave him a deliberate nod, but it wasn’t forgiveness. “We will talk later about it,” she said, and I spotted the way her fingers flexed again. “For now, I understand why you did. It wasn’t only yours to share.”
She leaned in, her gaze darkening. “But James—swear to me there’s nothing more. Swear to me this is it. The last thing you’ve ever kept from me. Because if there’s even one more secret—one more lie—we’re done. There’s trust, and then there’s…whatever this is.”
James nodded too fast. Too eager. “Yes. I promise. No more lies,” he said, the words tripping over each other in his rush to get them out. I spotted the flicker in his expression, the one Emma didn’t see.
He was lying. Maybe not fully. Maybe not intentionally. But lying, all the same.
Huh.
I wondered about what.
Emma then turned to me, her focus still sharp as a blade. “So. Part two of your plan. I’m guessing that’s where I came in?”
I held her stare, letting her know without saying a word she was right.