Chapter 20
TWENTY
JAMES
My stomach churned violently. “You forced the True Bond on Emma when she was a newborn?”
Julian nodded, shame written across his face. That was all it took. My fist connected with his jaw before I even realized I’d moved. He staggered but didn’t retaliate, his gaze fixed to the ground, blood pooling in the corner of his mouth.
He wiped it away with the back of his hand, his movements slow, deliberate, like a man resigned to penance. I flexed my fist, the ache from the impact grounding me, but it wasn’t enough to quell the fire roaring in my chest.
He didn’t defend himself, though it wasn’t guilt that kept him still; it was acceptance. When Julian finally lifted his head, the haunted cast to his features hadn’t faded..
“I killed Gordon that night,” Julian rasped, his voice raw as his hand clutched the side of his jaw where I’d struck him. “It took everything I had—every last shred of strength—but I ended him.”
He paused, swallowing hard. “You might think it was the right thing to do. Maybe it was. But that doesn’t change the fact that he was my friend.”
His voice cracked slightly, barely noticeable unless you were listening for it. “We fought side by side for years. I trusted him. I cared about him—despite what he became.”
“He was broken, James. He’d lost everything. And in the end... I was the one who finished the job.”
“Not a fucking excuse,” I growled, the heat still burning under my skin.
“No,” Julian said quietly. “It’s not. Which is why I did what I had to—and then called the others for help. I thought... I hoped...maybe we could still undo what he’d done.”
Julian’s breath hitched, his body trembling as he relived the night. “But there was no going back,” he rasped. “Three human infants—three—carried my haze, fused permanently with their tiny bodies. We had no idea what it meant, no idea how to fix it. And before we could even decide our next step…”
His voice broke, and for a moment, he just stood there, silent and shaking.
“Gods, James, it was horrific.”
He shuddered violently, like the words scraped their way up from someplace buried. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, knuckles pale.
“By the end of that night, they were gone. Dead. All of them. Except one.”
A chill bled through me, sharp and settling deep. My throat tightened like it had filled with sand.
“Emma,” I said, the name catching on my tongue like a curse.
Julian nodded slowly, heavily.
“Yes. Emma.”
He lowered himself onto the edge of the bench, rubbing a hand down his face.
“I don’t know how or why she survived—but she did. My energy wrapped around her amygdala, exactly like it does with our kind at birth. Her brain scans were identical to ours… only the energy wasn’t hers. It was mine.”
He stood again, restless, and began to pace—tight, fast steps that echoed the spiral in his mind.
“Can you imagine what would happen if people found out?” His voice rose, strained with fear. “We created something even beyond our understanding. She had magic, only she wasn’t born with it, she was made into a maga.”
"That's why we can't trace her in the Human World," I whispered, the implications beginning to sink in. “Because she’s human.”
Julian halted, then nodded, confirming my dawning realization. "Right. No LiaPrism in the world would be able to find her, because it picks up energy that doesn’t belong to the Human World. But with Emma being human to begin with…”
“It became a human form of translation,” I murmured, finishing his thought.
Julian nodded again. “We debated for hours what to do next, monitoring her closely while we decided whether to bring her into our world or leave her with the humans."
He took another sip from the bottle of vodka.
"What color is your haze?" I asked forcefully, finally connecting the pieces of the puzzle and realizing I hadn’t seen him translate once since I’d met him. Except for now.
He looked up at me. "It's a deep shade of red. Same shade as Emma's, I assume. Haven’t caught her translating yet. But she possesses my energy, so it’ll be the same shade of scarlet. She will become the most powerful maga to have ever walked this earth if she…"
The unspoken words hung between us like a fragile thread. He was on the brink of saying, “if she survives,” but I wasn’t ready to face any other possibility.
“This is why you left during the battle at Alliance? And when the Radicals attacked Cyclos? Why you didn’t come with me to Coastal to save Emma? Because you were scared I would recognize the color of your haze or notice that it’s the same as Emma’s?”
Julian nodded. “You or someone else. I know you think I was a coward for doing that, twice, and I was. I have no excuse, but the actual reason. If someone had seen me translate so close to Emma, both our shades too similar, the evidence would’ve been…” He trailed off.
I dragged a hand down my face, frustration knotting in my jaw. “Tell me what happened next. After Emma survived you fucking mind-raping her.”
Julian flinched, his cheeks flushing deep red at the accusation. Oh well, cry me a fucking river, asshole.
“We decided our world wasn’t ready for the knowledge we had,” he said stiffly. “It’s not like we could observe her for a few years, see how her powers developed, and make a call later. We only knew one thing—her energy was man-made. Artificial. And we had no idea what that actually meant.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, then let out a slow, controlled breath.
“So, we made a choice: let her live among humans, suppress her powers, and give her a normal life. One where this—” he gestured vaguely between us, “—never happened. Where no one would ever know what she was.”
Another pause. This time, his breath filled his chest before he slowly exhaled it through his nose.
“And it worked—her powers stayed dormant except for the occasional eruption of magic whenever her life was in danger. Still, nobody found out about her because it wasn't traceable, and if Stephen hadn't been there right when he was, she would have never been…"
My head was spinning. I had a thousand questions clawing their way forward, but only one made it out, "How in hell do you make a maga’s powers dormant?"
I’d never heard of such a thing.
“You have to understand—we were protecting her,” he said, turning sharply toward me.
“Everyone, magi or human, would’ve tried to exploit that kind of power.
And once we realized her translation was untraceable, she wasn’t safe in our world anymore.
” He gestured toward the sky, then let his arm drop heavily.
“She had to stay human. If we hadn’t subdued her abilities, she would’ve been a danger—to herself, and to others. We’d have had no choice but to bring her in. And then she would’ve become a lab rat. A case study. An untraceable haze, James. Do you know what kind of chaos that would cause?”
I snapped at him. “Get on with it Julian, what the hell did you do?”
He rubbed both hands over his face as if trying to wipe away the memory itself.
“I used the True Bond to put a damper on her powers. When faced with genuine fear of death, my translation would surface, but other than that, she’d live a translation-free life.”
Julian had started crying actual tears, but I felt not an ounce of compassion. I was beyond any ‘normal’ form of rage. I felt sick, sick to my stomach, and I had to actively keep myself from either hurling or killing him on the spot.
Yet, something not so unimportant did occur to me.
"So she never chose you? To bond with? She never wanted to be bonded to you? You only manipulated us into believing she did?"
“Yes.”
"And her haze when she accepted your bond…" I pressed on.
"It was mine you saw, same shade as Emma's. I didn't really do anything, neither did she; it was all smoke and mirrors to deceive you," he admitted.
"You fucking asshole," I hissed, trying to restrain my rising rage-haze.
He swallowed hard. "I'm not disputing that."
"So you've been bonded to her this entire time?"
He nodded again, explaining, "Yes. I can shield against it because it’s my own energy. Since my arrival, I have never used the bond. Her thoughts and feelings have remained private, I promise.”
I growled. “But your time in Cyclos wasn’t the only time you two met. You looked for her as a child.”
Julian closed his lids, his shoulders sagging under the weight of his confession. “After a few years, I tracked her down, yes—just to check on her. To make sure she was alive and well.”
He paused before continuing his tale of horrors. “The True Bond has its limits. Physical ones. I’m not entirely certain of the exact range, but I know being on the same continent is essential.”
“So I moved here, aged myself down, made myself look like a seven-year-old kid, and enrolled at her primary school. Under the guise of ‘Martin,’ I became her friend.”
Remorse flickered in his eyes. “It was the only way to check up on her, without raising suspicion. I wanted to ensure she was okay, make sure the bond wasn’t harming her.
For a while, it seemed like our plan had worked.
Whenever she felt something—emotions, reactions—no energy surged.
As long as her life wasn’t in danger, she was basically human. ”
I rose abruptly, my nerves fraying with every word he spoke. I started pacing, needing the movement to process. “So let me get this straight. You forced the True Bond on her as a baby—a human—made her accept your translation, then put a damper on it so she wouldn’t translate, and now what?”
“It works independently of you? You can be on another continent, not telepathically linked, or even shield against it, but she can still use magic?”