Chapter 172

Someone had outthought him, Desmond realized. Calvin was on the top of his list, one of Calvin's people had defected. His couldn't. They'd know the punishment was worse than death- it was unmaking. Effervescent.

Erasure of the soul.

Oh, the others thought Desmond knew very little about magic but he did not. The reason he had kept Calvin close, had Oma captured a long time ago, long before Calvin had worked up his plan to take over, was because Desmond knew about brimstones. He never would've if not for the accident. The accident of his marriage, the accident of his wife. The latter was his doing but only because she never told him the truth, not all of it. Hanging onto the freyed ends of her life. It had been a turning point, an impassive stone between today and tomorrow. Between the known and the unknown.

If Calvin found out Oma was just like Ian, Oma would become the perfect sacrificial lamb. Then Desmond would get what he always wanted, a carnage the size of New York territorie