Betrayed by Magic (The Baine Chronicles #5)(26)

“Pah!” The doctor looked down his nose at me, which was an impressive feat considering he was an inch shorter. “The Benefactor is far more clever than either of you could hope to be. Our cause will triumph with or without her.” The firm conviction in his tone sent a shiver down my spine, but I kept my posture relaxed, determined not to let him see the effect his dire prediction had on me.

“And without you as well, it looks like,” I said, arching my eyebrows. His shoulders slumped slightly at the reminder. I was pretty sure he would receive the death penalty for his role in nearly assassinating the highest official of the mage government.

“Yes, it is too bad I probably won’t see it,” the doctor admitted. “But I am not the only specialist working for the human race.” He bared his teeth in a savage smile. “I was looking forward to the pleasure of administering diseases to all the mages in Dara.”

“All of them?” I asked, hiding my horror. “You mean at once?”

The doctor laughed. “No, it will happen inconspicuously, and will look as though the mages are dying of natural causes. I don’t mind telling you, as you won’t be able to stop it.” That expectation seemed to afford him great satisfaction. “Whatever happens to me, I shall soon be avenged.”

Iannis regarded him with disgust. “What’s to stop the Federation from bringing healers in, to cure the mages you and your confederates infect?”

Doctor Mitas scoffed. “I believe you noticed it was extraordinarily difficult for you to cure the Minister of his illness, wasn’t it?”

So he was aware of that, after all. When Iannis said nothing, the doctor smiled coldly. “We are focusing on diseases that are resistant to magical healing. There are simply not enough first-rate healers to deal with an epidemic, and, with any luck, those will be the first to die.” He smirked openly now.

“This is crazy!” I snapped, unable to hold my tongue any longer. “If these diseases can’t be cured by magic, then what are you going to do when they spread to the human population as well? Or are you so keen to kill off your own kind?”

The doctor gave me a patronizing smile. “The humans will be quite safe. Shifters, of course, are another story.”

My muscles coiled, and Iannis put his hand on my leg to keep me from lunging across the table and grabbing the smug bastard by the throat. “Doctor Mitas,” he said in a cold, commanding voice, “You will tell us exactly where those diseases are being manufactured, right now.”

I had never seen such a stern, compelling expression on his face. The doctor was staring into his eyes as though mesmerized. Iannis must be using persuasion, despite the Minister’s assurance that the prisoner was resistant. Yet, what mere human would be strong enough to stand against Iannis’s power, when he had Tua blood flowing through his veins? Iannis’s hand on my leg was tense now, so it could not be an easy spell to maintain, whatever it was.

The staring duel lasted for over thirty seconds before the doctor’s eyes fell. “I have not been there myself,” he said in a strange, faraway voice. “But I am nearly certain the place is in Nika, a small town in Osero.”

“Nika? That is fairly close to Parabas, isn’t it?” Iannis asked, referring to Osero’s state capital.

“Yes.”

“Very well.” Iannis released whatever spell he had employed to force the doctor to confess. The prisoner’s lips thinned as he sat back in his chair.

“You may have tricked me with your thrice-damned mage power,” he spat, bitter resentment burning in his gaze, “but the information will not do you any good. No mage can breach the facility’s walls.”

“Why is that?” Iannis demanded.

The doctor shrugged. “I don’t know, but I have it on good authority that even if your kind discovered the place, you would never be able to get into the labs.” He bared his teeth at us. “So go to Osero, if you must. You won’t get in, and if the Ur-God is just, you might very well end up being our first victims.”



We briefed the Minister in the comfort of his home, before retiring to our rooms at the Crystal Hotel for a much needed late-night dinner. We would leave for Parabas just before noon, after grabbing a few hours of sleep. The Minister would contact the Chief Mage of Osero and ensure his full cooperation with our mission. The Capitol library would provide us a map of Nika and its environs before we left, so that we could be prepared for what lay ahead.

“It is quite possible that we may not be able to get into the lab, as the doctor suggests,” Iannis said, his arm curled around me as we lay in bed, showered and fed now. He’d booked two adjoining rooms, my luggage was in the second one, but I had no intention of sleeping in a separate bed. “Certain wards are impossible to break, even for me. In that case, we may have to destroy the entire building from outside.”

“And kill all the people in it?” I frowned. “What if they have innocents in there? They may use test subjects they’re experimenting on, perhaps even mages, if they are trying to create a formula to target them specifically.”

“It would be regrettable, but I don’t see that we have a choice,” Iannis said. “We cannot risk the lives of the entire Federation for the sake of a few.”

I sighed. I hated that sort of thing—sacrificing one to save the lives of many—but I couldn’t argue against the logic in this scenario. If the Resistance was using innocent test subjects, they were probably going to die anyway, so blowing up the building would only accelerate their tragic fate. “Still, if there is any way to stop this madness without resorting to mass killings, we should try to find it.”