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.