The phone went briefly silent as I was speaking: Will had pressed the Mute button and I knew he was giving orders to find me. I started scanning the futures for danger, searching for the ones in which the Nightstalkers gated in. “Fine,” Will said. “Talk.”

Will was buying time, probably hoping to keep me on the line while Lee tracked me down. “I’m sorry for what happened to your sister,” I said. “I know what I did back then was wrong, and if I could take it back I would. But I can’t. And killing me isn’t going to bring her back.”

“This isn’t about bringing her back,” Will said. “You think I don’t know that? This is about making sure you don’t get to do it again.”

“I haven’t been doing it again!” I snapped. “I’m not a Dark mage anymore! You’re trying to kill me for something I don’t want to do!”

“Right, you’re a good guy now.” Will’s voice was sarcastic. “You think you get to walk away? You’ve had enough and now everyone should leave you alone?”

“Yes! I walked out of that life! I’m not asking for anything from anyone, I just want to be left alone! It’s been ten years, isn’t that long enough? Isn’t there some point where you stop being the person you used to be and it stops being right to blame them for what they’ve done?”

“No,” Will said. “I don’t care if you’ve been Mother Teresa. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been, you deserve to die.”

“Then how long does it take? Twenty years? Thirty? Fifty? You can’t keep blaming someone forever!”

“Bullshit,” Will said without sympathy. “You’re just trying to weasel out of it.”

I could feel the futures shifting and flickering and I knew Lee was searching for me. I couldn’t see him and the Nightstalkers arriving at my location . . . at least not yet. “This isn’t just about you and me,” I said. “Dhruv and the rest of the Nightstalkers—they’re your friends, right?”

“Like you even know what that means.”

“They follow your lead,” I said. “That makes you responsible for them. And if you keep leading them the way you’ve been going, then sooner or later you’re going to take them into a battle you can’t win. They’re going to die and it’ll be your fault.”

“You mages think you’re so much better than us,” Will said. “We always get told we’re not good enough and you know what? It’s bullshit. There’s nothing we can’t do if we work together. You aren’t the first Dark mage we’ve taken down and you won’t be the last.”

“And when you lose?” I demanded. “When you see your friends dying in front of you?”