“I don’t even know how to free myself from this body,” I protested. “Could you—?”

“Even if I knew all of Gutenberg’s secrets, which I don’t, his geis on me prevents me from interfering in such matters.” He laughed, a tired, bitter sound. “I can’t help you, but neither can I protect him should you choose to end his life.”

“What would you do?”

He shook his head, his eyes going distant. “I’ve held power over people’s lives before. In time, I learned that I should not be trusted with such power. Whatever mistakes Gutenberg has made, I suspect I would have done far worse.”

“I don’t want to run the Porters.”

“Which makes you better qualified than many to do so,” de Leon countered.

He couldn’t be serious. I was a failed field agent, utterly unprepared to run a global network of magic-users. To make sure nonhuman races remained hidden from the public, and to enforce the peace between various races. To supervise my own people. To oversee the locking of potentially dangerous books.

“You’re unlikely to have another chance,” he continued.

“Why are you telling us this?” Lena asked. “Did you come here to persuade us to kill your rival for you?”

De Leon merely chuckled. “What I want is for you to consider the consequences of your choice, whatever choice you make.”

“How can we know that?” Gutenberg had chosen to allow the vampires to establish a nest in Detroit. As a result, a rogue vampire had murdered Charles Hubert’s brother. Gutenberg had locked Hubert’s mind and magic instead of imprisoning him. Years later, an explosion had shattered that lock, creating a murderer. Who could have foreseen any of that?

De Leon merely shrugged and examined another book.

All I had wanted was to be a researcher, to see how far magic could take us. To truly understand magic. “When Charles Hubert died, I saw the characters that had crept into his mind. I saw something else, too.”

“Something that frightened you,” said de Leon, nodding. “Something old and terrible and unstoppable.”

“Yes.”

“What you saw is the reason Gutenberg allows creatures such as vampires and werewolves to exist and multiply.”

“Why is that?” asked Lena.

“Because if that thing ever finds its way to our world, we will need their strength to defeat it.”

I thought of Hubert’s attack on the Detroit nest, and my meeting with Alice Granach. “Why would they help us?”

“Survival.” He stepped past me and looked down at Gutenberg. “Choose quickly, libriomancer. But whatever choice you make, be certain you’re prepared for what comes next.”

“What do you mean?”