“But it was worth it. Now I’m free of her, and it’s all thanks to you.”

“Well, like I said, there was a team of us, but …”

“But it was mostly you,” she finished, and he laughed again.

“So what was harder,” she asked, “separating me from Darquesse or rewriting Argeddion’s personality?”

Deacon bobbed his head from side to side, weighing up the answer. “They each had their challenges,” he said at last. “With you, the problem was isolating two sets of thoughts, and setting it up so that the other Sensitives could pull one set out. I’d never done that before. No one had. The problem we faced wasn’t exactly a common affliction. With Argeddion, it was a complete personality overhaul, with false memories and a false identity thrown in. But even though I’m more familiar with that kind of work, it still took some doing.”

“Did you at least give him a cool identity? A rock star or a billionaire or something?” she asked.

“That’s what I wanted to do! But they wouldn’t let me. They were right, of course. If we’re lucky, this overhaul will last his whole life. The key to ensuring Argeddion never resurfaces is to make him boring, and give him a boring existence. Don’t include anything that could set him off.”

“So what is he?”

“A secondary school teacher.”

Darquesse laughed. “You honestly think that’s the best career for him? Every teacher I’ve ever met has been stressed and overworked! If anything is going to set him off, it’s being in a class full of insolent teenagers!”

Deacon grinned. “I never thought of that. It was a choice between a teacher and a librarian, but at the rate libraries are closing down he’d probably be out of a job already and that would certainly have kicked something off.”

“Why a teacher or librarian?”

He blinked. “They were the most boring jobs I could think of. I wasn’t going to turn him into a cop or a firefighter or a jet pilot or—”

“Yeah. Fair enough. But what about, like, an office worker or something?”

“What kind of office?”

“Who cares? Give him a desk and a stapler and a meaningless, inconsequential career with zero responsibility and no stress.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Deacon. “I didn’t really think of jobs like that. Maybe I should have.”

Darquesse shook her head, amused. “Please tell me he’s teaching at a good school, at least.”

“I don’t know, actually,” Deacon said. “The details were filled in later by Grand Mage – or ex-Grand Mage – Ravel. He picked where Argeddion worked and where he lived. Don’t think he told anyone else. It’s like Witness Protection, you know? The fewer people know about it, the safer it is.”

Darquesse nodded. “So you don’t even know whereabouts he’s living?”

Deacon chuckled. “I don’t even know his last name!”