Page 82 of The Mask Falling

Distantly, I wondered just how many times Cade had tried to make this Rephaite ill.

“To pass on the half-urge,” Cade continued, “all an Emite has to do is bite or claw a Rephaite, hard enough to break their sarx. As soon as that happens, the Rephaite starts to run out of time.”

The Emim carry an infection called the half-urge, which causes madness and death if left untreated.

Arcturus had told me that in the colony, before I had learned enough about the Rephaim to question him. Terebell must have already sworn him to secrecy. I closed my eyes for a moment.

“How did you infect Kornephoros just now?” I asked.

“Injected him with pure Emite blood, which speeds up the process. Don’t ask how I got it.”

“Is there a cure?”

“Yeah. Aura.” Cade took a tissue from his pocket and dabbed his eyes. “Unfortunately, they lose the ability to feed as soon as the half-urge is in them. Salt and human blood restore that ability long enough for them to find a voyant and start healing.”

Sealed vials of blood in the colony, ready to be delivered to the Ranthen. Just in case.

“You learned this through experimenting on Kornephoros,” I said.

“I didn’t have a choice in the matter, Paige. Ménard told me to find their weaknesses, their secrets. He doesn’t want to get his own hands covered in this sort of unnaturalness.”

Kornephoros himself seemed unable to speak. He was heavy in his chains, chest heaving.

“The Rephaim told us they would shield us from the Emim. We swallowed it whole,” I said. “What we actually did was let a bunch of potential Emim into the highest circles of power.” I breathed out through my nose. “Humans. The chumps of the universe.”

“Not all humans, in this case,” Cade muttered. “England has believed for centuries that it has a divine right to do whatever it wants. The fact that these angelic figures chose it as their seat of power . . . I assume it only deepened that sense of superiority.”

“Oh, yes,” Kornephoros said throatily. “I was there. Worthless, proud, hidebound men. All too willing to exchange their true power for the delusion that gods had descended to bless them.”

I could believe it.

“When I got back, I told Ménard about the Rephaim training us to fight the Emim.” Cade scrunched up the tissue. “Even though he was sickened, he thought, like our ancestors, that we might need their protection. But he still didn’t want them in France.”

“So he avoided signing the Great Territorial Act. Nashira sent Kornephoros to intimidate him,” I recounted. “Ménard imprisoned him, and together you discovered . . . this. That the Emim are former Rephaim. And that ended any doubts Ménard had about the need to overthrow them.”

“He realized they were two sides of a coin. Vectors of unnaturalness.”

“Has he told Tjäder?”

“If not, he will. Not that Tjäder needs further persuasion that the Rephs have to go. She saw them herself.”

As I stood there, cold inside and out, a thought occurred to me.

“Cade,” I said quietly, “is this also what happens if Rephaim don’t take aura for long enough?”

“I wondered the same, but I haven’t tested it. Kornephoros is my only lab rat. I don’t want to lose him just yet.” Cade cut him a glance. “I asked, but he hasn’t been forthcoming.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

Kornephoros looked between us.

“You must be clever, Paige Mahoney, for my cousin to have chosen you for an ally,” he said to me. “Perhaps you are beginning to understand the dangers of your little revolution.”

I looked back at him. A picture was forming, darker by the moment.

“At present, the Emite threat remains . . . in hand,” he went on. “Should Inquisitor Ménard oust us from Scion, however, we will be forced to the outskirts of civilization, leaving us more vulnerable to the half-urge.” He canted his head. “We Rephaim can be ruthless, but we can also be reasonable. We can be moved to mercy, or persuaded to promote human interests. Where would you find yourselves if that compassion was engulfed by mindless hunger?”

“In hell,” I said. “The only way to stop it would be to seal every last one of you back in the Netherworld.”

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