Imaginary Friends: Chapter Two
Misha takes Jensen up on a night out when they wrap early, having a few drinks before heading home. They spend some time waiting for a cab until they get bored and start walking some. They’ll still need a cab eventually, but it feels good to walk off the buzz in the cool air, anyway.
“Hey!”
The streets are relatively empty and quiet, making the voice that calls out to them that much more noticeable. Misha turns towards it, as does Jensen, and sees a tall blonde woman walking towards them, smiling and excited.
“Hey, I know you! You’re that guy.” She’s making a beeline for Jensen, who just smiles in return.
“I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met.”
“We haven’t.” She stands in front of Jensen, her smile fading a little as she studies him, cocking her head. “Did a monk visit you, by any chance?”
Just like that, dread fills Misha’s stomach, and he’s tense and on high alert. He hasn’t thought about that day in Jensen’s trailer in a long time, but it all comes rushing back now. He sees it register on Jensen’s face, his expression dropping quickly. “How do you know about that?” Misha asks, before Jensen can, and the woman barely even spares him a glance.
“I asked him.” She steps closer, and Jensen takes a step back, hands up.
“Look, I don’t know what this is about, but whatever it is, I think you’re mistaken.”
She frowns and nods, still staring at him intently. “I think you might be right. I don’t sense anything in you except human. But I guess there’s really only one way to find out.”
Her movements are fast, too fast for Misha to react, and he can’t do anything except watch as she practically throws Jensen into the nearest wall, hard enough that Misha hears it. Jensen’s body is already crumpling to the ground when Misha tries to rush in to help, but the woman turns on him and shoves him back with a force he’s never felt before, landing hard on his back. It’s painful, and he’s dazed, wondering what the hell happened, when he remembers Jensen. He tries to get to his feet and ends up half-sitting as his back protests, watching as the woman grabs Jensen and pulls him up on his feet. He’s relieved to see Jensen still conscious, if obviously in pain.
“You know, I normally wouldn’t do this,” she says, all casual, like she isn’t beating the shit out of them for no reason, “But I really need to see you bleed.”
Misha starts fumbling for his phone, realizing he should have done that in the first place, already feeling guilt and regret on top of the panic that has bile rising in his throat, certain that this woman means to kill Jensen, and he did nothing to help. She slaps Jensen, hard enough that Misha hears the crack of it and hears Jensen’s groan.
“There we go,” she says, getting in Jensen’s face as blood drips from his mouth. She frowns then and lets Jensen go, turning away as Jensen doubles over. “Nothing special at all. Total waste of my time.”
And just like that, she’s gone, walking away like nothing even happened. Misha’s struggling to even find the words to ask Jensen if he’s okay, and his hand is shaking as he tries to dial 911, but another voice stops him.
“Don’t bother with the cops. They won’t be able to do anything. You’ll just get them killed.”
The man comes around the nearest corner and walks towards them, and Misha wonders if this is where they both die. But the man crouches down and helps Misha to his feet, holding him steady as he passes through a wave of pain.
“Jensen,” Misha says, once he finally gets himself together and finds his voice. He moves to Jensen and helps him to straighten up, supporting him. “Are you okay?”
Jensen leans on him and nods, but it’s clear that he still needs physical support as he recovers himself, wincing in pain. “What the fuck just happened?”
“What happened is that abomination thought you were her Key.”
“What?” Misha looks at the man while keeping an arm around Jensen, remembering the monk using that same word to describe Jared. “How do you…? What do you mean?”
The man looks around at the open streets, then looks back at them. “Maybe there’s somewhere we can talk about this privately?”
They end up back inside a bar but in a secluded corner. Misha knows neither of them was about to let this stranger into their living space. It was slow going, getting here, but through the shock and bruising, Misha finds it miraculous that nothing is broken in either of them, as far as they can tell.
“That’s more of a surprise for you,” the man says, gesturing to Misha. “Normally, she’d be more careless with someone she thinks is ordinary. But she thought Jensen was the Key, which made her a bit gentler than normal.” Jensen scoffs, and Misha is still just as dumbfounded as he is, but the man continues. “Name’s Beck,” he says, finally introducing himself. “General of the Knights of Byzantium.”
“You don’t look like a knight,” Jensen says, nodding towards Beck in his jeans and long-sleeved t-shirt. Beck eyes Jensen with thinning patience.
“Forgive me if I don’t wander the city in chain mail. It would be a little conspicuous, don’t you think?” He pulls up his sleeve, revealing a tattoo that looks like it could be some ancient symbol used on the show. “This is how we’re identified.”
“What’s your job?” Misha asks, prying for more details even though none of this makes any sense.
“Well,” Beck sighs, “The monk you met is one of the Order of Dagon. They found a way to protect the Key from Joy, that nice woman you met earlier. Hell of a name for someone like that, isn’t it?” he says, grinning and shaking his head. “The Key can unlock gates between dimensions. She was banished from hers and wants to use it to get back.”
“And the Key is a person?”
Misha doesn’t like Jensen’s tone. Beck wouldn’t pick up on it, but Misha can hear that Jensen has put together their conversations with both the monk and the knight. He can hear something creeping into Jensen’s voice: doubt, suspicion, betrayal. It’s something negative, and it’s aimed at Jared.
“Yes,” Beck says, and Misha’s stomach churns. “We only recently found that out. The monks apparently created a human form to protect the Key. That makes it seem ordinary and gives it more protection in the form of other human bonds. Family, friends. The problem is…” Beck leans forward, eyes on Jensen. He might not know anything about Jared, but he can obviously sense that Jensen knows something. “Those people? They don’t know. You see, these monks, they altered memories, reality, and made people think that they had someone they loved in their lives. But it’s all a lie. And all the while, these people are in danger, because they’re unknowingly sheltering the one thing that monster Joy wants.”
“I think we should go,” Misha says, foregoing any pleasantries. That pit of dread is a deadweight inside of him again, and he’s genuinely afraid. Of what, he’s not sure. It could be that there are so many crazy people believing these insane theories and coming after them. Or it could be the nagging feeling that this is true, and Jared isn’t who they thought he was. But it could also be the sense that Jensen is taking this guy’s bait. He gets up, grabbing Jensen’s arm, but Jensen doesn’t move yet.
Beck looks up at Misha with disdain, like Misha is beneath him. “You do what you want.” He moves his attention back to Jensen, reaching into his pocket and pulling something out, handing it over to him. “You take my number and these pills. Modern magic.” He grins. “Spells are also too conspicuous these days. If you are near the key, those will help you see it. And then you let me know.”
Jensen closes his fist around the items, thinking about this for entirely too long, as far as Misha’s concerned. “What will you do with the Key? If the monks are trying to protect it, what are you trying to do?”
“You think of us as your humane magicians.” Beck reaches out again and pats Jensen’s hand. “We return the Key to its original form, which is just energy. We disperse that energy into the earth, scattering it, so that it can never be used again. It will be quick and painless, and it will return everything back to normal. No more altered reality or memories. And remember, the vessel surrounding the Key is just that. It isn’t real.”
“Jensen-”
“Hold on,” Jensen says, ignoring Misha’s prompts to leave. “You said Joy wants to get back home. So, if she uses the Key, that’s all that happens?”
“Unfortunately, it’s not that easy.” Beck sits back in his chair and sighs. “The Key is too powerful, even for Joy. When she uses it, she won’t just let herself into her home dimension. There will be no borders anymore. There will literally be Hell on Earth.”
“That’s enough, Jensen, let’s go.” Misha’s more forceful now, angry, and Jensen finally complies.
“Our way is the best way!” Beck calls out after them. “You know I’m right!”
Jensen ignores Jared’s texts while he paces his apartment, still sore, Misha pleading with him to sit down and calm down.
“You can’t be serious, Jensen!” he says, looking every bit as distraught as he sounds. “We’re talking about Jared, here.”
“What are the chances?” Jensen asks rounding on Misha, who’s sitting on the couch. “All these different people come to us for the same exact reason, and it all has to do with this Key nonsense?”
“Maybe you’ve missed it, but there is this thing called the Internet, and large groups of people believe some pretty crazy things on there,” Misha answers, glaring at him.
Jensen shakes his head. “No. No, all of this doesn’t just happen. Besides, how do you explain Joy and what she did to us?” Misha is silent for once, but clearly upset, hiding his face in his hands. “Come on, man.” Jensen sits down next to him, imploring him. “This doesn’t freak you out? It doesn’t freak you out that everything we know about Jared is a lie? That he isn’t even real? Aren’t you angry? Don’t you feel…violated, that they fucking messed with your mind?”
He’s getting more and more worked up as he talks about it, his mind racing. He cuts himself off before he says more, because Misha doesn’t know that he and Jared are anything more than freakishly good friends, and now Jensen’s not sure he ever wants anybody to know, not if he was duped into it. He feels angry and violated, his memories of him and Jared in bed together suddenly making him feel sick.
“We don’t know any of this for sure,” Misha says quietly, lifting his head.
“What if we have a way to find out?” Jensen feels for the pills in his pocket, and Misha looks at him like he’s gone completely off the deep end.
“You would really take those from someone you don’t even know? For fuck’s sake, Jensen, that shit could be poison! Or if it does make you see something weird, maybe that’s because it’s just LSD, and you’re tripping balls! You can’t rely on that.”
“The monk said they made him for me.” Jensen’s thinking out loud now, every thought he has pulling him deeper into fear and resentment. “All this time, we talked about all the shit we had in common. Same home state, same family setup, same interests. What if that wasn’t just a coincidence?” He gets a bad taste in his mouth, chest tightening. “What if he was literally made for me?”
“Then congratu-fucking-lations,” Misha says, and Jensen chafes at the lack of sympathy. “Do you know how many people wish for something like that?”
“Nobody wishes for their brains to be altered,” Jensen counters, but Misha’s ready for that response.
“Do you know how impossible that would be? Do you know how many brains they’d have to alter? This isn’t just you we’re talking about.”
“That’s my whole point!” Jensen stands again, looking down at Misha. “How can you be so fucking calm about this?”
“I’m not calm.” Misha stands, too, the two of them facing off against each other. “I’m just as freaked out as you are, but even if these people are right, the monk, the knight, Joy…how can you possibly think that Jared isn’t real?” Jensen turns away from the emotion in Misha’s eyes, trying to build up his defenses against it. “I don’t care how he came into this world, he’s a human being. And he didn’t ask for any of this. Fucking Beck says the people around him are in danger and don’t know it, but neither does Jared! I know you don’t wanna believe it, but Jared’s just as much of a victim as we are.”
“What if he does know?” Jensen asks, but he can’t really argue that point. If there’s anything he’s sure of, it’s that Jared isn’t aware of any of this.
“If you were trying to protect something that powerful, would you tell its host what he was carrying? Please.” Jensen turns back around when Misha puts a hand on his shoulder, pleading with him. “Please don’t do anything stupid. And please…”
He trails off, but Jensen knows what he’s asking. Misha’s near tears at the thought of Jared getting hurt, and Jensen tries even harder to swallow his own emotions, building that wall inside of himself.
Jensen doesn’t make any promises, and he doesn’t heed Misha’s warnings, either. He excuses his and Misha’s bruises as some stupid bar fight, makeup and visual effects smoothing out his face, and then he takes a chance and pops one of the pills the next day. For a while, he doesn’t feel any different, and he starts to wonder if Misha was right, maybe this was all bullshit. But then he sees it, and his heart nearly stops when he does. He still doesn’t feel any different, and everything around him - the set, the crew, the cast - looks the same…except for Jared.
He does a double-take when it happens, because he doesn’t see Jared as Jared anymore. All he can see is this green shimmer, this swirl of energy that moves around in Jared’s place. God, he’s not even human.
It gets worse when Jensen sees the wall of pictures in the hair and makeup trailer, all of them with Jared’s image blurred, distorted, or just plain gone. He retreats to his trailer, fear making his heart pound in his chest, hands fisted in his hair as he starts to feel like he’s losing his goddamn mind. Instead he finds it, something breaking inside of him, and memories come flooding back to him, real memories. He drops to his hands and knees, breathing heavily, hit hard with the revelations. Nothing is as he thought it was.
He remembers now, that first audition when he read for Sam. And there was only Sam, the story of a boy who rebelled against his hunter father but got sucked back into the life when his father went missing. The show had never been about hunters but hunter. There were no brothers, just an only child. The show was his, and his alone, for five seasons, ending with his death, as it only could.
He feels like he can’t breathe and tears spring to his eyes. This is his life, his past, and it’s all been rewritten. At least five of his years with Jared were a complete lie. A sob escapes his throat, and he rolls onto his back, lying there for a moment as the room spins around him. Then nausea hits him, and he moves in a blur, barely making it to the bathroom before he empties the contents of his stomach, pulse thudding in his ears.
“Jensen? Jensen!”
It’s Jared’s voice, and Jensen whimpers and heaves again, stomach hurting with the effort. He hides his face, not yet lifting his head from the toilet, unable to see through his tears. It’s a perfectly normal occurrence for Jared to let himself into Jensen’s trailer, but Jensen wishes now that he’d locked the door and kept Jared out. He flinches when Jared’s hands touch his back and feels Jared jerk away.
“Hey, it’s just me.” He can hear the surprise in Jared’s voice at Jensen’s reaction and knows that it would’ve touched his heart if he hadn’t taken that fucking pill, if he didn’t know. “Jesus, are you okay? I thought something was weird today, but I didn’t know you were this sick. Should I get a doctor?”
“No,” Jensen croaks, wiping his eyes and reaching up to flush the toilet. “No, I don’t need a doctor.”
“Are you okay?” Jared repeats, reaching out to touch him. Jensen flinches again, and out of the corner of his eye, all he can see is that green shimmer. He’s grateful at least that he won’t have to see Jared’s hurt expression, though he knows now that any emotion Jared shows isn’t real, that Jared isn’t real.
“I’m fine, I just…I just have a migraine.”
“Really?” Jared sounds doubtful, but still willing to accept the explanation. “I don’t think you’ve ever had a migraine in all the time I’ve known you.” Jensen barely manages to keep from scoffing. Jared hasn’t really known him for as long as he thinks. “Do you need any help?”
“No.” Jensen gets to his feet, trying not to seem as shaky as he is. “No, I just need to go lie down for a while.”
“Can I get you anything?”
“No.” He pushes past the shimmer and out of the bathroom, slowly lowering himself onto the couch in his trailer. The shimmer stays, and he knows Jared’s standing there trying to figure out what to do.
“I’m here if you need anything,” Jared tries, and Jensen closes his eyes, swallowing the lump in his throat. “I can take care of you.”
“I just really need to be alone right now.”
Silence. He’s never said anything like that to Jared, and he mentally shields himself from the waves of hurt coming off Jared.
“Okay.” The voice is soft and wounded, but still open. “You call me if you need me. If you need anything.” He pauses before he opens the door to leave. “What’s mine is yours.” Jensen doesn’t answer, and Jared leaves, closing the door behind him.
Jared invites Misha into his trailer to have lunch with him. Jensen had somehow managed to excuse himself. It stings, just as everything else has stung the past few days; Jensen is obviously avoiding him. He and Misha exchange jibes over their food for a couple of minutes, and then Jared stops eating, feeling the inner turmoil and wondering if he should pull Misha into it.
“What’s wrong?” Misha asks, noticing Jared pushing his food around with his fork. Jared looks back at him, and there’s genuine concern in his eyes. Not that Jared expected anything less, but he appreciates it more now that he isn’t getting it from Jensen.
He pauses, playing with his food a little more before speaking. “Can I ask you a potentially awkward question?”
Misha takes a bite of his food and chews. “Shoot.”
Jared swallows, wondering how to word this in a way that doesn’t sound completely childish. “Do you know…? Has Jensen mentioned anything to you that might suggest he’s mad at me?”
“Why do you say that?” Misha asks, but he’s stopped eating now, too, though Jared supposes it could just be the shock of him and Jensen suddenly not getting along after all this time.
“He’s avoiding me,” Jared says, and it hurts even saying it. “And he’s just been dismissive lately, like he doesn’t want me around. I’m not sure what happened, or what I did. I’m sorry, this is so fucking high school drama, but I just…I had to ask. I don’t mean to put you in the middle of anything.”
“No, no, please, don’t apologize.” There’s an emotion in Misha’s expression that Jared can’t quite name, but it’s still somehow comforting. “You can talk to me about anything.” Misha sighs, thinking for a moment. “He hasn’t said anything to me. I’m sorry, I wish I could help you more.”
Jared sits on his next few words for a minute, wondering if he should reveal their secret. But he needs this connection right now, and he trusts Misha to keep this between them. “We…um.” He struggles to find the right words for what he and Jensen did, for what they are, or maybe were.
“You what?”
“We spent the night together.” The words roll off his tongue suddenly, and with them comes a wave of anxiety.
Misha stares at him for a minute, and then his eyebrows raise. “Oh. Oh, I…When did this happen?”
“Just before he started avoiding me,” Jared says, huffing a nervous laugh and then swallowing hard. His hands feel sweaty suddenly, and he wipes them on his jeans. “You don’t think that…that’s why…” His stomach twists, because this has been his fear ever since Jensen turned him away. It had felt so easy, so normal, but maybe Jared had screwed things up, even though Jensen had been the one to invite him into his bedroom. He knows neither of them had ever been with another man prior to that night. Maybe Jensen’s taste of it with Jared wasn’t what he thought it would be. Maybe he’d done something wrong, or maybe he just wasn’t good enough. Maybe Jensen didn’t really want him or feel the same way.
Jared’s surprised to see Misha’s expression harden, his jaw setting in a way Jared’s never seen before, not even as an evil version of Cas. “If it is, then he’s a motherfucking idiot.”
Misha storms into Jensen’s trailer, locking the door behind him.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” Jensen asks, all sarcastic, and Misha’s in his face immediately.
“Go ahead and try telling me that you’re not shitting yourself over this whole Key thing because you’re in love with him.” He can see that Jensen’s taken aback, and it fires him up even more. “Jesus, Jensen, you should know better than anyone else how human he is after you fucked him!”
“I didn’t fuck him,” Jensen growls, eyes narrowing as he pushes Misha away, a little too much force against Misha’s chest causing him to stumble backwards. “I didn’t go that far.”
“Well, what a gentleman.”
“Don’t give me that shit, Misha.” Jensen turns away from him and grabs a beer, taking a swig, and Misha wonders when he started drinking during breaks between scenes. “You haven’t seen what I’ve seen.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Jensen rubs a hand over his face, stress showing in the lines there. “The pills showed me everything.”
“Oh my God.” Misha’s stomach drops in despair. “Jesus Christ, Jensen, you took those things? Oh my God, you’ve lost your fucking mind.” He feels near tears again, as he has so many times in recent days. But he’s convinced that he’s watching the steady decline of his friend’s mental health, which could become physical, if he keeps it up with the alcohol.
“You don’t understand,” Jensen goes on, sounding completely deranged now. “He’s not even human, Mish! I took the pill, and everything was the same - literally everything - except for Jared. There was nothing to him, just this weird energy swirling around. He disappeared from the pictures, and then…then I remembered it all. He didn’t even exist for the first 5 years of this show. And the show ended then! But those monks, they just rewrote everything, and they made all of this up just so we’d take him in. Me and you, we’re real, we were here before all of this, but he’s not.”
Misha is crying now, tears silently slipping down his cheeks. Jensen seems so earnest, absolutely convinced that all of this is true. He’s even further gone than Misha originally thought, and he doesn’t know if he can ever change Jensen’s mind now. “Goddammit. Goddammit, Jensen.”
“I know it sounds crazy,” Jensen says gently, as if Misha’s the one who isn’t understanding reality. “But if you took the pills, you’d know.”
“I’m not taking any pills,” Misha says, voice hoarse. “You have no idea what you’re doing. Poor Jared-”
“He isn’t real,” Jensen interrupts, and Misha’s heart breaks, for Jensen, for Jared, for everything breaking between them all.
“One day, you’re gonna regret saying that. You’re gonna regret all of this. I just hope it isn’t too late.”
Misha leaves wondering what to do. All he can think about is Jared, confused and upset in his trailer, thinking he’s done something wrong, when he hasn’t done anything at all. And he feels terrible for lying to him, but he just can’t bring himself to be honest. He’s not sure how he could convince Jared to believe him in the first place, and then even if he could, how could he break that kind of news to him? Not just the debate over whether Jared’s real or not, but the danger that he’s in, that they’re all in. It’s too much.
He’s rented a house while he’s in Vancouver filming, and it’s when he walks in that night that he’s startled by the monk standing in his living room.
“How did you get in here?”
“It’s alright,” the monk says, hands raised, just like the first time. “I’m a friend. And I need to talk to you about Jared.”
“What do you know about him?” Misha asks, still standing just inside the doorway, though he does reach back and close the door behind him.
“Everything,” the monk says simply, shrugging his shoulders. “I helped create him.”
Misha hates hearing that, not wanting to think of Jared like Jensen does, as some artificial creation. He moves further into the room and sinks down into a chair. “How did you do it?” He doesn’t want to ask the question, but he does anyway. “Is he really human?”
“Of course he is,” the monk answers, concern in his tone as he sits across from Misha. “Have the Knights gotten to you?”
“I’ve met one,” Misha says, making his disdain for the Knights clear. “But they’ve gotten to my friend.”
“They’ve gotten to Jensen?” Misha nods, and the monk’s expression falls. “He was meant to protect the Key. We gave him Jared for that reason.”
“Why?”
It’s only one word, but it’s a complicated question, and the monk sighs. “It’s what Jensen has inside him. Or what we thought he did. He’s a born protector, nurturer, and he’s always wished for a soulmate. A lot of people do, and a lot of people do for selfish reasons. But Jensen was different. We thought we could protect the Key and give Jensen what he was missing.”
“How do you know these things about him?” Misha asked, feeling more confused than before.
“Everything is connected,” the monk answered. “We know a lot about the universe, how it works, and what drives most of the people in it. We can tap into the energy flowing through it. All those thoughts, prayers, and wishes that you think go nowhere? I can’t tell you if they reach your god or an afterlife, but we get them. We needed to do something drastic to protect the Key, and Jensen was selfless and deserving.”
“And any kind of match for a beast from another dimension?” Misha asks, angry now. “What gives you the right? Jensen asked for a soulmate, not the responsibility of keeping us all from Hell on Earth! You’re playing with people’s lives here, ruining them! Why didn’t you take the Knights up on the offer to destroy the Key before you turned it into a human being?”
“We didn’t know its full potential at the time,” the monk says, chastised. “We weren’t sure if it could be used for good in the future. We know now that it can’t. It’s too powerful. Its sole purpose is to break down all barriers between worlds. We can’t use it selectively like we thought we could.”
“So, you turned it into a person,” Misha seethes, standing and pacing the room, “Knowing all the while that you might want to use it later, too. And then what? Jared’s gone in that scenario, too? Jensen loses his soulmate still?” The monk is silent, head lowered, and Misha laughs incredulously. “My God, none of you are on any moral high ground! You, the Knights, you’re all a bunch of assholes.”
“I can’t excuse what we did,” the monk says, standing to face Misha. “And I do regret it. If it’s any consolation, I’m the last one alive. Joy’s killed off the rest of my order, and I’m sure she’ll find me sooner or later. She’s been close behind me lately, but I fear she also expects me to lead her directly to the Key, which is why I won’t visit Jared.”
Misha glares at him. “No, you’ll just visit me and Jensen, so she’ll come beat the shit out of us.”
“Whatever you think about us, all of us,” the monk says, shrugging Misha’s point away, “What’s done is done. The Key is Jared now, he is in danger now, and he is an innocent human being. Whatever the Knights told you, they won’t be kind if they get their hands on him. They’ve always been a brutal force.”
It’s just as Misha feared, and he prays that Jensen won’t call that number Beck gave him. “How the fuck are we supposed to fight Joy?”
“You can’t. She’s a god.” Misha almost laughs at how hopeless the situation becomes every time he talks about it with anyone. “All you can do is keep her from finding out it’s Jared. If she gets too close, run.”
“We can’t run forever.”
“You won’t have to. The Key can only be used during the right alignment, at the right time and place. If you can outrun her until then, her cause is lost.”
“And then she gets pissed and kills us anyway?”
“No.” The monk shakes his head. “I know she’s still strong, but believe it or not, she’s weakened. She grows weaker the longer she stays in this dimension and not her own. Her time here started like Jared’s, you know,” he adds, and Misha stops, listening. “When she was cast out, she was caged in a human form. She’s only recently broken free of her vessel.”
Misha sits again, not liking where this is going. “What happened to her vessel?”
The monk looks back at him, understanding the severity of his answer. “It was destroyed.” Misha’s mouth goes dry. “We don’t believe the same will happen to Jared. Joy was a caged beast seeking revenge. The Key is a powerful energy, but there’s no rage, no motive.”
“But…” he still can’t wrap his around this. There are too many details to consider, and every question uncovers more questions. “What happens when Jared dies? He’s not…immortal, is he?”
“He isn’t,” the monk says, reassuring. Then he sighs. “And I don’t know. We didn’t think that far ahead.” He pauses before saying his next words, obviously knowing how hurtful they are. “Jared was always a temporary solution.”
“We don’t all die of old age, you know,” Misha says, voice hard. “What would you have done if Jared had been hit by a bus yesterday? Just make another human?”
“No.” The monk is defensive now, but his expression is contrite. “I wouldn’t do that kind of magic again. I wouldn’t want to. I’d allow it to be destroyed before Joy could get her hands on it.”
Chapter 3