M: Of course.
T: Tell me what you need from me? Tell me what you need to feel comfortable here. I want you to feel you made the right decision.
[He thinks they won. He thinks we’re in KS and I gave in. Have to play it.]
M: I did this to know what I’m capable of, not to help you. Not to help whoever’s controlling you.
T: No one is controlling me, or you for that matter. They simply want us to explore the world’s potential. All our potential.
M: To control us. For their own gain.
T: You have no conception of the incredible things that’ve done for this world, while asking for none of the credit.
M: Like what they did to your son? What they did to Nate?
[Mistake. He’s pissed.]
M: I’m sorry.
T: What happened with my son was not… Was not their doing. It was mine. Do you have any idea how many people are walking this earth like you? Like Nate? Unaware of what they’re truly capable of, unaware of the wonderful and terrible things they can do? Untrained, unskilled. Unbelieving. You think magiq is some idyllic energy, floating around us like butterflies. I have seen the terrifying things it can do.
M: Like the Storm? Is that for the good of the world too?
[He’s up, walking around. I’ve lost him. I have to check my own feelings. My anger. It was a lot smoother with Augernon. Somewhere inside him Teddy doesn’t want to tell me anything.]
T: Have you ever heard of Saverina’s Canon?
M: No.
T: Saverina was a very talented storyteller who lived in the 16th century. Her books are the rarest of all mundane works. She was considered la strega because, according to lore, her stories were spells. They had power in them. Though you and I both know that’s entirely possible, it wasn’t true for Saverina. Before her death she published twelve canonic works, and my beloved wife, Ava, and I had collected eleven of them on our travels around the world. That is how we stumbled upon the Silver, as you call them.
After finding them, my new work with them became my life, while Ava cared for our son. We never found the sixth book. It was lost to history. But I used to read the other books to Nate. He always wanted to hear about our travels, how exciting it was to find a new book. I was gone for much of his childhood. And as young boys often do, he did whatever he could for his father’s attention. For my approval. My pride. By the time he was five things would go missing from the house and he’d confess that he had “unhooked” them, we thought he was lying at first, acting out… until we replaced the roof on the house, and in the eaves we found a keepsake box, untouched for decades. With Ava’s lost engagement ring inside it.