“That is what you cannot do.” She held his gaze unblinkingly. “I know little of this, Quentin. It is beyond my meager experience. But I think that you must find a way to accept him as part of yourself.”
“Part of myself? Should I let him use and discard you, and destroy everything in his path? Is that what you want me to be, Johanna?”
Her jaw clenched. “No. But you can’t simply erase him. He won’t let you. You and Fenris are two halves of what was meant to be a single whole. Neither one of you is… complete without the other. And now he has the means, perhaps the only means, of saving us all.”
Her theory made a bizarre kind of sense. He felt the merciless logic of it, though his insides turned to ice. Fenris, the lost piece of the puzzle, the final answer.
“Even if you’re right,” he said, “why should he help us? What has he to gain?”
“It is true that he’s said that he intends to displace you, Quentin—just as you want to erase him. That is part of the risk. The greater part. But you will not be alone.” He caught a glimpse of her heart in her eyes. “We shall contact him through hypnosis. I will be with you. But you must be willing to let him out, under our control. Yours and mine, together. You must truly face him for the first time in your life.”
He sat down, too numb to remain on his feet. “You think that I can influence such a monster?”
“Fenris has no friends, no brothers. If you convince him that he is more than your brother—if you embrace him rather than reject him…”
Quentin smiled through his terror. “Embrace?”
“His needs are yours, Quentin. He must be acknowledged, for he was your creation, and he suffered on your behalf.”
“My creation, born of my cowardice.”
“You were a child. You were not to blame. But now you know Fenris exists, and why.”
And only Fenris could kill Boroskov.
Quentin slammed his fist into the wall, feeling it give under the blow. “He’ll be our hired assassin,” he said hoarsely. “But the blood will still be on these.” He raised his hands and rotated them slowly. “I’ll become what he is.”
He waited for another facile answer, but none came. Her eyes welled up with the tears she must have been fighting all along. She crumpled in on herself. The counterfeit Johanna Schell became a vulnerable young woman who questioned everything she’d ever believed worthy and strong and true in her own nature.
It struck him with the full force of revelation that this was her greatest fear, that she lacked the skill to do what she proposed; not that he didn’t return her feelings or rejected her love, but that she would ultimately fail them both.
He turned his face to the wall, unable to hide his emotions. He ached to hold her close and assure her that it would be all right. To tell her that he loved her.
But he couldn’t. And with that realization came a second revelation, too overwhelming to deny.
Words of love and empty platitudes were not what Johanna needed from him now. What she required most was the strength, the fortitude, the self-reliance that was so much a part of her being. She needed to remember that she was a doctor of great skill and bravery.
By admitting her love to him, by loving him, she had relinquished the very qualities she most needed to win the coming war. If he denied her this chance she’d never regain the spirit and assurance to continue with her work. She would be ruined in every way that mattered.
To do what she asked, he must hold fast all the way to his soul. No running, no slipping away. The surrender he must make was to his deepest self and the memories that had created him.
He had to do it for her. For Johanna.
He stood up and strode toward her, stopping mere inches away.
“Very well,” he said roughly, “Let us proceed.”
“No.” She bowed her head. “I was wrong to suggest it. I recognize that I am no longer fit—”