"I know what you are asking." The figure's voice carried depth but no warmth, like an echo in an empty building, like sound produced in a space where nothing lived to receive it. "And I am telling you no." He stepped forward once. No sound accompanied his movement. No footfall, no disturbance of leaves or grass. He stopped at the edge of the ritual space as if something there, some invisible boundary Ethan had unknowingly established, kept him from coming closer. "Ethan. I told you before. Dark magic to control a situation, to bend someone's will, to compel instead of connect, affects not only her. It comes back. It always comes back. And it does not come back in ways you can prepare for."
"Everything comes back eventually," Ethan said. "I will deal with it."
"That is what I said." The figure's eyes held his, steady and flat as stones at the bottom of a deep river. "Those exact words. And here I am."
