"Skip the part where you deny it."
"And skip the part where you claim it's guilt over the collateral damage. I know that's bothering you. I also know that's not the whole of it. We've worked together for too long."
"You planning to let me finish this time?"
"Possibly."
Jace slumped even deeper into his chair, so bone-lessly that Kallist half expected to find him puddled on the floor. "Have I ever mentioned Alhammarret to you?" Jace asked, his voice distant.
"Only in passing. A teacher of yours, right?"
"More than a teacher." Jace recollected. "I grew up in a village called-well, we called it Silmot's Crossing, but that's what we called every village within ten miles. One big community. The name really only applies to the largest. The rest were just-hamlets.
"Anyway, I grew up in one of the smaller ones. Until one…"
Jace shook his head. "You don't need my whole life story. The short version is, my father made me leave when it became pretty damned clear that the townsfolk weren't taking kindly to some of the abilities I was demonstrating. Alhammarret took me in at my father's behest. He taught me how to use the magic that came naturally to me and introduced me to a whole slew of spells that didn't. He also made me feel welcome, which was a pretty nice change of pace after the last few years.
"I was happy for a few years, with Alhammarret. Then, one day I decided to see if I was strong enough to read his thoughts."
Jace smirked, an expression of disdain clearly directed inward. "I'd never done that before-to him, I mean. I'd read plenty of other people's minds and never thought much of what I found. One of the first lessons I'd learned was that he'd sense it if I tried, and I guess I had too much respect for him, or too much fear of his implied threats, to challenge that. But you know how teenagers get.
"So I waited until he was distracted, to make sure I'd have at least a few seconds before he could react, and went in. I didn't mean any harm by it; I wasn't looking for anything in particular. I just wanted to know if I could."
Kallist could see, at least in part, where this was going. "What did you discover?" he asked softly.
"That I was a planeswalker." He nodded at Kallist's shocked look. "My Spark had manifested over a year earlier, but I'd never understood what that meant. I found myself drifting in the Eternities when it happened, but only very briefly, and only the one time. Alhammarret explained it away as some sort of delusion, something to do with my own illusions messing with my mind. And after that, he kept me busy enough learning new magic that it never happened again.
"I remember… I remember a sensation in his mind that my father knew, that Alhammarret had talked with him about it. I don't know exactly why they kept it from me; maybe they thought they were doing me a favor somehow.
"But I was angry, so angry that he'd lied to me for so long. I'd been furious before, Kallist, but I'd never felt betrayed."
Jace stood and began to pace, as though the emotion of that moment required an outlet. "I wanted to scream, to throw a tantrum, to lash out… Everything you'd expect from a kid of that age. But I didn't. I could've asked him why, but I didn't do that either.
"I just… seethed. For days on end, going over and over it all. And then, the next time we were practicing, I just… snapped. I got inside his mind, and I unleashed all that rage at once.
"I don't let myself remember his face, Kallist, even to this day. I've used my own magic to keep me from seeing it. Because I know that if I do, I won't see the face of the man who taught me most of what I know. I'll see the face of the man I walked away from: bulging eyes, gaping lips, skin slowly turning purple. The face of a mind so broken he'd forgotten who he was, what he was-even how to breathe."
Ignoring Kallist's faint shudder, Jace leaned on the back of the chair. "I've been in enough fights before and after I joined the Consortium that I've probably killed at least a few folks since then-but it was always in self-defense. I never set out to do it, just to stop them from hurting me, or get them out of my way. I've done a lot of ugly things since Tezzeret hired me, but even then, it was always you or Baltrice or whoever who did the actual killing, and most of our targets arguably deserved it. Maybe I was just fooling myself, but I never saw myself as a murderer. And then on Kamigawa, I did the exact same thing I'd done to Alhammaret. Only I did it deliberately."
Kallist nodded, thought he understood. "You're bothered by how killing the nezumi made you feel."
But Jace only shook his head. "No, Kallist." He turned to his friend, and his gaze was empty. "I'm bothered that killing him didn't bother me at all."