I had him wrong. He didn’t want to be human; he just wanted to have a soul. It’s the kind of half measure that will drive you mad. There was no such thing as the soul. No afterlife. No magic in this world. I’ve seen that with my own eyes. Mercer had seen the glint of green in the sun and decided to believe it was magic like the rest of them. Maybe he wasn’t always like this. Maybe he was already frying out, brainsick enough to lose sight of things, but not so much to be dangerous yet.
