‘That’s a fairly accurate summary of the differences,’ Dr Shirland said. ‘But you keep saying “the real Anne”. They’re both real.’
‘Then if Anne didn’t create that other self,’ I said, ‘where did it come from?’
‘Anne had a difficult childhood,’ Dr Shirland said. ‘She was limited in the types of behaviour she could express. The traits she was free to develop are the ones you’ve identified as her natural personality. Soft-spoken, gentle, nurturing. Her more aggressive impulses were suppressed.’
‘Does she even have that many aggressive impulses?’
‘Everyone has aggressive impulses,’ Dr Shirland said. ‘They’re a fundamental part of the human condition. If you meet someone who seems not to have any, they’re either channelling them somewhere else or keeping them suppressed. Usually, in the latter case, it ends up turning inward and manifesting as depression. With Anne, things unfolded somewhat differently.’
‘Because of what happened with Sagash.’
Dr Shirland nodded. ‘Anne had always thought of herself as a healer, someone who used her magic to grow and nurture. When Sagash forced her to use her powers for death, it traumatised her, which was of course exactly what Sagash intended. His goal was to break her and reshape her to his desires. So Anne escaped to the only place she could find, to Elsewhere. In there, she created a place of safety, somewhere where there was no conflict or violence.’
‘Well, what’s wrong with that?’ I said. ‘I mean, it worked, didn’t it?’
‘It worked against Sagash because she could wall him out. What she could not do was wall herself out. Because when she excluded anything destructive or aggressive from her inner world, she also excluded part of herself.’
‘Is that what that other Anne is, then?’ I said. ‘Anne’s evil side?’
‘She’s the aspects of Anne’s personality that Anne is unable or unwilling to accept,’ Dr Shirland said. ‘And those aspects aren’t all negative by any means. She’s more direct and willing to state her own desires, better capable of defending herself. Unfortunately, Anne hasn’t made any progress towards coming to terms with that, and in fact she’s continued to shunt off impulses and emotions to that personality in the ensuing years. In the long run, the state of affairs isn’t sustainable. She’ll have to resolve it or risk a complete breakdown.’
‘Resolve it how?’
‘Eventually?’ Dr Shirland said. ‘She has to integrate the two sides of her self. Become one person, not two.’
‘How?’
‘That’s another very complex question to answer,’ Dr Shirland said. ‘It’s also not your problem. This is in Anne’s hands, not yours, and it won’t be any kind of quick or simple process. It’ll take years.’
‘Then if I can’t do anything to help, why are you even telling me all this?’
‘So you can better understand her, for one thing,’ Dr Shirland said. ‘But it also relates to your initial question. As long as she doesn’t come into contact with that jinn again, I can’t see any reason why the events of last autumn should disqualify her from a position as an aide. I’d also say that from a purely psychological standpoint, having some outside stimulus would be good for her. She’s been a little too isolated lately and I don’t think leaving her alone with the contents of her own head for company is a good thing.’
Walking back to the park I use for gating, I found myself replaying the conversation in my head, which in turn led me to thinking about Anne.
I’d told Dr Shirland that I’d come to see her because I was worried about the jinn. And that was true – I had been worried. Richard had as good as told me last year that manipulating Anne into picking that thing up had been his plan from the beginning, and I didn’t think that he was done with her, not by a long shot. Quite frankly, I was surprised he’d left her alone. I’d been expecting him to show up at Anne’s door with another of his offers, with a heavy degree of coercion thrown in. He hadn’t, and I didn’t know why – maybe Variam was right and he really was busy, maybe he was just biding his time – but until I had solid evidence to the contrary, I was staying on my guard. We had defences in place to give us some early warning, and if he or anyone else went after Anne, we’d know about it. So it wasn’t as though this meeting had been a pretence.
But while I hadn’t been lying, I also hadn’t been telling the whole truth. The reason I’d been so reluctant to appoint Anne as my aide wasn’t the jinn, and it wasn’t the potential threat from anti-Dark elements on the Council either, though that was getting closer. It was about me.
I’d known Anne for around five years now. I’d been introduced to her via Luna, and to begin with, that was how I’d seen her – as Luna’s classmate, just another apprentice, with a nicer-than-usual manner and a more-annoying-than-usual friend (Vari). Gradually, over the years, I’d stopped seeing her as an apprentice and started seeing her as a mage in her own right. But somewhere along the line, something else had changed too, and without quite noticing it, I’d found myself more and more attracted to her.
And my reaction to that had been to try as hard as I could to pretend it didn’t exist.
If you’re wondering why … well, that’s an easy question to ask and a hard one to answer. To begin with, I suppose there was the age difference. When I first met Anne, I was twenty-eight and she was twenty – not the biggest of age gaps, but enough to put her in the ‘child/student’ box in my mind. But time had passed, and Anne was no longer twenty, or a student, or (by any possible definition) a child.
A bigger reason was my own past experience, or to be more honest, my lack of it. I spent my teens and my early twenties learning about magic and not very much else. I picked up a lot of skills in the process – combat, manipulation, mental discipline – but one thing I didn’t get much practice with was romance, and spending so much of my formative time around Dark mages really didn’t help. The simple truth is that I’m a lot more comfortable dealing with a woman who wants to kill me than one who wants to kiss me, and yes, I know how screwed-up that sounds. It’s not that I want people to try to kill me, it’s just that I grew up with the predator–prey game, and I know how it works. When it comes to stuff like this, I don’t. What was I even supposed to be doing? Should I talk to Anne? For all I knew, approaching Anne was exactly the worst thing to do. I didn’t really know how she felt about me, and having that conversation could destroy the relationship we had. I liked having Anne as a friend. Was it worth risking that, just in the hope of turning it into something more? I probably could have used my divination to figure out an answer, but I’ve always been uncomfortable with using my magic on my friends in that way. It feels like spying, and to be honest, it pretty much is.
And then there was the other reason.
The room was brown, the walls padded and soundproofed. A metal table rested in the centre, and on it was a mass of torn and bleeding flesh. Skin had been ripped and peeled away, hanging from hooks and wires, to leave skin and muscle bare to the harsh light. The body moved, twisting, and the eyes opened, looking out at me. Those were Anne’s eyes in that ruined face, filled with agony, and they stared at me mutely. My stomach clenched and I wanted to vomit, wanted to look away, but all I could do was stare, hoping that if I kept looking I’d realise it wasn’t true, that I wasn’t seeing what was in front of me …