Sebastian

generation, they helped us eliminate the true Guides of the Heart, preparing Ephemera for the day when we could take control of the world." His mouth twisted into a snarl. " We failed only once . And thanks to your brother, that one is more powerful than all the others before her."
    "Peter?" Koltak stammered. "What does Peter have to do with this?"
    "By mating Dark power with Light, he helped create a child who has both! No one else could have revealed us for what we are! No one else could be a real threat to the Eater of the World."
    I have to get out of here , Koltak thought. I have to get away from this city. I have to warn…
    someone .
    Harland looked past Koltak. "I think it's time Wizard Koltak was initiated into the council."
    "No," Koltak said. "No, I—"
    Feet kicked the crutches out from under him. Hands grabbed his arms before he fell.
    He could call the lightning. He could fight, get away. He could—
    Kill your ambition, Koltak ? voices whispered in his mind. If you fight us now, you will never have what you most desire. Isn't that why you struggled to stay in this landscape? Because here is the only place where your ambitions could bloom ?

    He didn't fight, didn't struggle. He tried to keep his injured foot off the floor as members of the council—
    barely recognizable as the men they'd once pretended to be—opened a panel in the wall and dragged him down flights of stairs and through secret corridors.
    Finally they stopped in front of a heavy wooden door.
    Harland pulled back the bolts and opened the door, closing it behind them once the Dark Guides dragged Koltak to the edge of a barred gallery that looked down into a dimly lit pit.
    Holding on to the bars to stay upright, Koltak stared into the pit. Was there something moving down there? Yes. Something moving out of the shadows.
    The female—since the creature was naked, there was no doubt it was female—stared up at them. Then she screamed—a sound that lifted the hairs on the back of Koltak's neck.
    "That is the reason you will never be part of the council, Koltak," Harland said.
    "I… I don't understand."
    Harland smiled as he watched the female, who was now stroking her breasts and moaning. "These are our breeders. They were never able to alter their appearance to pass as humans, so they had to be hidden, protected. They have a feral intelligence, and they're quite vicious. When they come into season and are desperate to be mounted and mated, they have to be restrained to keep them from savaging the males." He turned his head and looked at Koltak. "The council is made up of purebloods. Has always been made up of the pure-bloods. Your ambition made you a useful tool, but you're too human to be one of us."
    "Why… why are you telling me this?"
    "So that you understand."
    "But…" Koltak's head was reeling as all the things he'd believed shifted into a different pattern. "But if this is what you are, why were you so opposed to Sebastian?"
    "We weren't," Harland replied. "There was no way of knowing the boy's potential, but by our exploiting your shame in having sired a child with a succubus, you became a useful tool. And the boy…" He sighed.
    "The incubi and succubi are two branches that came from the same root as the Dark Guides. Like us, they have the power to slip into other minds through the twilight of waking dreams. As one of us, Sebastian would have been a more powerful wizard than you could dream of being. But as an enemy and Belladonna's ally…" He smiled. "But once again, you proved yourself useful by helping us eliminate him."
    Sebastian . Tears stung Koltak's eyes. All of these years, he could have had a son, could have taught the boy to use the power that lived inside him. They might have worked together… as Justice Makers.
    Harland studied the females gathering to stare at the males who were out of reach. "They cannot go out among the humans, so they need toys to play with. It makes them easier to handle when it's time for us to mate with them."
    "Toys?" Koltak stammered, pulled back to the danger present all around him. What kind of toys… It suddenly clicked. "The people who disappear, who are thought to have gotten lost in another landscape."
    Harland nodded. "It's convenient that some people do cross over to another landscape and aren't able to return. So no one suspects that anything else might have happened to them." He paused. "Except Peter.
    A true Justice Maker, he wandered where he shouldn't have while helping