Free Twenty Palaces by Harry Connolly

that, did she?"
    "Told me what? I don't remember a thing about last night. Can I go now?"
    "You may leave after you take this." Callin took the long envelope from the pocket of his robe and offered it to me. I didn't take it. "It is for Jon and Macy. Let them open it and look at it at the same time."
    Damn. I wished I had a way to take back those names. "What will it do? Make them fall over dead?"
    "Nothing so dramatic, I assure you. They will look at the paper inside and then they will come to see me. They will be compelled. They will also be protected, for a short while, from the influence of the creature inside them. Once they are here, I will try to help them."
    "Really." Callin had been inside my mind. It made me feel exposed and vulnerable. It made me want to attack, no matter how useless that was.
    "Don't be so cynical. You'll get lines at the corners of your mouth. Have you already forgotten what you learned about the nature of your friend Echo's... enhancements?"
    "That was the first thing I decided to forget."  
    "Naturally. Jon and Macy likely have the same infestation. I don't know for certain if I can help them, but at least I will try. Annalise will simply kill them because that is the easiest way."
    I remembered Annalise waving me off after killing the drunk. She was a killer, yeah, but that didn't mean Callin was much better.  
    "You're going to undo Jon's cure?" I said, suddenly realizing what Callin meant. "You mean you want to take away the use of his legs again?"
    "I do."  
    "I can't do that. I really and truly cannot do that to him."
    "He must lose his life or his ability to walk. Trust me, he has no other options."
    "What if I opened this myself?" I snatched the envelope and held the corner as though I was about to tear it.
    Callin didn't look concerned. "Then the effect will be wasted on you. I spent the entire night preparing that envelope. I will not go to so much trouble again. If you were to look at the paper inside, you would return here, to me." Callin gave me a crooked smile again. "Which I admit would not be so terrible."
    Time to go. I took the envelope and headed for the door. Callin stepped around me and turned the knob. It opened for him as though it hadn't been locked at all.
    "Let me give you something to think about, my boy," Callin said. "You are at a crossroads. If you avoid prison, you might live a life of car payments, lunch breaks and ever-larger television screens on which you watch other men play games. Perhaps you will find someone to share it with--a pretty woman who loves travel but eschews red meat. You could let the years pass, and then the decades, all the while allowing the memory of the conversation we are having right now become more remote in your mind, slowly convincing yourself that this opportunity wasn't real even while you resent yourself for fleeing it.
    "Or you could return here and work for me. You are welcome here at any time. I could teach you many things about the world. And about yourself, too."
    "I don't think your partner would like that."
    "I do not have a partner. Annalise is a peer, and an unequal peer at that. She doesn't matter." Callin stepped closer. I could smell that flowery cologne again. "I've seen the inside of you," Callin continued. "I know you could be useful to me. You have a certain wakefulness that most men lack. I also know you are, as I said, at a crossroads in your life. Should you live as a model citizen, or fall back into a life below the law? Raymond, I am telling you there is a third path, hidden from most. You could be one of the few people to walk it, one of the few to touch real power and glimpse the vast, terrible beauty of the universe. I could do this for you. I could show you the world behind the world."
    I stared at him. "Why me?"
    "Well, it's not because you are some special Chosen One, that is certain. It's not because you are favored by destiny or the universe. In my considerable experience, there is no such thing. Any