“I don’t understand. Did you die in the desert or not? Did he?”

“We died. It was only later that I pieced it together. Things rarely make sense while they’re unfolding. After my son died the second time, he died many more times, simply trying to get back to me and come home. He was deep in the desert without conveyance or water.”

I stare. “What are you saying? That every time he died, he came back in the same place he’d died that first time with you?”

“At dawn the next day.”

“Over and over? He would try to make it out, die of heatstroke or something, then have to start all over again?”

“Far from home. We didn’t know. None of us died for a long time. We knew we were different, but we didn’t know about the dying. That came later.”

I watch him and wait for him to speak again. This is the crux of Barrons. I want to know. I won’t push.

“That wasn’t the end of his hell. I had rivals who rode the desert, too. Death for hire. Many were the times we’d thinned each other’s pack. One day, they found him walking the sands. They played with him.” He looks away. “They tortured and killed him.”

“How do you know this?”

“Because when I finally put things together, I tortured and killed a few of them and they talked while they died.” His lips smile; his eyes are cold, merciless. “They set up camp not too far from where he was reborn every dawn and found him the next day. Once they realized what was happening, they believed he was demon spawn. They tortured and killed him over and over. The more he came back, the more determined they were to destroy him. I don’t know how many times they killed him. Too many. They never let him live long enough to change. They didn’t know what he was, nor did he. Just that he kept coming back. One day another band attacked, and they didn’t have time to kill him. He was left alone, tied up in a tent for days. He got hungry enough that he turned. He never turned back. It was a year before we were hired to hunt the beast that was scouring the country, ripping out the throats and hearts of men.”

I was horrified. “They killed him every day for a year? And you were hired to kill him?”

“We knew it was one of us. We’d all changed. We knew what we’d become. It had to be him. I hoped.” His mouth twisted in a bitter smile. “I actually hoped it was my son.” There was naked hunger in his eyes. “How long was he a child tonight? How long did you see him before he attacked you?”

“A few minutes.”

“I haven’t seen him like that in centuries.” I could see him remembering the last time. “They broke him. He can’t control his change. I’ve seen him as my son only five times, as if for a few moments he knew peace.”

“You can’t reach him? Teach him?” Barrons could teach anyone.

“Part of his mind is gone. He was too young. Too frightened. They destroyed him. A man might have withstood it. A child had no chance. I used to sit by his cage and talk to him. When technology afforded, I recorded every moment, to catch a glimpse of him as my son. The cameras are off now. I couldn’t watch the recordings, looking for him. I have to keep him caged. If the world ever found him, they would kill him, too. Over and over. He’s feral. He kills. That’s all he does.”

“You feed him.”

“He suffers if I don’t. Fed, sometimes he rests. I’ve killed him. I’ve tried drugs. I learned sorcery. Druidry. I thought Voice might make him sleep, even die. It seemed to hypnotize him for a time. He’s highly adaptable. The ultimate killing machine. I studied. I collected relics of power. I drove your spear through his heart two thousand years ago, when I first heard of it. I forced a Fae princess to do her best. Nothing works. He’s not in there. Or if he is somewhere, he is in constant, eternal agony. It never ends for him. His faith in me was misplaced. I can never—”

Save him, he doesn’t say, and I don’t, either, because if I’m not careful I’m going to start crying, and I know it would only make things worse for him. He’s thousands of years past tears. He just wants release. Wants to lay his son to rest. Tuck him in and say good night forever, one last time.

“You want to unmake him.”

“Yes.”

“How long has this been going on?”

He says nothing.

He will never tell me. And I realize a number doesn’t really matter. The grief he felt in the desert has never abated. I understand now why they would kill me. It’s not just his secret. It’s theirs, too. “All of you return to the place you first died every time you die.”

He is instantly violent. I understand.

They kill to keep anyone from doing to them what was done to his son. It is their only vulnerability: wherever they come back at dawn the next day. An enemy could sit there, waiting for them, and kill them over and over again.

“I don’t want to know where that is. Ever,” I assure him, and mean it. “Jericho, we’ll get the Book. We’ll find a spell of unmaking. I promise. We’ll put your son to rest.” I feel suddenly vicious. Who had done this to them? Why? “I swear it,” I vow. “One way or another, we’ll make it happen.”

He nods, folds his arms behind his head, stretches back on a pillow, and closes his eyes.

As the moments pass, I watch the tension leave his face. I know he’s in that place where he meditates, where he controls things. What extraordinary discipline.