"Among the mutants?"
"I was a mutant. You knew me as Lomark Dawnspear."
For a moment Kesley rocked crazily in his chair; things seemed to wheel in a dizzy arc around him.
"What?" he finally asked, recovering himself.
"Mental projection, complete; constant hypnosis."
"Dawnspear was blind, too," Kesley recalled suddenly.
"Yes. It pleased me to retain the image of the blind man who saw so well. Dawnspear was blind. Otherwise, he was a complete fabrication. I invented a false background for him, persuaded people that he had always lived in that house in that part of Chicago. And they believed it. Unable to do anything else, I lived camouflaged, not knowing how urgently I was sought."
"And then I came to Chicago."
"Then you came. And stumbled into Winslow's grasp exactly as you had done before. And once again reached the dungeons. Again, it was necessary for me to rescue you."
"I did it once before, as Daveen. Five years ago. You came to Winslow's court, and he delivered you to the headsman. I intervened."