Mind Sensing 6

Tezzeret had been right. Jace felt the shogun’s mind, a presence independent from the physical world. He sensed—he knew—that if he wanted, he could hold it, rearrange it, take it with him, rebuild it or destroy it. He knew that that the power Tezzeret had promised him was indeed within his grasp.

But there was no triumph in that discovery. Jace felt soiled, as though the waters of a thousand rivers could never wash him clean, and he tasted bile in the back of his throat. In his mind, he heard the chieftain screaming and shrieking to be free. He swore that he felt, beneath his fingers, the writhing of the nezumi’s brain as it kicked and thrashed to escape his hold.

And more than once it almost did just that, almost escaped the paralysis in which Jace held it—not because the shogun was stronger, but because Jace wanted to let him go. Through their mental link he felt every urge, every desire, and every fear, and he yearned for nothing more than to release the ratman’s mind.

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Agents of Artifice, Chapter 14