I hate you, John Mandrake. I hate you so much, so very, very much.
But do you know why I hate you? Why I loathe the very thought of you?
It's not because of your stupid hair, regardless of how ridiculously you wore it. Or because of your dress sense, even though even your closest supporters can't describe it as anything better than 'unique'. It's not even because of the Government, or politics, or any fancy institution you ever had anything to do with.
No, I hate you for a different reason, a reason no-one but you or your stupid djinn will ever understand.
It's in the way my hatred burns through my bones, searing the marrow away until my body feels like it'll burst into flames and I'm so close to breaking I'm surprised I don't hear the cracks.
It's in the way my body tenses when people I've never met praise your name, and I feel like screaming and shouting and telling them exactly what John Mandrake was good for - nothing.
It's in the way my eyes betray me when I see someone with dark hair and a suit, when they widen like they're trying to illuminate the darkness stirring in my soul at the mere thought of you still out here somewhere. Because I hate you, John Mandrake, and you don't deserve to be alive any more than you deserve to be dead.
So why, truly, do I hate you?
It's not because you're a liar, or a cheating, conniving bastard who breaks promises as easily as he breaks some idiot's staff. No, that I could be fine with, because you're a politician and a magician and that's what you do.
In fact, I don't even hate you because you did all that to me, because you lied to me, or because you gave me the one thing that you knew would break me: false hope. I don't even hate you because you promised me something, and then never delivered (not that I was really surprised), regardless of how much I wanted it, how much I would have given anything to see you keep it.
No, there's only one reason I hate you, John Mandrake. There's only one reason why I refused the Council's offer of a seat, why every time they ask me to help them organize a tribute for you I just turn on my heel and leave, why after a while Piper just told them to stop asking, and why she only shook her head sadly when they asked her what they'd done wrong.
My hatred for you is not something complex; I could never explain it to someone else, but I've never had any problems comprehending it myself. It's a simple thing, really - it only takes seven words to say, three if you discount having to identify it as the true, unequivocal reason that I wish I could hunt you down and burn the heart right out of you.
I hate you because you were Nathaniel.
And I will never, ever hate Nathaniel.
