The Alex Verus Novels, Books 1-4

Fated

Cursed

Taken

Chosen

Benedict Jacka

Deadly Possibilities

The two of us stood facing each other across the grass. The wind had dropped, and the birds around had gone silent, sensing danger. I stood still, keeping my face blank and not letting myself show any sign of the sickening sensation you get when you’ve made a really bad mistake. I’d left my house without weapons or defences. Once upon a time I never would have dreamt of stepping outside without them, but months of safety had lulled me into dropping my guard.

Now I was paying for it. I was standing in front of a Dark mage, and if he decided to come at me, I was toast. The silence stretched out while I looked frantically into the future, trying to see what would happen. “I guess we haven’t been introduced,” I said at last, keeping my voice steady.

“You can call me Cinder.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Subtle.”

“Trying to be funny?”

“I don’t know, are you laughing?”

He grinned then. “Smart mouth.”

I didn’t answer, but as I looked at the futures branching out ahead of us, I felt a chill.

f a t e d

BENEDICT JACKA

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

FATED

An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Ace mass-market edition / March 2012

Copyright © 2012 by Benedict Jacka.

Excerpt from Cursed copyright © 2012 by Benedict Jacka.

Cover photographs: London © Jonathan Chritchley / Trevillion; smoke © Thinkstock.

Cover design by Judith Lagerman.

Interior text design by Laura K. Corless.

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EISBN: 9781101560419

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If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

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f a t e d

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

chapter 1

It was a slow day, so I was reading a book at my desk and seeing into the future.

There were only two customers in the shop. One was a student with scraggly hair and a nervous way of glancing over his shoulder. He was standing by the herb and powder rack and had decided what to buy ten minutes ago but was still working up the nerve to ask me about it. The other customer was a kid wearing a Linkin Park Tshirt who’d picked out a crystal ball but wasn’t going to bring it to the counter until the other guy had left.

The kid had come on a bicycle, and in fifteen minutes a traffic warden was going to come by and ticket him for locking his bike to the railings. After that I was going to get a call I didn’t want to be disturbed for, so I set my paperback down on my desk and looked at the student. “Anything I can help you with?”

He started and came over, glancing back at the kid and dropping his voice slightly. “Um, hey. Do you—?”

“No. I don’t sell spellbooks.”

“Not even—?”

“No.”

“Is there, um, any way I could check?”

“The spell you’re thinking of isn’t going to do any harm. Just try it and then go talk to the girl and see what happens.”

The student stared at me. “You knew that just from these?”

I hadn’t even been paying attention to the herbs in his hand, but that was as good an explanation as any. “Want a bag?”

He put verbena, myrrh, and incense into the bag I gave him and paid for it while still giving me an awestruck look, then left. As soon as the door swung shut, the other kid came over and asked me the price for the second-biggest crystal ball, trying to sound casual. I didn’t bother checking to see what he was going to use it for—about the only way you can hurt yourself with a crystal ball is by hitting yourself over the head with it, which is more than I can say for some of the things I sell. Once the kid had let himself out, hefting his paper bag, I got up, walked over, and flipped the sign on the door from OPEN to CLOSED. Through the window, I saw the kid unlock his bike and ride off. About thirty seconds later a traffic warden walked by.

My shop’s in a district in the north centre of London called Camden Town. There’s a spot where the canal, three bridges, and two railway lines all meet and tangle together in a kind of urban reef knot, and my street is right in the middle. The bridges and the canal do a good job of fencing the area in, making it into a kind of oasis in the middle of the city. Apart from the trains, it’s surprisingly quiet. I like to go up onto the roof sometimes and look around over the canal and the funny-shaped rooftops. Sometimes in the evenings and early mornings, when the traffic’s muted and the light’s faded, it feels almost like a gateway to another world.

The sign above my door says Arcana Emporium. Underneath is a smaller sign with some of the things I sell—implements, reagents, focus items, that sort of thing. You’d think it would be easier to just say magic shop, but I got sick of the endless stream of people asking for breakaway hoops and marked cards. Finally I worked out a deal with a stage magic store half a mile away, and now I keep a box of their business cards on the counter to hand out to anyone who comes in asking for the latest book by David Blaine. The kids go away happy, and I get some peace and quiet.

My name’s Alex Verus. It’s not the name I was born with, but that’s another story. I’m a mage; a diviner. Some people call mages like me oracles, or seers, or probability mages if they want to be really wordy, and that’s fine too, just as long as they don’t call me a “fortune-teller.” I’m not the only mage in the country, but as far as I know I’m the only one who runs a shop.

Mages like me aren’t common, but we aren’t as rare as you might think either. We look the same as anyone else, and if you passed one of us on the street, odds are you’d never know it. Only if you were very observant would you notice something a little off, a little strange, and by the time you took another look, we’d be gone. It’s another world, hidden within your own, and most of those who live in it don’t like visitors.

Those of us who do like visitors have to advertise, and it’s tricky to find a way of doing it that doesn’t make you sound crazy. The majority rely on word of mouth, though younger mages use the Internet. I’ve even heard of one guy in Chicago who advertises in the phone book under “Wizard,” though that’s probably an urban legend. Me, I have my shop. Wiccans and pagans and New Agers are common enough nowadays that people accept the idea of a magic shop, or at least they understand that the weirdos have to buy their stuff from somewhere. Of course, they take for granted that it’s all a con and that the stuff in my shop is no more magical than an old pair of socks, and for the most part they’re right. But the stuff in my shop that isn’t magical is good camouflage for the stuff that is, like the thing sitting upstairs in a little blue lacquered cylinder that can grant any five wishes you ask. If that ever got out, I’d have much worse problems than the occasional snigger.

The futures had settled and the phone was going to ring in about thirty seconds. I settled down comfortably and, when the phone rang, let it go twice before picking up. “Hey.”

“Hi, Alex,” Luna’s voice said into my ear. “Are you busy?”

“Not even a little. How’s it going?”

“Can I ask a favour? I was going through a place in Clapham and found something. Can I bring it over?”

“Right now?”

“That’s not a problem, is it?”

“Not really. Is there a rush?”

“No. Well…” Luna hesitated. “This thing makes me a bit nervous. I’d feel better if it was with you.”

I didn’t even have to think about it. Like I said, it was a slow day. “You remember the way to the park?”

“The one near your shop?”

“I’ll meet you there. Where are you?”

“Still in Clapham. I’m just about to get on my bike.”

“So one and a half hours. You can make it before sunset if you hurry.”

“I think I am going to hurry. I’m not sure…” Luna’s voice trailed off, then firmed. “Okay. See you soon.”

She broke the connection. I held the phone in my hand, looking at the display. Luna works for me on a part-time basis, finding items for me to sell, though I don’t think she does it for the money. Either way, I couldn’t remember her ever being this nervous about one. It made me wonder exactly what she was carrying.

You can think of magical talent as a pyramid. Making up the lowest and biggest layer are the normals. If magic is colours, these are the people born colourblind: they don’t know anything about magic and they don’t want to, thank you very much. They’ve got plenty of things to deal with already, and if they do see anything that might shake the way they look at things, they convince themselves they didn’t see it double quick. This is maybe ninety percent of the adult civilised world.

Next up on the pyramid are the sensitives, the ones who aren’t colour-blind. Sensitives are blessed (or cursed, depending how you look at it) with a wider spectrum of vision than normals. They can feel the presence of magic, the distant power in the sun and the earth and the stars, the warmth and stability of an old family home, the lingering wisps of death and horror at a Dark ritual site. Most often they don’t have the words to describe what they feel, but two sensitives can recognise each other by a kind of empathy, and it makes a powerful bond. Have you ever felt a connection to someone, as though you shared something even though you didn’t know what it was? It’s like that.

Above the sensitives on the magical pecking order are the adepts. These guys are only one percent or so, but unlike sensitives they can actually channel magic in a subtle way. Often it’s so subtle they don’t even know they’re doing it; they might be “lucky” at cards, or very good at “guessing” what’s on another person’s mind, but it’s mild enough that they just think they’re born lucky or perceptive. But sometimes they figure out what they’re doing and start developing it, and some of these guys can get pretty impressive within their specific field.

And then there are the mages.

Luna’s somewhere between sensitive and adept. It’s hard even for me to know which, as she has some…unique characteristics that make her difficult to categorise, not to mention dangerous. But she’s also one of my very few friends, and I was looking forward to seeing her. Her tone of voice had left me concerned so I looked into the future and was glad to see she was going to arrive in an hour and a half, right on time.

In the process, though, I noticed something that annoyed me: someone else was going to come through the door in a couple of minutes, despite the fact I’d just flipped my sign to say CLOSED. Camden gets a lot of tourists, and there’s always the one guy who figures opening hours don’t apply to him. I didn’t want to walk all the way over and lock the door, so I just sat watching the street grumpily until a figure appeared outside the door and pushed it open. It was a man wearing pressed trousers and a shirt with a tie. The bell above the door rang musically as he stepped inside and raised his eyebrows. “Hello, Alex.”

As soon as he spoke I recognised who it was. A rush of adrenaline went through me as I spread my senses out to cover the shop and the street outside. My right hand shifted down a few inches to rest on the shelf under my desk. I couldn’t sense any attack, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything.

Lyle just stood there, looking at me. “Well?” he said. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

It had been more than four years since I’d seen Lyle, but he looked the same as I remembered. He was about as old as me, with a slim build, short black hair, and a slight olive tint to his skin that hinted at a Mediterranean ancestor somewhere in his family tree. His clothes were expensive and he wore them with a sort of casual elegance I knew I’d never be able to match. Lyle had always known how to look good.

“Who else is here?” I said.

Lyle sighed. “No one. Good grief, Alex, have you really gotten this paranoid?”

I checked and rechecked and confirmed what he was saying. As far as I could tell, Lyle was the only other mage nearby. Besides, as my heartbeat began to slow, I realised that if the Council was planning an attack, Lyle was the last person they’d send. Suddenly I did feel paranoid.

Of course, that didn’t mean I was happy to see him or anything. Lyle began walking forward, and I spoke sharply. “Stay there.”

Lyle stopped and looked quizzically at me. “So?” he said, when I didn’t react. He was standing in the middle of my shop, in between the reagents and the shelves full of candles and bells. “Are we going to stand and stare at each other?”

“How about you tell me why you’re here?”

“I was hoping for a more comfortable place to talk.” Lyle tilted his head. “What about upstairs?”

“No.”

“Were you about to eat?”

I pushed my chair back and rose to my feet. “Let’s go for a walk.”

Once we were outside I breathed a little easier. There’s a roped-off section to one side of my shop that contains actual magic items: focuses, residuals, and one-shots. They’d been out of sight from where Lyle had been standing, but a few more steps and he couldn’t have missed them. None were powerful enough to make him think twice, but it wouldn’t take him long to put two and two together and figure out that if I had that many minor items, then I ought to have some major ones too. And I’d just as soon that particular bit of information didn’t get back to the Council.

It was late spring and the London weather was mild enough to make walking a pleasure rather than a chore. Camden’s always busy, even when the market’s closed, but the buildings and bridges here have a dampening effect on stray sounds. I led Lyle down an alley to the canalside walk, and then stopped, leaning against the balustrade. As I walked I scanned the area thoroughly, both present and future, but came up empty. As far as I could tell, Lyle was on his own.

I’ve known Lyle for more than ten years. He was an apprentice when we first met, awkward and eager, hurrying along in the footsteps of his Council master. Even then there was never any question but that he’d try for the Council, but we were friends, if not close. At least for a little while. Then I had my falling-out with Richard Drakh.

I don’t really like to think about what happened in the year after that. There are some things so horrible you never really get over them; they make a kind of burnt-out wasteland in your memory, and all you can do is try to move on. Lyle wasn’t directly responsible for the things that happened to me and the others in Richard’s mansion, but he’d had a pretty good idea of what was going on, just like the rest of the Council. At least, they would have had a good idea if they’d allowed themselves to think about it. Instead they avoided the subject and waited for me to do the convenient thing and vanish.

Lyle’s not my friend anymore.

Now he was standing next to me, brushing off the balustrade before leaning on it, making sure none of the dirt got on his jacket. The walkway ran alongside the canal, following the curve of the canal out of sight. The water was dark and broken by choppy waves. It was an overcast day, the sunlight shining only dimly through the grey cloud.

“Well,” Lyle said eventually, “if you don’t want to chat, shall we get down to business?”

“I don’t think we’ve got much to chat about, do you?”

“The Council would like to employ your services.”

I blinked at that. “You’re here officially?”

“Not exactly. There was some…disagreement on how best to proceed. The Council couldn’t come to a full agreement—”

“The Council can’t come to a full agreement on when to have dinner.”

“—on the best course of action,” Lyle finished smoothly. “Consulting a diviner was considered as an interim measure.”

“Consulting a diviner?” I asked, suddenly suspicious. The Council and I aren’t exactly on the best of terms. “Me specifically?”

“As you know, the Council rarely requests—”

“What about Alaundo? I thought he was their goto guy when they wanted a seer.”

“I’m afraid I can’t discuss closed Council proceedings.”

“Once you start going door to door, it isn’t closed proceedings anymore, is it? Come on, Lyle. I’m sure as hell not going to agree to anything unless I know why you’re here.”

Lyle blew out an irritated breath. “Master Alaundo is currently on extended research.”

“So he turned you down? What about Helikaon?”

“He’s otherwise occupied.”

“And that guy from the Netherlands? Dutch Jake or whatever he was called. I’m pretty sure he did divination work for—”

“Alex,” Lyle said. “Don’t run through every diviner in the British Isles. I know the list as well as you do.”

I grinned. “I’m the only one you can find, aren’t I? That’s why you’re coming here.” My eyes narrowed. “And the Council doesn’t even know. They wouldn’t have agreed to trust me with official business.”

“I don’t appreciate threats,” Lyle said stiffly. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t use your abilities for these matters.”

“You think I needed magic to figure that out?” Annoying Lyle was satisfying, but I knew it was risky to push him too far. “Okay. So what does the Council want so badly you’re willing to risk coming to me?”

Lyle took a moment to straighten his tie. “I assume you’re aware of the Arrancar ruling?”

I looked at him blankly.

“It’s been common knowledge for months.”

“Common knowledge to whom?”

Lyle let out an irritated breath. “As a consequence of the Arrancar conclave, mages are required to report all significant archaeological discoveries of arcana to the Council. Recently, a new discovery was reported—”

“Reported?”

“—and subjected to a preliminary investigation. The investigation team have concluded quite definitely that it’s a Precursor relic.”

I looked up at that. “Functional?”

“Yes.”

“What kind?”

“They weren’t able to determine.”

“It’s sealed? I’m surprised they didn’t just force it.”

Lyle hesitated.

“Oh,” I said, catching on. “They did try to force it. What happened?”

“I’m afraid that’s confidential.”

“A ward? Guardian?”

“In any case, a new investigation team is being formed. It was…considered necessary for them to have access to the abilities of a diviner.”

“And you want me on the team?”

“Not exactly.” Lyle paused. “You’ll be an independent agent, reporting to me. I’ll pass on your recommendations to the investigators.”

I frowned. “What?”

Lyle cleared his throat. “Unfortunately it wouldn’t be feasible for you to join the team directly. The Council wouldn’t be able to clear you. But if you accept, I can promise I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

I turned away from Lyle, looking out over the canal. The rumble of an engine echoed around the brick walls from downstream, and a barge came into view, chugging along. It was painted yellow and red. The man at the tiller didn’t give us a glance as he passed. Lyle stayed quiet as the barge went by and disappeared around the bend of the canal. A breeze blew along the pathway, ruffling my hair.

I still didn’t speak. Lyle coughed. A pair of seagulls flew overhead, after the barge, calling with loud, discordant voices: arrrh, arrrh. “Alex?” Lyle asked.

“Sorry,” I said. “Not interested.”

“If it’s a question of money…”

“No, I just don’t like the deal.”

“Why?”

“Because it stinks.”

“Look, you have to be realistic. There’s no way the Council would give you clearance to—”

“If the Council doesn’t want to give me clearance, you shouldn’t be coming to me in the first place.” I turned to look at Lyle. “What’s your idea, they need the information badly enough that they won’t care about where you’re getting it? I think sooner or later they’d start asking questions, and you’d cut me loose to avoid the flak. I’m not interested in being your fall guy.”

Lyle blew out a breath. “Why are you being so irrational about this? I’m giving you a chance to get back in the Council’s favour.” He glanced around at the concrete and grey skies. “Given the alternative…”

“Well, since you bring it up, it just so happens that I’m not especially interested in getting back in the Council’s favour.”

“That’s ridiculous. The Council represents all of the mages in the country.”

“Yeah, all the mages. That’s the problem.”

“This is about that business with Drakh, isn’t it?” Lyle said. He rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Alex, it was ten years ago. Get over it.”

“It doesn’t matter when it was,” I said tightly. “The Council haven’t gotten better. They’ve gotten worse.”

“We’ve had ten years of peace. That’s your idea of ‘worse’?”

“The reason you’ve had peace is because you and the Council let the Dark mages do whatever they want.” I glared at Lyle. “You know what they do to the people in their power. Why don’t you ask them how good a deal they think it is?”

“We’re not starting another war, Alex. The Council isn’t going anywhere, and neither are the mages that are a part of it, Light or Dark. You’re just going to have to accept that.”

I took a breath and looked out over the canal, listening to the distant cries of the seagulls. When I spoke again my voice was steady. “The answer’s no. Find someone else.”

Lyle made a disgusted noise. “I should have known.” He stepped away and gave me a look. “You’re living in the past. Grow up.”

I watched Lyle walk off. He didn’t look back. Once he’d disappeared around the corner, I turned back to the canal.

So long as magic has existed, there’s always been a split between the two paths: the Light mages, and the Dark. Sometimes they’ve existed in uneasy truce; sometimes there have been conflicts. The last and greatest was called the Gate Rune War, and it happened forty years before I was born. It was a faction of the Dark mages against almost all of the Light, and the prize to the winner was total dominion over the earth.

The Light side won—sort of. They stopped the Dark mages and killed their leaders, but by the time it was over most of the Light battle-mages were dead as well. The Light survivors didn’t want to fight any more wars, and the surviving Dark mages were allowed to regroup. Years passed. The old warriors were replaced by a new generation of mages who thought that peace was the natural order of things.

By the time I arrived on the scene, Council policy was live and let live. Dark mages were tolerated so long as they didn’t go after Light mages, and vice versa. There was a set of rules called the Concord that governed how mages could and couldn’t act towards each other. The Concord didn’t draw any distinction between Light and Dark, and there was a growing feeling that the division between Light and Dark was out of date. At the time, I thought it made a lot of sense. My own master, Richard Drakh, was a Dark mage, and I didn’t see why Light and Dark mages couldn’t get along.

I changed my mind after I had my falling-out with Richard, but by then it was too late. That was when I discovered that while the Concord had all sorts of rules for how mages were allowed to treat each other, it didn’t have any rules at all for how they were allowed to treat their apprentices. After I escaped, I went to Lyle and the Council. They didn’t want to know. I was left alone, with an angry Dark mage after me.

Even now if I close my eyes I can still remember that time, the horrible paralysing fear. It’s impossible to understand unless you’ve experienced it: the terror of being hunted by something crueller and stronger than you. I was barely out of my teens, hardly able to look after myself, much less go face to face with someone like Richard. Now I look back on it I can see that the Council was really just waiting for Richard to get rid of me and remove the whole embarrassing mess. Instead I survived.

So you can see why I’m not the Council’s favourite person. And why I’ve no desire to get in their good books, either.

I knew that Lyle was gone and wasn’t coming back, but I stayed where I was for another twenty minutes, watching the reflections in the dark water and waiting for the ugly memories to settle. When I was calm again I put Lyle and everything he stood for out of my mind and went home. I didn’t feel like doing any more work that day, so I left for the park, locking the shop behind me.

London is an old city. Even visitors can feel it—the sense of history, the weight of thousands of years. To a sensitive it’s even stronger, like a physical presence embedded into the earth and stone. Over the centuries pockets have developed, little enclaves in the jungle of buildings, and the place I was going to is one of them.

The park is about a ten-minute walk from my shop, tucked down a twisting backstreet that nobody ever uses. It’s overgrown to the point of being nearly invisible behind the fence and trees. There are construction vehicles parked outside—officially the park’s supposed to be closed for redevelopment, but somehow the work never seems to get done. There are buildings all around, but leaves and branches shelter you from watching eyes.

I was sitting on a blanket with my back against a beech tree when I heard the faint rattle of a bicycle on the road outside. A moment later a girl appeared through the trees, ducking under the branches. I waved and she changed direction, walking across the grass towards me.

A glance at Luna would show you a girl in her early twenties, with blue eyes, fair skin, and wavy light brown hair worn up in two bunches. She moves very carefully, always looking where she places her hands and feet, and often she seems as though her body’s there while her mind’s somewhere far away. She hardly ever smiles and I’ve never seen her laugh, but apart from that you could talk to her without noticing anything strange…at least to begin with.

Luna’s one of those people who was born into the world of magic without ever really getting a choice. Adepts and even mages can choose to abandon their power if they want to, bury their talents in the sand and walk away, but for Luna it’s different. A few hundred years ago in Sicily, one of Luna’s ancestors made the mistake of upsetting a powerful strega. Backcountry witches have a reputation for being vicious, but this one was mean even by witch standards. Instead of just killing the man, she put a curse on him that would strike his youngest daughter, and his daughter’s daughter, and her daughter after that, following his children down and down through the generations until his descendants died out or the world ended, whichever came first.

I don’t know how that long-dead witch managed to bind the curse so tightly to the family line, but she did a hell of a thorough job. She’s been dust and bones for centuries but the curse is just as strong as ever, and Luna’s the one in this generation who inherited it. Part of the reason the curse is so nasty is that it’s almost impossible to tell it’s there. Even a mage wouldn’t notice it unless he knew exactly what to look for. If I concentrate I can see it around Luna as a kind of silvery-grey mist, but I have only the vaguest idea how it does what it does.

“Hey,” Luna said as she reached me, slinging her backpack off her shoulder. Instead of sitting on the blanket she picked a spot on the grass, a few yards away from me. “Are you all right?”

“Sure. Why?”

“You look as if something’s bothering you.”

I shook my head in annoyance. I’d thought I’d concealed it better than that, but I always have trouble hiding things from Luna. “Unwelcome visitor. How’s things?”

Luna hesitated. “Can you…?”

“Let’s have a look at it.”

Luna had been only waiting for me to ask; she unzipped her backpack and took out something wrapped in a cotton scarf. She leant forward to place it onto the edge of the blanket and unwrapped it, staying as far away as possible. The scarf fell away, Luna scooted back, and I leant forward in interest. Sitting in the folds of the scarf was what looked like a cube of red crystal.

The thing was about three inches square and deep crimson, the colour of red stained glass. As I looked more closely, though, I saw it wasn’t transparent enough to be glass; I should have been able to see through it, but I couldn’t. Instead, if I looked closely, I could see what looked like tiny white sparks held in the cube’s depths. “Huh,” I said, sitting up. “Where’d you find it?”

“It was in the attic of a house in Clapham West. But…” Luna paused. “There’s something strange. I went to the same house three weeks ago and didn’t find anything. But this time it was sitting on a shelf, right out in the open. And when I went to the owner, he couldn’t remember owning it. He let me have it for free.” Luna frowned. “I’ve been wondering if I just missed it, but I don’t see how. You can feel it, can’t you?”

I nodded. The cube radiated the distinct sense of otherness that all magic items do. This one wasn’t flashy, but it was strong; someone sensitive like Luna couldn’t have walked by without noticing. “Did you touch it?”

Luna nodded.

“What happened?”

“It glowed,” Luna said. “Just for a second, and—” She hesitated. “Well, I put it down, and it stopped. Then I wrapped it up and brought it here.”

The cube wasn’t glowing now so I focused on it and concentrated. All mages can see into the magical spectrum to some degree, but as a diviner I’m a lot better at it than most. A mage’s sight isn’t really sight—it’s more like a sixth sense—but the easiest way to interpret it is visually. It gives a sense of what the magic is, where it came from, and what it can do. If you’re skilled enough you can pick up the thoughts the magic was shaped out of and the kind of personality that created it. On a good day I can read an item’s whole history just from looking at it.

Today wasn’t one of those days. Not only could I not read the item’s aura, I couldn’t read any aura on it at all. Which made no sense, because there should have been at least one aura, namely Luna’s. To my eyes Luna glowed a clear silver, wisps of mist constantly drifting away and being renewed. A residue of it clung to everything she touched: her pack glowed silver, the scarf glowed silver, even the grass she was sitting on glowed silver, but the cube itself radiated nothing at all. The thing was like a black hole.

Left to their own devices magic items give off an aura, and the more powerful the item, the more powerful that aura is. This was why I’d had Luna bring the thing out here; if I’d tried to examine the cube in my shop I’d have had a hundred other auras distracting me. The park is a natural oasis, a kind of grounding circle which keeps other energies out, allowing me to concentrate on just one thing at a time. It’s possible to design an item so as to minimise its signature, but no matter how carefully you design a one-shot or a focus, something’s going to be visible. The only way to mask a magical aura completely is to do it actively, which left only one thing this could be. I dropped my concentration and looked up at Luna. “You’ve found something special, all right.”

“Do you know what it is?” Luna asked.

I shook my head and thought for a moment. “What happened when you touched it?”

“The sparks inside lit up and it glowed. Just for a second. Then it went dark again.” Luna seemed about to say something else, then stopped.

“After that? Did it do anything else?”

“Well…” Luna hesitated. “It might be nothing.”

“Tell me.”

“It felt like it was looking at me. Even after I put it away. I know that sounds weird.”

I sat back against the tree, looking down at the cube. I didn’t like this at all. “Alex?” Luna asked. “What’s wrong?”

“This is going to be trouble.”

“Why?”

I hesitated. I’d been teaching Luna about magic for a few months, but so far I’d avoided telling her much about the people who use it. I know Luna wants to be accepted into the magical world, and I also know there’s not much chance of it happening. Mage society is based on a hierarchy of power: the stronger your magic, the more status you have. Sensitives like Luna are second-class citizens at best.

“Look, there’s a reason not many mages run shops,” I said at last. “They’ve never bought in to the whole idea of yours and mine. A mage sees a magic item, his first reaction is to take it. Now, a minor item you can keep out of sight, but something really powerful…that’s different. Any mage who finds out about this thing is going to be willing to take time off his schedule and track you down to take it, and he might not be gentle about how. Just owning a major item is dangerous.”

Luna was quiet. “But you don’t do that,” she said at last.

I sighed. “No.”

Luna looked at me, then turned away. We sat for a little while in silence.

Luna’s curse is a spell of chance magic. Chance magic affects luck, bending probability so that something that might happen one time in a thousand, or a million, happens at just the right time—or the wrong one. The spell around Luna does both. It pulls bad luck away from her, and brings it to everyone nearby.

The really twisted thing is that from what I’ve learnt, the spell was originally invented by Dark mages as a protection, not a curse, because it makes you as safe from accidents as a person can possibly be. You can run across a motorway in rush hour, climb a tree in a lightning storm, walk through a battlefield with bombs going off all around you, all without taking a scratch.

But the accidents don’t go away; they just get redirected to everyone nearby, and when the spell is laid permanently, the results are horrible. The closer Luna gets to another person, the more the curse affects them. She can’t live in the same house as anyone else, because something terrible would happen within a month. She can’t keep pets, or they die. Even having friends is dangerous. The closer other people are to her, and the longer they stay near, the worse the result. Whenever Luna comes to care about any other human being, she knows that the more time she spends with them, the more they’re going to be hurt. She told me once that the first boy she kissed ended up in a coma.

I’ve spent some time researching Luna’s curse, trying to find a way to break it, but haven’t gotten anywhere. I might be able to get somewhere if I studied her intensively, but Luna’s life is hard enough without being treated like some kind of science project. Still…“Luna?”

“Hm?”

“There’s something I was…” Something brushed against my senses, and I stopped. I looked into the future and my stomach suddenly went cold.

Luna was watching in puzzlement. She could tell from my expression that something was going on, but she didn’t know what. “Alex?”

I jumped to my feet. “Get away!”

Luna started to rise, confused. “What’s going on?”

“There’s no time!” I was desperate; we had only seconds. “Behind the tree, hide! Hurry!”

Luna hesitated an instant longer, then moved quickly behind the beech. “Stay there,” I said, my voice low and urgent. “Don’t make a sound.” I turned back just as a man stepped from the trees in front of me.

He was powerfully built, with a thick neck and wide hands, and muscles that bulged through the lines of his black coat. He might have looked like a bouncer or a bodyguard, maybe even a friendly one, if you didn’t look too closely at his eyes. “Verus, right?” the Dark mage said, regarding me steadily. “Don’t think we’ve met.”

chapter 2

The two of us stood facing each other across the grass. The wind had dropped, and the birds around had gone silent, sensing danger. I stood still, keeping my face blank and not letting myself show any sign of the sickening sensation you get when you’ve made a really bad mistake. I’d left my house without weapons or defences. Once upon a time I never would have dreamt of stepping outside without them, but months of safety had lulled me into dropping my guard.

Now I was paying for it. I was standing in front of a Dark mage, and if he decided to come at me, I was toast. The silence stretched out while I looked frantically into the future, trying to see what would happen. “I guess we haven’t been introduced,” I said at last, keeping my voice steady.

“You can call me Cinder.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Subtle.”

“Trying to be funny?”

“I don’t know, are you laughing?”

He grinned then. “Smart mouth.”

I didn’t answer, but as I looked at the futures branching out ahead of us, I felt a chill. This conversation could unfold in a thousand ways, and most of them led to Cinder attacking me, brutally and without warning. And the cause of the fight was…

I stopped, trying to keep the confusion off my face. It was the red cube, the same one that had been left on the blanket just two feet behind where I was standing. The instant Cinder saw it he would do his absolute best to kill me, and I had no idea why.

Right now Cinder was focused on me, but in only a few seconds he would notice. I made a snap decision and deliberately turned my back on Cinder, crouching down to fold up the blanket. “I reckon…” Cinder began to say, then stopped. “Hey.”

I didn’t turn around. “What?”

“I’m talking to you.”

I wrapped the blanket around the cube, keeping the thick cloth around the thing. “And?” I took out my bag and started packing the blanket inside. From behind, I could feel Cinder’s confusion. No one turns his back on a Dark mage unless he’s crazy or planning something. I felt a surge of magic starting to build up behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder, feeling an itch in my back. “Stop that,” I said, keeping my voice cool.

A trace of anger was showing on Cinder’s face. “I think maybe you don’t know who I am.”

I slung the pack over my shoulder and turned to face Cinder. I’d learnt to hide my fear while still young, and it served me well now. Instead of slowing me down, the fear sharpened me, focusing my senses. I could feel the slight tension in Cinder’s body as he squinted at me, angry and puzzled. Turning my back on him had been an insult, and now he was focused on me, trying to decide if I was powerful or just stupid. Behind, I could sense Luna pressed flat against the beech tree, a mouse menaced by a hawk. “I don’t much care,” I said. “You’re here because you want something. Get to the point.”

Cinder looked at me through narrowed eyes, his anger simmering before coming under control. “You met Lyle,” he said at last.

“And?”

“He try to hire you?”

Cinder’s tone made it clear that he already knew the answer. “What if he did?”

“You helping him?”

I hesitated. Looking into the future wasn’t helping now—too many branches. I didn’t want to answer, but if I didn’t, Cinder would assume the answer was yes. That could be bad. “I don’t work for Lyle,” I said finally.

Cinder grunted and suddenly looked less threatening. “Smart.” He paused. “We pay better.”

It took me a second to take that in. When I did, I blinked. “You’re offering me a job?”

“Need a seer. Could get others. Better we get you.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“Same as the rest. Share of the value.”

“What’s that?”

“Huh?”

“What’s the value? How are you going to share it?”

Cinder smirked. “You’re the seer. Find out.”

“Funny.”

Cinder’s smirk faded. He looked steadily at me. “Wasn’t joking.”

If I agreed, Cinder would expect me to go with him, and if I stalled, he’d take it as weakness. “No thanks. I don’t work on credit.”

“There’ll be a share.”

“You think there’ll be a share.” I shook my head. “Come back when you’ve got something more solid.”

Cinder’s face darkened, and I felt the futures shift. Suddenly, the possibilities were looking a lot worse. “That your last word?”

I kept my voice very calm. “Don’t try to threaten me, Cinder.”

Cinder looked me up and down, slowly and deliberately. He wasn’t calling his magic up but I could sense he was ready to. “Seems to me,” he said, “I could take you any time I want.”

“You could try,” I said lightly. Inside, I was panicking. I had no weapons, the cube was in the backpack over my shoulder, and Luna was hiding not fifteen feet away. If a fight started, it would be a disaster. I could see the futures forking ahead of me, depending on whether Cinder decided I was bluffing. For a moment Cinder hesitated, then he grinned again, and the futures shifted decisively. “I reckon you got nothing.”

Shit, shit, shit. Every future I could see now led to an all-out battle. I searched through them frantically, trying not to let it show in my voice. “Bad idea.”

“Oh yeah?” He spread his arms invitingly. “Take your best shot.”

Twenty seconds. Suddenly I found a cluster of futures free and clear of danger. I scanned them desperately. What was the difference, what did I have to do? Ten seconds. The air started to darken around Cinder, the sunlight going from yellow to bloodred.

A name. I rehearsed it, spoke. “Morden.”

Cinder stopped dead. His magic faded away and the evening sunlight flooded back. “What?”

I stood there, not answering. “You working for him?” Cinder asked at last.

I raised my eyebrows. “What do you think?”

Cinder hesitated, and the seconds stretched out. It looked almost as if he were afraid. “Why didn’t you—?”

“You didn’t ask.”

Cinder’s expression firmed up again. “You tell the old man we meant it. He’s not our master.” Cinder was still trying to sound threatening, but he wasn’t going to attack, not anymore. “He’s smart, he’ll stay out of this. You too.”

“What am I, your postman? Tell him yourself.”

Cinder stared at me, then took a step back, disappearing into the trees. I felt a surge of magic and he was gone.

I stayed standing for another ten seconds, scanning the future to see if Cinder would be back. Once I was absolutely, positively sure he wouldn’t be, the strength went out of my legs and I flopped to the ground. My heart was hammering. “Jesus,” I muttered.

“Alex?” Luna finally said from behind the tree.

“He’s gone,” I managed. I tried to get up and found I couldn’t. My hands were shaking. All I could do was sit there as Luna emerged, looking at the normal, everyday shapes around her. The birds that had fallen silent at Cinder’s approach had started to sing again, and there was no sign he’d ever come. Luna knelt down, closer than normal. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I brushed my hair back, then gripped it to stop my hands from shaking.

Luna made as if to reach out to me, then checked herself and pulled back, drawing away to a safe distance. There was concern in her blue eyes, though, and strangely that made me feel better. “What happened?”

I took a deep breath, remembering that Luna couldn’t look into the future. I’d seen all the ways the meeting could end with the grass burnt black with flame, but Luna had heard only voices. “That was your first Dark mage.”

“They’re dangerous?”

“Understatement of the year.” My breathing was steadying. I pulled myself to my feet and patted the backpack to make sure the cube was still there.

“I don’t understand,” Luna said. “Who’s Morden?”

“Southbound terminus on the northern line.”

Luna looked at me blankly.

I sighed. “No clue. All I know is that it was the only thing that would have got Cinder off my back.”

“But why?”

“Because it made Cinder think I’m working for this Morden guy, and he didn’t want to pick that big a fight. But now Cinder’s going to go hunt up some people to ask, and once he finds out it was a bluff, he’ll be back. I just bought myself a whole lot of trouble.”

“You were bluffing?”

I started for the edge of the park. “Let’s get out of here before he figures that out.”

My flat is just above the shop, up on the second floor. It’s got what passes for my kitchen as well as a sofa, a table, and a couple of chairs for my raretononexistent visitors. There are three watercolours on the walls, inherited from the previous owner, and the windows look out over a low roof onto a view of the London skyline. The sun was dipping low in the sky, and the lights had started to come on across the city, outlining the buildings in yellow and orange. Across the canal and visible over the bridges are blocks of flats, their sides turned towards me, and sometimes in the evenings I like to lie on the sofa and watch the shifting patterns of the lights in the windows, wondering what they mean.

Luna was curled up on one corner of the sofa, while I was sprawled in my favourite chair. “So,” I said, setting my glass down with a sigh. “Now you know one of the reasons I don’t hang around with other mages.”

Luna gave me a questioning look and I shook my head, more to reassure myself than her. “Well, it’s done and we got away safe. Could have been a lot worse. You were a good girl to run and hide when I told you.”

“Don’t call me a good girl. You’re not that much older.”

“Don’t argue. Be a good girl.”

Luna gave me one of her rare smiles. It faded quickly though. “Alex…You were scary. Your voice was so cold. I thought you were going to…”

“Going to what?”

Luna was silent. “You were really bluffing?”

“He was looking for weakness.”

“I thought you didn’t know him?”

“I know people like him.” I fell silent, lost in old memories.

“He talked like he knew you,” Luna said after a pause.

I didn’t answer.

“How do you know people like him?” When I still didn’t answer, Luna went on. “Is it about what you did before you got this shop?”

“Luna…” There was a warning note in my voice.

Luna fell silent. When I looked up, though, she met my eyes, not backing down. “You’re better off staying away from this,” I said at last. “Just knowing about these people can get you in trouble.”

Luna tilted her head. “I thought you said I was already in trouble?”

I hesitated. Mages have a policy of not discussing their business with outsiders. The Council wouldn’t be happy if they found I was telling this to Luna. On the other hand, the Council doesn’t like me anyway.

And besides, I’ve never really bought into the idea of keeping people ignorant for their own good. What you know can hurt you, but what you don’t know can hurt you a lot worse. “All right,” I said. “What do you know about Dark mages?”

Luna curled her legs under her on the sofa. Her white fingers were clasped around a mug of tea, a faint wisp of steam drifting upwards. “I thought they were mages who went bad.”

“No.” I tried to figure out how to explain it. “Well…maybe. Dark mages follow a philosophy called the True Way. The True Way says that good and bad as we see them are conventions. Our ideas about good and evil come from customs and religions designed to benefit the people in power. Dark mages think that obeying them makes you a sheep. Like when you asked for that cube from that man today? A Dark mage would say you should have just taken it.”

“You mean stealing it?”

“A Dark mage would tell you that you only feel stealing is wrong because your parents brought you up that way. Right and wrong are just conventions, like which side of the road you drive on.”

Luna thought about it for a few seconds, then shook her head. “But he’d have called the police.”

I nodded. “That’s the bit they think matters. What stops people from breaking the law is the threat of punishment, and the threat only means anything if there’s the power to enforce it. To a Dark mage, power is reality. The more power you have, the more you can shape the reality around you. Strength, cunning, influence, whatever, but the one thing they don’t tolerate is weakness. Dark mages believe weakness is a sin, something shameful. If you’re not strong enough to take what you want, it’s your fault.”

Luna frowned. “Oh.”

“Do you understand?”

“I suppose.” Luna thought for a second. “I’ve heard people say stuff like that. I suppose they’ve got a point.”

I shook my head. “It’s not about having a point. Dark mages don’t say these things. They live them.”

Luna looked at me, and I knew she didn’t understand. “That man, Cinder,” I said. “What do you think he would have done if he’d found you?”

Luna looked suddenly uneasy. “I don’t know.”

“Whatever he wanted,” I said. “He might have ignored you. He might have laughed and walked off. He might have raped you and left you bleeding on the ground. He might have taken you back to his mansion as a slave. And he wouldn’t think twice about doing any of those things.”

Luna stared. “And something else,” I went on. “No other Dark mage would think twice about him doing any of those things either. If you can’t stop him, it’s your fault. Understand now?”

Luna’s eyes were wide, and I could tell I’d finally gotten through. “You know these people?”

“Yes.” Luna began to say something else but I shook my head. “Don’t ask me about it. Not now.”

Luna fell silent. The pause dragged out and became uncomfortable. “I should go home,” Luna said at last. I nodded and rose.

I walked Luna out. She kept at arm’s length just like always, but there was a distance that hadn’t been there before. Over the past months, Luna had started to open up to me a little. Now all of a sudden she was drawing back.

Once she was gone, I locked the door with a sigh. I’d been trying to scare her, and I had. I didn’t like showing Luna that side of me but I knew the safest thing would be for her to stay away for a few days, at least until this business with Cinder was settled. But I had the feeling that it would be a lot longer than a few days before Luna called me again for advice.

Somehow that depressed me. I shook it off. No one likes guys who get sentimental.

I took the red crystal cube and put it somewhere very hard to find. Then I headed for my room. I’d been planning to make inquiries about the cube, but Cinder’s reaction had changed all that. If just the sight of it was enough to make him try to kill me, I didn’t want to spread it around that I had it. Instead I’d keep it secret until the fuss had died down, and in the meantime I’d arrange for it to be thoroughly investigated by an expert in magical items…namely, me.

But first I needed to find out more about this Precursor relic that Lyle and Cinder were so interested in. And this time, I wasn’t going out empty-handed.

Being a diviner is all about being prepared; that was why I’d been so scared when Cinder had caught me napping. Diviners can’t do the flashy things that elemental mages can. We can’t fly or throw fire or disintegrate things. We aren’t any tougher or stronger than other men, and our magic gives us no power over the physical world. But what we do have is knowledge, and applied in the right way that can be some pretty impressive leverage.

I set about making sure I’d have something to apply that leverage to. I dressed in a warm shirt and jeans, then put on a pair of black running shoes before turning to the items scattered around my desk. My first choice was a crystal sphere the size of a marble with a fingernail’s worth of mist swirling inside—I dropped it into my right-hand coat pocket, checked to see that I could reach it quickly, then did the same with a small glass rod in the matching pocket on my left. Next was a packet of trail dust—my last one, I’d have to get some more. A tapering crystal wand about eight inches long was clipped into my coat, then I filled the rest of my pockets with a general selection of odds and ends: a jar of healing salve, a handful of tiny pieces of silver jewellery, and two vials containing a pale blue liquid.

Next I went on to my mundane items. Most mages aren’t fond of technology but I prefer to take every advantage I can get. A small, powerful torch went on my belt, along with a few tools and a slender-bladed knife held securely in its sheath. I reached for the drawer which held my gun, paused, then decided to leave it behind. It would probably be more trouble than it was worth.

Finally, I went to my wardrobe and took out my mist cloak. It’s not the most powerful item I own, but it’s the one I most trust. To casual eyes it looks like a length of some kind of grey-black cloth, thin and light and soft to the touch. If you keep looking, the colours seem to shift and flow at the edge of your vision, subtly enough that you might think you’d imagined it. Mist cloaks are woven from moonbeams and the webs of snow spiders, and they’re rare and little-known items. They’re imbued items, not simple focuses, and as I put it on the colours rippled quickly before going still. I patted it affectionately, then turned to look at myself in the mirror.

I saw a tall figure, angular lines blurred by the shadows of the mist cloak. From beneath the hood a pale, quizzical face looked back at me, guarded and watchful, spiky black hair framing a pair of dark eyes. I studied myself for a moment, then turned to the door.

Time to get to work.

The sun had long set by the time I stepped off the ladder onto the roof of my flat. A few muted stars shone down from above, their faint glow almost drowned out by the yellow blaze of the London lights. Rooftops, chimneys, and TV aerials were all around me, shadowed in the darkness, and from below came the sounds of the city. The air carried the scent of car exhausts and old brickwork.

Mages like to think their magic sets them above everyone else, and I guess in some ways that’s true. But when you get right down to it, mages are still people, and just like other people, they gossip. Lyle might think his Precursor relic was a secret, but I was willing to bet it wasn’t anywhere near as secret as he thought it was. And if the news was out, I knew someone who’d have heard all about it.

The roof of my flat is maybe twenty feet square, peeling white paint bordered by a small parapet with a dusty chimney sticking up on one side. If you’re a good climber you can cross to other houses, and often I do. I stood in the centre, took the glass rod from my pocket, and wove a tiny thread of magic through it, whispering as I did. “Starbreeze. Dancer of the air, friend to the clouds, you who knows the secrets of the mountain peaks and all between earth and sky. I am Alexander Verus and I call to you. Come to me, lady of the wind.” A faint breeze sprang up, as the whispering wind swept my words away and into the north. I repeated it again for south, west, and east, then looked into the future.

The good news was that Starbreeze would be here soon. The bad news was that the assassin stalking me would be here sooner.

It’s nearly impossible to surprise an alert diviner. It’s how we survive in a world of things bigger and nastier than we are. I’d detected the man hunting me even before I’d stepped outside my door. The only question was what to do about it.

I don’t usually let people pick fights with me. It’s not hard to give someone the slip when you can see the future, and the kind of people who like picking fights tend to have lots of other enemies. It’s easier just to keep your head down and wait for someone else to deal with them. In this case, though, if I shook this mage off, the first thing he’d do would be to try to break into my shop, and that would risk his finding the cube. I was better off dealing with him directly.

Of course, that didn’t mean I was going to fight fair. I hopped down to the roof of the house next to me and kept going until I reached the roof of a small block of flats to my south, five buildings down. The building had been renovated ten years back and the roof now held a couple of ventilators, but it still had the old chimney stacks near the edge. The combination of old and new made the roof cluttered, giving plenty of cover. I checked the roof to make sure the layout was as I remembered, then leant against one of the ventilators, closed my eyes, and waited.

Not much light from the streets below reached up to the city rooftops, but there was plenty of sound. From all around I could hear the muted chatter of people on the streets below, mixing with the rumble of cars carrying their passengers home for the last time before the weekend. The breeze carried the scent of Indian and Italian food; the restaurants were just starting on the dinnertime rush. All around was noise and bustle, but the roof itself was quiet. The only sound from nearby was the rustle of wings from roosting pigeons across the street. As I listened, the rustle suddenly went quiet.

I spoke into the darkness without opening my eyes. “You’ll miss.”

Black lightning cut the night air, slashing through the space I’d been in as I twisted away. The bolts were jet black, visible only as a greater darkness against the night sky, and they made no sound but a low hiss. I completed my spin with my back pressed against the ventilator, and as suddenly as it had begun, everything was still.

I leant just slightly around the ventilator’s edge. “Told you.”

The mage who’d attacked me was on the next roof over, a dark shape crouched behind a chimney. Looking into the futures in which I approached, I could see he was a small man, spindly and thin, wearing dark clothes and a mask that hid his face. He was squinting in my direction, one hand lifted to shield or strike. “Come out, little seer,” the man said when I didn’t move. His voice was harsh, with a trace of an accent.

“Why don’t you come over so I can see you better?”

I sensed the man’s lips curl in a smile. “Because I can see you…right now.” As he said the last word another stream of black lightning flashed from his hand.

The black lightning was death magic: a kind of negative energy that kills by shutting down a body’s systems, especially the brain and heart. Death magic is incredibly fast, as quick as the lightning it resembles. As if that weren’t enough, this particular attack was augmented with kinetic energy, giving it a physical punch as well. It’d be a real bitch to shield against, even if I could make shields, which I can’t.

But all the speed in the world doesn’t matter if the target’s not there. I’d ducked back out of sight as the man had cast his spell, and the bolt struck the edge of the ventilator where my head had been, the lightning grounding as the impact made the metal shudder. I heard the man swear. “You know, I was expecting Cinder,” I said conversationally. “Was he busy?”

“Cinder’s a fool,” the man snarled. I could sense he was off balance; he wasn’t used to missing.

“He didn’t try to pick a fight with me,” I said, then smiled into the darkness. “I’d say that makes him brighter than you…Khazad.”

The man—Khazad—stopped dead. “How do you know my name?”

“What’s the matter, Khazad?” I asked. “Bitten off more than you can chew?”

There was a moment’s silence, and then from behind the chimney, Khazad stood up. Darkness flickered around him as he wove a shield. “I don’t scare as easy as Cinder,” he said quietly, and began walking towards me.

So much for ending it the easy way. “So is this your way of asking me to join your team?” I asked as Khazad closed in. “Because I’ve got to say, your sales pitch sucks.”

“You can help us or you can die,” Khazad said, and I could tell he was smiling. “I don’t mind which.”

Khazad had reached the parapet separating one roof from the next. He began to climb over it, slowly and carefully, keeping one hand free and his eyes on the ventilator. I took the opportunity to move back into the shadow of the chimney stacks, keeping the ventilator between him and me. Khazad’s feet came down onto the apartment roof, and he straightened. “Running already?” he said mockingly.

“You know, I can see why you make enemies like Morden,” I said. “Your group really isn’t great on social skills.”

“You’re not working for Morden,” Khazad said calmly. “You don’t work for anybody. No one’s going to care if you die here.”

Khazad had cleared the ventilator, but I’d been moving as well and now there was a chimney stack between us. There was a reason I’d chosen to fight Khazad up here. Death magic is deadly, but it needs a direct line of sight to its target. A fire mage like Cinder could have just burned the whole rooftop, but Khazad needed a clear shot. I changed direction, moving towards the drop to my left. “Just out of curiosity, how do you think killing me is going to help you get this relic?”

“Who says I have to kill you?” Khazad said. His voice was confident; he thought he was backing me up against the edge of the roof. Good. “All you have to do is do what I say.”

I’d backed into a dead end. The chimney stack I’d been hiding behind ended at the roof’s edge. Glancing down, I could see balconies and a cluttered alleyway with a Dumpster. Khazad was less than thirty feet away, heading straight towards my hiding place.

Most mages have some way to use their magic to find people. Fire mages can pick up a man’s body heat; air mages can feel his breath; life and mind mages can directly sense the presence and thoughts of a human being the same way that you can touch or taste. For death mages like Khazad, it works a little differently; they sense living creatures as an absence, a concentration of life where their magic can’t go. That was how Khazad had been able to sense me in the darkness, and it was how he was following me now.

I drew the crystal wand from my pocket and concentrated, channelling my magic through it. There was no effect to normal eyes, but to my mage’s sight the thing brightened, glowing. The wand is the simplest of all magic items, a battery. All it does is hold the magic and essence of the person who uses it. It doesn’t really do anything, but it’s very noticeable. There was a gutter on the edge of the roof, and I laid the wand in it. “You’ll have to find me first,” I said over my shoulder, and flipped the hood of the mist cloak over my head. I took three quick steps backwards and pressed myself up against the chimney stack, going very still.

Let me tell you a bit about mist cloaks. They’re imbued items, with permanent magic of their own, and their basic function is to sense their surroundings and shift colour to match, camouflaging the bearer no matter where he is. Right now, I knew the mist cloak had shifted to match the bricks behind me, blending my shape with the chimneys like a chameleon. As long as I didn’t move, the illusion would be perfect.

But mist cloaks have a second function which very few people know about: they also block detection spells. To magical senses, a human wearing a mist cloak gives off no reading, as though they aren’t there. From Khazad’s point of view, first he was sensing me, and then he was sensing a source of magic coming from the exact same place that I’d been in a second ago. If he’d been paying close attention he might have noticed the flicker as the sources had switched, but he didn’t have any reason to think I’d moved. In fact, he didn’t even slow down. “Find you?” he said, and I could tell he was smiling. “I already have—”

Khazad came around the corner and stopped. A few steps ahead of him was the edge of the roof, streetlights glowing dimly from below. I was just two steps to his right, pressed motionless against the chimney. This close, I could see the side of Khazad’s face behind the mask. His skin was light brown, and he was shorter than I was, small and lightly built. He was staring down at where the wand was hidden, just in front of him.

Mages tend to over-rely on their magic. It’s human nature; if you have something that works ninety-nine percent of the time, you tend to forget about the hundredth. Khazad’s eyes were telling him that there was nothing there, but his magic was telling him that there was something just over the edge, and it was his magic he trusted. He moved forward, his movements quick and jerky like a bird, his shield flickering as it dimmed the light behind him. He reached the very edge of the roof and stared down at the wand lying in the gutter.

I came up behind Khazad and shoved him hard in the small of the back. His shield stung my hands as it took the blow, but while kinetic shields can spread out an impact, they don’t do much to stop it. Khazad went flying over the edge with a shout. There was a crash as he hit the balcony, followed by a satisfying crunch.

I picked up the wand and dropped it back in my pocket, then turned and walked away, humming to myself. I didn’t bother checking to see how badly Khazad was hurt; he wasn’t going to be chasing me anymore, which was all I cared about. I walked back to my roof, sat down, and waited.

A couple of minutes later, something tickled my ear. I turned to see a semisolid face made of swirling air just a few inches away, looking at me with wide eyes. “Boo!”

To ordinary eyes Starbreeze looks like air; that’s to say, invisible. To a mage’s sight she looks like an artist’s sketch done in lines of glowing vapour. Swirls of air magic make up her body, her shape changing from day to day depending on her mood. Today she was in one of her favourite forms: an elfin girl with short hair, big eyes, and pointed ears. “Scared you!”

Starbreeze’s full name is about half a page long and lovely to hear, the sense of a rising wind over a snowy hillside, carrying with it the hint of spring, with the first stars of night appearing in the sky above. When I first met her I tried to remember it, until I found that she changes it every time she’s asked. Now I just call her Starbreeze like everyone else. Starbreeze is an air elemental, a spirit of wind. She can fly or shift her form with no more effort than it takes you or me to walk. She can feel the movement of a butterfly from across a field, hear a whisper from halfway across the world. She’s ancient and timeless. I don’t know how old she is, but I think she might have been born at the time the world was made.

She’s also dumb as a sack of rocks.

“Hi, Starbreeze.”

“You’re different,” Starbreeze chirped. Then she brightened. “Pretty cloak!” She dived right into me, turning into a swirl of wind around my clothes, sending my cloak billowing out, then starting to tug it over my head.

“No!” I said, pulling it down.

“Give me,” Starbreeze called, her voice coming from somewhere around my back.

I took a firmer grip on the mist cloak. “No. You’ll lose it.”

Starbreeze reformed behind me, and I turned to face her. She was pouting. “Won’t.”

“Yes, you will. You’ll forget all about it.”

“Won’t.”

“What happened to the last thing I gave you?”

Starbreeze looked vague. “I forgot.” She brightened. “Air stone!”

I sighed inwardly. Starbreeze has seen my cloak a dozen times, and it goes clean out of her head every time I’m gone. I suppose I’m lucky she can remember Alex. Actually, I’m lucky she remembers Starbreeze. I reached into my pocket and took out one of the tiny pieces of silver jewellery: a brooch, shaped like a butterfly with wings spread. Starbreeze hopped forward, eyes wide. “Ooh!”

“Do you like it?”

Starbreeze floated up into the air and spun around so that her head was pointing down at the roof. She hung upside down with her chin cupped in her hands a few inches from the brooch, stared at it with rapt eyes for a few seconds, then nodded eagerly.

I closed my hand over the brooch and lowered it. Starbreeze’s face clouded over. “Bring it back!”

“I’ll give it to you,” I promised. “But I need you to tell me something first.”

“Okay!”

Starbreeze doesn’t rest, doesn’t sleep, and can hear anything carried on moving air. It’d make her the perfect spy, except that most of what she hears goes in one ear and out the other. “I’m looking for a Precursor relic, a new one.”

“What’s a relic?” Starbreeze said curiously.

“A powerful magical thing. It would have been found a week or two ago.”

“What’s a week?”

“The Council would have been looking into it. They’d have been guarding it, maybe setting up some kind of research team.”

“What’s the Council?”

I sighed. “Anything interesting in this city? Anything with magic?”

“Oh!” Starbreeze brightened. “Men came to the place with the old thing. Tried to open it up.” Starbreeze giggled. “Lightning man came. It was funny!”

I frowned. “Which men?”

Starbreeze shrugged. “Men.”

“Where did they come to?”

“Blue round place.”

“Is there anywhere else in this city where men have been doing something magical with an old thing?”

“No, no, no.” Starbreeze swirled around my head, rolling over in the air. “Go there?”

I thought for a second. If Starbreeze took me to the “blue round place,” I’d be able to find out whether it was what I was looking for. The only risk was she might get halfway, forget where she was going, and drop me somewhere random. Last time that happened I ended up in Puerto Rico. If you’re wondering why I bring so much stuff with me on these trips, now you know.

On the other hand, I was pressed for time and this was the best lead I had. I nodded. “Let’s do it.”

Instantly Starbreeze swept in around me. For a moment a whirlwind clouded my vision, and then there was a tingling through my body and I could see again. Looking down, I saw my body fade away, becoming mist and air. Then we were in the sky, flying at incredible speed into the darkness.

There’s no feeling as amazing as being carried by an air elemental. Imagine flying in a hang glider, soaring over the city by night. Now imagine that you’re going ten times as fast, so that the streets and lights and crowds below roll by like an unfolding blanket. Now add the feeling that there isn’t a breath of wind, and that you’re lying in midair watching the land zoom past below. When an air elemental carries you in its body, the rushing wind doesn’t touch you; it’s like swimming through the sky.

Tonight, though, I didn’t have much time to enjoy it. I had one brief glimpse of a huge curving roof, a pale green dome forming a bubble out of the centre, before Starbreeze turned me back from air and dropped me to the ground so fast that I was standing on flagstones almost before I knew what was happening. I was standing under the night sky in a massive dark courtyard, in the shadow of a vast building. Opposite the building was a high fence with a pair of tall gates, and through the closed gates I could see lights and passing cars. The courtyard itself was almost pitch-black, and for a moment I was disoriented, and then I saw the massive columns to my left and suddenly I knew exactly where I was.

Starbreeze swirled upwards. “Starbreeze, wait,” I whispered up to her. “Don’t you want the brooch?”

Starbreeze paused in midair and stared blankly down at me. “Brooch?”

I sighed inwardly. “Here.” I held out the silver butterfly. “This is for you.”

“Ooh!” Starbreeze said raptly. A puff of wind whisked the butterfly out of my hand and Starbreeze leapt up and away out of the courtyard and into the night sky, spiralling higher and higher, tossing the brooch from breeze to breeze until she disappeared into the air and vanished.

I was left alone. I took a quick glance around me and got to work.

chapter 3

The spot where Starbreeze had dropped me was just outside the British Museum. The courtyard was bordered to the north by the museum itself, to the east and west by outbuildings, and to the south by stone walls, tall gates, and a high iron fence with spikes. Beyond the fence, buses and cars tracked steadily from left to right to left along Great Russell Street, casting light and sound through the railings, but the courtyard itself was silent.

As I waited for my eyes to adjust, I looked through the futures and saw that if I moved forward I’d run into a line of massive columns, behind which was the museum’s main entrance. Starbreeze had said something about mages trying to open something. It might be Lyle’s relic, in which case this place would be under Council guard. Otherwise, it might be someone’s secret project. Either way, it was a safe bet nobody inside would be happy to see me.

If there’s one thing all diviners share, it’s curiosity. We really can’t help it; it’s just part of who we are. If you dug out a tunnel somewhere in the wilderness a thousand miles from anywhere and hung a sign on it saying, Warning, this leads to the Temple of Horrendous Doom. Do not enter, ever. No, not even then, you’d get back from lunch to find a diviner already inside and two more about to go in.

Come to think about it, that might explain why there are so few of us.

In any case, even if this wasn’t what I was after, I couldn’t resist having a closer look. I flipped the hood of my mist cloak up over my head and walked into the shadows of the huge columns. In the wall beyond were double doors of metal and glass. Through the glass I could see an open area with two men at a security station, one sitting, one standing. The only way through into the museum proper was to cross in a clear line of sight of both men. I stood watching for two full minutes, then opened the door and walked inside.

Everyone knows diviners can see the future. But what does seeing the future mean?

Most people think it’s like reading a book. You skip a few pages ahead, see what’s going to happen. That’s impossible, of course. You reach a fork in the road: do you go left or right? You might go one way; you might go the other. It’s your choice, no one else’s.

What a diviner sees is probability. In one future you go left; in another you go right; in a third, you stop and ask for directions. A hundred branches, each branching again and again to create thousands, for every one of the millions of people living on this earth. Billions and trillions of futures, branching in every way through four dimensions like a river delta the size of a galaxy.

You can’t look at all that at once. If you opened your sight to all the possible futures of everything around you, even for an instant, the knowledge would destroy you, wipe away your mind like an ocean wave rolling over a drop of water. Seeing into the future is a constant discipline, always keeping your guard up, always focused. The real reason there are so few diviners is that most of them either go crazy or block their power off so that they don’t have to deal with it anymore.

The diviners who don’t go crazy learn to see futures in terms of strength. Everyone develops their own code, a way of interpreting the information. To me, futures appear as lines of light in the darkness. The stronger and more likely the future, the brighter the glow. The next thing you learn is how to sort futures, search for groupings of events in which things happen a certain way. And once you’ve done that, all you have to do is look back along the strands and find out which actions lead to them.

In ninety-nine out of a hundred futures, opening the door and walking in led to my being spotted by the security guards. I searched for the future in which I wasn’t spotted, looked back to see what I had to do to make it happen, and did it. I didn’t have the faintest idea why I had to move that way. I just knew it would work.

To anyone watching, it looks like pure fluke. One guard points at something, and the other turns just as I open the door and close it behind me. They carry on talking and I stand quietly in the shadow of the doorway. One looks away briefly and I walk out across the floor as the second bends down to fumble in a drawer. I walk past, staying behind the first one as he turns back, and pass through the exit at the other side just before the second one looks up again.

Afterwards, when the balloon goes up, both guards will swear they never took their eyes off the door.

The Great Court of the British Museum is massive, more than fifty feet high with the huge cylinder of the Reading Room running from floor to ceiling at the centre. Floor and walls are painted white, reflecting the light and emphasising the empty space, and the ceiling is slightly domed. An equestrian statue stood to the right; to the left, a stone lion snarled down upon an information desk covered with pamphlets. I crossed the floor, half my mind on keeping my footsteps silent and the other half searching the possible futures for more guards, noting as I did that a patrol was due in about three minutes. I picked a map off the desk and glanced at it. The bulk of the ground floor was taken up by the west wing, mostly filled with permanent exhibits from ancient Greece and Rome. Somehow I couldn’t see Lyle’s relic being one of those; if the Rosetta Stone or the Elgin Marbles were magical, I was pretty sure someone would have noticed by now. At the back, around the fourth floor, were some rooms marked in brown as Exhibitions and Changing Displays. That sounded hopeful. I slipped the map into my pocket and started for the stairs.

As I climbed the curving staircase around the Reading Room and mapped out my path through the museum, the back of my mind was puzzling about why any kind of magical item would be here. Mages, as a whole, are not the most public spirited of people. If they find something they want, they take it. They don’t leave it on display.

Unless in this case they couldn’t take it. If the Council couldn’t move it to a safe location, that might explain why Lyle was desperate enough to try contacting me.

I’d just reached Ethiopia and Coptic Egypt when something pinged on my precognition. Two guards were ahead. I paused until I knew neither was looking in my direction, then peeked my head around the corner. The men were about thirty feet away, standing in front of a staircase leading up, and they were carrying…

Bingo. The security guards at the door had worn the black uniforms and pullovers of British Museum security, with a silver BM on their epaulettes. These two wore plain clothes. They carried no obvious tools or weapons, but I could sense the auras of magical items, and from the way one had moved I’d spotted a gun in a shoulder holster and that made them Council security. Mages don’t do sentry duty, not unless it’s literally a matter of life or death; they’re too important for that. Instead they have private soldiers equipped with modern weapons and magical aids.

These two weren’t mages, or even adepts, but they were alert and competent. As well as that, I could tell from here that the top of the stairwell behind them was warded with a barrier. The barrier would contain a well-hidden alarm; anyone entering the fourth floor without the magical key, whether by foot or by spell, would set off a silent warning signal. Knowing the Council, the guards wouldn’t be trusted with the password key. An elemental mage could blast through the guards and the barrier but would set off the alarm. A more subtle mage would be able to avoid raising the alarm but wouldn’t be able to get through the barrier.

It was a typical Council defence: cost-effective and ruthless. The job of those two guards was to be, basically, cannon fodder. If a mage attacked them, their chances of survival were nil. Their only purpose was to raise the alarm and give advance warning to Council reinforcements gating in. But no matter what I thought of the methods, I had to admit it was a fairly good setup. For a normal mage, getting past both the guards and the barrier without raising the alarm would take hours of preparation, if not days.

It took me slightly over five minutes. When you know exactly what will set off an alarm, then you know exactly what won’t. Think about it.

The fourth floor was sealed off from the rest of the museum with boards and screens. Worn red carpet covered the floor and a scattered handful of lights cast the room in a dim glow. Standing in the centre of the room was a statue.

I should probably mention at this point that what I was doing was, under mage law, illegal as hell. The Council might turn a blind eye to torture and murder, but trespassing, well, that’s serious. With my reputation, I’d be in serious trouble if I was caught. However, I was pretty sure by this point that I’d be in more serious trouble if I stayed home. I had no particular desire to sit around waiting for the next guy in line to take a shot at me.

I scanned the room. A few other exhibits had been pushed into the corners: a vase, a standing lamp, something that looked like a totem pole. None radiated magic. A lift was at the far end, but it was dark and unpowered. There were no windows. Apart from the stairs I’d climbed to enter this room, there was no way in and no way out, which meant I was standing in a dead end if anything went wrong. I would have to work fast.

The statue was of a man, life size, wearing robes that looked like ancient ancestors of the ceremonial gear Light mages wear to formal occasions. He looked in his fifties or sixties, with a flowing beard. His right hand grasped a wand, while his left hand was held out in front of him, palm up and slightly cupped as though asking for something. The face was superbly detailed, right down to the age lines and the set of the eyes; the sculptor had obviously used magic to preserve his work. The expression and pose of the man was commanding, proud. I circled the statue once more, then after a moment’s hesitation reached out and touched it.

Nothing happened, as I’d known it would. The statue looked and felt like stone, though slightly cooler to the touch than stone should be. This was Lyle’s relic, all right. Even without my mage’s sight, I could feel power radiating from the thing. I looked around the room, putting together what must have happened. The museum had gotten hold of the statue and brought it here. The Council had found it, sent agents. Their orders would have been to study the item, determine its power. First they would have tried to activate the statue, and then if that didn’t work they would have tried to move it.

What had happened then?

I turned back to the statue, studying the face. The expression was calm, but with a hint of something else—arrogance? Danger? Looking closely, I could see traces of old scars. A battle-mage, then, and a good one, if he’d lived to that age. The more I looked, the more I felt there was something expectant about the statue, as though it were waiting for something.

The outstretched hand lay there, open and inviting. I looked into the future to see what would happen if I put something into it.

I watched the scene unfolding ahead of me for just a second, then broke off the vision and stepped back hastily until my back fetched up against the wall. Suddenly I understood exactly why Lyle and Cinder needed a diviner, and what had happened the last time someone had tried to activate this thing. The statue had been perfectly preserved—and its defence system had been perfectly preserved, too. I’d learnt all I needed to know. It was time to get out of here.

I’d taken two steps towards the door when I heard the sound from downstairs. It was a quiet sound, the sound of something soft and heavy falling, and it made me stop dead.

Remember what I said about diviners learning to focus on the futures that tell you what you need to know? Well, it comes with a drawback. If you’re focusing on one set of futures, you aren’t paying attention to the others. So if you’re about to be cornered by some people you really don’t want to meet, you won’t notice it until something draws your attention—something like the sound of a body hitting the floor.

It was not turning out to be a good day.

Most people’s first response to danger is to run away. It’s a survival instinct which natural selection has done a good job of encouraging. It’s an old saying that if you’re being chased, you only have to outrun one person. If everyone else runs away and you don’t, by default that makes you the one person. Hence people whose first response to danger isn’t to run away tend to get weeded out of the gene pool by teeth, or bullets, or fireballs, as the case may be.

Personally, my first response to danger is to take a closer look and see what’s going on. Refer back to what I said about diviners being curious. Also refer back to what I said about there not being many of us. I looked into the future of what I would see if I ran downstairs, following the gaze of my future self.

The first thing I saw were the two guards who’d been stationed on the landing. Both were now lying on the floor, quite dead. Standing over them were three figures. As my future self saw the figures, they saw me, and I got one glimpse of what they’d do before I cut the vision off abruptly. Just that look was all I needed to know that I did not want to be found here.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and I knew I had less than thirty seconds. Running was out, fighting was out. The only choice left was to hide. I moved into one of the corners, sliding in behind the totem pole so its irregular shape would break up my outline, then pulled the hood of my mist cloak over my head. The footsteps below stopped, and I knew they’d reached the barrier. There was a flicker of green light and the barrier was gone. Figures strode in.

There were three of them, two men and a woman, quick and quiet, their heads turning as they checked the corners. All three were masked and wore dark clothes, but even with the masks I recognised the hulking shape of the nearest. It was Cinder. He looked straight at the corner in which I was hiding, but his eyes swept past without seeing. “Empty.”

“Find some more,” snarled the second man. It was Khazad. Apparently going after me hadn’t been the only item on his todo list for tonight. He was limping and smelt of rotting vegetables. Maybe he’d hit the Dumpster on his way down. “I’m not done.”

“Enough,” the woman said sharply, and the sound of her voice made me forget all about Khazad. The clothes hid her shape and all I could see was a pair of blue eyes, but even a glance at them made me go still. I couldn’t place her voice, but somehow I felt as though I’d met her before. “Cinder, do your tests.”

Cinder made a gesture and dark red lights sprang up around the room, small red flames smouldering in midair. In the red glow, he studied the statue, turning his back to me. “How long we got?”

“They’ll still be getting out of bed,” Khazad said, his voice simmering with anger. “They get in our way, too bad for them.”

“We aren’t here for you to play,” the woman said. She checked a watch. “Two minutes. Cinder?”

The woman’s voice was sending chills through me. Something about it kept nagging at my memory, but I couldn’t quite match it. If I could just see her face…but in the red light, all I could make out were her eyes as she stood with arms folded, staring at the statue. She was average height and moved with a smooth grace.

“Trying,” Cinder muttered. He was holding up his hands, weaving glowing red threads around the statue. I could recognise it as a divining spell of some kind, but a crude one. He wasn’t going to learn anything useful. Cinder must have realised it the same time I did, because he lowered his hands and let the light die. “Need a diviner.”

Khazad looked at Cinder angrily. “You say something?”

Cinder returned Khazad’s gaze. “Said you’d bring Verus. Said you didn’t need any help.”

Khazad showed his teeth in a snarl. I could feel the hate radiating off him, and I made a mental note to make sure I stayed out of Khazad’s way for a while. I was getting the impression he wasn’t the forgive-and-forget type.

“Cinder,” the woman said again, and Cinder looked away from Khazad, breaking the standoff. I couldn’t help but grin. Hey, don’t sell yourselves short, guys. You did manage to bring along a diviner, you just can’t see him. Destroying the barrier had triggered an alarm, and Council reinforcements were on the way. I already knew that Khazad’s guess had been accurate. The reinforcements were going to be too late to do me any good.

But the three Dark mages didn’t know that. The woman took a final glance at her watch and shook her head. “We’re out of time.”

Reluctantly, Cinder held out his left hand. The woman handed him something the size of a tennis ball, covered in a dark cloth. Cinder turned to the statue and hesitated.

Khazad gave an ugly laugh. “Losing your nerve?”

“Shut up, Khazad.” The woman’s voice had a snap of authority to it. Khazad fell silent midlaugh and glowered. The woman’s eyes swept past him and suddenly locked on the corner in which I was hiding.

I caught my breath. Blue eyes stared into mine. In the dim light, I knew that I would be only a shadow in the corner. But if she came forward even a little…I closed my fingers around the glass marble in my pocket.

“Fine,” Cinder growled. The woman dragged her eyes away to look at him, and I let out my breath silently. “Let’s do this.”

Cinder stepped forward towards the statue, unwrapping the whateveritwas. His back was to me, and I wanted to find out what he was holding in his hands, but self-preservation made me look into the future instead. Cinder was going to place the thing into the statue’s hand, the statue was going to activate, and—

Oh, crap.

I’d been hoping these three knew what they were doing. Judging by what they were about to set off, it was obvious they didn’t.

As Cinder wove a protection spell around the statue, I knew I didn’t have much time. My current location was about to become very unhealthy. I could try stepping out to give the three Dark mages a warning, but I didn’t even bother checking what the consequences of that would be. Pretty much every future in which I stayed in this room led to me being burnt to a crisp within the next thirty seconds.

It was time to go back to plan A. Run away very quickly.

Cinder finished his spell, placed something in the statue’s hand, then stepped back. With his bulk between me and the statue, I couldn’t see what was happening, and all my attention was going towards calculating at exactly which point I should run. There was a faint white glow from the statue, dim in the red light, then a red flicker. Then the light died away and there was silence.

Khazad spoke into the vacuum. “Is that it?”

Never ask questions like that around active magic.

The room brightened with pale light, swallowing the red glow of Cinder’s magic in a white aura. Something large appeared in the room, just above the statue and right in the middle of the three very surprised Dark mages.

And in the moment’s pause where the three of them were staring openmouthed at the creature in front of them, I sprinted past and down the stairs as fast as my legs could carry me.

I’ve been involved in a good few combats over the course of my life, and pretty much all of them have either started or ended with me running away. There is a reason for this. Mages can inconvenience, immobilise, hurt, injure, stab, slice, burn, bend, fold, spindle, and mutilate you in a variety of creative ways, but pretty much all of them require that they know where you are. If you can stay out of sight it’s hard for them to know where you are, and if you can move faster than they can it’s hard for them to keep you in sight. So if you lead a lifestyle that brings you into frequent contact with unfriendly mages, and you have plans for your life that don’t involve getting turned into a small pile of charcoal, it’s a good idea to learn to run fast. To run fast you need training, fitness, and most of all, motivation.

I had three Dark mages and an angry guardian elemental behind me. I had motivation in spades.

As I tore down the stairs, I heard a shout from the woman, followed by a hollow boom and a red-black flash as at least two of the Dark mages took a shot at the elemental. A second later the stairs flashed white and there was a crack of thunder as the elemental took a shot back. I didn’t know whether I’d been spotted and I didn’t hang around to find out. I made it back the way I came into the Great Court and to the top of the staircase with a speed that an Olympic sprinter would have had trouble beating.

The Great Court showed no signs of battle; the three Dark mages had probably bypassed the doors and gated in. The good news was that there were no security guards.

The bad news was that the Council reinforcements had just turned up.

There were five of them, just entering through the front doors. The battle-mages of the Council are more of a police force than anything else, but you still don’t want to mess with them. This group was shielded, armed, and ready for trouble.

But they didn’t have advance warning and I did. As I reached the top of the staircase I pulled the crystal marble from my pocket and threw it to shatter at the foot of the stairs. Silvery vapour surged out, filling the Great Court with an obscuring mist, and the mages disappeared from view in an instant. I sprinted down into the mist, relying on my magic to avoid a fall.

If I’d been lucky, that would have been it. I could have passed them in the mist and left them to fight it out behind me. But their leader was fast, already throwing up shields, shouting orders, and I knew I’d never make it through the door. I made a snap decision, jinked right, ran across the Great Court into the west wing, and just made it into the doorway before one of the other mages evaporated the mist to nothingness with a surge of air magic.

I’d been forewarned in time to freeze in the shadow of the door, my mist cloak gathered around me. The mages were clustered around the main entrance, defensive spells glowing around them. “Where’d he go?” the leader snapped. He was a tough-looking man in his middle years with iron-grey hair.

“Can’t see him,” another mage said, scanning the court. “Didn’t feel a gate.”

“He couldn’t have made one that fast…”

“We don’t know that,” the leader said. “Ward the door, we need to push up.”

With care and persistence, you can track down even someone in a mist cloak. I knew that the mages of the response team would be able to find me given enough time. I also knew they weren’t going to get it.

The air mage who’d blown away the mist heard the sound of running footsteps first and called a warning to the others. The response team swung their attention to the top of the staircase just as the three Dark mages appeared at a dead run. Even at this distance I could see that Cinder and Khazad’s clothes were smoking. The leader of the Council mages started to shout something up at them, and the ensuing conversation would have been very interesting if the elemental hadn’t followed them out a second later.

Elementals are living, sapient manifestations of the building blocks of our universe. They’re not usually all that smart, although calling them stupid isn’t quite right either—limited is a better word. Either way, one thing they’re not is weak. Take Starbreeze—she isn’t particularly powerful as elementals go, but she could still transform you into air without breaking a sweat. She could also, should she feel like it, scatter that air across so many thousands of cubic miles of atmosphere that your body would be in every time zone at once. With that in mind, you can see why mages avoid picking fights with even lesser elementals.

The elemental hovering at the top of the stairs was definitely not a lesser one.

Standing upright it would have been maybe twelve feet tall, a rough humanoid shape with two arms, two legs, a body, and what could have been a head, every part of it crackling blue-white electricity. It didn’t walk so much as fly, blazing a jagged path through the air to light up the Great Court with dazzling light, staring with brilliant eyes down upon the mages facing it. Ah, I thought. “Lightning man.” So that was what she meant.

The leader of the Light mages shouted something, but no one was listening to him anymore. About five of the Light and Dark mages hit the elemental at the same time, fire and wind and earth slamming into it as one. The elemental hit back, and a lightning storm blazed outward from the top of the stairs, bolts slamming off shields to crackle down into the floor.

By this point I was running again. For a diviner like me, a two-sided battle is more than dangerous enough. A three-sided battle isn’t even worth thinking about. By my count there were now four sides: the Dark trio, the Council reinforcements, the elemental, and me. My curiosity wanted to stick around and see who won, but it was outvoted.

The only problem was that the free-for-all I was running away from just happened to be right between me and the exit. I sprinted past the Rosetta Stone and Assyria, took a right at the Nereid Monument, and ducked into a corner in the Greeks and Lycians displays. Pulling out my glass rod, I channelled a thread of magic and whispered urgently. “Starbreeze, friend to the air and—no, wait. Lady of the wind, dancer of, friend to, um…oh, hell with it, Starbreeze, it’s Alex Verus, and I need you right now. Get me out of here!”

There was a crash from the direction of the Great Court and the air lit up white. I’d picked the farthest corner I could find, but from the way the floor vibrated, it wasn’t far enough. “Starbreeze! Come on! Where are you?”

Running footsteps echoed from where I’d come. I scanned, then snapped a quick look around the corner. Running through the gallery which held the Nereid Monument were two figures in dark clothes: Cinder and the woman. I ducked back and swore under my breath. “Why do these people keep following me?”

“Who?” Starbreeze said in interest.

I jumped and spun to see Starbreeze hovering right next to my face, the transparent lines of her face almost invisible in the darkness. Starbreeze giggled. “Scared you!” She pointed brightly back towards the Great Court. “Lightning man!”

“Yeah, I noticed. Let’s get out of here!”

“Stay and watch?”

Around the corner, the sound of approaching footsteps had stopped. Dimly I heard Cinder’s voice, muttering, “—someone there.”

“Khazad?” the woman’s voice muttered back.

Why can’t they find their own place to hide? “Let’s not,” I urged. “Look!” I rummaged through my pocket and came up with a silvered earring. “Here, Starbreeze. Starbreeze!”

Starbreeze was floating five feet up in the air, gazing absently in the direction of the battle. She gave a look down at the earring, then shook her head and went back to staring at the wall happily. “Lightning’s pretty.”

“Starbreeze, come on!”

Starbreeze shook her head. “Unh-unh.”

Over Starbreeze’s voice, I could just hear Cinder talking. “—not Khazad.”

“Burn the room he’s in.”

“Can’t tell which room.”

“Burn them all, then.”

As I heard those last words my precognition screamed. I went from a standing start to a dead run in one second flat, sprinting out through the exit on the right.

There was a whoompf! and a wave of heat washed over me, followed by the wail of smoke alarms. I turned back to see that the gallery I’d been standing in was a cloud of ash and smoke. The edge of the blast had missed me by maybe ten feet.

As I watched, the sprinkler system came on, water hissing as it struck the molten glass of the display cases. Starbreeze came zipping out of the smoke. “That hurt!” Her voice rippled, upset, and her form was shaky, specks of ash fluttering as she moved.

“Then let’s go! Get us out of here!”

Starbreeze swept down and around me, turned me into air, and whisked me up and out of sight. I had one fleeting glimpse of Cinder and the woman emerging from the smoke, then we were moving at Starbreeze’s full speed, and let me tell you, full speed for Starbreeze is fast. The museum blurred and before I had time to take a breath we were outside and soaring upwards, the dome of the British Museum turning into a speck beneath us as we vanished into the night.

I had plenty to think about on the trip back. Whatever that statue was, it was valuable enough that the three Dark mages had been willing to take heavy risks to be the first to activate it. They’d tried to pick the lock and failed. It was obvious now why they’d wanted a diviner so badly: with my help, they wouldn’t have set off that trap. Now that they’d botched their first attempt, the security on the museum would be doubled. That meant they’d have to either quit or come after me again. Somehow none of them struck me as the quitting type.

Thinking about them made me think again about the woman. Something about her kept nagging at my memory. I was sure I’d met her before, but I couldn’t remember where.

By the time I managed to persuade Starbreeze to take me home, the adrenaline rush from the battle had worn off and I was dead tired. Starbreeze dropped me off on my roof and swirled away as I climbed wearily down to my flat. I’d made some new enemies, given the Council further cause to dislike me, and nearly been killed twice. Not a great day’s work.

But it hadn’t been for nothing. I’ve always believed in the power of knowledge. Any problem can be solved if you understand it well enough, and somewhere in what I’d learnt today was the key to this whole mess. I just needed to figure it out.

Once I was back in my bedroom, all I wanted was to sleep, but I had more work to do. I hung my mist cloak in the wardrobe, giving it a pat and watching as its colours rippled slightly at the touch of my hand. Then I fetched the cube from where I’d left it and set it down on my desk. Cinder had been willing to kill me for this, which meant I needed to know what it did. It was going to be a long night.

chapter 4

The caverns were cold and still, and footsteps echoed in the distance. In the centre of the room was a stone bier, and laid out upon it was a body dressed in the white gown of a sacrifice. Her red hair was the only colour in the darkness, and her eyes were closed.

I tried to run to the girl lying on the stone, but my limbs felt heavy and slow. I didn’t dare call out for fear of being heard. When at last I reached her, my hands seemed shadowy. I couldn’t tell if it was her skin that was cold, or my own.

Then suddenly I realised that the footsteps had stopped. I froze, listening. When the laugh came it was right behind me, and I felt a surge of terror as the flames began.

I came awake with a gasp, my heart hammering in my chest. I lifted my head and winced as pain stabbed from my neck. I opened my eyes a crack, closed them again at the gritty feeling, and as I came fully awake realised I was slumped over my desk. The grey light of an overcast morning was coming in through the window, making me squint and starting up the beginnings of a headache.

I don’t sleep well. I never did, even as a child, but the things that happened in Richard’s mansion made it worse. Usually the nightmares are pain and fear, but it had been a long time since I’d remembered Shireen. Seeing her again, even in a dream, made my heart clench. Watching someone die is bad, but knowing that they have to be dead yet never being sure is worse. Instead of one clean cut it allows you to keep a tiny sliver of hope that fades only gradually, bit by bit, as the years slip by. It’s cruel.

I tucked my head into my hands and breathed steadily, letting my heartbeat slow. As I did, I ran through my mental exercises, pushing the memories away. I’d just finished when the phone rang. The screen read Caller ID Unknown. I let the phone ring eleven times, then on the twelfth hit the Talk button and put the phone to my ear. “Lyle, you have thirty seconds to explain what’s so important you needed to wake me up.”

“Alex? It’s Lyle.”

“Gosh, Lyle, thanks. There’s no way I could have figured that out on my own by, oh I don’t know, seeing the future.”

“There’s no reason to be so rude.”

“Reason number one: because I hate you. I’d add more, but you’ve only got fifteen seconds left.”

“There’s something we need you—”

“Heard it.” I leant back.

“We’d be prepared to—”

“Heard that too. Five seconds.”

“Wait! It’s urgent that you—”

“Bye, Lyle. Don’t call back.”

“There was an organised attack on the Precursor relic last night,” Lyle said, his voice crisp. “The Council met for an emergency session this morning.”

All of a sudden I was wide awake. Adrenaline will do that to you. “Okay,” I said at last, once it was clear Lyle was waiting for a response.

“The Council has decided secrecy is no longer a issue.”

“Okay.”

“This brings us to you. You understand?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, at least you’ve finally got a civil tongue in your head,” Lyle said dryly. “I’m glad you’ve grasped the gravity of the situation.”

Gravity was an understatement. If the Council thought I was part of Cinder’s group, I was dead. I waited, heart in my throat.

“So, I’m offering you the same job as before.”

I stared at the phone for five seconds. “You’re what?”

“The leader of the investigation team would like to employ your services,” Lyle said. “We’ll work out the details later.”

I closed my eyes and silently let out the breath I’d been holding. Lyle wasn’t calling about last night. Well, he was, but not the way I’d been afraid of. “Look,” I said after a moment’s pause. “I said already—”

“Your problem was that the job wasn’t official, correct?”

“…Yeah.”

“There’s a ball tonight at Canary Wharf,” Lyle said. “You’re invited. Council members will be attending, including the member directly responsible for the investigation team. He’ll speak with you personally.” His voice was dry. “Official enough for you?”

For the second time, I was left speechless. “Um…” I said at last.

“Oh good. The invitation will be delivered to your door in sixty seconds. Hopefully you’ll consider it important enough to get out of bed. Oh, and do pay attention to the dress code. It would be very embarrassing if you and your escort were turned away at the door. I’d offer to lend you something, but unlike you I don’t have the luxury of sleeping all morning. See you tonight.” Lyle broke the connection before I could think of a comeback.

I listened to the dial tone, then hung up. If Council members were going to be at this ball, that made it an Event with a capital E. Everybody who was anybody in the mage world would be there. Lyle was serious, and that meant the Council was too.

Out of perverse curiosity, I lifted my watch and looked at the time, watching the seconds ticking off. Lyle had finished his call at 9:38. Exactly as the display ticked over to 9:39, there was a distant banging at my front door. I hate show-offs.

I pulled myself to my feet, wincing at the stiffness in my legs, and went downstairs. A teenager was standing outside my shop window, holding a white envelope in his hand. Apprentice employed as a gofer; some things don’t change. I unlocked the door, nodded at the “Alexander Verus?” and took the envelope from him. As he disappeared up the street, I opened the envelope and took out the card inside.

It was the real thing. In flowery language and copperplate handwriting, the card stated that the High Council of the British Isles would be honoured if Alexander Verus, et cetera, et cetera, would present himself with an escort of his choosing, et cetera, et cetera. There was a footnote about the dress code in slightly pointed language that I couldn’t help but wonder if Lyle had put in specifically to have a dig at me. Like there’s anything wrong with jeans and sweaters.

I went back upstairs and dropped into my chair, staring at the card while flipping it back and forth between my fingers. It was made of cream-coloured paper with black lettering, and embossed at the top in gold was the Council’s coat of arms. As I scanned it, I could detect the magical fingerprint that marked it as a genuine invitation. The only question was what I was going to do about it.

I don’t like the Council. I don’t like its ideas, and I don’t like its people. The Council doesn’t even follow its own laws, much less the spirit behind them, and as far as they’re concerned, morals are whatever’s convenient at the time. They have absolutely no problem with throwing people to the wolves, including people who are supposed to be working for them.

On the other hand, if I just turned Lyle down, I’d be back where I’d started. After the events of last night, I was pretty sure that the Council’s plans for this Precursor relic were going to be stepped up, whatever they were. The members of the team detailed to investigate would know a lot more than I did. Maybe enough for me to figure out what Cinder and that woman were up to.

And I’d only be going to talk to them. I could still turn them down if I wanted.

Yeah, right.

The starting time on the invitation was eight P.M. GMT. That gave me about ten hours to decide what to wear, pick out my shoes, and make sure I wouldn’t be killed before the doors opened. With that settled, I picked up my phone again and dialled Luna’s number.

She picked up on the third ring. Luna gets up earlier than me, but then she doesn’t stay up till the early hours of the morning analysing weird magical artifacts. “Hello?”

“Hi, Luna, it’s me.”

“Hey, Alex.” Luna’s answer was friendly, but there had been a tiny pause before she spoke.

“Listen, can you do me a favour? Could you come around to my place sometime today?”

“Um…”

“I know it’s short notice. I’ve found out something important about that cube of yours but I need you to run a test. Is that okay?”

“Well…” Luna hesitated, then her voice firmed. “Okay. I can come by now. About an hour?”

“Great. See you then.” I broke the connection and turned to look at the cube. I’d been up for a good four hours last night studying the thing. I still hadn’t figured out what it did, but I was starting to get a pretty good idea what it was.

Magic items are inherently difficult to create. By its nature, magic is tied to life, created by the exercise of a living, conscious will. Trying to make a permanent magic item out of an object is sort of like trying to make a permanent light source out of bits of wood. But mages are a persistent lot, and over the years they’ve worked out ways to get around the problem.

The simplest way is to use items which aren’t magical at all, but which guide and direct raw magic in a specific form. These are called focuses, and they’re effectively tools built for a single purpose, like a hammer or a chisel. Energy channelled into them is shaped and directed in the same way that water follows the banks of a river, and given enough time they can even pick up an imprint of the personality of the user. They’ve no power of their own, but they’re useful in the right hands.

Another approach is to make one-shot items like the fog crystal I’d used the night before. In this case a mage casts a spell, then seals it in an item; typically you break the item to cast the spell. These are usually low-power effects, and their main function is to make schools of magic available to those who can’t access them normally. A skilled crafter can whip up a one-shot item in a couple of hours, and they do a brisk trade in the magical economy.

Sometimes, though, neither a focus or a one-shot will do it; you need something that’ll last and has power of its own. But to use magic, you have to be alive. The solution that some creative (and probably slightly crazy) mage came up with a long time ago is to make an item that is alive. The resulting creations are known as imbued items, and they can be extremely powerful and extremely dangerous.

Luna’s cube was an imbued item. It was too powerful to be a focus, and too complex to be a one-shot. It was complex enough that it even had protections against detection magic; there was a kind of null field around it that warded away active scans. I’d tried looking into the future to see what the consequences would be of forcing my way in, and decided quickly that I did not want to do it. This thing had a lot of energy, and it was quite capable of releasing it explosively if provoked. As yet, I hadn’t been able to communicate with it, and I wasn’t sure if there was any way to. Imbued items tend to be single-minded, and they usually don’t talk, making their own decisions based on whatever sensory input they have access to. I’d discovered that the cube had a network of microscopic holes in its outer shell; that was what produced the sparkling effect when you looked into the depths. I had the feeling they were access points of some kind, and that the right signal of visible light might activate the cube, but any such signal would be extremely complex. Without more information, there was no way I could guess it.

One person, though, had been able to produce a response from the cube: Luna. I didn’t know why, but if she’d been able to get a reaction once, maybe she could do it again. At least, that was what I was hoping.

I checked my watch. Luna was due in forty-five minutes. I washed and shaved, then looked into the future to see what time she’d arrive. I paused, then looked again.

Luna wasn’t coming.

That was strange.

I looked a third time, then a fourth. As things stood, Luna wasn’t going to come to my door within the next hour, or any hour for that matter. Frowning, I pulled out my phone and called, but got her voice mail. I looked into the future, trying for a clue, and couldn’t see one. A thread of worry started to curl up from somewhere inside. Maybe she’d been in an accident?

No, that didn’t make sense. The one good thing about Luna’s curse is that it makes her nearly immune to accidents.

But it doesn’t make her immune to things done on purpose…

A new, unwelcome thought intruded. Maybe Luna wasn’t coming because she didn’t want to. The more I thought about that, the more likely it sounded. Occam’s razor states that the simplest explanation is usually correct. The simplest explanation for Luna’s not showing up was that she didn’t want to see me. God knows I’ve had enough people flake on me before. I got up and paced, tense and nervous, glancing at my watch. Twenty minutes. Did Luna need my help? Or did she want to stay away?

Give a problem like this to an engineer, and he’ll give you an answer straight away: insufficient data. But in life, you have to make calls on insufficient data all the time. I forgot about my magic and listened to my instincts.

My instincts told me Luna wouldn’t have flaked after promising to come.

She was in trouble.

In two strides I was at my desk. I went through the drawers in a clatter, shoving handfuls of items into my pockets, snatched my cloak from the wardrobe, then ran downstairs and out the door. As I hurried down my street I pulled out my phone and dialled Luna’s number. It didn’t work. I swore and tried again. This time it rang. One ring, two rings, three rings…“Come on, come on,” I muttered as I hurried along.

There was a click. “Hello?”

“Luna, it’s Alex. Where are you?”

“Um, five minutes away. What’s wrong?”

“Luna, this is important.” I tried to keep my voice calm. “I need to know where you are exactly.”

“Uh…” I heard Luna stop and turn around. “I don’t know the name of the street. It’s the one off Camden Market with that glass building on the corner.”

Luna was only a short walk away. But if she wasn’t going to arrive…I felt a chill. That meant that whatever was going to stop her was there with her right now. “Turn around! Go back into the market!”

“What?”

“Back into the market, or the shops. Anywhere where there’s lots of people.”

“But your house is the other way.”

“I know! Luna, please, just trust me. Do it now!”

There was a moment’s silence. I’d broken into a run, and I was quickly covering the distance. Then I heard Luna’s voice. “All right…”

“Are you in the market?”

“Yes, but Alex, there are people everywhere! I can’t stay far enough—”

“I’ll be there in two minutes. Just keep moving, and—Luna? Luna!”

The line had gone dead. I swore and kept running.

Camden Market is one of the big tourist attractions of London. It fills the blocks between Chalk Farm Road and the Grand Union Canal, and even on off days it’s busy. On Saturday mornings it’s packed to the seams with street sellers, tourists, arts-and-crafts types, teenagers, goths, punks, trendies, performers, bargain hunters, antiquists, dealers, kids, and just about everyone else, all forming a seething mass. The shops sell antiques, knickknacks, and fashions of the kind that newspapers call alternative and most people just call weird, and everywhere is filled with people, talking and eating, bargaining and shopping, filling the place with noise. Finding one girl in Camden Market is like looking for a contact lens at a football match. It’s impossible for a normal person.

For a mage, though…

Luna turned off Chalk Farm Road and down Camden Lock Place. To most eyes she would have blended in with the crowd, a girl of medium height wearing casual clothes and backpack. Only the way she shied away from anyone who got too close made people glance at her. From time to time she would look nervously over her shoulder, scanning the bustling crowd.

Luna turned down a side street where there were fewer people. She shook her head at a man trying to give her a leaflet, skirted a clothing stall, crossed onto the pavement.

Something appeared out of the shadows next to her. Luna jumped, then stopped as she recognised me. “Alex?”

“This way. Quick!”

One of the best things about Luna is that she knows when not to argue. She’ll ask questions for hours without a break, but when I tell her to move, she moves. Luna ran down the stairs and I held the door open for her, then slammed it shut, hearing the lock click.

We were in an underground parking garage, filled with rows of cars lined neatly between support pillars. Fluorescent lights cast a weak glow over the concrete floor. The sounds from outside were muffled, a steady buzz. “Alex?” Luna asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Two people after you,” I said. I hadn’t laid eyes on them yet, but if Luna and I hadn’t ducked out of sight I would have. “A man and a woman.”

Luna just looked at me, confused. “They would have moved on you as soon as you got to the end of that street,” I said, and pointed. “Find somewhere to hide. We’re not out of the woods yet.”

As Luna hurried to the side wall, I pulled the packet of trail dust from my pocket and tore it open. I ran to the other side of the garage and opened the door at the end, leaving it ajar so that a sliver of light crept through. Then I paced the distance back, sprinkling the trail dust left and right. The brown powder sparked briefly as it touched the floor, vanishing. Once I’d covered all the floor we’d stepped on, I walked quickly to where Luna was waiting. “What are you doing?” she asked.

I threw the last handful of the trail dust back where we’d gone, then crumpled up the wrapper and stuffed it into my pocket. “Covering our trail. Are you okay?”

Luna’s face clouded. “I touched someone. I was trying to get away, but he bumped into me, and…Alex? What’s wrong?”

I’d been looking into the future; now my heart skipped a beat. “Get down. Behind the car!”

Luna’s eyes went wide and she obeyed, kneeling down next to the wheel of a big fourbyfour. I yanked my mist cloak out of my bag and pulled it around my shoulders, then stepped back into the shadows and flipped the hood up over my head, feeling the cloak blend with the wall. Luna had looked away for a second, and now as she turned back, her eyes passed over me without seeing me. “Alex?” she whispered.

“I’m here,” I whispered, and Luna started. “Stay down, stay quiet.” I shut up and an instant later I heard the door rattle. Luna heard it too, and went very still. I stood upright in the corner, just another shadow in the dark.

The handle of the door we’d entered by was rattling. There was a moment’s pause, then a flicker of sea-green light. Dust puffed into the air, and suddenly there was a hole where the handle had been. The door swung open with a creak.

The two people who stepped through wore different clothes from last night, but I still recognised them. One was Khazad, spindly and stick-thin, his movements birdlike and quick. Now that I could see his face I could see he looked vaguely Middle Eastern, his eyes darting from side to side. The second was the woman who’d been ordering him around. Unlike Khazad, she still wore her mask, and as I saw that I leant slightly forward. Khazad came down the steps and turned from left to right. He was holding something in one hand, frowning.

“Well?” the masked woman said after a moment. She was still above, scanning the area. I saw her eyes pass over me, but she gave no reaction. I knew she shouldn’t be able to see through my mist cloak at this range, but it wasn’t me I was worried about.

“Wait,” Khazad said.

“Is she here or not?”

“This thing’s screwing up,” Khazad said in frustration. “Stupid piece of crap.” He raised a hand, and something dark gathered in his palm.

As it did, I felt something from Luna. I glanced down and stared. The silver mist of Luna’s curse was moving. A strand of it slipped invisibly outward, reaching ten, twenty times farther than normal, curving over the cars to brush against the object in Khazad’s hand. “Shit!” Khazad snarled.

“Well?”

“I don’t fucking believe this! It’s dead!”

“Is it,” the woman said absently. She was still scanning from left to right, her eyes passing over where Luna and I were hidden, and I didn’t dare move.

“Screw it,” Khazad said angrily. He stuffed the whateveritwas into his pocket. “What about a trail?”

“Wiped.”

Khazad glanced up, his eyes narrowed. “Thought she was a norm?”

“She isn’t a mage.” The woman’s eyes traced the wall from behind her mask. “But there’s something…”

I held my breath. The woman’s eyes had come to rest on me, and she was staring right at where I was hidden. Again. How does she know? Five seconds passed, ten.

“Well?” Khazad demanded.

The woman looked away, and I let out a soft breath. “That door,” she said, her voice suddenly sharp again. She started walking towards the door I’d left ajar, disappearing behind the pillars. I strained my ears to listen. Khazad said something I couldn’t hear, finishing with “—not there?”

“We’ve got her address,” the woman said. “One thing at a time.” The door creaked open and their footsteps receded up the stairs.

Luna started to move, but I signalled for her to stay down and she did. I counted off a full minute, looking through the futures, then walked forward, pulling the mist cloak from my shoulders. “Let’s go.”

“Who were they?” Luna asked, scrambling to her feet. She looked anxious rather than scared, which probably meant she didn’t understand what we’d just heard.

“The man’s called Khazad. I don’t know the woman’s name. You don’t want to meet them.”

As we hurried back the way we’d come and emerged out into the street, Luna spoke up hesitantly. “They kept saying ‘she.’ Did they mean—?”

“Yes.”

Luna shut her mouth, and we walked the rest of the way back in silence.

We were back in my flat, above the shop. Luna was curled up on my sofa in the same spot she’d been lying in last night, watching me. Her white hands were curled around a coffee mug. She’d been sitting listening for the last ten minutes, speaking only to ask questions.

“So that’s how it is,” I finished. “Cinder, Khazad, and that woman tried for the relic last night. Now it looks like they’re going for something else instead.”

“The cube?”

“Cinder was looking for it yesterday, and those two are working with Cinder. Now they’re looking for you.”

Luna was quiet for a second. “Why?”

“Probably traced the cube to the same place you got it. They don’t know you gave it to me or they’d have been trying to break in here. Right now, you’re their lead. They’re not going to give up easily.” I hesitated. “I’m sorry for getting you into this.”

Luna only shook her head. “How were they tracking me?”

“Khazad had a focus. There are lots of ways; he was using one of the simple ones. Luna—”

“It was my curse, wasn’t it? That was what stopped him from finding me.”

I blinked. “You can tell?”

Luna nodded. “Sometimes. When there’s something I’m really afraid of. It’s like a part of me reaches out and touches it, and it’s gone.”

“Huh.” I sat back. I’d always thought Luna’s curse was a passive thing, but what Luna had just said made me wonder. Being able to feel it that clearly…

“She said she had my address, didn’t she?”

I’d been reaching for the glass of water on my desk. As Luna spoke I went still, then picked up the glass and took a drink, hoping she hadn’t noticed the pause. This wasn’t something I wanted to tell her. “Yes.”

Luna was silent for a second. “The man I got the cube from doesn’t know where I live,” she said at last. “He knows my number, but…Oh, of course. My name. They could have looked my address up with that.” She shook her head and looked up. “Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter much. I can’t go home, can I?”

I let out a breath. “No. They’ll be at your flat by now.”

“They won’t hurt anyone else in my building, will they?”

“It’s not your neighbours you should be worried about! These people are dangerous!”

Luna nodded. “I know.”

I put a hand to my head and sighed. “I’m sorry. I should never have gotten you into this. If I’d known you’d turn up something that would get you involved in this stuff—”

“No. This is what I want.”

I stared. “Luna,” I said carefully. “If those three catch you, they’ll quite likely kill you. You understand that, right?”

Luna looked back at me steadily, her clear eyes looking into mine, then she dropped her gaze and traced her finger around the rim of her mug. “When you called me this morning, you were afraid I wasn’t going to come, weren’t you?”

“I—” I checked. “How did you know that?”

“You always tell me how dangerous your world is,” Luna said. “It’s like you think you need to warn me off.” She dipped the tip of her finger into the tea and looked at it. “It doesn’t bother me, you know.”

“Luna—”

Luna looked up to meet my gaze. “If those three are going to be chasing someone, it’s better that it should be me, isn’t it? I mean, if I were a normal girl, they’d have caught me back there.”

I stared at her.

“So,” Luna said at last. “You said you needed me to run a test? I mean, before we got distracted.”

“I—” I let out a breath. “All right.” The cube was sitting on the coffee table in between us, looking ordinary and dull in the morning light. “Try picking that up.”

Luna nodded and obeyed. The cube swung between her fingers as she looked at it, then gave me a glance.

I grabbed a pencil and paper and scribbled a word, then pushed it across the coffee table, taking care to keep my distance. “This is a general-purpose command word. Hold up the cube and say it.”

Luna waited for me to sit back, then reached forward and picked up the paper. To my eyes the silvery mist of her curse engulfed the paper as she studied it, frowning slightly. The cube hung silent in her other hand, the silver mist sliding off it without sinking in. Imbued items have a will of their own. Until they decide to use their power, they’re nothing but blunt objects. One way to get an imbued item to obey you is to find the item’s special purpose and bring it to bear somehow. If you don’t know the item’s purpose, you’re out of luck; the item won’t obey anyone except its master.

But if you can guess who its master might be…

“Annath,” Luna said.

Light flowed from the cube and in an instant the gloomy room was lit up in red and white. The crystal surrounding the core glowed with energy and thin lines of light sprang outwards, playing over the sofa, the table, the walls. For one instant, Luna was backlit in the glow, holding the cube aloft, her eyes lifted up in wonder.

Then the light snapped out, and the room was back to normal. Luna dropped the cube and it bounced, came to rest on the sofa cushions, and sat quietly. Luna twisted around and stared down at it. There was a moment of silence.

I let out a breath. “Okay then.”

“What was that?”

I got to my feet. “Luna, it’s going to be better if you’re somewhere very hard to find for a while. I’ll explain along the way.”

chapter 5

I explained along the way, and carried on explaining. Luna kept asking questions and didn’t stop, long after I expected her to go quiet. It was as though now that she’d finally gotten me to open up, she wanted to learn everything she possibly could.

Learning about magic’s dark side is a major tipping point for newcomers, and the way they react tells you a lot about who they are. Some freak out completely—once they realise that messing with this stuff can get them killed, they run and never come back. Others just get a bad case of the shakes and adjust bit by bit. I’ve seen the whole range—or at least I thought I had. But Luna had been near-missed by Dark mages twice in as many days, and she’d just learnt that they weren’t going to stop until they found her, yet she hadn’t turned a hair. Why was she so calm?

I think it was at that point I first realised just how little I really knew about Luna. I’d always focused on her curse—how it worked, whether I could do anything to fix it. I’d never learnt what really made her tick.

“So there are lots of those spells?” Luna was asking. “Could they find me another way?”

“Easily,” I said. We were walking up a grassy hill, avoiding the path to keep clear of people. A pair of students were throwing a Frisbee off to our left, and dogs ran across the meadow. “But most of the powerful ways to track someone take time. If they’re smart they’ll stake out your flat while they put something together.”

“Will my curse help?”

“Chance magic needs some randomness to work with. If they get something that can find you reliably enough, there’s not much it can do.”

Up ahead, a family was laughing and tramping downhill on the path. We fell silent briefly as we waited for them to go by, letting Luna give them a wide berth. “I still don’t see why this thing with the cube makes a difference, though,” Luna said once they were gone. We crossed over and headed for the woods on the other side. “Why does it matter whether I can use it?”

“It’s more than that. I spent three hours last night playing with that thing and didn’t even get a flicker. You touched it and it obeyed you straightaway. Imbued items choose their wielder. I’m pretty sure that for anyone but you, that cube’s nothing but a piece of glass.” I left unsaid the question of why it had picked her, mainly because I didn’t have any idea myself.

“You said they wouldn’t know that—”

“They probably don’t know that. But they obviously know more about that thing than we do. Maybe they know it’ll only bond with one person.”

“Why does that make a difference, though?” Luna asked. We’d entered the woods and were away now from the bulk of the crowds. The trees were just starting to come into bloom, and birds sang cheerfully from the branches. “I mean, either they’re hunting me because they think I’ve got the cube, or because they think I can use it. Either way…”

“It means that no matter what happens, this isn’t going to be over quickly. One way or another, they’re going to keep looking for you until something makes them stop.”

Luna paused and we walked a little way in silence. “Okay,” she said at last. “So what are we doing here?”

The two of us were standing on Hampstead Heath, the biggest park in inner London—and the most beautiful, at least in my opinion. Regent’s Park is probably more famous, but it’s a bit too cultivated for me. The Heath’s just wild enough to be interesting. On a Saturday afternoon like today, it’s swarming with men, women, children, and dogs, doing everything from having picnics to flying kites. At first glance it’s not the place you’d expect to find anything magical, but as I said, it’s wild while still being in the city. For some people, that’s a useful combination. “I need some clothes for a party,” I said. “You need somewhere to hide. This is the only place I know we can get both.”

Even with all the people who use the Heath, it has its secrets, and we’d come to one of them. A driedup stream had carved a ravine out of the earth, the sides rough and uneven. An oak tree grew on the top of the bank, its roots reaching down the slope. Although we could still hear the sounds of people around us, the banks and the growing trees hid us from them. Of course, the other reason no one was here was that there wasn’t anything to see.

Luna looked around at the earth and trees. “Here?”

I smiled. “Watch.”

The roots of the oak tree made a tangle in front of us. I studied them for a second, then reached out and placed two fingers on one of them. “Arachne?” I said to the tree. “It’s Alex. Can we come in?”

There was a brief pause, then Luna jumped as a voice came out of thin air. “Alex, dear! Come right inside. Find a seat in the dressing room while I finish up.”

There was a rumble of moving earth, and both of us stepped quickly back. The hillside seemed to shudder as the roots of the oak tree began to move, twisting aside and up, dripping dirt and bits of dry earth across the ravine, revealing a gaping space beyond. As the rumbling quietened, the roots wove themselves into the shape of an archway. Within was only darkness.

I gestured to Luna. “After you.”

Luna hesitated for only a second before walking in. I followed, ducking my head, and with another rumble the roots closed behind us.

Like I said, one of the tipping points for newcomers is learning about the dark side of magic. Another is when they start meeting creatures out of myths and legends. The issue is learning not to judge by appearances.

Human beings tend to react better to good-looking people. It’s called the halo effect—someone’s attractive, so you trust them more. It’s natural, which makes it a hard habit to break, but once you start dealing with magical creatures you’d better learn to break it, and fast, because some of the most vicious things out there can make themselves look like absolute angels. Like unicorns. Don’t get me started on unicorns. For some reason everyone has this idealised image of them as beautiful innocent snowflakes. Beautiful, yes. Innocent, no. After you’ve had one of the little bastards try and kebab you, you wise up quick.

But it goes the other way, too. There are things in the dark corners of the world that look like the nightmare children of Stephen King and H. P. Lovecraft. Just looking at them is enough to make any sane person run screaming, but if you’re brave or stupid or savvy enough to stop and talk to one, you’ll find to your surprise that you can get along okay. They’re not safe, of course; nothing in the magical world is really safe. But you can talk with them and trust them as well as the humans you meet here, and often better.

I tried to explain this in a halting sort of way to Luna as we walked towards Arachne’s cave. “She sells clothes?” Luna asked.

“The best. Most mages won’t use them, though.”

“Are they too expensive?”

“It’s…how she looks.”

“She’s ugly?”

“Not exactly. Just brace yourself for when you meet her.”

The tunnel we were walking down felt dark after the sunlit heath. Now that my eyes had adjusted, I could see the blue glowing spheres mounted in the corners of the tunnel that marked the path. The floor had been packed dirt at the tunnel mouth, but now it was stone, worn smooth by running water and polished to a sheen by generations of footsteps. The grey tunnel sloped downwards, twisted, and opened into an oval chamber blazing with colours.

The room was filled with couches and chairs, and every flat surface was covered with lengths of cloth, from finger-length ribbons to bolts the size of rolled carpets. Dummies and hangers were mounted on the walls, and every single one held clothes of some kind, from suits to tops to full-length dresses, in every colour from red to yellow to green to blue to violet. I’ve been to Arachne’s cave dozens of times and every time I practically have to shield my eyes as I walk in. It’s like watching a flock of birds of paradise holding a fashion parade on a rainbow. Across the far end of the room, practically invisible in the riot of colour, was a translucent curtain. Rustling sounds came from within.

“Alex, dear!” The voice came from behind the curtain. Up closer you can just hear the clicking sound under Arachne’s voice, though it’s faint enough that you wouldn’t notice unless you knew what to listen for. “Where have you been? Clear off a couch and sit down…Is that a guest?”

“This is Luna,” I called back. I heaved an armload of clothes off the nearest couch to give Luna space. Luna was so busy staring that she didn’t notice.

“What a pretty name. Hello, Luna, can you hear me?”

“Um, it’s nice to meet you,” Luna called. She moved to a chair and traced a finger down a pale green ribbon, then tested it between her fingers, looking at it curiously.

“Are you wondering what they’re made of?” Arachne called, and Luna dropped the cloth with a start. “Everyone does, you know.”

“Um, yes.” Luna touched the ribbon again, fascinated. “Is it silk? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Arachne laughed, and again there was that odd clicking noise. “Almost. Not the kind you’re thinking, though…Well, then, Alex, if you’re here, I expect you want something, hmm?”

“Yup. The ball at Canary Wharf.”

“My, my. That’s tonight.”

“Invitation was late. Got anything lying around?”

“Oh, good heavens, Alex,” Arachne said, and I could hear the exasperation in her voice. “Well, at least you’ve got the sense to come here. Let’s have a look.” There was a shadow of movement behind the curtain, then Arachne emerged, and for the first time Luna got a good look at her.

Arachne is about the size of a minivan and weighs maybe half a ton. Her body is black, with a cobalt blue sheen that glimmers slightly when she moves, and she has eight eyes in two rows of four at the front of her head. Each one of her eight legs has seven hairy segments, ending in tips where the hairs are finer and can act almost like fingers. Two mandibles hide her fangs and rustle slightly as she talks, making the clicking sound.

In other words, she’s a gigantic spider. Arachne is quite safe—well, more or less—but she’s every arachnophobe’s worst nightmare, and even people who aren’t scared of spiders are likely to scream the house down the first time they meet a tarantula bigger than their car.

Luna didn’t scream, but the blood drained from her face, and her eyes went as big as dinner plates. “Alex?” she said, her voice very high.

“It’s all right,” I said reassuringly. “She won’t hurt you.”

“Alex, she’s a giant spider.”

“She won’t hurt you.”

“Alex, she’s a giant spider.”

“I know,” I said patiently. “She won’t hurt you.”

“Well?” Arachne said expectantly. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”

Keeping a careful eye on Luna, I stepped forward. “Right. Arachne, this is Luna. She’s still pretty new to all this. Have you got somewhere she could sit down for a while?”

“Oh, of course.” Arachne scuttled sideways, and Luna jumped. Arachne beckoned down a side tunnel. “You look exhausted, dear. Why don’t you have a rest? Help yourself to something to eat. Don’t worry, it’s human food.”

“Alex?” Luna said again, keeping very still.

“It’s okay,” I said quietly. “Luna, trust me. You’re as safe here as anywhere.”

Luna gave me a look with very big eyes, then took a deep breath and edged across the room. She managed to make it past Arachne without flinching or screaming, and Arachne’s eight eyes followed her as she stepped sideways into the tunnel. She gave me one last nervous look and backed away.

“Well,” Arachne said brightly once Luna had gone. “She seems nice.”

“Sorry about that,” I said. “Like I said, she’s—”

Arachne waved a foreleg. “Oh, I’m used to it. Now let me have a proper look at you.”

For something so big and heavy, Arachne is a lot faster than she has any right to be. She was looming over me almost before I knew she was moving, one leg on either side of me and eight black eyes looking down from above. This was why I’d wanted Luna out of the room. No matter how well she’d managed to control herself, I thought it would be best if Luna had a little time to calm down before she saw Arachne’s way of having a chat. It’s really not as threatening as it looks; Arachne just wanted to see me properly. She’s very nearsighted, and she’s most comfortable when she can use her sense of touch, which means her favourite way to talk to someone is to have them right between her front legs, under her fangs. I sat down on one of the couches and patted one of Arachne’s hairy legs. “Good to see you again.”

“And it’s nice to meet your friend at last. I’d wondered why you’d been so busy the last few months.”

Despite her looks Arachne smells nice, kind of like incense. Sitting next to her feels almost like being in a herbalist’s. “Well, that’s part of the reason we’re here.”

“That’s a nasty little weaving she has. You’ve been trying to unravel it, haven’t you?”

“You can see it?” I said in surprise, then shook my head. “Of course you would. Yeah, I’ve had a few tries. Didn’t work, though.”

“Of course not, it’s grown up with her. The spell’s woven into her pattern.”

“Any way to take it off?”

“Not without killing her.”

I sighed. “Kind of what I figured. Listen, you have to be careful not to get too close to her. The width of a room is fine, but any closer than that—”

Arachne gave a gentle hissing sound and her mandibles vibrated; her equivalent of laughing. “Silly child. A little weaving like that won’t hurt me.”

I looked up in surprise. “You can avoid it?”

“Now, before she gets back, why don’t you tell me why you’re going to the ball? I don’t remember you being one of the Council’s favourites.”

I explained to Arachne then, telling her all about Lyle and his offer, leaving very little out. “And Lyle’s not the only one,” I finished. “Some Dark mages want my help too, and they’re tracking Luna. I wanted to ask you a favour and see if she could stay here until I get the chance to talk to some people at the ball. If I’m lucky I’ll be able to clear things up there.”

Arachne sat in silence for a moment. Her opaque eyes looked down at me, showing nothing. “You’re in dangerous waters, Alex.”

I shrugged. “Mages always want to use diviners for what we know. It’s just my bad luck they’re desperate enough to come to me.”

“Luck? Really?”

I looked up curiously. One problem with talking to Arachne is that it’s really hard to read her facial expressions. “What do you mean?”

“It’s not luck that’s made every other diviner in these islands vanish.” Arachne settled herself down slightly. “My customers have been running thin the past few weeks. Something is going on, and the careful mages don’t want to be involved.”

I had to grimace at that. “And I’m already involved. Great. I don’t suppose you know what it is?”

Arachne rustled a no. “I think you should find out. I’ll watch your apprentice.”

I laughed. “She’s not my apprentice. But thanks.”

Arachne tilted her head, and a moment later I heard Luna’s footsteps approaching. I got up off the couch and ducked between Arachne’s legs to see Luna enter. Her eyes flickered to Arachne, but the colour had come back to her face. “Um. Hi. Uh, it’s nice to meet you, um, Miss Arachne. I’m sorry about before.”

Arachne waved one of her legs. “Don’t worry about it, dear. You’re doing very well. Now, Alex, what sort of outfit were you thinking of?”

“Uh…” I said. “You know what, you decide.”

“Well, at least you’re showing some sense.”

I rolled my eyes and turned to Luna. “I need to look up some contacts. Arachne’s agreed to let you stay here for a little while.”

Luna’s eyes widened just slightly. “Stay here?”

“I won’t be long. These tunnels are warded; no one’s going to be able to find you. Right now this is probably the safest place you can be.”

Luna looked from me to Arachne, then took a breath and nodded. “Okay.”

“Wonderful,” Arachne said cheerfully. “And while you’re here, why don’t we have you fitted?”

Luna looked at Arachne doubtfully. “Fitted?”

“For a dress, of course. I have something I think would match perfectly with a little work. Why don’t you come over to the fitting room so I can have a proper look at you?”

Luna gave me one last anxious look, then turned to Arachne and smiled bravely. “Um, sure. Thank you.” As I turned to leave, I saw Luna following Arachne through the curtain into the chamber beyond.

I came out of Arachne’s cave into the sunlight, and blinked for a while as the roots closed behind me. Now that Luna was inside, a weight had been taken off my shoulders. It may not look it, but Arachne’s cave is one of the best-protected places in London. Hidden behind the webs and wards, Luna was safe—at least for a little while. I turned and climbed uphill, coming out into the open again, then found a bench to sit on.

Most people’s idea of seeing into the future is someone in funny clothes staring into a crystal ball and reading tea leaves. They’d be pretty disappointed if they saw me. I’m not a fan of crystal balls, and I absolutely hate the tea leaf method. Tarot cards I do use, but only in very specific situations and not often. No, what real diviners do when they want to get some work done is find a quiet, secluded spot, get comfortable, then lie back and close their eyes. To the layman, this looks remarkably like slacking off, but the best diviners can find out pretty much anything you care to name without ever leaving their armchair.

Arachne’s suggestion to find out more had clicked with a stray memory from my conversation yesterday with Lyle. When I’d asked Lyle about the other diviners, he’d told me they were all busy, and mentioned Alaundo and Helikaon. Alaundo I know only by reputation, but Helikaon I knew very well indeed. And something Lyle had said didn’t fit. I’d never known Helikaon to turn down work from the Council. Why was he doing it now?

It wasn’t much, but I had the feeling it might be important. I wanted to talk to Helikaon, and I didn’t have time to waste looking him up. I was going to have to do this the quick way.

The technique is called path-walking. You pick out a strand of your own future and follow it, guiding the choices and seeing what happens. My first destination was Helikaon’s flat in Kensington. I looked into the future, tracing out the path where I went searching for him, taking a taxi to his flat, walking up the stairs, knocking at his front door. No matter how I did it, there was no response. The place was empty. As I watched, the future thinned and faded to nothingness, never to exist.

Next up was Helikaon’s house in the country, where he conducts most of his business. Helikaon’s house is a modest one by mage standards, a single-storey building on the South Downs. I looked into the future and saw myself walking up the dirt path to the house at the top of the hill. The building was silent and still, the windows shuttered. There was a note of some kind on the door, something that would turn me away. The vision flickered as I circled the house, searching, finding nothing.

I could always break in. I looked into the future that had me bypassing the lock on the front door, walking inside. My future self stepped in, and—

Ouch. Okay, that I did not expect. Now I knew something was going on. Helikaon didn’t normally leave booby traps in his front hall, especially not ones as nasty as that. Maybe the back door? Around the ash trees, round to the small door on the other side, onto the porch, inside—

Jesus! That was just vicious. I didn’t know it was even possible for a body to dissolve so fast. What the hell had that been, some kind of acid?

I definitely wouldn’t be snooping around Helikaon’s property anytime soon. As I made that resolution, the future of me going there faded completely. Shaken, I took a moment to steady myself. Watching yourself die is a creepy experience, especially if you’re not prepared for it.

Once I’d calmed down, I forced myself to try again. I was running out of places to look, but there was one more spot that Helikaon and I had used a long time ago. Not many knew about it. But if he’d wanted a place where no one could find him…

And there it was. I couldn’t tell at this distance what we were saying, but I knew Helikaon was there. I opened my eyes and sat up. I needed something from my flat, and then I had a journey to make.

The fastest way to travel by magic is by gating. Gate magic creates a portal between two places, usually by bringing about a similarity between points in space. It’s one of the more difficult magical arts and generally requires you to know both the place you’re leaving and the place you’re going to very well. Unfortunately, I’m one of the minority of mages who can’t use gate magic. Divination can’t affect physical correspondence, only perception.

The next option is to use a mount, like a pegasus or an air elemental or a taia. It’s a lot slower than gating but has the advantage that it can get you a lot of places that gate magic can’t. Using a mount allows you to travel to warded locations, gives you the ability to explore places you don’t know, and also lets you show off your rare and expensive status symbol, if you’re into that sort of thing. The main downside is that mythical animals tend to attract a lot of unwanted attention when you fly them through London in broad daylight.

For those who can’t gate and don’t have the luxury of a mount on call, there’s a third way. Crafters make items called gate stones that give someone with magical skill a limited access to gate magic. They work for only one location each, and they’re inferior in every way to a true gate spell, but for someone like me, they’re often the only way to get around.

Despite their name, gate stones don’t have to be stones. This one was, though: a jagged shard of granite with runes cut into both sides. Standing in my bedroom, I made some preparations, then focused my will, said a sentence in the old tongue, and pushed. For a long moment nothing happened, then with a shimmer a jagged-edged shape appeared in the air. Its edges were flickering, and I stepped through quickly before it could fade away. As soon as I was through it dissolved, leaving no trace behind me.

The first thing I noticed was the cold; the air was a good twenty degrees cooler than in my flat, and a chill breeze was blowing. The air was thinner too, and I shivered. I was on a mountaintop, hundreds of feet above sea level. The view to the left was just as spectacular as I remembered, and I turned to get a proper look. The mountain dropped off in a steepening slope into valleys and hills, descending steadily, clearly visible in the afternoon sunlight. Grassy slopes and granite peaks were spread out before me, and in the far east, just visible over the hilltops, I could make out the glitter of the sea. The sky above was cloudless and blue.

From behind came the clop, clop of hooves on rock. I turned, and smiled. “Hey, Thermopylae. How you doing?”

Thermopylae gave a pleased whinny as he trotted towards me. He was pure white but for his hooves and nose, a powerfully built horse with a scraggly tail that swished behind him as he walked. Two huge feathered wings stretched from his shoulders, each big enough for me to hide behind. They were half-furled at the moment, swaying slightly as he balanced himself on the uneven stones. He came trotting up, his nose twitching, as I took some sugar out of my pocket and gave it to him, laughing as he butted me with his huge head in his eagerness to get to it.

“Oi!” a voice called from the north. “Stop spoiling my horse and come if you’re coming.”

I grinned and gave Thermopylae the last few lumps, then patted the pegasus on the neck and started walking. As I came around the rocks I saw an old, ramshackle hut made of planks of wood. A man who looked even older than the hut was sitting on a stone in front of it, brewing tea over an open fire.

Helikaon looks about sixty, strong and spry despite his age. His hair was yellow-gold once, but now it’s a bleached white. Even in this weather he wore only a shirt, its sleeves rolled up and its neck open. A short sword, a xiphos, hung at his side, but he wore it so casually you wouldn’t notice unless you were looking. “Worst thing about living this high is getting the water to boil,” he grumbled. “Least you’re on time.”

I sat down. “At least you haven’t lost your touch.”

“None of your lip! I’ve forgotten more divination than you’ll ever know.”

“It’s how much you remember I was wondering about.”

“Oh, very funny.” Helikaon glared at me. “You know the trouble with you lot nowadays? No respect for your elders. Thinking you know everything…”

I took a look at the water, ignoring his mutters. “It’ll boil in ninety-five seconds.”

“That’s not boiling. Bubbling isn’t boiling. And who do you think you’re trying to impress, giving me a number? Have a little patience for once and wait.”

I grinned. “Good to see you again.”

“Sure, sure. Make yourself useful and get some cups.”

I did, and waited for the tea to be ready. There was something comforting about the old ritual of waiting for Helikaon to make sure it was prepared to his satisfaction, listening to his grumbling when it wasn’t exactly right. It was a beautiful view, looking down through the clear air onto the wilds of Scotland, and the fire held back the worst of the mountain chill.

“I’m surprised it’s still standing,” I said at last, looking at the weather-beaten hut.

“It’ll last.” Helikaon gave me a glance. “Longer than you, maybe.”

“So I guess you know why I’m here.”

Helikaon snorted. “Please. You’re loud when you walk through the future, know that? I haven’t been able to get any peace all day.”

“Okay.” I set the cup of tea carefully down upon the ground. “Why did you turn Lyle down?”

“Why d’you think?” Helikaon pointed at me. “I don’t want to do what you’re doing, and if you’re smart you won’t either. Go back to Arachne and find a hole to hide in.”

“It’s not as simple as that.”

“You get in the middle of this, could end up dead. Council can’t pay enough to be worth that.” Helikaon glared at me from under his bushy white eyebrows. “Used to be I had to twist your arm to go near those old men.”

“There’s someone else.”

“Ditch ’em.”

“What’s with turning your house into a death trap?”

Helikaon grinned. “Caught you out, heh? Shouldn’t have been snooping.” His grin vanished. “These boys play rough. You want to persuade them to leave you alone, you have to talk their language.”

I looked away.

Helikaon studied me. “Time was you’d be happy as a pig in shit to see a Dark mage get eaten by a trap like that. Change of heart?”

“It’s not that.” I turned back to Helikaon. “Look, I’ve been out of the loop. I know you’ve still got your contacts. What’s going on?”

Helikaon sipped his tea, then shrugged. “Been building a few years. Dark mages pushing for status. I know”—he held up his hand to forestall me—“they’ve got it. But they want more. Seats on the Council.”

I stared at him. “The Council?”

“Old news, boy.” Helikaon gestured out towards the vista below us. “Council are split as usual. Some want to give in, some want to stall. Darks’ll probably get their way in the end. Weight of numbers.”

“Numbers?”

“They’ve been recruiting. Pretty aggressive. Some mages, they can turn. The ones they can’t…”

“I know what happens to the ones they can’t,” I said flatly.

“But not united. That’s what it’s about.” Helikaon pointed south. “That relic’s got a Precursor artifact, big one. Dark mage who got hold of it could set himself up as their leader. More power than any faction in the Council. Council wants it too, use as a bargaining chip. All of ’em need a seer to get inside.” Helikaon pointed at me. “All’d rather see you dead than helping the others. ’S why I’m up here. You should be too.”

The two of us sat silently for a minute. “What does this thing do?” I asked.

“Don’t know. Wards too heavy. Council knows more. Not getting close enough to ask.”

“So that’s what Cinder and Khazad are after.”

Helikaon shook his head. “Muscle. Someone’s giving ’em orders.”

I remembered the masked woman I’d seen just a few hours ago, and somehow I was sure it was her. “So now you know,” Helikaon said, interrupting my thoughts. “What’ll you do?”

“I don’t know,” I said after a pause.

Helikaon snorted. “Bull. You’re going to that ball no matter what. I’ll tell you what’s going to happen with that relic. Light and Dark are going to fight and kill for it. Use their fancy magic to blow holes in each other till one side wins, then everything’ll go on just the same.” Helikaon paused. “What’s up with you, Alex?”

I sat silently. “When you came to me I told you,” Helikaon said. “Forget about revenge. Keep your distance. You listened then. Now you’re getting involved. You’re smarter than this.”

“Maybe I’m tired of not getting involved,” I said. I looked up. “What about friends, family? Don’t you have anything you’d stand and fight for?”

“You ever listen to a word I say?” Helikaon looked at me, his eyes hard. “Remember what I told you first time we met? Anything you take into your life, you have to be able to walk away from ten seconds flat, never see it again. Anything else, anything else, it’s dragging you down. You’re asking if I’ve got anything I’d stand and fight for? No, Alex, you fucking idiot, I don’t. That’s why I’m eighty-three and still alive. You think you’d have found me, I didn’t want you to? Soon as you leave, I’m moving on. You won’t see me till this is over.”

The silence stretched out. “Hard way to live,” I said at last.

“You think life’s supposed to be easy?”

I finished my drink and set the cup down with a click. “Thanks for the tea.”

Helikaon didn’t say anything and I walked away. The pegasus came trotting over to me as I passed out of sight, and I gave him a final pat. “Bye, Thermopylae.” Then I reached into my pocket for the gate stone that would take me home.

I had a lot to think about on the journey back.

When I’d first met Helikaon, it had been right after the final showdown with Tobruk. Even back then Helikaon was a master, able to do things with divination magic I didn’t even know were possible. I’d learnt more about the art from him than from anyone else—path-walking, precognition, future sight—but more important had been how he’d taught me to use my powers. At the time I met him, I was burning with fear and anger from the nightmares I’d been through in Richard’s mansion. I had fantasies about taking revenge, going back and killing them all. Helikaon taught me to shut away the fear and the fury, detach myself and find a measure of peace. It saved my life, I know that now. I would have died if I’d gone back. Getting away and staying away, letting everyone forget about me, had been the only way to survive, and that was what I’d done.

But despite all he’d done for me, Helikaon and I never became master and apprentice, and now I remembered why. There was a coldness to him, a distance, which I was repulsed by and yet envied him for. I knew that the way Helikaon shut out others gave him a clarity of vision I couldn’t match, but I still couldn’t bring myself to share it. I’d fled to my shop in Camden, stayed away from other mages, but I hadn’t stayed detached. I’d made friends: Arachne, Starbreeze, Luna. Did that make me a worse diviner than him, or had I gained something as well?

By the time I made it back to Hampstead Heath, the sun was a red glow in the western sky. I leant against the tree, thinking, looking at the branches above me. Their tips were glowing red in the sunset, the contrast vivid against the blue sky. The earth was still warm from the day’s sunlight, the Heath gradually becoming quieter as more and more people turned their footsteps towards home.

For the first time I seriously considered taking Helikaon’s advice. What if I did as he said and walked away? I’d be safe again, just as I had been since I escaped from Richard’s mansion…

Did you?

The thought startled me. I came to a stop, wondering where that had come from. I was safe, always had been, since then. I’d kept away from other mages, kept to myself. I wasn’t in danger anymore. If I left I could stay that way.

But even as I imagined leaving, I realised I wasn’t going to do it. When I’d been in greatest need, Lyle and everyone else from the Council had abandoned me. If I ran now, I’d be doing the same thing to Luna that they’d done to me. I shook off my doubts and reached up to open the tree.

It’s always risky introducing two people who’ve never met. You can never be quite sure how they’ll get on, especially when one’s human and the other looks like the star of a high-budget horror movie. So I was pretty nervous as I returned to Arachne’s chamber. I couldn’t help thinking of all the things that could have gone wrong: Luna panicking and running off alone, Arachne losing her temper with Luna and kicking her out. So far Luna had been bearing up well, but it was a lot to absorb in a very short time. What if being left alone with Arachne had been one shock too many?

Lost in thought, I didn’t recognise the sound I was hearing at first. When I did, I slowed, puzzled, then turned the last corner and walked in.

Luna was laughing, though her voice was distant. I couldn’t see her, but from the sound she was in one of the small side chambers to the far left of the room. Arachne was in the centre, working at a table. “There, you see?” Arachne said. She was working on a dress in white and green, altering something in its design. She worked with all four front legs at once, needles and scissors moving so fast I couldn’t follow what she was doing. “Now, I think your instincts were right the first time. Pale colours look much better on you. I’ve taken out the green, so why don’t you give it another try?”

“Okay!” Luna said from across the room. “I really like the pink one as well though.”

“It does set off your skin…I’ll keep it out just in case. Oh, hello, Alex.”

“Hey.” There was a pile of dresses on the sofa nearest to the changing rooms. “Been busy?”

“Hi, Alex!” Luna called from behind the curtain. Her voice was muffled, as though she were pulling something over her head. “Have you seen these clothes? They’re amazing!”

I grinned at Arachne. “Arachnophobia’s no match for shopping, huh?”

“Don’t be graceless,” Arachne said, and glided across the room to pass the dress over the top of the curtain. Luna’s bare arms reached over to take it. “Here you go, dear. Have a look at both while I see to Alex.” Arachne drew the curtain back from another side chamber. “Now, Alex, before you put these on, I want you to promise you’ll take care of them.”

“Sure.”

“I mean it. You hang them up properly, have them washed in that funny way, what’s it called—”

“Dry-cleaned.”

“—and don’t get them slashed or dissolved or chewed up or burned.”

“It hasn’t happened that many times.”

“Oh, really? What about the first set I made for you?”

“That was ten years ago! Would you have even noticed if it had been me that didn’t come back instead of the clothes?”

“It was a full wardrobe. Some of my best work, too. With a little work they’d still fit…”

“Look, you know what happened there. I couldn’t exactly have gone and asked for them back.”

“And the outfit I made you for Unicorn’s Run. Have you any idea how hard it is to get blood out of silk? Then there were the ceremonial robes for the investment ceremony. You said to make it fire resistant, and I did. I even told you exactly what temperature it would tolerate. And then—”

“I didn’t say fire resistant, I said fireproof. Besides, that thing with the inferno elemental was not my fault.”

“What are you two talking about?” Luna called from behind the curtain.

“Nothing,” Arachne and I said at exactly the same moment, then looked at each other.

“I think it’d be a good idea if she went with you to the ball,” Arachne said.

I blinked. I’d been trying to decide the same thing, but…“A mage’s ball isn’t exactly the safest place for a newbie.”

“She has to learn sometime. Besides, Alex, I think you should have a talk with the girl. You aren’t doing her any favours by sheltering her.”

Before I could ask Arachne what she meant, she’d scuttled away into her private chambers. I shrugged, then went into the changing room and took a look at the outfit laid out on the table. I probably should have asked for something specific instead of leaving it all up to Arachne. Oh well.

“What was that about?” Luna asked curiously, her voice muffled from the wall and the curtains between us.

I started to undress. “Arachne gets upset about the state I leave my clothes in.”

“It doesn’t happen often, does it?”

“No.” I hesitated, mentally counting. “Not really.” I counted again. “Okay, maybe. But I only get clothes from her when I’m going to meet a lot of other mages.”

“You mean like now?”

“Yeah, like—”

I stopped and turned my attention to my new outfit. Laid out on the table it looked like a dinner jacket, although there was something a little different about it. I picked up the shirt.

“Alex?”

“Uhhuh?”

“Is it okay if I come to the ball with you? I won’t get in your way.”

The shirt was causing me problems. I didn’t answer straightaway, and Luna took my silence as a sign that I needed more persuading. “I mean, if those people are going to be looking for me, a crowded ball would be a good place to be, right? It’d be harder for them to try anything with lots of other mages around. And some of the people might have information. I could help you find things out.”

I finished with the trousers and held up the tie, running it through my fingers. “Arachne told you to say that, didn’t she?”

Luna went quiet. I shook my head and started putting the tie on. “She’s really taken a shine to you.”

“So, um—”

“You can come.”

“Really?” I could hear the excitement in Luna’s voice. “Great!”

I shook my head, but I didn’t smile. What I really wanted to ask was why she was so excited to be going. Luna wasn’t stupid; she had to realise that a gathering of mages would make for a dangerous night out. But it wasn’t the right time to ask.

A faint scuttling sound alerted me that Arachne was back. “All ready?” she called, and brushed the curtain aside to come in. Arachne’s always been a little hazy on human ideas of privacy. She looked me up and down approvingly. “Good.”

I turned to take a look at myself in the mirror. When I put it on, the outfit had looked like a dinner jacket. Now that I was wearing it, it still looked like a dinner jacket, but it was…different, somehow. The figure looking back at me looked smart, elegant. It was hard to put your finger on it, but if I’d seen a picture of myself I might not have recognised who it was.

“Well?”

I took a last look, then nodded. “I like it.”

“Well, at least you have some taste.” Arachne handed me a white ribbon. “Tie this on the lapel.”

I looked at the thing curiously. It was more than just an accessory; I could feel magic radiating from it, with the subtle weave of Arachne’s signature, but it seemed passive rather than active. “What does it do?”

“Oh, I think you should be able to work that out.” She moved round to where Luna was changing, and I heard her asking Luna which one she liked best.

I walked out into the central chamber, studying the ribbon with a frown, searching through futures. There was something about the weave that I recognised, something that made me think of chance magic, inverted. But it wasn’t a spell I’d ever seen, unless…My eyes widened suddenly. Oh…

“All ready?” Arachne’s voice called. “Come on, Alex, are you watching?” I looked up in surprise just as a girl stepped out from behind the curtain.

It was Luna, but for a moment I didn’t recognise her. She was wearing a dress of white and green that left her arms and shoulders bare, spiralling down in layers to cover her feet. The cloth shimmered slightly as she moved, the pale green and the snow white reflecting the light around her. A gauzy shawl was wrapped around her arms, and she’d tied her hair up with a pair of white ribbons, leaving her neck bare.

“What do you think?” Luna asked. She sounded a little nervous, but she was smiling.

I stared at her for a few seconds before answering. “Not bad.”

Arachne snorted. “Don’t listen to him, dear. You look perfect. A few more touches and you’ll be all ready to go.”

The sun had set by the time we finally said good-bye, and as we walked out of Arachne’s lair I could see the first stars shining in the sky above. The air had cooled, and around us, Hampstead Heath was quiet. “Had a good time?” I said as we walked out into the gully.

“I had a great time.” Luna was smiling; you would never have thought that only a few hours ago she’d been scared of being left with Arachne. “Is she named after the weaver? The one from the Greek myth?”

“If I had to guess, I’d say it was the myth that was named after her.”

Luna looked at me for a second before her eyes went wide as she got it. “But that was—how long ago?”

“Two, three thousand years?” I shrugged. “I’ve never asked.”

The Heath was fast emptying of people, and here in the densest part, it was all but deserted. As the light faded from the evening sky we walked to a ridge and into a grove of trees. I took the glass rod and recited the incantation. “What are you doing?” Luna asked curiously.

“Calling us a ride.” I grinned. “An air elemental called Starbreeze. Be nice to her.”

Starbreeze must have been close; I’d hardly finished speaking before she sprang up in front of me in an invisible rush of wind. “Hi, Alex!”

Luna jumped as the voice came out of midair, and Starbreeze pointed at her. “Ooh! Who’s that?”

“This is Luna,” I said. “Could you go visible for a second?”

“Okay!” Luna jumped again as, to her eyes, Starbreeze seemed to materialise out of thin air right in front of her. Today Starbreeze had decided to look like a woman in her thirties, with long hair and clothes woven of mist. She floated closer and stared at Luna in interest, studying her clothes. “Pretty.”

“Um, pleased to meet you,” Luna said, recovering. She stepped back and Starbreeze floated closer, then whirled in a circle around her, faster than Luna could turn.

“Starbreeze, we need to go to the tower at Canary Wharf,” I said. “Can you take us there?”

Starbreeze stopped whirling and brightened. “Oh, the ball! I want to go there!” She vanished in a puff of wind, leaving us alone in the grove. “Starbreeze!” I yelled after her. “Starbreeze!”

Starbreeze reappeared in the blink of an eye, visible again. “Hi, Alex! Ooh!” She pointed at Luna. “Who’s that?”

I sighed. “Could you take us to Canary Wharf? Us.”

“Okay!” Starbreeze swept forward over us, and I felt my body start to transform. Then suddenly it stopped, and I was standing on the grass again.

I looked around in surprise; that had never happened before. Starbreeze had zipped away, and was floating at a safe distance, pointing at Luna. She looked upset. “Don’t want to take her.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“She’s wrong.” Starbreeze shivered slightly. “Hurts.”

Luna sighed. She’d been keyed up, excited, but now the animation faded from her body. “It’s me. I know.”

“It’s all right.”

Luna shook her head. “It’s okay, I should have known.” She gave me a half smile. “You go ahead. I’ll meet you there.”

“Oh, I think we can do better than that.” I held out my arm. “Take my hand.”

Luna looked down, then up at me. “Um, what are you doing?”

“Arachne’s very old and very wise,” I said. “Your curse can’t hurt her. And right now it can’t hurt me, either.” I took the ribbon hanging from my lapel, held it up so she could see. “As long as this is still white, I’m safe. So”—I smiled—“ready to go?”

Luna looked at me for a long moment, very still. When she spoke, her voice was suddenly cold. “Are you making fun of me?”

I stared at her. “What?”

“I can’t touch anyone. You know that. If this is a joke—”

“Luna!” I touched my fingers to the ribbon. “Arachne made this specially for you. It’s the same spell as your curse, but inverted; it absorbs it. As long as you’re near it, Starbreeze’ll be fine, and so will I.”

Luna’s mask wavered, and I saw she was uncertain. She looked from me to Starbreeze, still floating off to one side. I held out my hand and she took one hesitant step forward, almost within arm’s length. Then she gave a shiver and backed away, shaking her head. “No.”

I dropped my hand. “Luna, it’ll be fine.”

“You don’t know that! How can you tell?”

“I don’t know, maybe because I can see the future?” I stopped and took a deep breath. Being snarky wasn’t going to help. “I know you can’t see how this thing works. But trust me, it does.”

Luna shook her head.

“Look, I thought you were getting on with Arachne? She obviously likes you; she wouldn’t go to this much trouble for anyone. Take her word for it.”

“No.”

“Goddamn it! What are you planning to do, sit here all night?”

Luna shook her head again. Her face had firmed, and her voice was steady. “I’ll get there on my own. It was at Canary Wharf, right? I can find my way.”

“No, you can’t. You won’t make it halfway across London before Cinder and Khazad and that woman find you, and your curse can’t protect you from one Dark mage, much less three!”

“I guess I’ll have to take the chance.”

“It’s not a chance! You’re as good as dead if you go out there!”

“And you’re as good as dead if I touch you!”

I stopped, staring. Luna glared at me, then caught her breath as she realised what she’d just said. She closed her eyes, inhaled, and straightened her back. When she opened her eyes, she looked calm again. “Thank you for trying, really. But it’s fine.”

“That’s it, isn’t it?” I said slowly. “You’re afraid.”

Luna went still, then shook herself. “It’s okay,” she said levelly. “You go with Starbreeze.”

“You’re scared of what’ll happen.” I gave a short laugh. “Look, you don’t need to worry. It’ll be fine.”

Luna stared at me. “You think it’s funny?”

“No.” I caught myself. “Look, there’s nothing to be scared of—”

“You don’t know that.” There was an edge in Luna’s voice.

“Yes, I do.”

“You don’t know everything.”

“I know enough about this—”

“Shut up!”

I rocked back, and Luna took a pace forward, glaring at me. “You always think you know everything. You don’t! You don’t know what it’s like, you’ve never felt what it’s like. Stop acting like you do!”

I stared. I’d never seen Luna like this. She’d never before even raised her voice. “Luna—”

“Stop it! Stop telling me what to do! I don’t want your—I don’t want—” Luna’s voice wobbled and she swallowed. I took a step forward, but she jumped back, glaring at me. “No! Stay away from me!”

I took a deep breath. Luna stared at me, fighting back tears, and I tried to figure out what I needed to say. “Look,” I said at last. “You’ve always trusted me so far. Trust me now.”

“No! I haven’t— I mean—” Luna turned away, running a hand through her hair, breathing fast. “I can’t, I— You don’t know what you’re asking. I can’t get close, I—”

“If Arachne says something works, it works. You won’t hurt me.”

Luna drew in a shaky breath. “Alex, you don’t know what it’s like. The only way I can live is if I tell myself it has to be this way. If I let myself—” She realised what she was saying and put a hand to her mouth, fright in her eyes.

I looked at Luna, standing alone and frightened on the hillside, and finally understood. All I could feel now was pity. I held out my hand to her. “Luna—”

But as Luna recognised the expression in my eyes, she finally snapped. “Stop looking at me like that! Stop feeling sorry for me!” She took a step back. “I’m not going to the ball. I don’t want to be with you. Get away from me!”

I tried to keep my voice calm. “It’s okay—”

“Shut up!” Luna shouted. “I’m sick of you and I’m sick of your stupid magic and I’m sick of you pretending you know everything. I don’t want you to teach me anything anymore. Leave me alone!”

You’ve probably figured out by now that I’m not the most tolerant of people. I have a really low bar for how much crap I’ll take from others, and I especially hate getting pushed around by people I’m trying to help. Probably one of the reasons I can never get a girlfriend, but that’s another story. The sensible part of me knew that Luna was just saying these things to try to make me lose my temper. Trouble was, it was working. I sucked in a breath and, out of sight, flexed my left hand, clenching it into a fist, then letting it relax. When I spoke, my voice even sounded calm. Mostly. “Let’s get one thing clear,” I said. “I am not leaving you out here with a bunch of Dark mages hunting you.”

“It’s not your choice!”

“Yes, it is,” I snapped. “I don’t care how stupid you’re acting, I’m not going to let you kill yourself.”

“Try and stop me.” Luna’s eyes were wide, and she was breathing fast. She was standing a few paces away, half turned and poised to run. It would take only one more push to make her flee, and I had the nasty feeling that in the state she was in, she might just be able to outrun me. I took a breath and went still. “You know what?” I said as I let my leg muscles coil. “Fine.”

I was on Luna before she had the chance for more than a yelp. She tried to spring back, but I got one hand on her wrist and the other around her shoulders. And as I did, I came into range of her curse. To my mage’s sight, Luna’s curse is a silver-grey mist, following her like a cloud. As soon as I started towards her, it had stretched out towards me, silvery tendrils reaching out eagerly. If I didn’t trust Arachne so well, I don’t think I’d have had the nerve to make the jump.

But the tendrils never reached my body. As they touched my clothes, they twisted downwards, curving away to soak into the ribbon like water into a sponge. Silver mist poured steadily from Luna, flowing off my clothes like water off a duck’s back. The ribbon absorbed it all, and as I watched, its corners began to darken. Around that point, though, I stopped having any attention to spare.

I’m a head taller, fifty pounds heavier, and a good bit more skilled than Luna, so I’d been thinking I wouldn’t have much trouble keeping hold. However, it was at this point I first learnt that holding on to a healthy and active twenty-two-year-old girl who’s seriously trying to break free is a lot like trying to give a cat a bath. The whole thing lasted about thirty seconds, and it was claws, knees, and elbows the whole way.

By the time things slowed down, I was holding Luna with one arm behind her back and my right arm across her neck, just tight enough to keep her pinned without pressing into her throat. Luna’s other hand was gripping my forearm, trying to drag it away, and Starbreeze was watching from a few yards away, absolutely fascinated. She was obviously having a great time.

“All right,” I managed at last. Luna had landed an elbow in my stomach, making it hard to catch my breath. “Stop trying to tear my arm off and listen.”

Luna kept pulling a second longer, and then she sagged suddenly, going limp. Her shoulders shook.

“Better,” I said. Luna’s head was turned away from me, so I had to talk into her ear. “First, your curse isn’t touching me. You should be able to tell that since I’m holding on to you without being hit by a meteor or something. Now, we’re going to the ball. Once you get there? You can do whatever the hell you like. But I’m not cutting you loose until then. Understand?”

There was a long pause. “Yes,” Luna said at last in a muffled voice.

“All right,” I said. “Starbreeze? Take us to the ball.”

“Hurt,” Starbreeze said doubtfully.

“It’ll be okay. She won’t hurt you.”

“Well…” Starbreeze brightened. “Okay!” She swept in around us and once again my body thinned to air. Stray wisps of the curse brushed Starbreeze, but most of it was pulled into the ribbon, and a second later we were floating.

Luna gasped, but it was done before she could react. Our bodies were air, drifting apart. I was still holding Luna’s hand, but it felt like slippery glass. I couldn’t have kept my grip if she’d pulled away, but she was holding on to me now, both hands latched on tight. Starbreeze took off and the ground blurred beneath us as we soared into the sky.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget that flight. There was something primal about it, excitement and anticipation mixed together. There was danger behind and danger ahead, but now we were free. The fight was forgotten, left behind on the distant ground. I’d flown with Starbreeze many times before, but never with someone to share it.

London is amazing by night. Instead of the grid pattern of most cities, its streets twist and turn, and from above every one of them is outlined by streetlights. The parks are patches of shadow, the main roads glowing rivers. The Thames is a dark snake winding through the centre, its banks lit up with the waterfront buildings, boats and bridges leaving dots and slashes of light across its dark waters. Above, the stars shone down out of a cloudless sky, Orion and Cassiopeia looking down on us. Starbreeze flew higher and higher, leaving the bustle and danger of the city far below.

At one point I dragged my gaze away from the lights of the city below to watch Luna. Her shape was misty and transparent, and she was gazing down at the view, drinking it in. All I could see of her was her eyes, and there was something timeless in them, like distant stars. Only the pressure of her hand reassured me that she was still there.

I felt a strange sense of loss when Starbreeze finally began to circle downwards. The skyscrapers of the Docklands appeared below us, growing larger and larger, then we were racing past them, plummeting between the towers of steel and glass. The ground rushed up to meet us, halted, and Starbreeze brought us down to the stone gently as a feather. Canary Wharf towered before us.

chapter 6

The official name for the tower at the centre of the Docklands is One Canada Square, but everyone in London calls it Canary Wharf. It’s the tallest building in Britain, eight hundred feet high to the flashing double strobe at the top, and it dominates the London skyline, a symbol of wealth and power. Officially the whole tower is office space, and since it’s not open to the public there’s no one to say otherwise. Starbreeze had dropped us off within a small park in the shadow of some trees, and looking forward I could see other couples on the plaza, moving towards the blaze of light that was the tower itself. I felt awake and alive, on full alert. There was work to be done.

At my side, Luna was looking up at the tower. She looked as though she might have been crying, but the journey had wiped away any tears, and her face was unreadable. I stood waiting to see if she’d speak, but instead she looked down and began to shiver, wrapping her shawl around her bare arms. Canary Wharf is right in the middle of a meander of the Thames, and a cold wind was blowing off the water. “Let’s get inside,” I said.

“I’m fine,” Luna said, still shivering.

I sighed inwardly, put my arm around Luna, and started walking her towards the distant entrance. She didn’t resist. “There are anterooms,” I said. “I’ll find you somewhere safe.”

Luna shook her head mutely. I looked down at her. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m going with you.”

“What?”

Luna didn’t look up and I rolled my eyes heavenwards, just barely stopping myself from saying something that I knew would make things worse. First I had to drag her here; now she was refusing to leave. I can see the freaking future and women still don’t make sense. “All right,” I said at last, once I’d gotten myself under control. “You’re going into a place where knowledge is power. Don’t reveal anything about yourself. You shouldn’t even introduce yourself as Luna if you don’t have to, and don’t for God’s sake tell anyone your full name. Mages put people into two groups. There are other mages, and then there are sheep. Just by showing up here, you’re proving you’re not a sheep. But all that’s going to depend on how they see you, and they’re going to be judging you every second you’re there. The people in there aren’t your enemies—well, mostly—but they aren’t your friends, either. Don’t let down your guard.”

The wind returned, ruffling my hair, and this time it wasn’t cold. I looked up to see Starbreeze floating above me, back in her invisible form. “You’re staying?”

Starbreeze pointed up cheerfully at the tower. “Make another lightning man?”

Luna looked from me to Starbreeze. She still couldn’t see her but was getting used to guessing where the air elemental was floating. “Lightning man?”

“Don’t ask.”

Starbreeze swirled around our heads and Luna glanced up at her passing. “She thinks you’re going to make things fun?”

Talk about backhanded compliments. “Given what she calls fun, I hope not.”

“Not you!” Starbreeze chipped in. She pointed at Luna. “Her. Ooh!” Starbreeze looked upwards and her face lit up. She shot up into the night sky and out of sight before either of us could say a word. Luna and I looked at each other, then kept walking.

The ground-floor lobby was huge and spacious, paved in Italian marble. A steady murmur of voices echoed around the concourse. A boy in his teens crossed the floor towards us. “Good evening,” he said politely. “For the ball?”

I handed him my invitation and he gave it a quick glance. “Thank you. Far lift, top floor.”

I took the invitation back with a nod and started for the corner. Luna had been studying the boy curiously and whispered to me once we were past. “Who was he?”

“Apprentice,” I said quietly. “I used to do jobs like that once.”

The buttons inside the lift went up to forty-five. I hit the top one and the doors hissed shut. The lift whirred upwards with a hum of powerful machinery, and I knew we’d arrive in less than a minute. “Some of the people inside will be mages; some will be adepts or hangerson,” I told Luna. “Don’t look surprised or shocked, no matter what you see.” I paused. “Ready?”

Luna nodded. “Ready.”

“Okay. Game face on.”

The doors hissed open to reveal a group of four big men in dark clothing, their eyes tracking us as we stepped out. The one at the front asked for my invitation, and this time the check was more thorough. Once he was satisfied, he nodded. “Thank you. Enjoy the ball.” Up ahead, a pair of double doors stood open, and light and voices streamed through. We walked in.

The room we’d entered was enormous, the ceiling reaching far overhead with angled corners. A double balcony ran the circuit of the walls, recessed so that the people walking it were concealed behind the railings. At the centre was a square column stretching all the way to the roof. Walkways ran between the upper balcony to the higher levels, and scattered on the underside of the walkways and all around the walls were sets of chandeliers, glowing with hundreds of lights. Everything was made of steel and glass, reflecting the light and throwing it back so that the entire vast hall was as bright as full daylight. It was dazzling, and both Luna and I blinked as we stood there, our eyes adjusting.

The hall was filled with noise: there were hundreds of people thronging the floor with more looking down from above. Men and women were crossing the floor, talking, watching, dancing, standing, spread out across the vast room. The entry hall was set a little above floor level, and from our position Luna and I could see out across the whole crowd. To one side a band was playing on a stage, and on the dance floor maybe fifty people were dancing while others looked on. Another area had been set aside for games, with mage’s chess, duelling pistes, and more. Near the central column was a buffet, and on the far side, partially blocked by the column, I could see the greyish glow of a sphere arena, suspended in midair.

We stood there for a minute, just watching. No one seemed to be paying us any heed yet. That wouldn’t last. “Well,” I said, and took Luna’s arm. She flinched and started to pull away in reflex, but I gave her a smile and she hesitated. “Let’s go attract some attention.”

We walked down the stairs to the floor, and Luna fell in by my side. As we did, I glanced down at Arachne’s ribbon, making sure that Luna didn’t see me do it. A quarter of its length had gone black, the darkness spreading slowly as it drew in the silvery mist.

I led Luna towards the band and the dance floor. We passed other men and women as we walked, strolling and talking, all wearing expensively tailored evening wear. In my normal clothes I would have stood out like a sore thumb, but in Arachne’s outfits we fit in perfectly. Arachne pretends not to care about fashion, but she always seems to match it. Most of the men were wearing dinner jackets like mine, while the women were wearing dresses that were…well, they were dresses. I have no clue what kind. Hey, I’m a guy, what do you expect? There’s a reason I go to Arachne when I want to look good.

The band was a string ensemble. They were playing a waltz, quick and cheerful. “Want to dance?” I said to Luna as we reached the dance floor.

Luna shook her head. “No, thanks.”

“Great.” I pulled Luna out onto the floor.

“Alex!” Luna protested, her voice rising. People turned to look, and she hushed it to a whisper. “I can’t—”

“Relax,” I said as I took her right hand in my left and raised it. “I can.”

“You know I don’t know how to dance!”

“Just follow my lead. Put your other hand on my shoulder.” I moved it. “There. Start off on your left foot. And one, and two—”

“I can’t do this!”

“—and three,” I said, and led off. Luna nearly fell over, then righted herself, clinging to me desperately as we moved through the crowd.

Although I don’t look it, I’m a pretty good dancer, a legacy from my time with Richard. I haven’t gotten much use out of it since then, but it’s like riding a bicycle—you never forget. The nice thing about dancing as a man is that if you’re good enough, you can carry a girl even if she doesn’t have the first clue what she’s doing. I stuck to basics, letting Luna get used to the rhythm as I scanned the crowd for familiar faces. There weren’t many. I don’t generally get invited to high-society events, and the mages here were the elite.

Of course, not all were mages. Many would be only adepts, or maybe not even that. Some would be enspelled, and they’d be waking up tomorrow morning remembering tonight as nothing more than a dream. And some would be apprentices or even slaves, here only at the whim of their masters.

Here’s the catch, though—there’s no way to know just by looking whether someone is a mage. Some mages like to advertise, but the smart ones usually take care to avoid revealing their power until it suits them. It’s easy to look at a crowd like this and notice only the ones who catch your eye—the woman wearing a white dress that seemed to be made entirely of feathers, with gaps exposing glimpses of pale skin; the man dressed entirely in red, with a snake-headed cane at one side—but usually the ones you have to watch out for are the ones you don’t see.

The music shifted into a slower dance, and as Luna began to realise that she wasn’t going to fall over, her death grip on my arms loosened. I could feel her muscles relax slightly through the hand on her back. “Having fun?” I said into her ear. The mist still swirled around her, but the ribbon was drawing it away from the other dancers.

“I’m going to get you for this,” Luna said, breathless.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Is everyone watching?”

“Yup. Oh, don’t stiffen up, you were just starting to relax.”

Luna’s fingers dug into my arm. “Why are they all looking at me?” she whispered into my ear.

“Probably wondering where you got your dress.”

“Alex!” Luna tried to hit me with her free hand and nearly stumbled.

“Tsk. You don’t want to fall.”

Luna made a noise that sounded almost like she was laughing. “We’re new,” I said, my voice serious again. “Everyone here is watching everyone else. Probably a hundred people have made a note of us by now. Don’t be surprised if you’re approached as soon as this dance ends.”

“Me? Why?”

“Curiosity. Information.”

“What should I say?”

“Whatever you like, as long as you don’t give too much away. Let them come up with their own ideas and don’t correct them.”

We did another circuit of the dance floor, passing close to the band. All four were women. They looked natural at first glance; only if you looked closely would you see the slightly glazed look in their eyes. We turned back towards the crowd, and I saw the person I’d been waiting for. “Look over my shoulder,” I said as I turned. “Greek-looking guy in a dark blue suit with fancy trim. Talking to the man in red.”

“Mm—okay, I see him. Who is he?”

“Name’s Lyle. Major-league asshole. Tied in with the Council.”

“He’s the one who invited you?”

“Yup.”

We did another revolution. “Are you going to talk to him?” Luna asked eventually.

“He can wait.” Lyle was starting to send irritated glances in our direction. The music came to a halt, and I came apart from Luna with a smile and gave her a small bow. There was scattered clapping.

“That was…” Luna hesitated. She looked different somehow—flushed and wondering, alive in a way I’d never seen before. “I’ve never…”

“I know.” I took her arm and led her off the floor as a new dance started. I didn’t bother to hurry; I knew Lyle would come to us.

He materialised out of the crowd before we’d even reached it. “Ah, Alex,” Lyle said with a good imitation of surprise. “I’m glad I bumped into you.”

“Hey, Lyle. Thanks for the invitation.”

“Don’t mention it.” Lyle looked at Luna. “I don’t believe we’ve met?”

“I hope you’re not trying to steal her from me, Lyle,” I said with an easy smile, then glanced at Luna. “This is Lyle, an acquaintance of mine. We know each other very well.”

Lyle bowed to her. “An honour to meet you.” He straightened. “If it’s convenient, Alex, I’ve some things to discuss with you in private. Barrayar, perhaps you could show the lady around.”

A man who’d been waiting at Lyle’s side stepped forward. He looked like a functionary. “You’ll have to excuse me,” I said to Luna. “I’ll be right back.”

“That’s fine,” Luna said, and gave Lyle a smile. “Pleased to meet you.” Lyle gave another bow, then turned and started walking. I followed. Behind, I heard Barrayar starting to introduce himself.

“ ‘I’ll be right back’?” Lyle murmured once we were out of earshot. “Seems you still haven’t learnt not to make promises you can’t keep.”

“I wouldn’t get too cocky, Lyle.” Other men and couples glanced at us as we passed, first at Lyle, then with more curiosity at me. Lyle was a known quantity here; I was something new. “I only agreed to listen.”

“And you think you’ll be getting a better offer?”

I grinned lazily. “Oh, you’d be surprised just how many people are taking an interest in your relic lately.”

Lyle gave me a sharp look, then turned away.

Servants were moving through the crowd, white-clothed figures with their faces hidden behind opaque masks, offering food and drinks. We passed a crowd around the buffet table and climbed a small flight of stairs up to one of the exits from the hall. The exit led to a staircase, leading upwards and then doubling back. We went up two levels and came out into a smaller corridor, this one plain and undecorated. Windows on the left side looked down into the main hall, but the sounds were quieter up here, the music and conversation from below muffled. The corridor ended in a door, leading into an antechamber. As we walked in, I checked, staring at the figures ahead.

In front of the opposite door, facing us, were two creatures sculpted from silver and gold. They stood seven feet tall on triple-jointed legs and had two pairs of segmented arms carrying eight-foot-tall ceremonial glaives and devices of tapering metal the size of heavy guns. Their heads were turned towards us, and faceted golden eyes watched us silently as we entered. These were gythka, mantis golems, and their presence meant a Council member was here. Lyle hadn’t been kidding.

“Lyle Trahelis,” Lyle said as he walked up; he hadn’t stopped. He gestured in my direction. “He’s with me.” He approached the door and paused, looking back at me. “Hurry up, Alex. We haven’t got all day.”

The mantis golems hadn’t moved an inch since we entered, and their eyes watched us, opaque and unreadable. Lyle stood negligently in the shadow of two of them. I knew he was showing off, and I couldn’t sense any danger, but I’ve lived on my wits too long to ever be comfortable about exposing myself. Even though I knew the guards weren’t going to touch me, the thought of passing beneath those shining blades made my skin crawl.

I took a breath and walked forward. One of the guards swivelled its head to watch. Up close it smelt of sweet oil and polished metal. I couldn’t see any joints in its body; it looked like an insect crafted in silver. Its future held no choices, a solid line instead of branching forks. Gythka are constructs with no will of their own, programmed to obey Council members absolutely. According to rumour, they’re almost indestructible. I’ve never seen the rumour tested. Lyle pushed open the door and we stepped inside.

The room within was dimly lit, with a high ceiling and a dozen widely spaced chairs. The entire left wall was a giant window, a transparent panel looking down onto the great hall. Below was the arena and the buffet table, and to one side I could see the dance floor and the band. It was an impressive view, perfectly placed to see and be seen by the people below…except that when I’d looked up from floor level, this spot had looked like a blank wall. The window was one-way glass. We could see the people below, but they couldn’t see us.

Five people were sitting in the room, but it was the man in the centre seat who caught my attention. He was in his fifties, with thinning white hair and eyes that faded into the shadows. I’d seen him in pictures before, but never in person, and it took me a moment to put a face to the name. This was Vaal Levistus, one of the members of the Council. He glanced up as we entered. “Mr. Verus. I’m glad you could come.” He gestured to the others. “Leave us.”

They obeyed in silence, giving me sidelong looks as they filed out. Lyle hesitated in the doorway. “Councillor?”

“Thank you, Lyle.”

Lyle shot a glance at me and closed the door. There was a smooth click and Levistus and I were alone. Although I could see down through the window into the main hall, with the door closed the room was suddenly silent. Soundproofed. People outside could neither see nor hear.

I’d been scanning ahead ever since I landed outside, looking into the future of what was going to happen to Luna and to me, and I’d found no sign of danger—at least, no immediate danger. But beyond that door, the future had broken up, forking into too many different paths, and now I knew why.

Divination can only predict what can be predicted. Some things are truly random, or so close that it makes no difference. You can’t predict the roll of a die, because there are so many thousands of things that can nudge it one way or another that by the time you could pick out a future it would have stopped rolling. Any really complex system has too much chaos to be easily predictable; it follows patterns, but not ones that can be reliably foreseen. But there’s another thing that can’t be predetermined—thought. Free will is one of the points at which divination magic breaks down. If a person hasn’t made a choice, then no magic can see beyond it. You can see probabilities, but they’re no more than guesses, wisps that fade as fast as they appear.

Looking into the future of what Levistus was going to do, I came up with so many answers I couldn’t begin to pick one, dozens of futures branching in every direction, ever shifting. Some looked peaceful; others didn’t. This was a dangerous man.

When I didn’t move, Levistus gestured to the chair on his right. “Sit.”

“What about her?”

Levistus looked up at me. “Who?”

I cleared my throat. “You asked for everyone to leave.” I nodded at an empty space about six feet behind where Levistus was sitting. “What about her?”

Levistus watched me for a long moment, his face showing nothing, and for the second time in two minutes my skin crawled briefly. “Thirteen,” he said at last. “Visible.”

The air in the spot I’d looked at shimmered and took form. One moment it was empty; the next a wispy, transparent figure of a woman was standing there, its shape visible as thin lines in the gloom. It was an air elemental—but it wasn’t. Normal elementals have a primal feel to them, something timeless and alien. Except for her body of air, this one looked like a real woman. She was tall, with long legs and hair falling around her shoulders, and she was naked, her body clearly visible. She looked sensual, eerily beautiful, and I felt my body responding until I saw her eyes. They glowed a faint white, and they were utterly empty. She watched me blankly, arms by her sides, completely still.

“Interesting,” Levistus said. “How did you detect her?”

I hadn’t detected her. “Trade secrets.”

“Hm.” Levistus looked away. “Take a seat. Thirteen, to the corner.”

Silently, the air elemental glided to the corner of the room. I noticed that the place she had been standing would have put her right behind the chair Levistus had indicated for me, and felt a slight chill. Whatever she was, that creature scared me. She had been totally invisible, both to my eyes and to my mage’s sight. The only way I’d known she was there had been through the common elements in the futures ahead of us, and from my brief look, they hadn’t been pleasant ones.

I took the chair to the other side of Levistus, the one he hadn’t nodded to. As I did, I searched my memory for everything I knew about the man sitting next to me. Though not yet a senior member, Levistus was talked about as one of the more powerful members of the Council, and that put him in the political top ten of the entire country. If Lyle was one of his agents, he’d progressed even faster than I’d thought. Like most Council masters, Levistus was believed to use mind magic, but that could just as easily be rumour. Beyond that, his nature and goals were a mystery…but nothing I’d heard suggested he was in the habit of employing outoffavour diviners.

The view below us was directly onto the sphere arena. Spheres is an old, old game amongst mages, and two players had just started a bout, their faces locked in concentration as their globes of light formed, moving inwards into the sphere, one set white, one set black. A crowd had gathered to watch, standing on the raised steps around the arena, talking to each other as they followed the movements. Both the lights in the sphere and the crowd moved in eerie silence, inaudible through the layer of glass.

“I believe you may be able to help me with a problem,” Levistus said. His voice was educated, detached, with no trace of emotion. His eyes didn’t rest on me as he spoke but looked down at the hall below, passing over the crowd. “I expect Lyle has told you the details.”

“Some of them,” I said. I could see the air elemental, Thirteen, out of the corner of my eye; she was still watching me.

“The relic contains a Precursor artifact. I want you to retrieve it.”

“Contains?” I managed to keep my voice only mildly curious.

“The relic is a storage device. The artifact is within.”

In the sphere below, the globes of light clashed, manoeuvring for position. One spun away, winking out as it left the sphere, and the crowd applauded silently. “I think,” I said, “if I’m going to be retrieving this item, I’d like to know a little more about it.”

“That is not your concern.”

“I’m sorry, Councillor,” I said. “I’m not going to take this job unless I know exactly what this thing does.”

Levistus turned to look at me. Up close, I could see that his eyes were colourless, a pale grey, revealing nothing. I held my breath, feeling my muscles tingling. The futures ahead of me flickered and changed.

Levistus opened his mouth and one future eclipsed the others, becoming real. “The artifact is an item known as a fateweaver,” he said. “It has the ability to alter chance and outcomes. In appearance it is a wand of ivory, unmarked, approximately twelve inches long.”

“I’m sure you could lay hands on a dozen chance mages who could alter outcomes, Councillor.”

Levistus made an irritated brushing motion, as if to say he didn’t have time for flattery. It had been a long time since I’d spoken with a Council mage, but the conversation wasn’t going how I’d expected. High-level mages tend to be full of their own importance, expecting compliments and ceremony. Levistus was all business. It made him easier to talk to, but also more dangerous. “Fateweavers are spoken of in the histories. Commanders in the Dark Wars carried them, and there are references to their changing the course of entire battles. This is the first opportunity to see one recovered intact. It is essential it does not fall into the hands of a Dark mage.”

I nodded slowly, remembering. The Dark Wars had ended the Precursor civilisation. Records of that time were fragmentary, but it was well known that the weapons employed had been devastating. If this artifact was one of them, it was clear why everyone wanted it so badly.

Another burst of silent applause came from the crowd below. The globes were interlinked now. “I believe that answers your question,” Levistus said.

It didn’t, but it was clear that was all he was going to tell me. I didn’t want to push further so I switched to a safer subject. “What about payment?”

“You will have the favour of a member of the High Council.” Levistus turned to look at me with his grey eyes. “I would consider that payment enough.”

“I appreciate the offer, Councillor, but I’d prefer something more tangible.”

“The prospect of keeping this item out of Dark hands doesn’t appeal to you?”

Damn, this guy was good. He knew about my past, and he was using it. And he was right: if this thing really was a weapon from the Dark Wars, there was no way I’d want someone like Cinder in control of it.

But that didn’t mean I trusted the Council with it, either. And I had the sudden feeling that Levistus was testing me. He obviously knew I had no love for Dark mages or the Council. But he probably didn’t know whether I was an idealist or a cynic. Depending on how I answered…Seconds ticked away.

“I don’t think it’s my business whose hands it ends up in,” I said at last.

Levistus was watching me with those blank, colourless eyes. “A mercenary, then?”

I looked back at him. “Yes.”

There was a moment’s silence, then Levistus nodded slightly, and I felt the futures ahead of us shift as something fell into place. “The service I require from you is a simple one. You will assist the investigation team in gaining entry to the relic, and you will make your way through the relic’s defences to retrieve the fateweaver. In return, you will have your pick of the other items within.”

“How do I know there will be any other items?”

“I can arrange payment in other terms if you wish. But”—Levistus tilted his head slightly—“the chance for first pick of an undisturbed Precursor relic? I doubt you truly intend to pass that up.”

A beat, then I nodded. Down below at the arena, the crowd had thickened, and all of them now seemed to be watching intently. A group of globes arced around, and another round of applause broke out, the men in their suits and the women in their elaborate dresses clapping silently behind the crystal.

“And once you have the fateweaver, you will bring it to me.”

“Wouldn’t the leader of the team be responsible for that?”

“The leader is not your concern,” Levistus said. “I am employing you to retrieve the item. That is what you are being rewarded for.”

“Doesn’t the Arrancar ruling…?”

“The Arrancar ruling states that archaeological finds must be submitted to the Council.” Levistus spoke without heat or emphasis. “I am a member of the Council; therefore, you will submit it to me. The item’s destination is a Council secret. You will reveal the terms of your employment to no one, not even authorised Council representatives. Should any of the mages on site attempt to take the artifact for themselves, they are to be considered Dark agents and neutralised in any manner necessary.”

My heart stopped beating for an instant, then sped up. What Levistus was asking me to do was just one step away from treason. And keeping it secret…“Does the team know about this?”

“As I said, you are to reveal the terms of your employment to no one.” Levistus’ eyes rested on me, steady and incurious. “I believe it is time you gave me your answer, Mr. Verus. Do you agree to the terms of this contract? Yes or no?”

I needed time to think. “You’re asking for a lot.”

“Which is why you are being paid so handsomely. As I said: yes or no?”

I suddenly realised that the future before me had split into two paths. Levistus wasn’t kidding. He was going to accept only a yes or no answer. And if I said no…

I looked into the future of what would happen, and it was all I could do not to jump. If I said no, Levistus’ air elemental, Thirteen, was going to kill me, right here, right now. She would send her body down my throat and suffocate me as I thrashed helplessly, while Levistus watched with his fingers steepled and half an eye on the people below. Then she would transmute my body to air and remove any trace that I had ever walked into this room. I snapped back to the present and took a deep breath. The room was silent, still but for the movements of the crowd behind the crystal. They were less than fifty yards away but might as well have been on the moon. Trying not to show anything on my face, I looked sideways to see that Thirteen was still standing there, her face blank, and it was all I could do not to shudder.

I’d walked into something out of my league. Levistus wanted this artifact for himself, not for the Council, and he was willing to kill to keep it. Information wasn’t my priority anymore. Walking out of this room alive was.

“You realise it may not be possible to gain access to the artifact,” I said at last.

“And if so, you will be compensated for your time,” Levistus replied. “However, should the artifact be accessible, I will expect that it be delivered to my hands, rather than anyone else’s. Quickly and discreetly.”

The bout below had reached its climax. The crowd all watched intently as the black and white spheres swirled with dizzying speed. “Will I have any…assistance with this?”

For the first time Levistus smiled, a thin, dry smile that did not touch his eyes. “Oh, I have many agents, Mr. Verus. Rest assured, they will be there, making sure everything goes according to plan.”

The silence in the room stretched out, second passing upon second. “Well, Councillor,” I said at last, my mouth dry. “You make an offer that’s difficult to refuse.”

“Excellent,” Levistus said. “I believe our business is concluded.”

chapter 7

I barely noticed the blades of the mantis golems as I walked out. My heart was still pounding, and as I came back onto the balcony ring, the chatter of the crowd below was like soothing music. I kept moving, dimly aware of people to either side of me, only caring about gaining as much distance as I could from Levistus and his personal killer.

Someone was calling my name. I didn’t pay attention. A hand came down on my shoulder and I turned to see Lyle’s face frowning at me. “Are you deaf? I need you to—”

Most mages don’t study handtohand fighting; they rely on their magic for everything. I’m not most mages. I’ve been studying martial arts a long time, and while I’m nowhere near a master, I’m a lot faster than I look. After you study long enough, the basic moves become reflex. I was on edge, and Lyle’s grabbing my shoulder was all it took to make me snap.

Lyle’s back slammed against the wall hard enough to knock the wind out of him. I leant into him, one arm against his throat, and this time I didn’t go to any effort to avoid causing pain. “You asshole,” I hissed into his face from a few inches away. “Were you in on this? If I hadn’t walked out of that room, what would you have done?”

“What are you talking about?” Lyle choked. His eyes were shocked, frightened.

“How much did you know?”

“You’re crazy! Get off me!”

“How much did you know, Lyle? What did Levistus tell you?”

“I don’t know!” There was panic on Lyle’s face; he was sweating. “He just needed a diviner! That’s all he said!”

“Do you think I’m that fucking stupid? Levistus’ pet was about to kill me! What were you going to say, that I’d just gone for a walk?”

“What? There wasn’t anyone there!”

I glared into Lyle’s eyes for a long moment and saw only terror. He was more scared than he should be, and it was with only mild surprise that I realised that deep down, Lyle was a coward. He could act strong when he was in control, but put him in real danger and he crumbled. It’s funny how you can know someone for half your life, and then some trivial thing opens your eyes. I’d always known safety was Lyle’s religion, yet for some reason I’d never made the connection.

I let go, and Lyle fell back, shrinking into the corner of the alcove. “You’re a fool,” I said quietly. “You’re telling me you didn’t know what sort of man you were working for? I don’t buy it, Lyle. You knew, you just didn’t want to think about it. Just like always.” I shook my head. “You haven’t changed at all.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But Lyle’s eyes were scared. I knew he was lying, and so did he.

I walked away. There were a handful of others up on this section of the balcony, and they’d all stopped to watch. They eyed me as I passed. News of this would spread quickly, but right now, I didn’t care.

The second-floor balcony ran the entire circuit of the hall, and its side was open to the floor below. Arched pillars supported the level above my head and a steel handrail gave protection against falling. After a moment my thoughts steadied enough for me to realise that I was walking back around towards the dance floor, where I’d last seen Luna. I kept going, hoping to spot her from above, and before long I was within earshot of the band again. The music was captivating, and I felt my pulse starting to slow. I settled into the shadow of one of the pillars and leant on the railing, looking down over the crowd.

As I looked from side to side, my mind flitted back over my encounter with Levistus. I finally understood what Helikaon had been trying to tell me. I’d never liked the Council, but I realised now that I’d been blind to the threat it could be. I’d walked into that room without understanding just how dangerous the competition for this artifact was, and I’d nearly paid for it with my life. Well, now I did understand. Everyone after this artifact was willing to kill to get it, and if things kept going as they were, I was going to end up in the middle. That was not a safe place to be.

I felt a presence to one side and turned. A man was standing on the balcony a few steps away. “Mr. Verus?” His voice was cultured, polite. “Might I have a word?”

“Depends on the word.” I studied the man. His clothes looked high-quality but nondescript. He had no visible escort or companion, which could mean something, or nothing at all.

The man smiled slightly. “I believe you’ve just had a meeting with Councillor Levistus. I’d like to offer my assistance, should you be willing to accept it.”

“Yeah?” A scan of the future told me the man was no immediate threat. I turned to the railing and went back to searching the crowd for Luna. “I think I’ve had all the assistance I can handle for a little while, thanks.”

“I can understand how you’d feel that way. However, I think you’d benefit from taking the time to listen to what I have to say.”

The last thing I needed was yet another mage trying to take advantage of me. But for the moment at least, this guy was harmless, and I didn’t have time to shoo him off. “Okay, shoot.”

There. Luna was a little to the side of the dance floor, in the centre of a small crowd. Everyone was smiling, and from a quick glance at the body language the mood looked pleasant. Luna was talking to a woman in a shimmering pink dress who was watching her with her head tilted in interest. She seemed to be holding her own, and I felt myself relax slightly.

I realised the man next to me was speaking. “…be interested?”

“Sorry. Could you say that again?”

“As I said,” he repeated patiently, “Levistus is not the only mage on the Council, and his ambitions are far from being a secret. If you’re worried about the terms of your employment with him, I might be able to offer some assistance.”

I sighed. “Let me take a wild guess. As part of the terms of this assistance, you or whoever you’re representing would get the items inside the relic, right?”

“We would prefer to see any Precursor artifacts in our hands rather than his, yes.”

“I’m sure you would.” I turned to face him. “Look, Mr.… ?”

“Talisid.”

“Mr. Talisid. I’m rapidly losing count of the number of factions out to grab this artifact. What exactly makes you different from the others?”

“For one thing,” Talisid said calmly, “we aren’t threatening to kill you if you don’t cooperate. Or even if you do. I’m sure it’s already occurred to you that being a loose end in one of Levistus’ plans might not be the safest of positions?”

For the first time I turned my full attention to the man. He was a hair under medium height, in his forties, dressed in dark clothes, with a receding hairline. He looked like a blackbird against the peacocks on the dance floor, but there was a steadiness to his gaze that suggested he might be someone to take seriously.

“You seem to know a lot about what was supposed to be a private conversation,” I said at last.

“Diviners don’t have a monopoly on knowledge, Mr. Verus. Deduction can work just as well.”

“You’re with the Council?”

“I represent a faction of the Council. At the moment, I believe our interests coincide with yours.” Talisid moved past me to rest his arms upon the railing, his clothes dark against the metal. “Not everyone on the Council is happy with the Dark mages’ growth in power. And even those sympathetic to their proposals would prefer not to see one of them gain control of such a powerful relic. In this case, the majority is with us.”

“If you’ve got the majority on your side, why do you need me?”

“Unfortunately, while a majority of the Council have a preference for the artifact not falling into the hands of a Dark mage, they have an even greater preference for the artifact falling into the hands of themselves.”

I let out an exasperated breath. “This is ridiculous. Do you guys even know what this thing does? You’re all going to look really stupid if it ends up being a dud, you know that?”

“We’ve got more important concerns than looking stupid, Mr. Verus,” Talisid said patiently. “And as I was saying, we may be able to assist you.”

Something pinged on my danger sense and I looked down. Luna was still talking in the middle of her crowd, but that wasn’t where the thread of trouble was coming from. I scanned up and down, looking through the crowd for movement. Three figures caught my eye. They were spread through the crowd, but linked somehow, and—

Oh crap. It was the three Dark mages—Cinder, Khazad, and the masked woman—and they were after Luna. They were surrounding her, closing in steadily from three sides. She was still talking, oblivious, as they moved closer and closer.

I spun and headed for the nearest staircase. “Mr. Verus!” Talisid called sharply.

“Sorry!” I called over my shoulder. “It’ll have to wait!” I broke into a run, sprinting along the balcony and down the wide staircase. A couple talking close to one other on the landing broke off and pressed themselves to one side as I came flying down. I reached ground level in twenty seconds flat and slowed to a fast walk as I came out into the Great Hall. I knew where Luna was going to be, and I needed to get there first.

I didn’t. As I came within sight of Luna, I saw the three Dark mages surrounding her. The others she had been talking to were nowhere in sight. I caught a glimpse of one disappearing behind a knot of people, throwing a nervous glance back at Cinder. The floor was still crowded and the buzz of conversation drowned out what they were saying, but I didn’t need to use my magic to know that Luna was in danger. I scanned quickly through the futures and found a way to approach without being seen.

The woman talking to Luna was the same one I’d seen at the British Museum and Camden Market, though I still didn’t know her name. She was wearing a dress of royal blue that sparkled in the light, along with a mask over her upper face, and she stood looking down at Luna, one hand resting on her hip. Cinder was to her side, dressed in black with highlights of flaring red. “Luna,” the woman was saying. Her voice was clear, musical; again, as I heard it the sound set off a chime of memory. “You have something that belongs to me.”

Luna looked from the woman to Cinder. If she recognised her from the episode this morning, she didn’t let it show. “Do I know you?” she said at last.

“No.” The woman took a step forward. She was taller than Luna, with short blond hair. “If you know what’s good for you you’ll keep it that way. Where’s the cube?”

“Sorry?”

“Don’t play games with me.” The woman’s voice was cold and dangerous. “A crowd won’t protect you. Give me what I want or I’ll take it from you.”

Luna stood very still. The sounds of chatter around seemed to fade away. When Luna finally spoke, there was a note in her voice I’d never heard before. “I don’t think I like your attitude very much.” All of a sudden Luna sounded much older. “If you want something, ask without the threats.”

Even with danger close at hand, I felt a sudden surge of pride. Under pressure, Luna had recognised the woman for what she was, and done exactly the right thing: stood up to her without showing fear. All the time that I’d been talking to her she had been listening, and she’d shown she could do it under pressure. In that instant I realised that, despite everything that had happened, and even though she wasn’t a diviner or even a mage, I did think of Luna as my apprentice, and I was proud of her.

Of course, it wasn’t going to stop her from being abducted in exactly fifteen seconds. But that was where I came in.

“You, little girl, just made a big mistake,” the woman said after a long pause. She made a signal with two fingers. “Let’s see exactly what you—”

As she spoke, Khazad glided behind Luna. I’d thought the small man looked like a bird the first three times I’d seen him, but he moved now with a sinuous grace, more like a snake. A needle gleamed in one hand, catching the light as he brought it towards the bare skin of Luna’s shoulder.

It never got there. As Khazad moved, so did I, and as he came up behind Luna I stepped in beside him. My right hand closed on his wrist, and as he made his move I spun him around, redirecting his momentum so that the needle sank into his own arm. There was a faint spark as the spell discharged and Khazad’s head jerked in shock. Luna, Cinder, and the woman all turned in the same instant to stare at me. Luna’s eyes lit up; Cinder’s darkened. “You!”

“Hey, Cinder. Nice to see you again.” I turned my gaze to the woman with a smile. “She did warn you.”

The woman stared, speechless. I turned to Luna, offering my hand. “Sorry, I got held up. Shall we go?”

Luna took a glance back at Cinder and the woman, then took my hand with barely a pause. The other two stared after us as we walked away, Khazad in tow.

“That was awesome,” Luna said once we were away. All traces of how she’d been outside were gone; she looked alert and glowing.

“Are they following us?”

“No—yes. Through the crowd.”

“Okay. Break left…now.” We slipped behind a group of people. From the other side I could just hear hurrying footsteps as Cinder and the woman came walking quickly after us, fading away as we doubled back.

Khazad was still walking aimlessly by my side, guided by my arm around his waist. Luna tilted her head to look into his eyes, then waved her fingers in front of his face. He didn’t respond. “What happened to him?”

“Same thing he was about to do to you.” I lifted his right hand and pointed to the needle clutched in his fingers. It was about eight inches long, made of some kind of silvery metal, tipped with a dot of blood where it had driven into Khazad’s arm. “Enchantment effect, kind of like magical Rohypnol. They were going to use it on you, then walk you out the front door.”

Khazad’s eyes were vacant; without me to guide him, he just stood there. Relaxed, his face was harsh and cruel. Luna peered over to look at him while I went through Khazad’s pockets. He was carrying another of the needles along with a few other things that looked like weapons, but no written instructions or anything that would give me a hint as to which spell they’d been using to track Luna. Damn.

“Can he hear us?” Luna asked.

“Probably.” I glanced back over my shoulder. We’d swerved away from the dance floor towards the other side of the hall and had ended up next to a fountain of steel and stone that bubbled with clear water. A minor illusory effect played over the water, causing it to flicker through the colours of the rainbow: red to yellow to green to blue and back again. “We’d better dump him before he slows us down.”

I sat Khazad down on the edge of the fountain and slapped him in the face twice, hard. A few people gave me curious looks but you can get away with a lot if you’re blatant enough. I’d just gone through his pockets in full view of all the guests and gotten nothing more than a few funny looks. “Khazad,” I said clearly. “Can you hear me?”

Khazad’s eyes were still vague, but I could sense a presence behind them this time, something looking at me with a distant hatred. This was the second time I’d gotten the better of him, and even with the magic scrambling his thoughts, I could feel how much he wanted to kill me. “That’s twice you’ve tried,” I said. I looked into his eyes as I spoke, keeping contact. “This is your last chance to walk away. You understand? One chance. Pull anything like this again, on either of us, and I’ll see you dead.”

Khazad glared at me, unable to speak. I could sense the two Dark mages approaching from behind. I straightened and walked away, and the two of us disappeared into the crowd, the noise and bustle swallowing us. The music of the band faded as we put some distance between us and the dance floor.

“Are they still coming?” Luna said once we were away. She was craning her neck, trying to look in every direction at once.

“Yeah.” Now that they weren’t heading straight for us I couldn’t predict their movements so easily, but I knew they’d be back.

“How did they find me?”

“They spent today at your flat. Could they have found anything from your body? Hair, nail clippings, blood?”

“No—yes. Some hairs from my pillow, maybe the bathroom…”

I nodded. “If you have something that was once a part of someone, you can put together a tracer spell that works through just about anything. No chance of it failing on its own. We’re going to need something stronger.”

Luna nodded. “What do we do?”

“Head for the games area. Keep going towards those pillars at the back.”

As we crossed the hall, I led Luna in a looping, swerving course. Most divination spells are directional, and if Cinder or what’sher-name were trying to anticipate Luna’s movements, this would slow them down. We passed knots of people, fountains, more of the white-masked servants, the buzz of laughter and conversation filling the air. The sphere arena had quieted down; a new match would probably start soon. My eyes tracked up to what looked like a blank stretch of crystal wall above the arena and between the balconies, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Levistus was behind that wall, and somehow I knew he was watching me.

“Alex?” Luna asked as we walked.

“Hm?”

“Did you mean it?”

“What?”

“Khazad. When you said you’d kill him.”

“I meant it.”

Luna walked for a little while in silence. “Thank you,” she said eventually.

I looked at her in surprise, then smiled slightly. “You did well back there.”

Luna looked taken aback, then flushed. She was about to say something when a voice spoke from in front of us, interrupting. “Hi!”

I looked up to see a girl smiling at me. She was young, maybe eighteen or nineteen, and beautiful enough to be a model. Long, shining gold hair hung down her back, and she wore a low-cut blue silk dress with long slits that showed off her legs. A black ribbon was tied around her neck. “You’re Alex Verus, right?”

“That’s me.”

“Oh, it’s great to finally meet you!” She came to a stop nearby, her smile showing a set of perfect teeth. “I’m Lisa.”

“Hi, Lisa.” I kept walking, leaving her behind.

Lisa blinked, then hurried to catch up, struggling in her high heels. “It’s so cool to meet you,” she said, trying to catch my eye. “Everyone’s talking about you.”

“That’s great.”

“I’d really like to talk to you.” Lisa came closer, walking right alongside, looking up at me with inviting blue eyes. “Could you come here just a minute?”

Luna had been watching, first in puzzlement, then annoyance. “Hey,” she said. “I’m here as well.”

Lisa gave her a glance, then turned back to me. “Alex? Please?”

“Sorry,” I said. “We’re busy.” I took Luna’s hand and gestured to a pillar over the crowd, leaving Lisa behind. “That way.” We turned right around a buffet table and a cluster of people holding drinks.

Luna gave me a searching look. “Who was that?”

“Beats me.” I pointed towards the pillar. “We’re looking for an archway. It’ll be whitish, about seven feet tall. When you see it—”

“Wait!” Lisa called from behind. She was hurrying through the crowd after us, looking flustered. I rolled my eyes.

“Are you sure you don’t know her?” Luna asked, eyebrows raised.

I sighed. “You know, three days ago no one would have looked at me twice. This Mr. Popular act is getting old.”

A gap opened in the crowd and I spotted what I was looking for: the azimuth duelling piste. Two slender pillars rose at either end, silvery and delicate, looking like a pair of tuning forks. At our end was an archway of white stone, seven feet high. A mage in ceremonial robes looked up as we approached. “Hey. Looking to duel?”

“That’s okay,” I said. “We just need the annuller.”

The mage gave us a look, then shrugged. “Be my guest.”

“Duel?” Luna whispered once he was gone.

“Not a duel,” I said. I put one hand on the cool stone of the archway, and a faint silvery glow started to form across the opening. “Watch my back.”

Azimuth duels are an alternative to traditional mage combat, fought with focus weapons and intended to be nonlethal. Officially the Council frowns on traditional duels, though despite all their efforts traditional duels still carry a lot more prestige than azimuth ones. Annuller arches are focuses, designed to stop mages from entering duels with spells active. Activating one isn’t dangerous, but it’s demanding and requires absolute concentration. Any distraction can ruin the whole process and force you to start over.

Naturally, this was the point at which Lisa showed up again.

“You’re here,” she said, breathless. She was limping slightly; high heels aren’t made for running. “Um, could you—”

“Look, Lisa,” I said, not taking my eyes off the archway. “This is really not a good time for us.”

“Trust me,” Luna said, and I could tell from her voice that she was smiling. “You don’t want to get too close to me.”

“No, I—” Lisa took a deep breath. “I can’t.”

“Why not?” Luna asked. She didn’t sound sympathetic.

“My master wants to speak to him. He told me to invite him.”

“What master?”

“…Morden.”

The name sounded vaguely familiar, but I was concentrating on the annuller and couldn’t put a finger on it. I finished the spell and took a step back to look at the archway. It was humming softly, and I nodded. It would take a couple of minutes to charge. “Who?” Luna asked.

“You don’t know him?”

“No, I don’t. Why are you doing what he says?”

Lisa stared at her.

“It’s okay,” I said to Luna. “I already know what this guy wants.” I looked at Lisa. “The question is whether you do.”

“Uh…”

“She asked the right question. Why are you running errands for him?”

“I…” Lisa licked her lips. “Look, please, you have to come. He’ll be…”

“We don’t have to do anything,” Luna said in annoyance.

The hum from the archway stopped. I looked back and saw that a silvery mist was hanging inside it, glowing steadily. “Okay, we’re clear,” I said to Luna. “Step through.”

Luna gave the other girl a look, then walked to the arch. “Please, can you just come?” Lisa said in a low voice. She wasn’t trying to be seductive anymore; she just looked frightened. It actually made her a lot more convincing. “I’ve taken too long. He’ll be angry.”

I gave Luna a glance, then for the first time turned my full attention to the girl in front of me. “Look, Lisa. I don’t know who your master is, but I’ve got a pretty good idea what he is. If you really want my help, tell me what he’s planning.”

“I can’t do that!”

“Then I can’t help you.”

To one side, Luna stepped through the archway. There was a very brief flash, and then the archway was still again. Luna looked back at it curiously, then headed towards me.

“Please, can’t you come?” Lisa said. Her voice was pleading. “I’ll do anything. Just…”

I sighed slightly and looked her right in the eyes. “Okay. Leave him.”

“What?”

“I’ve been where you are.” I held Lisa’s gaze, holding her motionless, and spoke quietly. “I know why you’re doing this. I know why you think it makes sense. But trust me: you don’t want to stay there.” Luna approached and I turned away from Lisa, nodding to Luna. “Okay?”

“I think…” Luna said doubtfully. She looked at her hands. “I feel strange.”

“It’s a nullifier,” I said. Concentrating, I could see that the grey mist of Luna’s curse had briefly vanished. Now it was returning again, flowing out again and into my ribbon. “Grounds every magical connection on you, like earthing a power line. You’ll feel a bit out of place for a couple of days.”

“It’ll stop them from tracking me?”

I nodded and started walking, ignoring Lisa. “If we’re quick.”

Luna took one step, then halted, looking over my shoulder. “Um, Alex?” I felt her hand creep over and squeeze my forearm. I didn’t think she was aware of it; she was staring towards the centre of the hall. “Not quick enough.”

I knew what I was going to see before I turned to look. Cinder was striding across the floor towards us, a look of death on his face. The masked woman was at his side. They were fewer than twenty paces away.

You’re probably wondering by this point why I wasn’t shouting for help. Simple reason: if those three were willing to kill to get their hands on Luna, others would be too. Dealing with one team of wouldbe kidnappers was bad enough; I had absolutely no intention of adding to the number if I could possibly avoid it. The same went for them: I knew Cinder wouldn’t want to attract any attention either.

Unfortunately, depending on how pissed off Cinder was, there were plenty of ways he could ruin my day even in a crowd of people, and looking into the future, I could see that we’d succeeded in making him angry enough to use them. In one hand he was concealing a weapon that he was getting ready to use. He’d aim it at Luna the second she turned to run. I couldn’t see exactly what it would do, but I knew it would be bad…except that as I looked, I saw something else as well, something approaching steadily from the other side of the room. I straightened to face them. “Alex?” Luna whispered.

“Stall them,” I whispered back. “We need ninety seconds.”

“Verus,” Cinder growled as he came into range. “Should have kept running.”

“Who’s running?” I asked lightly. I stood slightly between Cinder and Luna. Lisa was off to one side, looking nervously between us, forgotten by everyone.

“No,” Cinder said. His voice was low and dangerous. “You won’t bluff me this time.” He opened one hand, half concealed down by his side, and dark fire flared up around his fingers, a red-black aura that caused the light to dim. “You twitch, I’ll burn you to ash. Let’s see you trick your way out of that.”

He wasn’t kidding; in dozens of the futures unfolding before us I could see Cinder lunging forward to do exactly that. But the very fact that he was willing to try something so crude was oddly reassuring—if he had anything else up his sleeve, he wouldn’t be making the threat. “You know, Cinder,” I said, “I hate to point it out, but there’s about a hundred people watching you.”

“No one’ll miss you,” Cinder growled.

“Wrong,” I said calmly. “Or haven’t you heard? I’m in demand these days.”

Uncertainty flickered in Cinder’s eyes, and he glanced quickly from side to side. People were watching; a lot of people. As Cinder saw that he was being watched, the future of his attacking faded. “You don’t want me as an enemy,” Cinder said, recovering.

“As a matter of fact, no, I don’t.” I crossed my arms, watching Cinder casually. “So make me an offer.”

The woman in the mask hadn’t spoken. She was standing a half step behind Cinder, letting him do the talking. But she was watching me, and through the eyeholes of the mask, her eyes were boring into me like needles. I had the uneasy feeling that she recognised me, and not in a good way. It felt as though she hated me and I didn’t know why. “Fine,” Cinder said, his voice dangerous. “I’ll buy the girl.”

I felt Luna stiffen. “Really?” I asked.

“Don’t,” Cinder growled. “You sell her. Usual price. Or we take her. And you.”

I looked at Cinder. Luna was still gripping my arm, and I could sense her nerves. I stood there, without answering, counting off the seconds. “Well?” Cinder said.

“She’s not for sale,” I said. “And actually, I’m not interested in any offer you could make.”

Cinder stared at me. “You said—”

“Oh, I was just wasting your time.”

Cinder just stood there for two seconds, and then his eyes flashed with insane fury as he finally lost his temper. Hellfire flared up inside his eyes, and his irises actually turned red. He took one step forward, his hand coming up.

A voice spoke from one side. “Good evening. Your attention, please.”

The man approaching was dressed in a black suit and an open-necked shirt. He had dark hair and was good-looking in a smooth, polished sort of way, like a politician. At first glance he looked young, no older than thirty or so, but there was an assurance to his walk that made him seem older. A brunette in a red dress was following him two paces behind, her eyes lowered submissively.

As soon as Cinder saw him, the flame around him vanished as though it had been plunged into water. He and the woman stood a little straighter. “Master Morden,” the woman said. Again her voice sounded familiar, but I was taken aback by the sudden caution in it. Cinder even dipped his head in reflex before catching himself.

Ever since Lisa had mentioned the name Morden, it had been nagging at the back of my mind. As I saw Cinder’s reaction, I suddenly remembered. It was the name I’d come up with to scare him off yesterday. Just the suggestion that I might have been working for Morden had made Cinder back off, and that set off warning bells. The only people to whom Dark mages show that kind of respect are Dark mages of higher rank. Much higher.

“Cinder, Deleo,” Morden said. His voice was cultured, pleasant. “I see Khazad isn’t with you. Is there a problem?”

“No,” the woman he’d addressed as Deleo said carefully. She stood quite still. “No problem.”

“Good. I was just speaking to Councillor Travis about the membership proposal. Negotiations are advancing. It would be…inconvenient for there to be any public disruptions at this time.” His eyes rested on the two Dark mages.

After a long pause, Cinder nodded. “Got it,” he said, unable to quite keep the growl out of his voice.

“Excellent. I have some things to discuss with Verus. You may go.”

Cinder shot me and Luna a venomous glance, and then, amazingly, he obeyed, turning and disappearing with Deleo into the crowd. I felt Luna’s hand tighten slightly on my arm, then she seemed to realise what she was doing and let go.

Lisa had been hovering nearby; now Morden looked at her. “Lisa. I think I told you to extend Verus an invitation?”

Lisa licked her lips. “Um…”

Morden nodded once. “We’ll discuss this later.” Lisa’s face actually went white, the blood draining from it. She stared at Morden with terrified eyes, but he’d already turned to us. “Verus, I believe? My name is Morden. If you can spare the time, there are some things we should discuss.” He glanced over my shoulder at Luna. “In private.”

I still didn’t know who this man was, but every sign was pointing to his being really bad news. “While I…appreciate it, Mr. Morden, I don’t think that would be advisable for me just now.”

“And why is that?”

Because I’ve already had one private interview with a mage willing to kill me, and that’s enough for one night. “Given the circumstances, I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to be seen leaving with you at present.”

“Really.” Morden studied me with his head tilted slightly. Behind his back, Lisa and the other girl were watching him nervously. I could feel the futures shifting and spinning.

Then suddenly they settled. “Then we’ll save our discussion for a later time.” Morden smiled. “I’m sure we’ll meet again.” He gave me a nod, then turned and left, the brunette in tow. Lisa gave me a single frightened glance and scuttled after. I was left standing on my own, staring after him.

“Um…” Luna whispered. “What just happened?”

“I have no idea.” I shook myself awake. “Cinder and that woman are still out there. Let’s move.”

“Now where?” Luna asked as we set off again through the crowd.

“Out.”

“We’re leaving?”

“I think we’ve pushed our luck far enough.” I checked and looked down at Luna. “Wait, are you disappointed?”

“Um…” Luna looked away, and I shook my head.

The ball was in full swing, and the hall was filled with the chatter of voices. A match was being fought in the duelling arenas behind us, and I could hear shouts and cheers. I could sense that Cinder and Deleo were still looking for us, and I shifted direction towards the angle where it was least likely they’d spot us. Beyond was a short flight of stairs leading up to an exit directly opposite to the one by which we’d entered. I took Luna’s hand and led her up the stairs. “Quick,” I said. “If we can get outside without them spotting us—”

I felt the futures shift and looked over my shoulder. Deleo had climbed up onto the sill of one of the fountains and was scanning the floor, her masked face lifted above the crowd. We spotted each other at exactly the same time and our eyes made contact with a jolt before she spun and started shouting something, her voice lost in the noise.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” I muttered. “Can’t they just leave us alone?”

“Let me guess.” Luna sounded resigned. “They’re chasing us again.”

“Change of plans.” I led Luna at a run up the stairs and into the foyer beyond. I scanned ahead quickly. The corridors to the right led to a bank of lifts that would take us down to the lower floors, but looking ahead I could see that Cinder was already moving to block off that direction. He and Deleo had split up and were trying to pincer us. It might have worked if I hadn’t seen it coming. “This way.”

“Are your nights out always like this?” Luna asked as we hurried down the corridor.

“Later, all right?” The corridor opened up into a wide corner room. Ahead and to the left, windows looked down over the night city, and in the corner was a lift made of glass. I walked inside and hit the button. The doors hissed shut and the lift began to climb. Below, I could sense Cinder and Deleo, but they were going the wrong way. By the time they realised we were going up instead of down it would be too late. I leant against the corner with a sigh. “All right. We’re safe for a while.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” Luna said. “There was someone near the dance floor called Talisid. He seemed like he really wanted to speak to you.”

“Yeah, I met him. Those guys interrupted us.”

“Well, maybe we can find him later.”

I looked at Luna in disbelief. She had turned away to watch the view, and I had to admit it was worth watching. The top set of lifts in Canary Wharf run along the edge of the tower, and unlike the ones that serve the office complex below, they’re designed for sightseeing rather than speed. The lift was drifting upwards at a lazy pace, and from our position we could look down on all of London. The landmarks of the city glowed in the distance: the square shape of Centre Point, the double red lights of the BT Tower, the shifting wheel of coloured light that marked the London Eye. The other skyscrapers of the Docklands were falling away below us. The sounds of the ball had faded away, and we were alone in a silent world.

“Luna?” I said at last. “Why do you want to be here?”

I felt Luna go still. “Don’t get me wrong,” I said. “You’re handling this well. Maybe a bit too well. Why aren’t you scared?”

Luna stayed as she was for a long moment, looking out over the city. “What would I be scared of?” she said at last. Her voice was light, and there was something strange about it.

“From these people? You want a list?”

“Do you know why I came looking for your shop that first time?”

I frowned. Luna was turned away, her fingers resting lightly against the transparent wall. “Why?”

“It was a few weeks before.” Luna didn’t turn to face me. I could just make out the outline of her face in the reflection off the glass. “On a Saturday. I woke up late. I’d been sleeping longer and longer, then. I lay there and I listened to the birds singing and I couldn’t think of any reason to get up. There wasn’t anything I was looking forward to. That day, that month, ever.” Luna fell silent a moment, then went on, her voice absent. “That was when I realised that if I didn’t do something I was going to die. Just from not caring.”

Luna looked down at the floor, not meeting my gaze. “I don’t have anything else,” she said quietly. “Your world is all I have. If that doesn’t work, nothing else matters.”

I looked at Luna, and for once I couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

The silence dragged out for a long minute, then Luna seemed to shake herself, and when she looked at me her face was normal. “What was going on back there? With that girl?”

“I— What do you mean?”

“Was she a mage?”

I threw off the weight of what Luna had just told me, stored it away for another time. Somehow I knew that right now, sympathy was the last thing she needed. “No. Probably not.”

“But you knew who she was?”

“I didn’t know her.”

“But you knew something,” Luna persisted.

I looked away. “You don’t want to tell me?” Luna asked.

“It’s not that.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s— Okay, it is that.” I looked away. “It’s something I haven’t had to think about for a long time.”

“That bad?” Luna asked in surprise. I didn’t answer, and she carried on. “Why was she acting like that? That girl, Lisa. She was acting like she was his…”

I was silent for a moment, looking out over London. We were above the highest skyscrapers now, but I didn’t see any of it. I was remembering a time long ago, the darkness in Richard’s mansion, Shireen and Tobruk, Rachel…

“Alex?”

“Remember how I said mages split everyone into other mages, and sheep?” I stared out over the lights of the city. “Well, there’s a thing about that. If everyone who isn’t a mage is a sheep, then the only kind of power worth having is over other mages.”

Luna was looking at me, and I could tell she didn’t understand. “Any mage can set himself up in the normal world. But he doesn’t get any respect. Status here is how much influence you have over other mages. Favours, position, contacts…other things.”

“Okay…” Luna said slowly. “That man, Cinder. Why was he talking about buying me?”

I knew Luna wasn’t going to stop until she got an answer or a flat no. I took a breath, then let it out, calming myself. “Dark mages like taking slaves,” I said at last. It was my turn not to meet Luna’s eyes now. I didn’t want to risk her seeing something in my face. “It’s like a currency for them. Even the ones who don’t use slaves keep them to sell to the ones who do. Any novice or adept without connections, anyone who isn’t powerful enough to look after herself…she’s got a good chance of ending up like that. Sometimes it’s even a choice. They serve one mage because if they don’t they’ll be taken by another. There are Dark mages who have dozens, like a business. They keep them in their mansions and bring one or two out for display.”

I fell silent. Luna had been staring at me. “What do they do with them?” she finally asked.

I met Luna’s eyes then. “Whatever they want.”

We were almost to the top of the tower, and the stars were bright in the sky above us. It was dark and quiet, and everything else was still.

“Alex?” Luna said. “Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to go home after all.”

I nodded. The elevator rose into a cage of steel and glass, and the door slid open. We stepped out into the night air.

We were standing on the corner of the tower, just at the point at which it angled in to form a pyramid. A small walkway with a transparent railing ran along the edge in both directions, stretching to the other two corners that we could see. Beyond the railing was a vertical drop, seven hundred feet straight down to the concrete below. Not the place to be if you were scared of heights. The double strobe of the aircraft warning light flashed from the pyramid right above us, dazzlingly bright. We were alone.

Luna watched as I took out the glass rod I used to call Starbreeze and whispered my summoning charm over it. “Alexander Verus calls you; answer my prayer, queen of the sky,” I finished, and tucked it away. Then I stared off into the distance, working out how long Starbreeze would be.

“Alex,” Luna said, pointing.

I followed her finger to see that she was pointing over the edge, towards the southwest corner. A dim light was moving upwards along the edge of the building, its glow just barely visible from our angle. It was already a third of the way up.

I sighed. “Deleo. Goddamn it, doesn’t that woman ever give up?” I scanned through the futures quickly. “Cinder’s still below. Probably in…yeah, he’s at the base of the lift. Waiting for us to double back.”

Luna looked out at the night sky, then down at the rising sphere, and I knew what she was thinking. “Deleo.”

“Hm?”

“You were wondering who’ll get here first, Starbreeze or Deleo. It’ll be Deleo.”

“Oh.” Luna thought briefly. “Do we run again?”

“Good plan, but no. Running from these guys too long is a bad idea. It gets them into the habit of chasing you.” I handed Luna the glass rod. “Stay out of sight. When Starbreeze comes, shout.”

“What about you?”

“Be a good girl and do what I say.”

“I’m not a good girl,” Luna said, but I could tell she was holding back a smile. She obeyed, backing off so that the tower pyramid was between her and Deleo’s lift.

Once she was gone, I went a little way out along the walkway. Despite how high we were, the air was quite still; the Council likes to keep everything scenic in case some of their guests feel like enjoying the view. Once I’d gotten far enough, I took a pair of gold-coloured discs from my pocket and laid them on either side of the walkway, one by the railing and one at the edge of the pyramid. Then I took a step back and waited.

It was a spectacular view. From the height at which I was standing, I could see virtually all of London. The air was cold and bracing, and I realised suddenly as I looked out into the night sky that I’d missed this. There’d been something missing from my life in Camden, something I’d discovered again in the past two days.

The glow of the lift vanished from the side of the tower, then appeared on my level, visible though the glass of the pyramid. As I watched, Deleo stepped out into the night air. She saw me, paused, then started across the walkway towards me.

I let her get within thirty feet before speaking the command word. The gold discs flared to life and a wall of force appeared, stretching from the discs on the walkway floor out past the railings, along the slope of the pyramid, and up into the air. It was invisible to the naked eye, but there was now no physical force in this world or the next that could cross that barrier.

Deleo came to a halt. Her hands had snapped up as I’d spoken, and now I watched her stare at me through the transparent wall, her eyes hidden behind the mask. As she came to a decision, green-blue light welled up about her hands.

“Don’t bother,” I said. “You could break it if you were on your own, but not with me boosting it from the other side.”

“It won’t last forever,” Deleo said. Her voice was soft and deadly, and again I felt the venom in her words.

“So let’s talk.” I folded my arms, watching her casually. “There’s some stuff I’ve been wanting to ask you.”

Deleo didn’t answer. “For a start, I’d like to know what your plans were for Luna,” I went on. “But I know you wouldn’t tell me the truth. So I thought I’d ask about something you seem to have more of a personal interest in.” I cocked my head. “Why do you hate me so much?”

Deleo stared back at me from the other side of the wall. The silence stretched out and I’d just opened my mouth to go on when she finally spoke. “You couldn’t stay away, could you?” Her voice was low, vibrating with some intense emotion: hate, pain, anger. “I knew you’d be back. It was always you.”

“Uh,” I said. “Okay, let’s try this again. Why—”

“Shut up.” Deleo’s voice was raw. “Don’t talk to me. It was your fault, all of it. Now you’re trying to do it again.” The light around her hands flared, brightened. “It’s people like you that always screw things up, always make it worse. If you were gone I could fix things. The ones who really matter.” Suddenly, she turned. “Stop it!”

I stared, following her gaze. Deleo was looking at empty air, out over the railings. I searched the area and saw nothing. “Um,” I said. “Look, if—”

“You’ve had the dreams, haven’t you?” Deleo asked. She sounded distracted, like she was carrying on two conversations at once. “I can see them. You haven’t escaped, no one does. It always comes back. I’m the only one who can break it.” She cocked her head, seeming to listen, then snarled. “Shut up!”

“Okay,” I said. “You know what, I don’t want to know anymore. You’re nuttier than a fruitcake. Just stay away from me.”

“You don’t understand.” Deleo’s eyes stared through me for a second, and then all of a sudden they cleared and she was focused on me again. “Give me the girl.”

“Uh, how about no?”

“You think you can protect her? You can’t. The only way she’ll be safe is with me.”

I actually laughed. “Oh, that’s different. I’ll just hand her over, shall I?”

In a quick movement Deleo stepped up against the barrier. Her left hand pulsed against the wall of force, sending ripples through it. “I won’t let anyone get in my way,” she said. All of a sudden, her voice was deadly calm. “You were always weaker than me. I know how to hurt you, Alex.”

Deleo and I stared into each other’s eyes from less than ten feet away. The barrier was starting to tremble; the amount of destructive force she was pouring into it was staggering. From behind I heard Luna’s voice, calling. “Alex! Alex!”

I stepped back. “Don’t come after me.”

“This isn’t over,” Deleo said. It sounded like a promise.

I turned and ran. Behind, I could hear the force wall whining under the strain. As I got around the corner of the pyramid, I saw Luna leaning over the railing and Starbreeze floating just beyond it. “Time to go!” I called.

“Go where?” Starbreeze asked curiously.

“Home!” I grabbed Luna’s hand. “Fast!”

“Okay!” Starbreeze engulfed us. In a flash we were turned to air and whisked away. Looking back, I had one glimpse of the barrier breaking in a blue-green flash before the tower was shrinking behind us. “No fun,” Starbreeze complained, her voice muffled by the wind.

“What’s wrong?” Luna asked.

“Nothing happened,” Starbreeze said, sounding disappointed.

The Docklands vanished behind us, their lights merging with the rest of London as Starbreeze lifted us higher and higher into the sky. Already we were far enough away to be invisible to anyone watching. “Trust me, Starbreeze,” I said as we banked and turned north, heading home. “It was exciting enough down on our end.”

Starbreeze dropped us on my roof, and I gave her something or other and watched her soar away. My shop was dark and quiet. All around, I could hear the sounds of the city again, distant and reassuring. All of a sudden, I didn’t want to deal with magic and mages anymore, I just wanted to be home and safe. “Want a drink?” I said, smothering a yawn as we walked through the hall.

Luna shook her head. Her dress was a little disarrayed, but it made her look better if anything. She seemed to be slowly coming down from a high. “Stay here for tonight, then?” I asked. “I think there’s a camp bed somewhere.”

“I think I should go.”

I looked at her, puzzled. Luna nodded down at my chest. “Look.”

I stared for a moment before realising. In the excitement, I’d forgotten about Arachne’s ribbon. I looked down to see that almost all of the white ribbon had turned black. Only an inch or so was left.

“I think my coach is turning back into a pumpkin,” Luna said, and I looked up in surprise to see one of her rare smiles. Somehow, though, this one seemed sad. “It’s okay. You said they can’t find me now, right? I’ll find a place to stay.” She moved to the door.

“Luna, wait!” I followed. “They can’t find you with magic, but they can still look. It’s not going to be—”

Luna turned and stepped into my arms, laying her head against my chest, one hand holding gently on to my coat. I stopped in surprise, looking down at her. “Thank you for tonight,” Luna said. Her body was cool, and she smelt of clouds and wind. “It was worth it.”

I started to put an arm around her. “Luna—”

“It’s midnight,” Luna said softly, and slipped away, hiding her face. Before I could react the door opened and closed, and I was alone. I heard her footsteps fading outside.

I stood there for a long time, then walked back to my desk and sat down. I untied the ribbon from my belt and held it up in front of me. Almost all of it had turned to black, and as I watched, the very last corner faded and darkened. The ribbon flickered once, then crumbled to dust between my fingers. In a second there was nothing left but a trace of black powder.

I sat looking at it for a long time, then went upstairs to bed.

chapter 8

I came awake into darkness. My chest hurt, everything was black, and the screams were still ringing in my ears. As I lay tense, my heart pounding, I realised it had been a dream. My flat was silent. I lay there for a few minutes, letting my breathing slow until my eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and then I rose and walked on bare feet to the window. Same old nightmares.

Once I was leaning out the window, taking deep breaths of the night air, I felt better. Being enclosed always reminds me of that time and I’ve learnt that an open sky is the best way to throw it off. I’ve always liked looking out my window at night; something about the density, all those thousands of pinpoints and every one a person or a family. I could tell from the murmur that it was about four o’clock in the morning. Camden is never silent, but this is the quietest it gets. I could hear the sounds of distant music filtering through the bridges and over the canal, but my street was still.

I don’t have many scars. Dark mages are quite skilled with methods of torture that don’t cause permanent physical damage. My chest still hurt though, a phantom pain. I rubbed at it until it faded and leant on the windowsill, looking out into the night. A three-quarter moon was high in the sky, casting London in a pale light that reflected off the rooftops.

For some reason, instead of Luna, I found myself thinking of the woman we’d left behind, Deleo. I was sure she was someone from my past; probably from my time with Richard. It’s hard to remember someone just from the sound of their voice, but I’ve got access to ways of looking that normal people don’t. I was pretty sure I could figure out who she was if I wanted to.

Except I didn’t. Yes, Deleo was after me. Yes, I could probably protect myself better if I knew who she was. But even that wasn’t enough to make me willingly take myself back to that place in my memory. My time with Richard is a place I’ve locked up in my mind; I don’t think about it and I don’t go back to it. Instead I ran through a brief exercise to clear my head, then when I was calm again returned to bed and fell asleep quickly.

When I woke again, morning sunlight was streaming through the window. It took me a moment to recognise the noise that had pulled me awake; it had been the sound of my letterbox. I went downstairs in my underwear and discovered that a small package had been dropped through the front door. I took it upstairs, scanning and opening it as I went, and unwrapped a roll of tissue to reveal a stylised stone key—a gate stone. It didn’t come with a note, but I already knew where it would lead.

I went back upstairs and checked the news. A footnote on the news sites mentioned that the British Museum was closed due to a fire. The Council has excellent connections with the British government. I went to make my preparations.

Choosing your equipment for a meeting with other mages is a tricky business. It’s a fine line between being prepared for trouble and being seen as the trouble. Visible weapons were obviously out. I really wanted to take my mist cloak, but given I’d been wearing it when I’d run from the Council reinforcements on Friday night, that wasn’t an option either. I was fairly sure that between my cloak and the confusion, none of the Council mages had managed to get a good look at my face. If they had, this trip was going to be eventful. In the end, I picked out a nondescript set of casual clothes with relatively few tools or weapons, hoping to appear as low-key as possible.

Once I was done, I hung the CLOSED notice on the door, checked my wards, checked to see if my phone had any messages from Luna (it didn’t), then went into the back room and activated the gate stone. A shimmering portal opened in the air and I stepped through. I could have walked to the museum in twenty minutes, but if I did that I’d have to explain how I knew where the gate stone was going to lead. Right now I was in the Council’s good books, if only because they needed me, but I didn’t think it would take much to change that.

I came down onto a polished white floor, my feet echoing around a wide room. I was back in the British Museum’s Great Court. The area I’d stepped into was marked off by ropes, and a chime rang in the air as I emerged.

The Great Court was mostly empty. The information desks and shops were deserted and most of the people I could see looked like Council security. A man dressed in brown and grey had been talking to two guards stationed at the entrance; now he finished up and walked over to me.

“Morning,” the man said once he was close enough. He was in his middle years, with iron-grey hair and a tough, competent manner. Although I’d seen him for only a few seconds, I recognised him. He’d been the one in command of the reinforcements, the one who’d shouted at Cinder to stop. I kept my expression relaxed and was relieved to see no recognition in his eyes. “Alexander Verus,” I said. “I’m looking for the leader of the investigation team.”

As I said my name, the man nodded. “You’ve found him. Griff Blackstone.” He offered his hand and I shook it. “Good to see you. Been asking for a diviner for weeks.”

Griff led me towards the Reading Room and the curving staircase up. Now that I had a chance to count, I could see there were at least a dozen Council guards around the Great Court, stationed at the doors and corners. There were no traces of Friday’s battle; the floor and stairs were neat and flawless. Earth and matter mages can repair stone so well you’d never know it had been damaged. “Tight security,” I said as we ascended the stairs.

“Need it. You heard about the attack?”

I looked at Griff inquiringly, which he seemed to take as a no. “Some team, Friday night. Broke through the barrier and set off the relic guardian. Hell of a mess.”

“How many were there?”

“Three, maybe four. Wish we’d gotten a good look at them.”

Glad you didn’t. “Are we clear for civilians?”

Griff nodded as we reached the top of the stairs. “Museum’s closed until further notice. Everyone you’ll meet’s been cleared.” The restaurant at the top of the stairs had been converted into a temporary headquarters, and a dozen or so mages were gathered there: the investigation team. They all stopped to watch as we walked in, and I could tell they knew who I was even before Griff introduced me.

Other mages have an odd attitude towards diviners. By the standards of, say, elemental mages, diviners are complete wimps. We can’t gate, we can’t attack, we can’t shield, and when it comes to physical action our magic is about as useful as a bicycle in a trampolining contest. But we can see anywhere and learn anything and there’s no secret we can’t uncover if we try hard enough. So when an elemental mage looks at a diviner, the elemental mage knows he could take him in a straight fight with no more effort than it would take to tie his shoes. On the other hand, the elemental mage also knows that the diviner could find out every one of his most dirty and embarrassing secrets and, should he feel like it, post copies of them to everyone the elemental mage has ever met. It creates a mixture of uneasiness and contempt that doesn’t encourage warm feelings. There’s a reason most of my friends aren’t mages.

So as I was introduced to the team I wasn’t expecting a big welcome, and I didn’t get one; polite neutrality was the order of the day. But just because I wasn’t making friends didn’t mean I wasn’t paying attention. It was the defences I was interested in, and from what I could see they’d been beefed up heavily. There were overlapping wards over the entire museum, both alarms and transportation locks. The roped-off area I’d gated into was probably one of only two or three spots still accessible.

Once the investigation team and I had finished pretending to be friendly, Griff led me into the museum, passing more guards on the way. The landing above held four guards instead of two, and the barrier had been strengthened now—it was an opaque wall blocking the top of the stairs. “Barrier’s pass-coded,” Griff said as we walked up the stairs. “Pretty much the only thing that went right for us. The mages who mounted the raid couldn’t get round the alarm. Had to set it off as they went in.”

“Uhhuh,” I said, studying the ward. The password had been changed and I made a mental note to spend sixty seconds or so and recrack it before I left. It’s funny, really. Even when people go specifically looking for a diviner, they still never seem to grasp what we can do.

The room inside was the same. The statue was still at the centre, the stone man looking forward imperiously with his hand extended, and I gave it a narrow look. If you’re going to build something that sets a lightning elemental on anyone who touches it wrong, you could at least have the decency to put up a warning sign or something. This time, though, there was company.

Another mage was examining the statue on his knees, a teenager in scuffed brown clothes. He had a mop of untidy black hair and a pair of glasses that he kept pushing up the bridge of his nose, only for them to fall back down again a second later. “Sonder,” Griff said, and the young man jumped to his feet, startled. “Diviner’s here. Show him around.” He turned to me. “You good?”

I nodded. “I’ll get to work.”

“Sonder’ll get you whatever you need. Tell me if you get anywhere. We could use a break.” Griff turned and walked back down the stairs, vanishing through the black wall of the barrier without a ripple.

Sonder scrambled to his feet. “Um, hi. Oh, you’re the diviner?”

“That’s me,” I said, looking around.

“I’m David. Everyone calls me Sonder, though.” Sonder started to extend his hand, then hesitated and stopped. “You’re here to look at it too? Oh—!” I had walked up to the statue, and Sonder hovered anxiously, not quite willing to pull me away. “Don’t put anything in the left hand!”

“Relax,” I said as I examined the statue. “I wasn’t planning to.”

“Oh good. The defence systems are really heavy. I mean, I haven’t actually seen them personally, but still.”

I gave a brief glance through the futures of my interacting with the statue and found that nothing had changed. Every future in which I put something in the statue’s hand led to the lightning elemental materialising in the middle of the room and trying to kill us. I took a look at the statue’s hands. While the left one was empty, the right one clasped an unmarked wand. I pointed to it. “This is what everyone’s here for?”

Sonder nodded. “That’s the fateweaver. It’s just a representation, though, the real thing is inside.”

“Uhhuh. Sonder? Maybe you could help me with something.”

“Really?” Sonder sounded surprised, but pulled himself together quickly. “Well, okay. I mean, yes. If I can.”

“Everyone keeps talking about getting inside this thing,” I said. “How?”

“Oh, right.” Sonder seemed to relax. “Well you see, the statue is the focal point for a Mobius spell. It’s one of the techniques that was lost during the postwar period, but one of the Alicaern manuscripts has a good description. A Mobius spell takes the section of space it enchants and gives it a half twist to bring it out of phase with reality. The ends of the enclosed space collapse inwards and join with each other to form a spatial bubble. Now, obviously, the natural result of that would be that the bubble would drift away, and of course once that happens there’s no way to reestablish a link, so you need a focus to anchor it to our physical universe. Once it’s been set up, there’s no way to find the bubble from anywhere in the universe except via the focus. We’ve actually discovered Mobius focuses before, but this is the first time…”

As Sonder kept talking, I watched him out of the corner of my eye. Now I took a closer look, I could see he was actually twenty or so; he just looked younger. He didn’t look like an apprentice, though—I pegged him as a new journeyman, still fresh out from under a master’s supervision. The ones outside had been less green. But were they tough enough?

There’s a reason Dark mages are feared. It’s not because their magic is any more powerful than its less evil counterpart; it’s because of the people who use it. Life as a Dark mage is savage and brutal, an endless war for status and power with shifting alliances and betrayals. The infighting is the reason Dark mages can’t unite; they’re actually far more dangerous to each other than anyone else, though it’s hard to remember that when one of them’s after you.

But the same infighting that weakens Dark mages as a group is also what makes them so deadly as individuals. Dark mages who survive to adulthood are the toughest and most ruthless people in the world. Light mages, on the other hand, live in a society where getting places is mostly about political skill, and most of the mages I’d met in the restaurant would have gotten on the team through having the right connections. Don’t get me wrong, politics among Light mages can be rough, but they play by rules. Dark mages don’t.

If Deleo, Cinder, and Khazad decided they really wanted to get in here, I knew who I’d put my money on.

“…so while there’s no way to test it, in theory there’s no actual reason why the gateway aspect of the focus would decay over time,” Sonder was saying. He paused, seeming to realise that I’d been quiet. “Um, Mr. Verus?”

“Just Alex is fine,” I said. “So what you’re saying is that this statue is the only door in, and it’s locked.”

Sonder hesitated. “Well, I suppose you could put it like that.”

“If it’s locked, what’s the key?”

“Well, that’s what the team’s been working on. The senior members are pretty sure it just needs the right type of key item placed into the statue’s hand. Unfortunately, um, there have been a few issues fabricating one.”

“Hm.” I gave Sonder a look. “Exactly how many times have they tried?”

“Uh…” Sonder scratched his head. “I’m not actually sure. I wasn’t allowed here until a few days ago.”

“And how come there isn’t anyone else around?”

“Ah, well…there were more when I arrived, but after they told me to try to figure out a way to get it open, they left. They told me to keep them up to date.”

“Ah,” I said. In other words, no one had the faintest clue how to open the thing. That was why Lyle had approached me on Friday—it was because the investigation team had tried literally everything else. I wondered how many times they’d set the lightning elemental off, and how many people had been killed or wounded before the mages had wised up and started keeping their distance. That was why everyone else was on the other side of the museum: they didn’t want to be in range if we became the next ones to trip the switch.

“You studied under an academic mage, right?” I asked Sonder. “What did you specialise in? Magical theory?”

Sonder blinked. “History, actually.”

“Do you know who this is a statue of?”

Sonder paused. “You really want to know?”

I nodded and Sonder seemed to light up. “Wow. That’s…You know, you’re the first one who’s ever asked me that.”

“Let me guess,” I said, as I walked around the statue, studying it. “The mages on the team just wanted to know if you could open it.”

“Yes. I mean…Um, well…” Sonder cleared his throat, a little self-conscious. “Well, uh, the robes are in the Late Precursor style, and the design is very similar to the surviving pieces of postwar sculpture. The others think it’s just a statue but”—Sonder pushed his glasses up, warming to his theme—“the very first thing I did was look through our records. Well, there wasn’t anything from the postwar period, but when I looked through our records of the Dark Wars I found it straightaway. His name was Abithriax, and he was a general in the Light armies.” Sonder pointed to the wand clasped in the statue’s hand. “You see, the fateweavers weren’t just weapons, they were also symbols of rank. Now, according to the records, Abithriax was killed in the closing months of the Dark Wars, just a few years before this must have been built. So I don’t think this relic was just built to store the fateweaver, I think it was built as a tomb.”

I frowned. “A general’s tomb…” I looked at the statue, proud and commanding. Somehow it felt right. “So you think they buried him with his weapon?”

Sonder nodded. “I think so. There aren’t any records I can find to confirm it though.”

“No, I think you might be right.” I stood thinking for a little while. “Sonder, can you do me a favour? Keep researching this. I’m not sure if it’ll help us get in, but it might be important once we do.”

“Oh. Um, yes, okay.” Sonder paused. “You think you’re going to get inside?”

“Yup.”

“How?”

“No idea.”

Sonder paused. “Then why are you so sure?”

I smiled. “Because so many people are after me. Give me some space; this might take a while.”

Sonder stepped well back and watched as I stood in front of the statue and closed my eyes. I stood quietly for a minute to clear my mind, then began methodically to look into the future.

The statue was the focal point of the room. I looked into the futures of my interacting with it and found it very easy. Every future in which I did anything to the statue, or placed anything in its hands, led to exactly the same result: the huge lightning elemental appearing in the middle of the room and attacking us. I was slightly reassured to notice that in none of the probable futures did the elemental get me. I was also reassured to notice that the future Sonder did a pretty good job of making himself scarce, too. He was obviously faster than he looked.

I settled down to the job of scanning through the futures one by one, looking for the future in which I activated the statue without triggering the elemental. It was slow, laborious work, and time dragged by as I stood there searching through the futures as they flickered and changed, looking for the one in which I did the right thing. I went through a thousand futures, two thousand, three thousand, trying every object, every action, every combination of spells. Nothing changed.

I was so absorbed that I actually jumped when my phone rang, snapping me out of my trance. I checked my watch to see that I’d been at it for two hours. Sonder was on the other side of the room, going through a stack of books. I shook myself awake and looked at my phone. The number was unknown. I picked up. “Talisid.”

“Hello, Mr. Verus,” Talisid’s voice said. “I’m glad you made it home safely.”

“I’d ask how you got my number, but I think I can guess.”

“And I’d ask how you knew it was me, but I think I can guess that too. Have you given any thought to our offer?”

I glanced to check that Sonder wasn’t within hearing distance, did a brief scan for eavesdropping spells, then turned away and lowered my voice just to be on the safe side. “What exactly are you offering?”

“Assistance. Starting from tomorrow, I’ll be present at the museum as official Council liaison. I’ll be able to help with any resources you require.”

“And what would you want in exchange for this generosity?”

Talisid sighed. “Let’s stop fencing, Verus. We want to stop any ambitious individuals from taking the fateweaver for themselves. If you can retrieve it and deliver it to the Council, that’s fine. If you can’t retrieve it, that’s fine too. Mostly, we’d like to resolve this with as few people killed as possible. Are you interested, or not?”

I was silent for a long time. “All right,” I said. “I’m not promising anything, but I’ll meet you to talk things over. Six o’clock at Centre Point?”

“That’ll be fine. See you then.” Talisid hung up.

Talisid’s call had broken my concentration. I turned back to the statue and started to slip back into my trance, then shook my head and stopped. This wasn’t working. If there was any remotely possible way I could activate this thing, I would have found it by now. I hadn’t, and that meant that with what I had here, it wasn’t possible.

I looked at the statue. Abithriax’s stone eyes stared back at me. The longer I looked at him, the more expression I seemed to notice in his face. He did look like a general, confident, as if he already knew he was going to win. I wondered if he’d been wearing that same expression when he died.

I remembered what Sonder had told me. The mages who’d built this thing had known what they were doing; tricking it wasn’t going to work. Maybe I was going about this the wrong way. Instead of trying to work it out by myself, I should take my cue from the people who knew more than I did. Levistus obviously thought I had a good chance of opening this door, or he wouldn’t have revealed so much, but he didn’t know for sure. Deleo, Cinder, and Khazad had made their own attempt on Friday night using a fake key, but it hadn’t worked. Then what?

Then they’d gone after Luna.

Luna…

And suddenly I got it. Maybe you’ve already guessed by now, and you’re sitting there wondering how I could take so long to figure it out. If you are, all I can say is that it’s a hell of a lot harder to step back and look at the big picture when you have to keep watching your feet for land mines. The relic key was Luna’s red crystal cube. And since Luna was the cube’s mistress, she’d have to be the one to place the cube in the statue’s hand.

It all fit. That was why Cinder had been willing to kill me when he’d come searching for me on Friday. He and Deleo hadn’t been able to find the cube so he’d intended to use my divination magic as a backup, never knowing that the cube was lying on the ground right in front of him. Khazad hadn’t known about the cube either and so he’d come after me, intending to press-gang me into service or kill me so that I wouldn’t help anyone else. After the failed breakin, Deleo and Khazad had followed the cube’s trail to Luna and tried to hunt her down in Camden, and when that had failed, all three had tracked her to the ball last night. I remembered Deleo’s words to Luna: “You have something that belongs to me.” They’d known Luna had been the one to take the cube…but they didn’t know that Luna had to be the one to open it, or they’d have just snatched her without asking questions. And that meant that right now, I was the only person who knew the secret to opening this door.

For a moment I felt a rush of excitement. But then, as I made the connection, my heart went cold. They knew the cube was the way in, and they thought Luna had the cube. They’d be doubling their efforts to find her. “I have to go,” I said, and started moving. Sonder said something, but I wasn’t listening anymore.

I passed Griff at the restaurant talking with another mage. He frowned, then followed me, catching me up as I hurried down the stairs. “Well?”

“I need something from home,” I said.

“What, right now?”

“Right now.”

Griff looked irritated and was about to argue, then stopped. “Fine. Just hurry up.”

As I left the museum, I was already working on plans. The annuller effect should keep Luna safe from magical detection, at least for now. But Deleo and Cinder had seen us by the arch so they’d know that too. I walked along the street, ticking off other possibilities. A really powerful spell could theoretically find Luna even through the annuller. Unlikely, but possible. A more serious threat would be if they switched away from using magic. There are plenty of mundane ways to find someone. Would Deleo be the type to think of that?

I reached a corner. A black cab was passing and I hailed it and jumped in. “Cla—” I started, then changed my mind. “Camden.” I’d need to get equipped first. The driver nodded and pulled away.

As the driver wound his way northwards through the London streets, I pulled out my phone and dialled Luna’s number. The first call rang and rang before going to a dial tone. I swore, hung up, and tried again. The taxi turned into Royal College Street; we were only a few minutes away from my home. I could tell that there was a chance of Luna picking up and I focused on the futures of her speaking to me, ignoring everything else, and so when the attack came I was caught completely by surprise. There was a surge of fire magic, a double bang as two tyres burst, and the taxi slewed left and hit a parked car at thirty miles an hour.

The next thing I remember is lying across the backseat at an awkward angle, my head spinning. There was blood in my mouth, and my eyes felt fuzzy. I struggled to a sitting position to see the driver slumped over his steering wheel. My phone was gone somewhere, I could hear a hissing noise, and through the cracked windows I could see white smoke. Shaking my head, I leant clumsily towards one of the doors, trying to get it open.

Before my fingers could find the handle, the door was yanked open from the other side. A pair of big hands reached in, grabbed me by my shirt, and dragged me out. I could hear voices and shouting in the distance, but all I could see through the smoke was the oval shimmer of a gate. Someone snapped out an order, and I was shoved towards the gate and through.

I came down on concrete with a painful thump. Twisting around, I saw other people following me through the gate. Three people. The gate shimmered and vanished, and I could see we were in some sort of warehouse. The man with the big hands bent down and hauled me to my feet again, and as my head cleared, I found myself staring into Cinder’s face.

“Not so smart now, you bastard,” Cinder growled.

I remember reading a book where some pretentious writer claimed there’s no moment of enlightenment more terrible than when you realise your parents are simple human beings. Personally, if you’ve grown up listening to your parents having screaming matches, realising that they’re simple human beings isn’t much of an revelation. In my opinion, the most terrible moment of enlightenment is the one where you realise you’re outflanked, outgunned, and a sitting duck. It’s a horrible sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach that can very easily be the last feeling you’ll ever have.

The room we were in was square and ugly with concrete walls, narrow slit windows high above the ground, and stacks of crates in the corners. It was empty but for me and the three Dark mages. Cinder was there, holding me almost off the ground, and Khazad, his small black eyes glinting. I’d been so focused on the call that I hadn’t been looking into the future for danger, and looking at Cinder’s face, I knew that it might just have cost me my life.

Cinder shook me hard enough to make my teeth rattle. “I’m gonna burn you to ash, Verus. I’ll make it slow, so you can feel it. I’m gonna make you tell me which part to burn off next.”

“No.” Khazad’s expression was more evil than Cinder’s, if anything. “Not till I’ve had my turn. He’s going to pay for that stunt at the ball.”

“Gonna ask you this once,” Cinder said, and pulled me close. “Where’s the girl? Where’s the key?”

“You know,” I said light-headedly, “I think you asked twice.”

Cinder hauled one massive arm back and smashed a punch into my face. If I hadn’t twisted it would have broken my nose; as it was it sent me back to the floor with stars flashing in front of my eyes. By the time they’d cleared, Cinder had dragged me back up again. He drew back for another go.

“Wait,” a third voice said. Deleo stepped in front of me. She was still wearing her mask, and her eyes watched me coldly. “Give him a second.”

Cinder glowered but obeyed, and a moment later my head cleared. Cinder’s grip was digging painfully into my shoulders; I didn’t think I’d have much chance of breaking it even without the other mages in front of me. “Using the annuller was very neat,” Deleo said once I’d gotten my breath back. Her voice was calm. “It stopped us from tracking down your girlfriend. So we decided it would be simpler to track you instead. We knew you’d go back to the museum. All we had to do was wait for you to leave.” She leant in close, her blue eyes staring into mine, and there was a sudden fire burning behind them. “I told you this wasn’t over.”

I looked at Deleo silently.

Deleo drew back, calm once again. “You’re leaving this warehouse in one of two ways. With us to where you hid that cube, or in a bag. Choose fast.”

I hesitated. Cinder grinned. Khazad was staring down at the floor. Deleo nodded. “Go ahead, Cinder. Start with his legs.”

“Wait,” I said quickly, trying to think. I needed time.

But as I spoke, Khazad did as well. “Something’s wrong.”

Cinder and Deleo looked at him, frowning. Khazad was staring around at the walls. “There’s something…” His head snapped around. “A ward. This place is warded!”

“They’re ours,” Cinder grunted. He didn’t relax his grip, and didn’t look pleased to be interrupted.

“Besides ours, you idiot! Someone’s been inside!”

“That’s impossible,” Deleo said. “No one could have gotten through the defences without us noticing.”

“And I’m telling you they did!” Khazad shook his head. “It’s too risky. We should kill him and go.” Black energy flared up around his hand, and I knew my time was up.

But before Khazad could strike, a voice spoke from one side. “Your attention, please.”

Cinder dropped me to the concrete with a thump as he spun around. A man with dark hair and dressed in black had stepped out from behind a pile of crates. It was Morden.

If Morden was bothered by the sight of three Dark mages a hair’s breadth from attacking, he gave no sign of it. “Good morning, all of you.” His voice was pleasant, and he held his hands clasped behind his back. “Cinder, Khazad, I’d prefer if you attempted no attacks.”

“You said it was clear!” Cinder hissed at Khazad under his breath.

“I said we should go! If you hadn’t screwed up—”

Deleo made a quick motion, and Cinder and Khazad fell silent. All three seemed to have forgotten me completely, their attention locked on Morden. “Master Morden,” Deleo said levelly. “I don’t think this is your concern.”

“Oh, don’t take it personally, Deleo.” Morden sounded quite friendly. “You’ve done very well. But now it’s time you came with me.”

“Thank you for the offer,” Deleo said, her voice carefully controlled. “The answer is still no.”

Morden smiled then, just slightly. “I’m afraid you’re under a misconception, Deleo. This time you’re not being given a choice.”

Deleo stood quite still. Khazad took a pace forward, and his voice was soft and deadly. Black energy flared around his right hand. “There’s three of us and one of you, old man.”

I craned my neck, trying to look around, but Morden seemed to be alone. I wanted to run but knew any movement would draw everyone’s attention. “Yes, yes,” Morden said tolerantly. “Bravado is all very well, but please realise you’re in no position to argue. Now, I’m quite impressed you were able to detect the carrier ward, but if you think for a moment you should realise there must be many more, and quite frankly, at your level of ability—”

“Shut up!” Khazad said with a snarl. “I can see your ward! It’s nothing!”

Morden sighed. “Do pay attention, Khazad. As I was saying, behind that ward are many others, and all of you are well within the blast radius. I’d prefer to do this peacefully, but—”

“Del,” Cinder rumbled.

Deleo hesitated, then made a swift motion. Cinder darted left, and energy flared up around Khazad as he drew back to strike.

The entire area vanished in a black wave. A light-eating pulse swept over all of us, nauseating and weakening and dazing me all at once. I felt my strength fade and crumpled to the ground.

There was a moment of silence, then as if from a distance, I heard Morden speaking. His voice seemed to be fading, growing fainter and fainter. “They always have to learn the hard way, don’t they? Pack them up and make sure they’re still alive.”

There was more, but I didn’t hear it. Blackness swallowed me, and everything went dark.

chapter 9

I opened my eyes.

I was lying on a warm bed in a small, comfortable room. The walls were panelled with wood. Furniture crowded the room, neat and expensive, and a fire was burning in a fireplace. To one side was a long window; although the room was well lit, the light outside was dim and rain streaked the glass. Something told me not to move, and I didn’t. Instead I lay where I was, letting my memory come back. I was wearing the same clothes as when I’d left for the museum. All I could hear was the faint crackle of the fire and the distant sound of the rain as it beat against the window.

I didn’t have the first idea where this place was, but I knew exactly what it was: the mansion of a Dark mage. I don’t know how I knew it was a mansion, or how I was so sure of who owned it. I just knew: memory and instinct, a feeling in the air.

When my relationship with Richard Drakh went sour—about the same time I realised how stupid I’d been agreeing to become his apprentice in the first place—I was imprisoned in his mansion. For all that time I was a slave, and I was treated like one. From time to time Richard or one of the others would spend some time with me, either to try to persuade me or, in the later months, just for amusement. Very occasionally I’d be taken out under supervision, when Richard had some job he needed me for, and it had been on one of those trips that I’d finally managed to escape. But the rest of the time, I’d been a prisoner.

Just like now.

It’s strange. Ever since getting away from Richard’s mansion, even after he was gone, the one thing that I’d been terrified of, more than anything else, was the thought of going back. Now it had finally happened, I wasn’t scared at all. It was more like a relief, as though something inevitable had finally arrived. What I felt more than anything else was the old alertness, that animalistic sense of danger. Everything but the present fades away and there’s nothing but surviving, one hour and one day at a time. I understood quite clearly that my mistake at the museum, allowing myself to be ambushed, had been the last one I could afford. This was my last chance.

I took stock. I was still wearing my clothes, and I was in a bedroom instead of a cell. I wasn’t injured and I couldn’t feel any bruises from the crash; I must have been healed. Adding it all up, that meant I was about to be offered some sort of deal, and that meant I had something to work with, at least for now. With that, I got up, moving my arms and legs to lose the stiffness.

The room was small and cosy, the walls made of some kind of reddish wood. Outside, I could hear the wind whining, though inside the air was warm. My pockets were empty, but piled neatly on the table beside the bed was everything I’d been carrying. I went through it and found it all there: my wallet, my weapons, even the gate stones.

Interesting. Even with my items, they didn’t consider me a threat. Good faith, or overconfidence? Or both?

Old instincts took over and I checked my lines of retreat, looking through the futures of myself trying to leave. The window was locked and warded. The door wasn’t. What about my gate stones…?

Ouch. An interdiction spell. I concentrated and a thousand versions of myself explored the room in a thousand projected futures, looking for a way out besides the door. There wasn’t one. I withdrew and nodded to myself: gilded cage. I could probably break the window lock given time, but for now it wasn’t worth the risk. I walked to the door.

It opened into a living room. Comfortable-looking sofas and chairs upholstered in red leather filled the floor, while paintings of ancient battles decorated the walls. A fire burned in a fireplace, and the room was warmly lit. Doors led deeper into the mansion.

Settled in one of the chairs, the light sinking into his black hair, was Morden. He had one leg crossed ankle to knee, and was reading from a folder. “Ah, Verus,” he said, not raising his eyes from the page. “I’m glad you’re up. Take a seat.”

I walked to one of the sofas facing Morden. Without even looking, I knew that my future depended on the decisions of the man sitting in front of me. Pissing him off would not be a good idea. Morden kept reading for half a minute longer, then nodded to himself, closed the folder, and looked up. “Good to see you on your feet. I hope you’re feeling better?”

I nodded. “Just fine, thank you.”

“Excellent. First of all, I have to apologise for the way you were brought here. I’d hoped to resolve things peacefully, but your three pursuers seem to have more persistence than sense and, well, you were in the blast radius. I took the liberty of making sure your injuries were healed. I hope there are no hard feelings.”

I’d gotten only a short look at Morden last night. His hair and eyebrows were jet black and he had the smooth good looks of someone who’d taken the time to develop them. Physically he could have been thirty, but his voice and eyes told a different story. If I’d had to guess I’d have said Morden was older than he looked, maybe much older. At the moment he was sitting easily, welcoming, and everything about his pose suggested hospitality. How much of that was true I’d find out soon enough.

Morden had been waiting for me to answer, and I finally spoke. “None,” I said. “You don’t need to apologise. Given the circumstances when you showed up, I’m grateful.”

Morden waved a hand. “As I told you last night, I had some business to discuss with you. As a matter of fact, this has worked out quite conveniently.”

I nodded, though my attention was only partly on Morden’s words. Ever since stepping into the room, I’d been looking into the future. Both Morden and the mansion around us radiated power but I couldn’t detect any immediate danger. It didn’t seem like he was planning to hurt me. At least, not yet.

“Well, then,” Morden said. “What do you want?”

“I’m sorry?”

“What do you want?” Morden repeated. He had a way of curving his lips up slightly as he spoke. It made it look as though he were smiling even when he wasn’t. “What are you looking to get out of this?”

“Out of what?”

“Come now, Verus. This affair over the Precursor relic and its contents. You’ve become involved, so obviously you must have some reason. What’s motivating you?”

“Well…right now, staying alive would be good.”

Morden shook his head. “Oh, I think you can do better than that.”

“Um, staying alive is a pretty big motivation for me.”

“If survival were your priority, you’d be in hiding like the other diviners. How is Helikaon, by the way? It’s a pity he’s decided to sit this one out. I always enjoyed working with him.”

I didn’t reply. “Let’s try this another way,” Morden said. “Who would you like to see gain possession of the fateweaver?”

“Depends what’s in it for me.”

Morden shook his head again, still smiling slightly. “That won’t fly either, I’m afraid. You aren’t a mercenary.”

“If you know so much about me,” I said evenly, “why do you need to ask?”

“Oh, I know your motivations. I’m simply curious whether you do.”

I stayed silent. “Did you know that we’ve met before?” Morden said. “Before last night? I expect you don’t remember; it was ten years ago. We met at a tournament. You were apprenticed to Richard at the time, but I recall you quite clearly. We spoke for a few minutes before you were called away.”

“You’ve got a good memory.”

“I was disappointed to hear that you and your master had fallen out,” Morden said. “Still, I wasn’t surprised when you reappeared. Most of the others assumed you dead, but I had always had the feeling you’d be back. You’re resourceful, Verus. It’s a quality I admire.”

I didn’t answer. In my time as Richard’s apprentice, I’d met hundreds of Dark mages, often briefly; it was quite believable that Morden had been one of them. What bothered me was how much he seemed to know. Dark mages tend to have good intelligence networks, but there were very few who knew all the details from that time. “We have a word for mages such as you, Verus,” Morden said. “Rogues. Mages who reject the tradition in which they’ve been trained. Most look down on them, but in truth some of the most powerful mages in history have been rogues…on both sides. Of those, several of the most famous have been ones who ended up rejoining the tradition in which they were raised.” Morden steepled his fingers and looked at me with raised eyebrows, as if waiting for something.

It took me a moment to get it. “Are you…suggesting something?”

“More of an offer, actually. Competent diviners are so rare. One of the reasons Richard went to such an effort to recruit you, and why he was so disappointed at how things turned out.”

Richard had gone to an effort to recruit me? He’d always acted as though it had been something casual. “I thought you said rogues weren’t highly thought of.”

“I believe in second chances.” Morden tilted his head. “It can’t have escaped your attention that you could use some allies. As things stand, you’re friends with neither the Dark alliance nor the council of the Light.”

“I wasn’t aware there was a Dark alliance.”

“At present?” Morden smiled. “If the fateweaver should be retrieved, I’m sure you can see how things might change.”

“Yes…” I said. “Listen, given that you seem to know so much about me, I’m assuming you know that my last association with Dark mages didn’t exactly end well. For any of us.”

Morden shrugged. “A certain degree of conflict is expected in the apprenticeship process.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

“Remember, Verus, you never completed your training. Disagreements such as yours are quite normal. Their purpose is to teach an apprentice the True Path. In your case, while events certainly didn’t go well, the end result would have been considered acceptable, I think. You’re a Dark mage in all but name already.”

“No, I’m not,” I said sharply. The words were out before I could think.

“It’s natural you should be unhappy at the comparison,” Morden said calmly. “You associate the name of a Dark mage with Richard’s behaviour. But being a Dark mage doesn’t mean being destructive or vicious. We don’t believe in evil for its own sake, or any of the silly propaganda that others spread. We simply recognise the truth—that all definitions of good and evil ultimately come down to points of view. You no doubt consider Richard’s behaviour evil. He would have disagreed. But think for a moment. How did you eventually survive?”

“On my own.”

“Exactly.” Morden pointed at me. “You didn’t waste time trying to convince Richard that you were right and he was wrong. You broke away with your own abilities.”

“I know what I did.” A part of me remembered that I shouldn’t piss Morden off, but it was getting harder and harder. “I was there.”

Morden simply watched. I took a deep breath and slowly regained my cool. “What are you trying to say?” I finally asked.

“I’m simply pointing out the obvious. You survived and escaped because you were powerful enough, which is, of course, what this is really all about. If you hadn’t, none of your beliefs would have mattered. Certainly the Council doesn’t seem to share your views about, well”—Morden raised an eyebrow—“anything, really. I’m sure you know they’re never going to accept you. They didn’t employ you for this job until they’d exhausted literally every other alternative, even though you were more than qualified. So, once again.” Morden looked at me pleasantly. “You’re an enemy of the Council; you live on your wits and your power. Effectively, you’re a Dark mage in all but name—except for one thing.”

Morden raised his eyebrows as if inviting me to ask what it was. I didn’t. “A true Dark mage has purpose,” Morden went on once it was clear I wasn’t going to speak. “Those who lack purpose are pawns to those who do not. Which brings us back to our original question. What do you want?”

“What do you want?”

Morden smiled. “I want the fateweaver, of course. That’s hardly a secret. The question is who you want to get it.”

I started to answer and realised suddenly that I didn’t know. I’d been so busy manoeuvring between the different factions over the last two days that I’d never stopped to think of whom I actually wanted to win. And why should I have thought about it? It wasn’t up to me.

Except now I did stop to think, I realised it was up to me. Enough of the pieces of the puzzle had ended up in my hands that I could make a difference. Morden was right. Until now I’d just been reacting, being pushed around by one faction or another. If I was going to get out of this in one piece, I’d have to stop reacting and start acting. And that meant figuring out exactly what I wanted.

I sat thinking for five minutes. Morden didn’t rush me, waiting patiently while I worked out what I was going to say.

“What are you offering?” I said at last.

“Consider the position that of intelligence officer,” Morden said. “I think it’s a role to which you’d be well suited.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“Come now, Verus. I know money doesn’t motivate you.”

“I wasn’t talking about money.”

“Ah.” Morden tilted his head. “Well, for one thing, you’d get to stay alive. You listed that as your primary goal, I believe.”

“You’re going to have to do better than that.”

“You are aware I could kill you at any time?”

“Very,” I said. “But you haven’t, which means at the moment you’ve got a reason not to. You could tell me to follow your orders or die, and I’d have to do as you said. But threatening a diviner doesn’t work out very well in the long run. Not if you’re planning to rely on the information he gives you.”

Morden studied me for a moment. I knew from looking into the future that he wasn’t going to follow through on his threat, but something in his eyes still made my skin crawl. Suddenly he smiled. “Very well, then. What I can offer you is safety. As long as you’re working for me, neither you nor any associates you bring with you will be harmed, by either side. I think you’ll find my security quite impressive. You’ll also have whatever you can find from the site, bar the fateweaver itself. Of course, your team members will have their own shares.”

“Team members?”

“So then.” Morden leant back in his chair. “Tell me how to open that relic.”

I felt the futures shift into a series of forks. I took a long look at the options ahead of me and saw the consequences of answering one way or the other. “With a key,” I said at last.

“What does the key look like?”

“A cube of red crystal.”

“How does it open the door?”

“You place the cube in the statue’s hand.”

“Do you have it?”

I paused. “Yes.”

A beat, then Morden nodded, and I felt the flicker of a minor spell. A second later, the far door opened and a young man walked in.

He couldn’t have been older than his early twenties, but no one looking at him would call him a boy. He was tall and slender, smooth-moving in a way that suggested speed, and his eyes were cold. I’d never met him, but I knew exactly what he was: a Dark Chosen, a selected apprentice. He would be fast, ruthless, a combat veteran despite his youth, deadly with his magic or without it. He was holding something in one hand, and as he came and stopped by Morden’s chair I saw what it was. It was Luna’s red crystal cube, the same one I’d left locked away in my shop.

“Let me introduce you to Onyx,” Morden said. “He’ll be looking after you during your stay. Do feel free to approach him if there’s anything you need.”

I looked at Onyx and he looked back at me. The expression on his face suggested that anyone who approached him could expect to have their throat cut. “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said.

“Excellent. Onyx?”

Onyx stepped forward and held out the cube. I lifted my hand and he placed the cube into it. Morden nodded to him and with a final glance back at me Onyx turned and left, shutting the door behind him as he went. “A gesture of good faith,” Morden said with a smile. “I’m afraid the defences on your shop need some work. We’ll have to look into getting you some better accommodation once this is over.”

I looked at the cube, feeling its presence in my hand, patient and still. “So as you can see,” Morden said, “I now have everything I need—with your assistance, of course. We should be moving within a day or two; please consider yourself my guest until then.” He rose to his feet and moved to the other door. “This way.”

I slipped the cube into my pocket, then got up and followed Morden into a long hallway. Pictures and rugs lined the walls, but I was too busy looking ahead to notice. Morden had known about the cube from the start; his questions had been traps. If I’d lied, the consequences would have been ugly. But I still had one edge, a secret that I was almost sure Morden didn’t know. The cube would work only for Luna. If Morden tried to open the door with the cube, he was going to get a nasty surprise.

It would be a very good idea for me not to be around when that happened.

“You’ll be working with Onyx on this assignment,” Morden was saying. “Along with three others.”

“These others,” I said. “They wouldn’t be Cinder, Deleo, and Khazad, would they?”

“As a matter of fact they would.”

“Ah.”

“I’m confident you’ll be able to resolve your differences.”

“We’re going to meet them?”

“Just Deleo.”

“And the other two?”

“Unfortunately they’ve proven…less accommodating. They should be in good condition by tomorrow.” Morden smiled. “However, I’m sure you and Deleo will have plenty to talk about. First, though, I think a reintroduction is in order.” He opened one of the doors.

The room inside was dimly lit. It looked oddly familiar and it took me a second to realise what it reminded me of: the room in Canary Wharf where I’d met Levistus. Just like there, a handful of chairs faced a full-length window made of one-way glass. But my attention was fixed on the woman standing in the centre of the room. It was Deleo, except this time, as she turned to look at us, she wasn’t wearing her mask. And this time, I knew who she was.

I stopped dead in the doorway. “I believe the two of you know each other?” Morden said.

Both of us stared at each other in silence. “Well,” Morden said eventually. “I have a disciplinary matter to attend to. Let me make it clear that I will not accept any internal fighting. Both of you work for me now. If you prove unable to cooperate, one or both of you will be replaced. Understood?”

Neither of us answered. “I said, is that understood?” Morden asked, steel creeping into his voice.

“Yes,” I said. The woman facing me nodded.

“Good. Oh, and please stay here until I return. You’ll understand why shortly.” The door clicked shut behind Morden and the room was silent.

“So it was you,” I said at last.

Deleo—not that that was her real name—spoke for the first time. “You didn’t even recognise me, did you?”

“If you’d called yourself Rachel, I would have.”

She looked away. “That’s not my name anymore.”

Silence fell again as I went back to staring at Rachel. It’s a strange feeling, seeing someone after so long. When I’d first known Rachel, she’d been a teenager, pretty and thoughtful, always changing. In her face I could still recognise the person she’d once been, but her face was immobile now, masklike. She was striking, even beautiful in a cold way, but pretty didn’t describe her anymore.

There had been four of us, back then. Me, Shireen, Tobruk, and Rachel. Tobruk was dead. Shireen was probably dead. Rachel’s fate I’d never known. After that last battle, I’d never heard from her and she’d never come looking for me. I’d forgotten her, buried her in my memory along with everything else that had happened back then. Until now.

“Why the mask?” I said at last.

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Is this how you’ve been keeping yourself busy? Treasure hunting?”

“And you’ve been running a shop,” Rachel said contemptuously.

I shrugged. I can’t say I like mages looking down on me for my day job, but I’m used to it. “Running a shop or treasure hunting…it seems to have led us to the same place.”

Rachel didn’t answer. “Just out of curiosity,” I said, “what were you planning to do with me and Luna after you got into that relic?”

“Whatever I wanted.”

“Modelling yourself on our old teacher?”

“Fuck you,” Rachel snapped. “We had you. You could never beat me.”

“I wasn’t trying to beat you,” I said. Rachel made a disgusted noise and stalked to the end of the room, her back turned.

Despite the violence in Rachel’s words, I couldn’t sense any danger. With her mask off she seemed a different person. I could also tell she wasn’t going to answer any more questions, so I walked to the one-way glass and studied what was beyond.

The room on the other side of the glass was a torture chamber. Three small barbed cages were lined against the far wall, not quite tall enough to stand in and not quite wide enough to sit in. A rack was in one corner, and there was also a vagrant’s chair and an iron maiden with its spikes just visible inside its half-open doors. In pride of place, at the centre of the room, was a ten-foot-tall agoniser. Its straps and metal plates had been polished, ready for use.

Although Morden’s torture chamber was well-equipped, I couldn’t help but notice that it was a little on the primitive side compared to Richard’s. Richard had gone to special effort to select devices that inflicted pain without causing physical damage, so that they could be used over long periods of time without need of a healer. Maybe Morden was the old-fashioned type.

By the way, if you’re getting creeped out by my discussing the pros and cons of torture chambers, I’m not surprised. Just trust me when I say you’d understand if you’d ever been there. Treating it like it’s something normal helps make it less scary.

Of course, when you’re treating torture chambers as something normal, that’s also a sign that you should seriously reexamine your life.

“Just like old times,” I said. When Rachel didn’t reply, I looked at her. “Did Morden put you in there? Or was it just Cinder and Khazad?”

Rachel looked at me without expression. I leant back against the wall, watching her. “You wouldn’t take orders from anyone, back then,” I said after a pause. “You were the one in charge, that was how you sold it. Now one day and you’re following Morden? What changed?”

Rachel turned her back on me again. For a moment I thought she wasn’t going to answer, then she spoke. “A lot of things changed.”

“One thing hasn’t.” I smiled slightly. “We’re supposed to be working together again.”

“No.” Rachel turned to me. “I never wanted to see you. I wouldn’t have, if Cinder hadn’t sniffed you out. Then you had to get involved with that girl. Why couldn’t you hide like the rest? Just looking at you makes me—” Rachel clenched her fists and took a breath. “I hate you more than I could ever hate Morden. He’s just another man. You’re—”

Rachel trailed off. “I’m what?” I asked.

“You’re a memory,” Rachel said, her voice low and intense. “Every time I look at you I have to remember. Stay away from me. I’ll kill you if that’s what I have to do to stop seeing your face.”

The sound of an opening door made us both turn and look. From the other side of the one-way glass, three people had entered the torture chamber. As soon as I saw them I understood what was going to happen, and why Morden had told us to stay.

Morden was at the front. Behind him were the two girls who’d been accompanying him at the ball: Lisa and the brunette. The brunette’s face was blank and she was pulling Lisa along by one wrist. Lisa was crying and begging, tears streaming down her face. Despite the one-way glass, we could hear everything she said clearly. “No, Master, please. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll do anything. I didn’t mean to. Master, please, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t. Don’t put me in there. Master, please—”

There’s a kind of horrible fascination to these things. Even when you know what’s going to happen, something makes you look. I’d seen what was going to happen, knew how this was going to end, yet somehow I found myself staring through the one-way glass. To one side, I was conscious of Rachel standing motionless, watching as well.

As the other girl started strapping Lisa into the agoniser, Lisa stopped pleading and just started crying. “Lisa,” Morden said. “Do you understand why you are here?”

Lisa mumbled something. “Louder, please,” Morden said.

Lisa sniffed. “Dis—disloyalty.” Her voice was shaky.

“To whom?”

“To you. Please, Master, I didn’t—”

Morden raised a hand and Lisa fell silent. The other girl had finished with the straps, leaving Lisa spread-eagled. “This is the punishment for disloyalty,” Morden said. He looked at the brunette and nodded. The other girl’s face was still blank. She turned and activated the device.

I’m not going to describe what an agoniser does. You don’t want to know. After the first sixty seconds I couldn’t watch anymore. Lisa’s voice gave out somewhere around the second minute, but she still kept trying to scream.

Rachel didn’t look away. She stood by the window and her face was so still it could have been carved from marble. The light of the agoniser lit up her face in reflected blue-and-white flashes. She didn’t move throughout the whole thing, standing like a statue.

When it finally ended, Lisa was a weeping heap of bloody rags. Morden said something that I didn’t listen to while the other girl took Lisa down and led her out of the room, supporting her to keep her from collapsing. Morden switched off the lights as they left. He hadn’t looked through the window at us once. After the screams, the silence was frightening.

“Morden likes sending messages,” I said at last. My voice sounded strange in my ears. I don’t think Rachel heard the tremble, but it was a near thing.

“You think that was a message?”

I looked at Rachel. “The ‘punishment for disloyalty’?”

“That was half of the message,” Rachel said distantly. “That’s what he’ll do if we upset him. If we betray him”—Rachel looked at me with cold eyes—“he’ll just kill us.”

We were shown back to our rooms and I was left alone in the small bedroom in which I’d woken up. Outside, the rain was still coming down, and night had fallen. All I could see through the darkness and the rain was the dim outlines of trees. The room was warm and cosy, keeping out the cold, but I knew the shelter was an illusion. You might freeze to death outside, but you’d still be safer than in here.

At last I had a chance to think. I walked up and down the small room, collecting my thoughts as the rain beat against the glass and the last traces of light faded from the sky.

If nothing else, at least I finally understood what had been going on. There had been two puppetmasters from the beginning: Levistus and Morden. Everything that had happened traced back to one of them. Levistus’ pawns were the investigation team; Morden’s were the three Dark mages. Levistus had control of the site, but Morden had the key.

And what about me? Somehow I’d managed to get myself hired by both. I was safe only as long as Levistus and Morden both thought I was on their side. That would last until Morden made his move and took control of the Precursor site. At that point, Levistus would decide I’d betrayed him as soon as I was seen with Morden’s troops, and Morden would decide I’d betrayed him as soon as he tried the key in the statue and woke up the lightning elemental for another round. At which point I could expect both of them to put me on their hit list.

It comes as a bit of a shock when you stop to take a look around and realise just how badly you’ve managed to screw things up, especially when all your decisions seemed like good ideas at the time. Within a few days, two of the most powerful mages in England were going to want me personally and painfully dead.

So what was I going to do about it?

Staying faithful to either Levistus or Morden wasn’t even worth considering. Morden’s little speech had left me cold; I’d made the mistake of swearing fealty to a Dark mage once, and there was no way I was doing it again. And Levistus had made it very clear that he would keep me around exactly as long as I was useful and not one second longer. Both would be happy to have me killed as soon as the fateweaver was in their hands, assuming the other didn’t do it first.

Running wasn’t an option either. I had no idea where I was, nor how far this mansion’s wards reached; any attempt to break out would be a roll of the dice even without the guards and defences. A better plan would be to wait until we set out and try to slip away. With my magic, I could probably pull it off…but all that would earn me would be assassins in my footsteps. Neither Levistus nor Morden struck me as the forgiving type.

Force was out; so was alliance. I turned it around and looked at the problem the other way. What did I have going for me?

Knowledge. I was the only person in the world who knew how to open that relic. Morden knew about the key and maybe Levistus did too, but I was the only one who knew that Luna had to be the one to turn it. But what I could learn, others could learn. Right now I was the only one who knew, but no secret this big could stay a secret for long.

So how could I use it?

Snatches of the conversations I’d heard in the last two days floated to the top of my memory. Arachne saying how seers carried great power in times of conflict. Levistus talking about fateweavers, how commanders had carried them in the Dark Wars. Morden talking about action, purpose.

It’s hard to know exactly where ideas come from. Pieces of thought and memory assemble at the back of our minds, creating something more than the sum of their parts. I think it was then my plan started to come together, but only as something vague and shadowy. All I knew was that I needed to talk to Luna, but there was no way I could reach her.

At least, not in body…

I looked into the future: for this to work, I’d have to be sleeping at the same time that Luna was. Luck was with me, and after only an hour, I knew that now was the time. I lay down on the bed and relaxed my muscles, letting the warmth soak into my body. Night had fallen and the only light in the room was the flickering glow of the fire. My eyes drifted closed, and as I began to fall into a slumber I took my mind beyond dreams, to somewhere else. Beyond…beyond…Sleep came.

chapter 10

I was back home, standing on the balcony outside my bedroom window. Before me was Camden…or what looked like Camden. The street and the bridge and the houses were the same, but everything was brighter than it should be, the colours suffused with white. The air was still, without a breath of wind, and the canal reflected the sky like a mirror. There was no sun—the whole sky seemed to glow. The city was so silent that you could have heard a car starting from miles away, except there weren’t any cars. This wasn’t London. This was Elsewhere.

Elsewhere is a world, but it’s not a place. It’s empty, yet you seem to meet someone no matter where you go. You can’t travel to it in the flesh, only in dreams, but the things that happen can be real, and the creatures you meet play by rules you can’t understand.

Even the most powerful mages are reluctant to travel to Elsewhere. Things live here, phantoms who can wear the faces of friends and enemies long dead, who try to trick travellers away from the paths home until they’re lost to wander forever…or so the stories say. Others claim that Elsewhere is an illusion, a reflection of your own mind, and all you find here is what you bring with you. Still others say that Elsewhere is the place where the world of the living meets the world of the dead, and that from here you can cross from one to the other. I don’t know if any of the stories are true. What I do know is that there have been mages who’ve gone to sleep, intending to reach Elsewhere, and never woken up.

I turned and walked into my bedroom. The desk and wardrobe held items, glinting invitingly, but I didn’t stop to take them. I took the stairs down to the ground floor of my shop. By the time I reached my front door, the world outside had changed: instead of the Camden street, the door now opened onto a courtyard of cracked white flagstones. I stepped out and heard my footsteps echo around the walls. Windows looked down from balconies on all sides and an archway led off into what looked like another courtyard. I glanced back to see that my shop had disappeared. Behind was only a blank wall.

The courtyard led into a long arcade, open on both sides to what seemed like an endless expanse of paved stone. The light from the sky shone down brightly, making it hard to see. There were white birds scattered across the flagstones—doves. They cast no shadow and were difficult to make out in the dazzling light. The nearest one must have been a hundred yards away, but the place was so silent I could clearly hear the scratch of their claws on the paving stones. I kept going along the arcade until I saw a wall ahead of me, and a door. The door was made of wood and was the only colour against the white stone.

Through Elsewhere you can touch other people’s minds, speak to them in their dreams and draw them into Elsewhere as well, though it’s safer for them than it is for you. This door would lead into Luna’s dreamscape. Whether to enter would be up to her.

The sound of chatter and voices washed over me as the door swung open, shockingly loud after the silence. Inside was a ballroom filled with people, mingling and talking. The room was lit by chandeliers, but it seemed dark after the blinding light of the courtyard outside. I had to shield my eyes, squinting, as I waited for my vision to adjust. The people inside wore evening dress and feathered masks that hid their eyes. All were in couples, one man to one woman, dancing, embracing, walking, their arms interlinked, leaning together to talk.

A moment later I saw Luna. In that whole vast room, filled with couples, she was the only one walking alone. She wore no mask, only a simple white dress, and no matter where she went, the couples around her pulled away without seeming to see her. All around her was a wide empty space, and as Luna walked slowly through the crowd, the space moved with her. “Luna,” I called, then again more loudly, “Luna!”

Luna looked up, and all of a sudden the figures froze, falling silent. The only sound was Luna’s feet on the wooden floor. She blinked. “Alex?”

“It’s me. Come here.”

Luna obeyed, wending her way through the statues. As she did the men and women seemed to fade, and an instant later she was walking across an empty floor. Luna didn’t seem to notice. Her wavy hair was down instead of up in bunches, and as she stepped out into the courtyard and shielded her eyes, I saw that she was barefoot. It gave her a lost, vulnerable look. “I thought this was a dream.”

“This is Elsewhere,” I said. The arcade had vanished, as had the door. We were alone in a vast, open arena. The birds had stayed, perched here and there amidst the flagstones. There was a bench of white stone nearby and I sat on it. Luna followed, looking around wonderingly.

“If it’s a dream, I’m glad,” Luna said as she sat. She stared out across the dazzling stone, squinting. “But this doesn’t feel like a dream anymore.” She held up a hand and stared at it, then touched it to the bench and looked at me. “Is it real?”

“Yes,” I said. “No. I’m real, you’re real. You’ll remember everything when you wake up.”

“What about…?” Luna made a movement towards herself.

It took me a moment to figure out what she was saying. I shook my head. “No. You don’t have to worry about hurting me, not here.”

“Really?”

I nodded, and Luna sighed. She scooted across on the bench and leant against me with a contented noise. “Luna?” I said in surprise.

“Don’t go,” Luna complained, closing her fingers drowsily on my coat. “Dreams are the only place I can do this.” She let out a breath. “I had a horrible day.”

I hesitated, then put an arm around Luna and leant back. What the hell, it was just a dream. “What happened?”

“They came after me,” Luna said. “Deleo and Khazad.”

“When?”

“This morning. They nearly caught me. Then I saw Deleo get a phone call and they vanished.”

“Was it about noon?”

Luna nodded, and I understood. That phone call had been Cinder telling them I’d left the museum. “You ran away?”

“My phone said you’d called. I tried to call back and I couldn’t get through.” Her hand tightened on my coat. “I didn’t know what had happened.”

I sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to be worried.”

“It’s okay,” Luna said, her voice drowsy. “As long as you’re all right.”

“What about that other man?” I asked. “Talisid.”

“Oh, him. He was trying to get in touch.”

“Did you talk to him?”

Luna shook her head, her face still hidden against my coat. “I didn’t know if I could trust him.”

I smiled. “Good girl.”

“I’m not a good girl,” Luna said. From the sound of her voice I could tell she was smiling, and I smiled too.

We sat in silence for a little while. “Alex?” Luna said eventually.

“Hm?”

“Do you ever wish you were little again? That you didn’t have to grow up?”

I thought of my years as a teenager, all the things I’d done wrong leading up to my fateful decision to sign up with Richard. “No,” I said. “Never.”

“I do,” Luna said. “It wasn’t so bad when I was young. I could be with people. It was only later…” Luna fell silent, leaning against me. I could feel her weight, see the wave in her hair. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet. “I nearly let them catch me.”

“What?”

“Deleo. Khazad.”

“What?”

“I just wanted it to stop.” Luna let out a long, sighing breath. “I was thinking it wouldn’t be so…bad, being a slave. Then it wouldn’t be my fault anymore. I wouldn’t have to worry. It made sense, then…”

“No! Luna, listen to me.” I took Luna’s arms and turned her around to stare into her eyes. “You don’t understand what you’re saying. You do not know the kind of things that Dark mages do to the people they get their hands on. You don’t want to be held by them, ever. Do you understand?”

Luna swallowed, took a breath. “It wouldn’t be my fault. I wouldn’t have to know it was because of me—”

“No. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

Luna’s voice strengthened suddenly. “Yes, I do.” She tilted her head up, staring at me. “I hurt everyone near me. Everyone. Even being close…It won’t stop, it’ll never stop. The longer I live, the more harm I’ll do. Wouldn’t it—” She took a breath. “Wouldn’t it be better if I were gone? No one would miss me…”

I held Luna’s gaze for a long moment before speaking quietly. “I’d miss you.”

Luna kept staring at me, then her eyes filled with tears and she started to cry.

I sat there on the bench. Luna buried her face against me and kept sobbing, her shoulders shaking as she drew in shuddering breaths. I found myself stroking her hair, talking to her quietly, but that only made her cry harder. Somehow I understood that Luna needed to do this, that this must be the first time in years that she’d been able to. I didn’t rush her, letting her cry herself out.

At last Luna’s tears ran dry. “Better?” I asked as she sat up.

Luna nodded, sniffing. “I’m s-sorry I’m so useless.”

“You’re not useless.”

“Yes, I am. I’m not a mage like you are. I just keep myself safe and make everyone else worse.” Luna looked up at me with reddened eyes. “Why do you even want me around?”

I let out a sigh. “Okay, Luna? Stop it. I need you for something. You’re not useless, and if you don’t show you’re not useless, I’ll be dead within the week.”

Luna stared up at me. “What?”

I told her, then, everything that had happened and everything I’d pieced together: how it had been Levistus and Morden all along, why Deleo and the others had been after the cube, how she was the only one who could open the relic, and where I was now. “And that’s how it is,” I finished. “Morden’s going to make his move in a couple of days, and once he breaks through to that statue he’s going to find that it won’t open without you. If I don’t have something to pull out of my sleeve by then, I’m sunk.”

Luna sat for a few seconds taking it all in. “But what are we going to do?”

“That’s where you come in. You still have a way to get in touch with Talisid, right?”

“Yes, but—” Luna slumped. “Alex, I can’t do this. I can’t use magic, I don’t know anything. All I do is run away.”

“You wanted to get involved before.”

“I thought the one who was going to be in danger was me!” Luna looked up at me in distress. “I’ve never done anything useful since I met you. I just get you into more trouble. What am I supposed to do against these people? I can’t…”

“Okay,” I said. “I’m going to tell you something important, so listen closely. It’s something most mages never learn at all. The most powerful weapon you have is your mind. Magic doesn’t mean anything unless you know the right way to use it. You’re already involved—you don’t have a choice about that anymore. What you do have a choice about is whether you’ll help me. What’s it going to be?”

Luna looked back at me for a long second, then she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and seemed to straighten. When she opened her eyes again she looked more like the girl I remembered. “Tell me what to do,” she said, and her voice was steady again.

I explained. It didn’t take long.

By the time I was done, Luna’s eyebrows had climbed almost into her hair. “Are you sure this is a good plan?”

“No, it’s a pretty crazy plan. But if we run they’ll just chase us. Levistus and Morden will want me to get them into the relic, and once they figure out that you’re the only way in—which they will, sooner or later—they’ll be after you too. This is the only way I can think of that gives us a chance to get them both off our backs.”

Luna was silent, and I could see her turning it over in her head. “What should I tell them?” she asked. “The mages at the museum?”

“Talisid should be there,” I said. “Talk to him. He made it pretty clear he didn’t want anyone else getting hold of what’s behind that door. Tell him Morden’s planning an attack and you’ll have his attention. But there’s one thing you have to keep secret: that you’re the only one who can use the cube. That’s our ace in the hole. Don’t let it slip to anyone.”

Luna sat a little while longer. “What about you?” she asked at last.

“I’ve done this before. I’ll be fine.”

“What if you’re not?” Luna asked quietly.

“Morden needs me to get through to the fateweaver. As long as he needs me, he’ll make sure I stay alive. It’s what happens when he stops needing me I’m worried about. That’s why—”

“What if you’re wrong?”

I let out a breath. “Then it’s all going to come down to you after all.”

Luna met my gaze, and there was something painful in her eyes. “Alex—”

And suddenly we weren’t alone anymore. Elsewhere changes with who’s in it, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I felt the shift. I looked around to see that the plaza was empty and the birds were gone. “We’ve stayed too long.” I got up, pulling Luna to her feet with me. “Back through that door.”

Luna hesitated, and I dragged her along, forcing her to hurry beside me. “Wait!” she began.

“You need to get back.” We’d reached the door, and I pulled it open; beyond was the ballroom, dark and empty. “Remember: Talisid, the items, the plan. Don’t forget.”

“Alex!” Luna tried to pull back. “What’s coming? Let me—”

I pushed Luna through the door and slammed it before she could react. Instantly the courtyard was silent. Luna was safe now, back in her own dreams. I took a breath and turned.

The girl walking across the plaza towards me was nineteen years old, and she was dressed in the same clothes she’d been wearing when I’d last seen her. That had been almost ten years ago. She’d been nineteen years old then, too. Smaller than Luna, with short dark-red hair, she looked a bit like a small furry animal, full of energy and movement. I didn’t move as she approached and came to a stop a little way away. She watched me with a smile, one hand on her hip, waiting.

“Shireen,” I said at last, and let out a breath. The name sounded strange to my ears; it was the first I’d spoken it in a long time. “So you’re dead after all.”

“C’mon, Alex,” Shireen said with a grin. “When I didn’t call for nine years, that should have been a big clue.”

We stood looking at each other. When I’d known her, Shireen had so often been angry, except for that last time. She didn’t look angry now; she looked at ease. “What happens now?” I asked after a moment.

“Up to you.”

I paused, then shrugged and walked past her.

Shireen fell into step beside me. “What, you’re not going to ask me anything?”

“I’m curious,” I said. “I’m just not sure what you are.”

“I thought diviners knew everything?” Shireen laughed. “Okay, how about some proof? Let’s see…How about the time we met? Wait, I know. I could tell you the time you finally turned against Richard. I remember exactly when it happened.”

“No thanks.”

Shireen sighed. “When did you get so serious?”

“Right now, I want to leave.”

“Then where are you going?”

I started to answer, then looked around and stopped. The arcade had ended, and the building Luna had vanished into was gone. Instead, we were on a walkway running above a deserted city. On either side, stairways led down to dusty streets, stretching off into the distance. Buildings with empty windows were below, silent and still.

I turned to Shireen. “Where’s the way out?”

“Up to you.”

I hesitated. On either side, flights of stairs led down into the city, while ahead the walkway seemed to go on and on into nothingness. I didn’t like the look of the streets below. I kept walking forward.

Shireen kept pace beside me. “Why are you here?” I said, once it became obvious she wasn’t going to say anything.

“I need to talk to you about Rachel.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. She doesn’t even call herself that anymore.”

Shireen shook her head. “You don’t understand. She’s what you could have been.”

“Yeah, well, I paid the price for that.”

“You paid the price once. She has to do it every day.”

I sighed. “What are you trying to say, Shireen? You want me to feel sorry for her?”

“It’s not about feeling sorry for her.”

“Then what is it?” I came to a stop and rounded on Shireen. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m prisoner of a Dark mage who’s basically Richard except not so nice. He wants me to play for his team, and my teammates are three Dark mages who each hate me for completely separate reasons. Even if I manage to keep all three of them happy—which I won’t—Levistus and that invisible assassin of his are going to want me dead for switching sides. Every one of those people I just listed could kill me if they tried, and every one of them has a reason to do it. All together, there is a really good chance I’m going to be dead within a couple of days. So I don’t have time for this, okay? I need to get out of here.”

Shireen had stood quietly. Now that I’d finished, she spoke again. “Why are you here?”

I turned away and started walking again. Shireen followed. “Because someone up there hates me,” I told her. “How should I know?”

“But it was your choice.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You could have been safe,” Shireen said. “Helikaon told you. Why did you stay?”

“Because I’m an idiot. Leave me alone.”

“You knew what you were doing.”

“If you know so much, why do you keep asking me?”

Shireen didn’t answer, and I stopped and looked at her. “Fine. I stayed because of Luna.”

As I said the last word, I felt something shift. I looked around and realised that the walkway had been steadily descending until it was level with the city rooftops. Ahead, it sloped down to street level, ending in front of a mansion. A familiar one.

Shireen spoke into the silence. “It’s in there.”

Slowly, I walked towards Richard’s mansion. It was exactly as I remembered it, right down to the cracked stone at the doorway. I came to a stop in front of the double doors.

“Why are you stopping?” Shireen asked from behind me. “Are you afraid?”

I stood silently before answering. “Yes.”

We stood looking at the doors for a minute. The city was quiet, expectant, as though holding its breath. “I swore I’d never come back here,” I said at last. “When I escaped.”

“But you didn’t. Not really.”

I turned in surprise to see that Shireen was looking up at me seriously. “You never really got away. That’s why you have the dreams every night. You live alone, you don’t get close to anyone, the only human friend you’ve made is a girl who can’t be touched. Morden was right, you know—you are still living like Richard taught you.”

I looked back at Shireen in silence. “What does that matter?” I said at last.

“Because Morden was wrong, too. You’ve protected yourself, but you’ve protected others as well. You risked your life to try to save Luna. You’re not a Dark mage. You shouldn’t live like one.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Shireen sighed and looked away. “Alex, I was nineteen when I died. I didn’t live very long, and I made a lot of bad choices, and by the time I figured out which choices were the bad ones it was too late. I just want something good to come from it. I’ve tried with Rachel, but she won’t listen to me anymore. There’s still a bit of what we had inside her, but it’s so…twisted now that when I try, it just makes her angrier. You’re all that’s left. I don’t want everything I touched to be evil. Please.”

I looked down at Shireen. “What do you want me to do?” I said at last.

I saw Shireen close her eyes for a second, her shoulders going limp with relief. “The way out is in the mansion. It’s in Richard’s study. Walk towards the door. Once you step into the room, don’t turn aside for anything, no matter what you see. If you take even one step to the side, you’ll never be able to leave. You’ll be trapped there forever.”

I nodded.

“There’s one last thing. It’s a message for you. I had to go to a dragon to learn it. You have to remember it word for word.”

I nodded again.

“This was the message. ‘At the end, in the light of the stars, trust in your friends and forgo the greater power for the lesser.’ ”

“ ‘Forgo the greater power for the lesser…’” I frowned. “That came from a dragon?”

Shireen nodded. “I don’t know what it means, but I know it’s important. It cost me a lot. Don’t forget.”

“I’ll make sure.” I looked at Shireen and felt a tug of odd feelings. “It really is you, isn’t it?”

“No.”

“But you…” I trailed off. Shireen was shaking her head, and there was something sad in her face.

“I’m only a shadow,” Shireen said. “I can look like her and I can feel like her and I can think like her, but she’s gone. Soon I will be, too. I’ve only lasted this long because of her.”

I looked at Shireen a moment longer. It was a strange feeling, looking at her through an adult’s eyes. I’d grown, but Shireen was still the same, frozen as she’d died. “I’m glad I could see you,” I said at last.

Shireen smiled. “You’ll see her again. Sooner or later.”

And with that, she was gone. All of a sudden, Elsewhere felt much emptier. I was alone in the empty city but for the mansion brooding behind me.

I took a look around, then drew a breath. “All right,” I said to no one in particular. I walked up the steps to the mansion doors and pushed. They opened at my touch. I stepped inside and they swung shut behind me.

Inside was utter blackness. Spots swam before my eyes after the brightness of the outside. I stood still for a long moment before lights started to appear, brightening ahead and above. As they grew stronger I saw that I was in the entrance hall. Magelights hung from the walls and ceiling, but they seemed dimmer than they should be. Shadows clung to the corners and beneath the tables and chairs.

The mansion was silent, but it was a different silence than outside. Outside had felt empty; this was the silence of something watching and waiting. I wanted to freeze, stay still and hide. The first step was the hardest. The second was easier.

As I walked, I heard whispers at the edge of hearing. The house was the same, but different. Doors that should have been there were missing, walls were bare or blurred, tables the wrong shape or size. This was the mansion my mind had rebuilt in my dreams. One part, though, was perfect: the door at the end of the first-floor corridor, the entrance to Richard’s study.

I nearly stopped then. Even though I’d been awaiting it, that simple wooden door sent a stab of fear through me that made my limbs grow heavy, and I stumbled. Only the memories of Luna and Shireen kept me going. A little bit of me screamed and ran. The rest kept walking. I pushed the door open.

The room inside was different from the rest of the mansion—it was clear and detailed, a perfect replica. A fire burned low in the fireplace, merging with the dim lights to shroud the room in gloom. The floor was covered in a thick, soft carpet, muffling sound so that it took me a second to realise that the fire made no noise. Books in shelves lined the walls. To the left was an oaken desk, covered with papers. My eyes flicked to the armchair behind the desk, but it was empty. A pen was laid upon a scattering of papers, its cap still off. Although the room was silent, it didn’t feel empty. It felt as though something were waiting for me.

On the opposite wall, ten paces away, was another door. It was ajar just a crack, and a sliver of light spilled through. It was swallowed quickly in the gloom, but that patch before the door was the only light in the darkness. The sense of something watching was stronger, but the door was right there in front of me.

I stepped forward, and—

The schoolyard was damp and cold, grey skies a reminder of the rain already fallen and a sign of more to come. Despite the damp a scattering of teenagers were in the yard, boys bragging and laughing while girls looked on and giggled. One boy was standing apart, leaning against the wall, arms folded as he stared. He was in his midteens, with spiky black hair…and he was familiar, too familiar. Looking at him made me pause, confused. I knew him, but—

Then all of a sudden it clicked into place. I was looking at myself, eleven years ago. The boy leaning against the wall was me, and the building looming into the grey sky was my last school. With a rush the memory came back. I remembered this day.

Muffled footsteps on the concrete made my younger self look up. A man was approaching, an ordinary-looking man with an ordinary, forgettable face. The kind of man your eyes flick over without ever really noticing. “Hello Alex.”

“What do you want?” my younger self said.

“What do you want?”

“I want to be somewhere else instead of in a school I hate with a bunch of bastards like them.” The younger me jerked his head towards the children in the yard.

“Is that all?”

“It’s a start.”

“And then?” The man tilted his head slightly. “What if you could have anything at all? What do you really want?”

My younger self looked up in surprise. He’d been play-acting, not expecting to be taken seriously. “Okay,” he said, and I knew he was paying attention. “What I really want? I want to be so powerful that I don’t have to care about idiots like them. I want to be so far above them they can’t even touch me. Can you get me that?”

The man looked back at him and then suddenly smiled, an amused smile that didn’t touch his eyes. “Yes, I can.”

The younger Alex stared at him. “Who are you?”

“My name is Richard Drakh.” He kept smiling as he looked down. “But you can call me Master.”

—my foot sank into the carpet. I looked from side to side, confused. The room was empty, quiet. But I hadn’t imagined it. That had been the day I’d met Richard for the first time, as real as when I’d been there. To one side, the fire burned; to the other, the chair sat empty. Cautiously, I took another step—

The living room was warm and still. Richard was sitting in an armchair by the fire, and around him four children made a semicircle. The two girls were on the sofa, side by side. Shireen had been braiding Rachel’s hair and now was watching with a frown, while Rachel was wide-eyed and curious. The younger me was in a smaller armchair to one side. It was only a few weeks after that first meeting with Richard and I looked much the same. I was sitting with my feet curled up underneath me, and the position gave me an oddly childlike look that was out of place with my sharp eyes. And leaning against the mantelpiece, slightly apart from the others, was Tobruk, the firelight catching his whimsical smile.

“The True Path is power,” Richard was saying. His voice was deep and magnetic, powerful; no one who heard him speak would ever think him ordinary again. All four of us were staring as though hypnotised, caught up in his words. “Power to build and power to destroy. You have your magic, but true power does not come merely from being born with the gift. True power comes from one place only: your inner self. Strength, determination, force of will: these are what distinguish a Dark mage, a True mage, from a dabbler. To be willing to rise higher or sink lower than your enemy, to know that no one is above you…that is the True Way. Your greatest enemies are fear and compassion. Both are weakness, and weakness is death.” Richard’s eyes swept slowly across the four of us: from Rachel to Shireen to Tobruk to me. “I do not expect all of you to succeed. Some will prove weak, in body or mind or will, and if you have a weakness I will find it. But those of you who earn the right to call yourself Dark mages, who become disciples of the True Way, will be power incarnate. Lessers will speak of you in fear and envy. No one will be able to stand against you, and your words will be as the voice of God.”

The room was silent. Then Tobruk stirred. “When do we start?”

“Now.”

I was back in the study. Looking around, I saw I’d taken only two steps across the floor. I was seeing my life as Richard’s apprentice, a step at a time. I didn’t know how long had passed, but I knew I needed to keep moving. I stepped forward again—

This time I was ready for the shift. I was looking at myself, Tobruk, Shireen, and Rachel, a few months later, back in the living room but without Richard this time, talking and planning. It was our first assignment and we were working together, but I didn’t listen to the voices this time; I made my body take another step forward.

The scene blurred and steadied. Now we were outside, the setting sun painting the red rocks of a sandstone canyon. “This was your idea,” Tobruk was saying, bored.

“But…” My face was uncertain, frowning. “We don’t need to do this.”

“So?”

My stomach twisted as I remembered what was about to happen. I didn’t want to watch this. Another step—

The living room with the four of us again, but this time the cooperation was gone. Tobruk and I were arguing, Shireen chipping in. Tobruk’s dark eyes flashed as he talked over me, and Rachel watched doubtfully, looking between us. The door opened, cutting us all off, and—

The visions came faster, blending into each other. Dissent and suspicion. Shireen and Rachel shifting step by step. Shireen angrier, Rachel desperate. My encounters with Lyle and the Council. Richard above it all, seemingly oblivious. Plots in the darkness. Deception, fear. Discovery.

And then, suddenly, everything was steady. A younger me, maybe a year older than the first time, was standing in a corridor of dry, cold stone. Next to me was a girl, thin and barely able to stand, leaning on me with bloodstains on her tattered clothes. Both of us were staring at Richard, who was standing just a little way ahead, Shireen, Rachel, and Tobruk behind. “You knew?” I was saying, and I sounded stunned.

“Oh, Alex,” Richard said. “Don’t confuse not knowing with not caring. I was willing to let you lie to me right up to the point where you disobeyed a direct order.”

I saw my younger self lick his lips. “You don’t need her. There’s a way—”

“It’s not about her. It’s about you.” Richard held out his hand and beckoned. “Give her to me.”

The girl looked from Richard to me, eyes wide in fright. I hesitated.

Richard sighed. “That, unfortunately, was your last chance.” He shook his head. “I warned you not all of you would make it. Tobruk?”

Tobruk stepped forward with a grin. “Hey, Alex. Guess you’re not top of the class any longer.” He snapped his fingers and black fire ignited, leaping forward—

I came down with a gasp. I was back in the study, but I’d crossed the floor. The door was in front of me, within touching distance. One more step and I’d be through.

A voice spoke from my left. “Long time no see.”

I knew who it was before I looked. Tobruk was leaning back in Richard’s chair, his feet propped up on the desk. He looked exactly as he’d been when I’d last seen him, a good-looking teenager with dark skin and a mobile, mischievous face. His mouth was smiling, like always. His eyes weren’t.

“That’s not your seat,” I said at last.

Tobruk grinned. “Richard’s through that door. Don’t worry, you’ll find him. All you have to do is step through.”

I looked back for a second, then nodded. “Okay.” I started forward.

“Oh look, what have we got here?” Tobruk pulled his feet off the table and reached down to drag a girl up by her hair. It was Shireen. Her eyes were closed, and she was breathing shallowly; cuts and scratches crisscrossed her face. Tobruk held her up long enough for me to see her, his fingers tangled in her hair, then tossed her forward to slump across the desk, her head hitting the wood with a thunk. “So what do you think I should do with her?”

I stood still. “What if I burn some of her fingers off?” Tobruk asked. He shook his head. “Nah, that’d be a waste. I think I should screw her first. She always was a good lay.”

“Stop it,” I said, my mouth dry.

Tobruk grinned. He settled back into his chair and spread his arms wide, inviting. “Make me.”

I wanted to dive for him. Instead I took a deep breath and fought the anger, controlling it. When I spoke at last, my voice was steady. “The only place I’m going is through this door.”

“You think I care?” Tobruk shrugged. “You’re coming back sooner or later. Matter of fact, I kind of want you to run into Richard again.” He grinned again. “Course, if you want to speed things up…”

I looked down at Shireen’s unconscious body. “What did she do to you?” I asked.

“She didn’t do anything.” The grin vanished from Tobruk’s face and he leant forward over the desk at me, his eyes suddenly filled with hate. “I was going to be Richard’s Chosen. Two years of clawing to be better than the rest of you, and all for what? So you could stab me in the back like a coward. My whole life was a waste because of you! My whole life!” Suddenly Tobruk flashed into flame, becoming a skeleton wreathed in dark fire. It lasted only a second, and then he was human again. Smoke curled from the chair. Where his hands had been splayed on the desk, charred handprints were burnt into the wood.

The two of us stared at each other. “I did a lot of things I shouldn’t have while I was here,” I said at last. “A lot of them I don’t like to think about. But you know what?” I held Tobruk’s gaze, dropping my mask, letting him see that I was telling the truth. “Killing you was the only thing I ever did from that time that I don’t regret at all.”

Tobruk glared at me a second longer, then snorted and dropped back into the chair. “Yeah, whatever.”

I turned to leave.

“Oh, Alex?”

I paused for a moment, then looked back.

“Richard’s going to find you,” Tobruk said. He was smiling again. “When he wakes up he’s going to go looking for you. Then he’s going to find you and then he’s going to hurt you and then you’re going to die. And when you do, I’ll be waiting for you. Make sure you stay alive till then, Alex. I’ll be really disappointed if you let any of those guys kill you instead. I want to see your face when you meet him.” He gave a mocking wave. “Be seeing you.” He turned towards Shireen.

I didn’t wait to see what he was going to do with her. I stepped through the door, pushing it open. There was a moment of blinding, unbearable light, then—

My eyes snapped open into darkness. It was warm, and I was back on the bed in the room in Morden’s mansion. I looked quickly through the futures just to make sure that I was really back, then I got up. The lights in the room had gone out, and the fire was cold. Outside, starlight glinted off the leaves. I stood by the window for a while, looking out into the night, before returning to bed.

chapter 11

A lot of people think of captivity as something glamorous, but the truth is, being a prisoner is mostly just boring. No matter how sadistic the guy in control of you, he can’t focus on you twenty-four hours a day. He’s got other things to do, and while he’s busy, you’re going to be sitting alone. After a few weeks, it can get to the point where you almost welcome a visit, just for a little human interaction. When I’d been Richard’s prisoner I’d passed the time by practising divination; I couldn’t reach outside the walls, but I got to know every square inch of that room. I learnt some weird skills that way. Even now I can pick up anything from a pencil to a tennis ball and hit a target first time, every time, looking into the future to see exactly how I need to make the throw. If I ever give up being a diviner, I can always make a living playing darts.

So the following day as Morden’s “guest” was just like old times. The door to my room wasn’t locked but I didn’t go wandering; I didn’t want to ruffle any feathers. Instead I sat in the chair with a book, and anyone watching would have seen me barely move all day except to turn a page.

But just because I wasn’t moving didn’t mean I wasn’t busy. Within two hours of sitting in that chair I knew the entire layout of Morden’s mansion, everything from the basement to the attic. My future selves roamed through the mansion, wandering, exploring, trying things, and everything they learnt, I learnt: everything from how the food was prepared in the kitchen to what would happen if you pulled the levers on the first floor. By noon I’d discovered four routes by which I could escape the mansion (with varying probabilities of success once I got outside), five places in which I could hide with little chance of detection (in the short term, anyway), two ways in which I could set off a small civil war between the mansion’s various inhabitants (for the record, in all the futures I saw, Morden’s side won), one way to destroy the mansion completely along with most of the people inside it (including me, unfortunately), a way to cause the mansion and most of the surrounding countryside to be overrun with intelligent giant badgers (don’t ask), and one half of a process for creating crystals capable of absorbing cold- and ice-based magic (which would be very useful if I had a spare couple of weeks and if I were worried about being attacked by an ice mage, neither of which was true).

That’s the thing about being a diviner. You learn a vast amount of information, of which ninety-five percent is completely useless.

Anyway, it was the people I was interested in. It didn’t take me long to confirm that Cinder and Khazad were here with Rachel, confined in the west wing. Lisa was there too, recovered enough to be able to move around. In a few of the futures, I tried to talk to Lisa; she avoided me or fled. Morden’s message about disloyalty had sunk in. It left a bitter taste in my mouth. It’s one thing to know why most slaves of Dark mages stay that way; it’s another to watch it happen.

But despite everything, I was as focused as I’d ever been. For years I’d been trying to forget my time as Richard’s apprentice, locking it up and burying it deep in my memory. The journey through Elsewhere had shattered that, bringing it all back—but now that I’d faced it, I found to my surprise that the fear had been worse than the reality. It had hurt, yes, but it had been like cleaning out an old wound, and as I looked back I realised that it didn’t scare me the way it once had. I’d gotten stronger since then.

Onyx came into my room in the late afternoon. His cold eyes rested on me as he dropped something onto the table with a clack. “Put it on.”

The item on the table was a bracelet, made of some kind of black metal. I took a second to look at the consequences of saying no, then picked the thing up and locked it around my right wrist. The metal had an ugly, unpleasant feel to it, but it vanished as soon as it snapped shut.

Onyx waited a second, then flicked a finger. The bracelet flared with black energy, and a bolt of terrible agony shot up my arm, locking my muscles, like an electrical shock but worse. I lost my breath in a gasp and went down to one knee with a thud. My heart raced, and I took several deep breaths before looking up shakily at Onyx, steadying myself with one hand on the floor.

“Higher levels cripple or kill,” Onyx said. “Want to see?”

I took a breath. “No, thanks,” I said, my voice hoarse.

“We leave in two hours,” Onyx said. He turned and left.

I waited for his footsteps to fade away, then dropped the act, returned to the chair, and started work on the bracelet. It was the same design Richard had used, which made things simple. Once I was finished, I settled down to wait.

The sun was dipping towards the horizon when Onyx returned. He jerked his head in a command to follow, and I obeyed.

The morning room was wide, with one whole wall made entirely out of French windows that looked out onto the flowers of the garden. The light of the setting sun streamed in, mixing with the reflection off the leaves to light the wooden floor in yellow and gold. A table stood in the middle of the room, covered with maps. Morden was behind it, and standing in front, in a sullen group, were Cinder, Rachel, and Khazad. Cinder and Khazad glowered at me; Deleo/Rachel didn’t. Lisa and Morden’s other slave girl (whose name I’d learnt was Selene) stood at opposite ends of the room, their eyes cast down submissively. Onyx walked to Morden’s side and gestured for me to stand with the others. I took up a position next to the table, a carefully judged distance away from Rachel.

“Tonight at sunset, the five of you will enter the relic and recover the fateweaver,” Morden said without preamble once we were around the table. Now that the pecking order had been established, he didn’t waste time on pleasantries. “Onyx will be in command; you will obey him absolutely. Any disagreements are to be put aside as long as you work for me.” He looked between us. “Do you have any objections? Cinder? Deleo, Verus? Khazad?”

Onyx’s eyes glinted as he watched us. I shook my head slightly and saw the others do the same. Rachel was holding quite still and I noticed that she was wearing a black metal bracelet similar to mine, as were Cinder and Khazad. It was the first time I’d seen the two of them since we were captured, and both looked battered and sullen. Cinder seemed subdued and didn’t react, but as Khazad caught me looking at them he shot me a hate-filled glance. I turned back to Morden, thinking as I did that it couldn’t happen to a nicer pair of guys.

“We expect moderate resistance at the museum,” Morden was saying. “Avoid unnecessary casualties, but entering is your priority. Once you’ve reached the statue, Verus”—he nodded to me—“will open it. Show them the key, please.”

Everyone’s eyes were on me as I slowly reached into my pocket and produced the crystal cube. It sat quietly in the palm of my hand, the sparks glinting in its depths. Cinder’s eyes were hungry, as were Khazad’s. Rachel’s were calculating. “The rest of you will set up a perimeter until the door is open,” Morden continued. “Should Verus fail, Onyx will employ a contingency plan.”

I didn’t like the sound of that at all.

“Once you are inside,” Morden said, “you will be in unknown territory. The relic interior has been sealed for at least two thousand years. However, given that the guardian elemental still functions, I doubt the traps will have stopped working.”

“Traps?” Khazad said sharply.

“Of course.” Morden raised an eyebrow. “I assumed you knew.”

Cinder and Khazad looked at him, and then, as one, they turned to stare at Rachel. Rachel looked between them. “What?” she demanded.

“You didn’t say anything about traps,” Khazad said.

“I’m sure she had her reasons,” Morden said smoothly. “The fateweaver is located at the relic’s centre. Once Onyx has taken possession of it, you are free to return or to stay and loot the place as you wish.” Morden smiled. “I’ll quite understand if you need some time alone. As long as you accomplish your objective, the decision of what to do afterwards is entirely up to you.” Morden looked around. “Are there any questions?”

Khazad had been staring at Rachel; now he dragged his eyes away to look at Morden. “When do we get paid?”

“Once Onyx and the fateweaver are in this room.” Morden looked around. “Anything else?”

“One thing,” I said, and felt everyone’s eyes turn to me. “There were quite a few guards at the museum.”

Cinder snorted with laughter, and Khazad looked at me through narrowed eyes. “What’s the matter, Verus?” Khazad’s voice was ugly. “Afraid of a fight?”

I didn’t look at him. “I’ll have trouble opening the relic if I’m dead,” I said mildly to Morden.

“Onyx will explain your method of approach once you arrive.”

It wasn’t what I’d wanted to hear, but I nodded. Morden looked around. “Anything else?”

No one spoke.

“Excellent.” Morden smiled. “Don’t look so gloomy, you four. By tomorrow, you’ll be free, rich, and in my favour. All you have to do is bring me the fateweaver.”

My shoes swished through the wet grass as we walked out into the garden. The setting sun lit up the landscape around, showing hills and distant forests. Clouds hung overhead, glowing gold in the sunset. Morden’s mansion had a powerful shroud effect, but I was pretty sure we were somewhere in Wales.

As we walked I moved to block Rachel slightly, so that the two of us fell behind. She gave me a cool look, but allowed it. “Nice jewellery,” I said under my breath once we were far enough behind Cinder and Khazad. “Onyx give you a demonstration?”

“I’m not afraid of Onyx,” Rachel said, turning away. She was wearing a blue coat that looked like it might have belonged to Lisa. “What do you want?”

Up ahead, Onyx was giving sharp orders to Khazad and Cinder, who listened sullenly. “Did you notice something strange about that briefing?”

“Like?”

“Morden wants to use the fateweaver to become the representative of the Dark mages on the Council,” I said, keeping my voice low. “For that to work, he can’t leave any proof that he was behind the raid.”

“So?”

“Morden said we could go free or keep working for him. Either way, we might talk. The guards at the museum might recognise us. We’d be a link that could be traced.” I looked sideways at Rachel. “That would be a problem for him, don’t you think?”

Rachel started to answer, then stopped. “Yes,” she said at last, her voice colourless. “It would.”

I fell silent, letting Rachel work the rest of it out for herself. I knew it wouldn’t take her long, and I wasn’t surprised when she spoke a moment later. “Are you still any good with locks?”

“Better.”

“How long would these bracelets take you?”

“Maybe five minutes each.”

Up ahead, Onyx turned and noticed us talking. He jerked his head. “Move.”

We came forward and in a moment were too close to say anything more. Onyx gestured and the air in front of us rippled. A black oval eight feet tall appeared, hovering just off the ground, soaking up the light from the sunset, then it cleared and through it I could see grass and trees.

“Good luck, all of you,” Morden called, and we turned to look. He had stayed behind on the veranda, and he was smiling at us, hands clasped behind his back. “I hope you make it back safely.”

I smiled back at Morden, my face as friendly as his. No, you don’t.

Onyx took us by gateway to three more locations: a wood, a deserted quarry, and a dense forest. Gateways can be traced if you’re good enough and know what to look for; by gating to multiple locations you make it harder for anyone to backtrack to your point of origin. At each location we walked for five minutes before gating again. Cinder took the lead with Khazad on his heels, the two men forming a contrast, one heavy and lumbering, the other birdlike and quick. Rachel followed a little way behind, and I followed her a little farther still. Bringing up the rear came Onyx, his cold eyes on all of us. No one spoke.

Even though I was on the receiving end, I had to admit that Morden’s plan had a kind of twisted brilliance to it. The four of us had been his main competition for the fateweaver; he’d turned it around so that we were doing his work for him. He was sitting comfortably in his mansion, while we were going out to risk our necks. I’d almost admire the guy if he weren’t so freaking evil.

However, the more I thought about it, the more I became sure that Morden’s plan included the four of us meeting with unfortunate accidents along the way. Not only would our dead bodies tell no tales, they’d make perfect scapegoats to present to the angry Council. When Morden had offered me a job as his intelligence officer and I’d accepted, I hadn’t been serious; I’d thought I’d been fooling him. I had the uneasy feeling now that he’d been the one fooling me.

Once we’d walked a short distance through the forest, Onyx stopped. “Wait.” He opened a gateway and stepped through, letting it close behind him.

That left me with Rachel and Cinder, neither of whom I particularly wanted to be alone with. I heard Cinder growl something and took the opportunity to slip away, putting a few clumps of trees between me and them. I couldn’t afford to get too far; if I wasn’t nearby when Onyx returned, he’d probably trigger my bracelet as a reminder. On the other hand, if I was quick—

I had only an instant’s warning. I darted left towards cover, but something grabbed my chest and slammed me up against a tree before I could reach it. A claw of flickering black energy pinned me to the trunk, holding me up on tiptoe, unable to move.

Khazad stepped up in front of me, and there was an evil light shining in his eyes. “Did you think I forgot?” he said softly. The claw tightened slightly, constricting my chest, and I grunted. “You know what I did to the last man who humiliated me like you did?”

“You kill me,” I managed to say, my voice stifled, “and Onyx kills you.”

Khazad stared at me for a long moment, then the black claw loosened and I drew in a ragged breath. “Of course, you’ve got the key,” Khazad said absently.

I opened my mouth to speak, and suddenly the claw tightened again, and I made a strangled sound as I lost the air in my lungs. Khazad leant in close, his dark eyes staring into mine. “But then, it doesn’t have to be you that uses it, does it?” Khazad whispered. “I could take it from your body. You tried to run and I was forced to kill you. I’m sure Onyx will understand.”

I was choking. My chest was crushed so that I couldn’t breathe in, and my ribs were on the verge of breaking. “Can’t—open.”

“What’s that, Verus?” Khazad said with a smile. “I’m having trouble hearing.”

“Won’t work—for you.”

For a long moment Khazad stared at me, head tilted as if considering. Then suddenly he smiled. “I think you’re lying.” Spots were starting to swim in front of my eyes, and I could barely see Khazad as he leant in to breathe into my ear. “It’s a pity I can’t take my time.”

A cold voice spoke from one side. “Drop him.”

Khazad twisted to look back with a snarl. The voice spoke again. “Now.”

For a long moment Khazad hesitated, then drew abruptly back, the claw flickering into nothingness. I sank back against the tree, using it to stop myself from falling over, and looked up as I caught my breath.

Rachel was just a little distance away, and she was wearing her mask again. If I hadn’t known it was her, I wouldn’t have recognised her as the same woman; she stood straighter, colder, more menacing. Blue-green light hovered at her palm, pointed towards Khazad. Khazad snarled again. “He’s mine!”

“Try it if you like,” Rachel said calmly. “We’ve got time.”

For a moment the two of them stood there, Rachel with her arm outstretched, Khazad hunched and ready to spring. Then Khazad took a step back. He shot a vicious look at me and stalked away.

The light at Rachel’s palm winked out, and she walked to me. “Once we’re inside, you get rid of these,” she said, tapping her bracelet. Her voice was ordinary, as if she’d already forgotten about Khazad. “In exchange we keep you alive.”

I nodded slowly. “Agreed.”

Rachel was studying me, her head tilted. “You’ve seen her again,” she said in sudden interest.

“Um…”

“She comes more often when you’re here.” Rachel laughed suddenly. “You didn’t know that, did you?”

I met Rachel’s eyes. There was a curious distant look in them, and all of a sudden I was scared, really scared. I’d called Rachel crazy on top of Canary Wharf, and then forgotten about it once I’d recognised her in the mansion, but I’d been right. Rachel really was crazy. Not all the way, but far enough. Lots of people think mad means funny, but real madness isn’t funny—it’s terrifying. Looking into the spinning futures, I saw Rachel doing a hundred different things, and I had absolutely no way of knowing which she’d choose. “Rachel?” I said carefully. “Can you hear me?”

“That’s not my name anymore,” Rachel said absently, looking over my shoulder.

Rachel was standing just a few feet in front of me, eyes fixed attentively on something a little way past. If she struck from this distance, her beam would go right through me and the tree behind. I stood very still and didn’t make any sudden movements. “Deleo.”

Rachel suddenly turned back to me, her eyes alight. “Yes!” She smiled happily. “I had to do that. You see that, right?”

“Um, I think so.”

“I mean, it’s not like I could just leave!” Rachel laughed, then frowned. “But she won’t go away.” Her frown cleared. “She’s been quiet, though. It must be because of you.” She smiled. “She always liked you. She wouldn’t say it, but I knew. Why don’t you carry on?”

I had absolutely no idea what Rachel was talking about. I tried to think of what to say. “Ra—Deleo. Onyx is going to be back.”

“Onyx?” Rachel’s brow furrowed for a moment, then cleared again. “Oh, he doesn’t matter.” She smiled to herself again, then her eyes seemed to snap back into focus. “Make sure you’re ready to get rid of these.” She raised her right wrist with the bracelet. “We have to see her again, don’t we?”

An instant later Onyx emerged from the trees, and I slumped in relief. The fact that I was relieved at having Onyx show up was scary in itself. He beckoned to me and Rachel, and we followed, Rachel smiling as if at some private joke.

So where the fuck are they?” Khazad demanded.

We were in London again, having returned to the city in the evening twilight. Right now we were above a tourist shop in Great Russell Street, in the living room and kitchen of a second-floor flat. The flat looked recently occupied and I tried to stop myself from thinking about what might have happened to the owners.

The flat’s windows faced north, overlooking the front courtyard of the British Museum, and we’d been standing by the windows watching the museum for over two hours. Night had long since fallen, and the sky was dark, the stars drowned out by the city’s glow. Buses, cars, and taxis buzzed past on the street, and a steady flow of shoppers and tourists filled the pavement, but the British Museum itself was silent. Not a single person had gone in or out.

“Why’s no one there?” Cinder rumbled.

Because it’s a trap, I thought silently. Luna had delivered her message.

“Because it’s a trap.” Rachel said. She glared at Onyx.

I sighed inwardly. Freaking Council. Luna had given them everything they’d needed to lay a perfect ambush and they’d managed to screw it up. There should have been guards, people coming and going, the occasional mage keeping up a pretence. Instead they’d kept their entire guard force hidden inside the museum…and in the process made their ambush so obvious that they might as well have stuck up a warning sign. This is what happens when politicians get put in charge of battle plans.

“I said it’s a trap,” Rachel demanded when Onyx didn’t answer. She was focused again, staring at Onyx. Khazad and Cinder stayed silent. “Did you hear me?”

Onyx made a slight gesture with his fingers. Black energy wreathed the bracelet at Rachel’s wrist, and she jerked, crashing to the floor as her legs spasmed and she lost her breath in a strangled gasp. Rachel looked up, her eyes wild with fury, and sea-green light gathered at her hands.

Onyx gestured again and black lightning smothered Rachel, discharging into her arm, her body, the floor. Rachel writhed, helpless, spasming, trying uselessly to escape. This time the bracelet kept going and the stink of ozone filled the room. Rachel had no breath to scream, and the only sound was the scrabble of her fingers against the carpet. After five long seconds, the lightning stopped. The room was quiet again, and Rachel lay flat in the sudden silence, motionless except for the rapid rise and fall of her chest.

Onyx turned to the rest of us and raised an eyebrow. I dropped my eyes and felt Cinder and Khazad do the same. After a moment Onyx turned back to the window. Rachel took another half minute or so to recover, then struggled to her feet, her breathing still shaky. No one spoke.

In case you’re wondering, nothing Onyx had just done was particularly unusual. Discipline amongst Dark mages is brutal; it has to be. A Dark leader who isn’t willing to hurt anyone who disrespects him doesn’t stay leader for long.

That didn’t change the fact that I wanted to get the hell away from this bunch of psychos as soon as I possibly could.

“Tell me what spells are up,” Onyx said.

I knew he was talking to me, and I considered lying before deciding against it. Any sign of deception now and I was done for. “The museum’s covered with a gate interdiction field,” I said. Cinder and Khazad were looking at me, and I tried not to let my voice show how nervous I was. “It’s bound to the lines of the building, and it’s strong. There’s”—I scanned—“one section unwarded in one of the basement rooms. About a ten-foot cube.”

“Sink,” Cinder rumbled.

I managed not to let my surprise show. The arrangement was a sink ward, like a magical whirlpool. Any attempts to gate into the area would be swept down into the centre, appearing in that ten-foot space. I was starting to think Cinder might be smarter than he looked.

“So we break through the walls,” Khazad said contemptuously.

“They’re warded too,” I said.

“And?”

Khazad was looking at me and there was a glitter in his eyes. Rachel finally straightened, and Khazad turned away as if he’d forgotten about me.

I wasn’t fooled. Khazad was still waiting for the chance to finish what he’d started in the forest. As long as I was useful, I knew Onyx would prevent any infighting. I also knew that as soon as I stopped being useful, Onyx would have me killed without a second thought.

I wasn’t intending to stick around long enough to give him the chance. I hadn’t been idle while we’d been waiting; I’d been path-walking, and the one bit of good news was that Luna was there, in the statue room at the back of the museum. All I needed was a few seconds’ distraction. I’d make a break for it, Luna would open the door, we’d lock it behind us, and Onyx and the Dark mages could fight it out with the Council to their hearts’ content.

At least, that was the plan.

Onyx stirred. “Close up.”

We obeyed, standing in a cluster. I found myself brushing shoulders with Cinder, who gave me a single glance and then pulled his own mask on. Khazad and Deleo were weaving spells, black and sea-green light glowing faintly about their hands. Onyx held out one hand, and the floor underneath us darkened and turned black as a horizontal gate began to form. I watched uneasily. If Onyx gated us into that sink, we’d appear under the guns of the Council guard force. I knew Onyx was strong, but—

Onyx tightened his hand into a fist and the gate formed, linking us to the museum. For one moment there was a lurch as the interdiction field tried to take, then Onyx’s spell ripped straight through it with sheer brute force. We dropped down to the floor with a thump—a white floor, with a staircase behind and a high ceiling above. We’d gated into the Great Court, right at the foot of the stairs.

We weren’t alone. A dozen people were scattered around the court: mages and guards. All had turned to stare at us, and as we came to our feet a mage threw out his arm. He was at the centre of a cluster of three. “Hold it! Who are you?”

At least, that was what he would have said if he’d had the chance.

It was quite terrifying, what Onyx did to those men. Normal people, when they’re dropped into a hostile situation, take an instant to orient themselves. Onyx didn’t. In the time the leader took to open his mouth, Onyx slammed a bolt of force into the mage on the left, spun and did the same thing to the one on the right, then sent a blast straight at the face of the one at the centre, who was just in the middle of getting out the word who. If the mage hadn’t jerked back, it would have broken his neck; as it was, it took him off his feet. A heartbeat later Cinder and Khazad joined in, engaging the ones remaining.

While everyone else was fighting, I was running, sprinting up the curving stairs. Behind me I heard the roar of spells as the battle kicked off. It took me five seconds to reach the top landing, and for that instant I was completely exposed to the people below. But everyone was too busy to pay attention to me, and I made it to the top in one piece.

I was getting pretty familiar with the British Museum by now, and as I ran I could pick out the sounds behind me: the roar of Cinder’s fire magic, the flat slam of Onyx’s force spells, the chatter of the automatic weapons of the guards. An instant later there was an explosion and the chatter cut off abruptly. I knew that Onyx’s side was winning, and that I wouldn’t have much time before they caught me up. I reached the staircase leading to the statue room. There were no guards and I raced up the stairs, calling out the password and passing through the barrier without a ripple. As soon as I was through I dived and rolled.

A hammer of earth magic whistled above me, passing through the space where my head would have been if I hadn’t taken the tumble. I came up from my roll and threw my hand towards the man standing by the entrance. “Griff, you idiot, it’s me! Seal the stairs!”

Griff had just started a backswing with a maul of grey-brown energy; he checked, halting his swing. “Verus?” He stared. “How did you get in? The guards—”

“They’re getting their asses kicked, and so will we if you don’t seal the stairs!”

“There’s a barrier—”

“Which you just saw me walk through!”

“I’d have to collapse the—”

“Then do it!” I was getting desperate; I knew Onyx and Khazad were less than twenty seconds away. “We’re out of time!”

Griff hesitated for a heartbeat, then turned and made a fist. There was a rumble followed by a roar, and the floor shook as a section of the roof of the British Museum caved in, turning the stairwell behind the barrier into a shaft full of rubble. The barrier shivered slightly, but held. Dust flaked from the roof as I picked myself up. I couldn’t hear anything from the floor below. We were sealed off—for the moment.

“Alex!”

I looked around and there was Luna, standing alone in the corner of the room, her eyes shining. I felt something in my chest loosen as I saw her. “You’re okay?”

“I’m okay?” Luna’s voice wavered. “What about you?”

I grinned. “Let’s catch up later.” I pulled the cube from my pocket and threw it to her; Luna caught it in reflex. Someone else peeked out their head from behind the statue; it was Sonder, his eyes suddenly alight with interest. “Oh! A crystal key! It must have microfissures that match the pattern of the light beams. Um, Mr. Verus, where did you—?”

“Sonder, this isn’t really the time,” I said as I got to my feet. “And I told you to call me Alex. Luna? Do it.”

Luna shook her head with a smile as if at some joke, and slotted the cube into the statue’s hand. It fit perfectly.

For a moment there was silence, then a gentle white light sprang up around the statue’s hand. Needle-thin beams of light sprang out from the fingers, reaching into the cube, and as they did, the cube responded. It glowed red and more beams of light appeared, starting in the cube’s centre and stretching out. The two sets of beams moved, playing up, down, left, and right as if searching for something.

“Sonder?” I asked after a few seconds. “What are we seeing?”

“It’s…” Sonder stared at the cube, utterly fascinated. The red-and-white light sparkled and reflected off his glasses. “Of course! That’s why we could never get it to work!”

“What is?”

“The crystal’s responding to the interrogation. Look!” Sonder pointed eagerly. One of the needlelike beams from the cube had intersected with one from the statue, and the two had merged and gone still. “They’re matching!” Sonder said. “That’s the locking mechanism—”

“It’d better open fast,” Griff said sharply, cutting Sonder off. We turned to see that Griff had one hand pressed flat against the wall next to the barrier, and his eyes were narrowed. “You were right. Someone out there wants in.”

Now that we were looking, I could feel it: the distant crunch, crunch, crunch of force effects carving through rubble, the vibrations growing steadily stronger. “That would be Onyx,” I said with a nasty sinking feeling.

“How long is he going to be?” Griff demanded of me.

“If you strengthen that barrier…about eighty seconds.”

“How long till the door opens?”

“About seventy.”

Griff and Luna looked at each other, then Griff turned to the wall, his hand glowing with a pale brown light. There was a faint rumble as the stone reshaped itself, the rubble on the other side shifting and fusing into a dense blockade. Luna stood as close as she could to me, while Sonder waited on the other side.

One minute passed like an hour.

The booming sounds from behind us were clearly audible now, and they were causing the room to shake. Almost all of the lights from the cube and statue had intersected; only three had yet to fuse. I spoke quietly to Luna. “When the door opens, grab that cube and stick close to me. Take the right exit.”

Luna nodded. “Um,” Sonder said hesitantly from the other side. “What should I do?”

“I’d follow Luna,” I said. “Unless you want to meet Onyx.”

Sonder swallowed. “I think I’ll stay with you if that’s okay.”

Another pair of light beams intersected, followed by another. “Five seconds,” I said loudly. The booms from behind were like thunder now, and the floor was shaking with each one.

The last pair of beams matched. A pale light filled the room, and the statue seemed to fade, becoming something else. For one moment it was as though two things were stacked in the same location: the statue, glowing palely, and an arched doorway, leading into a wide chamber. “Go!” I shouted, and ran. For an instant I was running through the statue, and there was a brief dizzying feeling as my eyes tried to process two sets of visual data at once, then I was through into an entrance hall with a domed roof, lit by dim flickering lights. Behind me Luna snatched the cube from the statue’s hand and ran after me, Sonder at her heels.

From behind I heard a thunderous crash and the crack of flying stone, followed an instant later by the boom of Griff’s earth magic. Suddenly the battle was in the statue room, and everything was chaos and darkness and fire. The gate was closing, fading, but too slowly, and I knew we had only seconds before the battle spilled through. I made it into the right-hand tunnel, hit something to my left, and a heavy door slammed behind us, cutting off sound and leaving us in pitch-darkness.

chapter 12

It was pitch-black.

“Luna?” I said.

“Over here.”

“You okay?”

“I’m fine, don’t come too close!”

“Er, hi.”

“What’s that?”

“What’s what?”

“Who’s there?”

“Luna.”

“Not you!”

“Sonder. Er, I mean David. I met you at—”

“I know who you are, Sonder.”

“You made it through?”

“Well, Mr. Verus, I mean Alex, said to follow you, and—”

“Has anyone got a light?”

Silence.

“Anyone?”

Silence.

“Luna?”

“I brought the stuff you asked for.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“Yes, but it’s sealed. If I touch it…”

“Okay, okay. Sonder?”

“Yes?”

“You’re a mage, right?”

“Well, yes.”

“Great, cast a light spell.”

“…”

“What’s wrong?”

“Um, well—”

“Please don’t tell me you can’t make one either.”

“Well, I’ve never really gotten the hang of it. And there’s usually someone else around who can, so…”

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding.”

There was a fumbling sound, and then there was a click and a cone of light broke the darkness, causing me to flinch. As my eyes adjusted I saw Sonder holding a torch, looking apologetic. “But I did bring one of these. Is that okay?”

As Sonder flashed the light around I saw Luna, pale but unhurt, pressed up against the wall. We were in a circular room with a doorway leading out into a corridor. I couldn’t see any trace of the doorway we’d entered from, and I couldn’t feel any vibration through the floor. Either the walls were really thick or we’d been transported. Either way, a quick look at the future confirmed that no one was going to be following for a while.

“Where are we?” Luna asked

“Sonder?” I said.

“This is amazing,” Sonder said. He was looking around in fascination. “We’re actually inside a bubble! All of this must have been built during the Dark Wars. I’ve never seen an installation as well preserved—”

Luna and I looked at him, and Sonder suddenly looked flustered. “Well, I mean— We’re inside the bubble. It should be safe. I mean, it’s lasted this long.”

“Can anyone else get in?” I asked.

“Oh, no. Not once the gate’s closed.”

“I think it was closing at the end,” Luna said. She was still holding the red crystal cube, looking down at it. “When I took it away, I wanted it to. And it did.”

I glanced at Luna curiously. Absorbed with the cube, she didn’t seem to notice. “Um…” Sonder said. “Did anyone else get inside?”

“Let’s hope not. Luna? Luna!”

“Hm?” Luna shook herself. “Oh. Right.” She stood and walked to the middle of the room. With my mage’s sight I could see the silvery mist coating her and the pack, odd tendrils drifting towards me and Sonder but not quite able to reach. Luna took off her backpack, put it upside down on the ground, then lifted it quickly off, stepping away. A handful of items spilled out. “This was everything I could find.”

“Shine the light,” I told Sonder, who obeyed. The first thing I picked up from the pile was my mist cloak, and I felt my heart lighten as I saw it. It’s funny how attached you can get to an item, but then imbued items are practically living things. In any case, it’s saved my life more times than I can count, and as I swung it over my shoulders and fastened it around my neck, I felt better immediately.

“Is it all there?” Luna asked.

I nodded as I went through the pile. I’d asked Luna to go to my shop using the hidden key, and bring everything I’d need. “Good job. How did it go with Talisid?”

“He asked if I was your apprentice.”

“What did you tell him?”

“What do you think?”

I laughed, found my own torch, and switched it on. “Sonder? Go into the corridor about fifteen feet down and have a look on the right wall. There’s a control set that’ll turn on the lights for this area.”

Sonder hesitated. “Are you sure it’s safe?”

“As long as you don’t go any farther.”

“I’m not actually sure how the spells in this site work…”

“Yes, you are. If you study it for a couple of minutes, you’ll figure it out.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“It might be dangerous…”

“It won’t be.”

“How do you know?”

“Because that’s what I do. Look, Sonder, I’ve never studied places like this, and neither has Luna, but you have. The reason I’m asking you to do it is because you’re the best one for the job. There’ll be places farther on where it is dangerous for you to touch anything, but when we run into those I’ll warn you. Okay?”

“Oh.” Sonder hesitated, then nodded. “Okay.” He got up and stepped out into the corridor. I looked back to see that Luna was smiling. “What’s so funny?”

“Oh, I was telling him about you. While we were waiting in the statue room.”

I gave Luna a suspicious look. “What did you say?”

Luna looked back at me innocently. I shook my head, then became serious. “How did everything go?”

Luna glanced after where Sonder had gone, then sighed and leant back against the wall. “It wasn’t so bad. They didn’t ask many questions. Most of them just ignored me.”

“How was Talisid?”

Luna thought for a second. “I think he might have guessed. None of the others did. The only other one who talked to me was Sonder. You know, he seemed a bit…”

I laughed. “Not all mages are the experienced type.” I’d almost finished with the contents of the backpack. She’d done a good job; I had everything that was likely to help. One item remained: a blue disc with serrated edges. I could feel that it was some sort of focus, with a fair charge of energy inside it. “What’s that?”

“Talisid said it was a communicator,” Luna said. “He said it was synchronous?”

I’d picked the disc up and was studying it. “Huh. I didn’t know they’d managed to get these working.”

“Will it work from in here?”

I nodded. “He must have been expecting something like this. Even for a Council rep, this wouldn’t come cheap.” I looked at Luna. “Ready?”

Luna nodded and I pressed several of the edges in sequence. They began to flash blue. I set the thing down and waited.

The lights changed from blue to green and a ghostly holographic figure appeared, standing on the disc, twelve inches tall. It was Talisid. “Verus!” His voice was muffled but clear. “Where are you?”

“Where do you think?”

“You’re inside?”

“Inside, and likely to stay inside. What’s happening out there?”

“Are you all right? Who’s with you?”

“Luna and Sonder. We’re fine.”

Talisid’s figure seemed to relax slightly. “That’s the first good news I’ve heard all day.”

“What happened?”

“Cavein.” It was hard to make out fine detail on the small projection, but Talisid’s clothes looked scuffed. “I don’t know who it was, but the whole room and most of the stairwell’s rubble. We’re starting to dig through, but—”

“Talisid?” I said. “That wasn’t really what I was asking.” I didn’t raise my voice, but there was an edge to it. “I gave you advance warning that an attack was coming. I gave you the most likely day. You had twenty-four hours to prepare and a full Council security detail. Onyx had three people.”

Talisid said nothing. He didn’t look happy.

“Please tell me you got at least one of them.”

“We haven’t been able to confirm anything yet.”

“That’s a no, isn’t it?”

Talisid was silent and I put a hand over my eyes. “I’d ask for an explanation, but hearing the full details of exactly how you screwed up is kind of moot at this point.”

“Look, Verus, I’m getting enough crap from the Council right now. I don’t need any more from you.”

“And we’re inside a sealed-off relic with anywhere between zero and four Dark mages who want to kill us. Who do you think got the better end of the deal?”

Talisid stayed silent. I took a deep breath and got myself under control. “Where’s Griff?”

“We don’t know.”

“How many of the Dark mages made it inside?”

“We don’t know. It’s possible they were caught by the collapse—”

“Don’t bet on it. Who else is there?”

“We don’t know. It’s bad out here, Verus. We’ve got dozens injured and at least three of the security staff are dead; Onyx went through them like a buzz saw. Everyone we can spare is on medical detail or digging out survivors or on guard, and we still haven’t linked up with everyone. Everyone was in the wrong place, it’s as though—” Talisid checked and then went on. “I was with Ilmarin—he’s an air mage, one of the ones in the Great Court. He told me he felt something go after Onyx’s group during the attack. Completely invisible, both to the eye and to magic. The only reason he could sense it was by the displaced air. He has no idea what it was.”

I closed my eyes again. “Perfect,” I said once I’d gotten myself under control. “Anything else while you’re at it?”

“You know what it was?”

“It’s called Thirteen. She works for Levistus. I don’t suppose you can give us any sort of help?”

“If the portal’s still open—”

Luna spoke up. “It’s not.”

Talisid looked at her, then back at me. “We might be able to jury-rig the thing with some kind of worldgate. If we can follow the trace—”

“Can you get that done in four hours or less?” I said.

Talisid was silent. I sighed. “I’ll take that as a no. Anything else?”

“I’m sorry,” Talisid said. “I wish I had some better news.”

“I wish you did too.”

“I’ll call you as soon as we learn anything.”

“Please don’t. The last thing we need is our phone going off when we’re trying to avoid attention. We’ll call you.”

Talisid nodded. “Good luck.” The communicator winked off.

I didn’t move. “What did you mean about the invisible thing?” Luna asked after a moment.

“Some sort of modified air elemental Levistus uses. I’m just wondering if that’s all he’s got.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Council guards shouldn’t have done that badly,” I said. “They were outclassed, but not that outclassed. And the way they were deployed, with no one between the Great Court and the statue…I think someone was trying to make sure the attack got through.”

Luna frowned. “You mean Levistus? Why would he want to do that?”

I remembered Levistus’ words from the ball, delivered with just a trace of a smile: “I have many agents, Mr. Verus. Rest assured, they will be there, making sure everything goes according to plan.”

My heart sank. “Oh, crap.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Luna, was there anyone who stayed near the statue all the time you were there? As in, never going away for long?”

Luna looked puzzled. “I suppose.”

“Who?”

“Sonder and Griff.”

“No one else?”

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“Because the only reason Levistus would want Morden’s attack to go through would be so he could get his own people inside as well.”

Luna looked at me for a few seconds, then her face changed. “Sonder?”

I didn’t say anything. Luna looked out into the corridor after Sonder, then turned back with an uneasy look on her face. “Wait. No. Griff was the one who was supposed to be in charge of security, right? Isn’t it more likely to be him?”

“Who says it’s only one of them?”

Luna started to answer then stopped.

“I don’t like the idea either,” I said quietly. “But I don’t think Levistus would rely on just Thirteen. He’s got agents and he’ll have used them. You’re right, Griff sounds more likely, but he’s not here and Sonder is. Until we get out of here, watch your back.”

We sat quietly for a moment, thinking. The torches cast Luna’s face in shadow, making it hard to know what she was thinking. “We don’t have many friends here, do we?” Luna said at last.

“What about Starbreeze?”

“I called her. She came the first time, but when she saw me she ran away again. I called her again when I heard you coming but…”

I’d been searching through the futures and as I did I felt my spirit lift. I smiled. “Huh.”

“She’s here?”

“She’s here. Looks like we’ve got one friend after all.”

All of a sudden the lights came on. Luna and I stood up, blinking, and from out in the corridor I heard Sonder call excitedly, “I did it!”

The room we were standing in was off-white, with a high ceiling. The edges of the walls and floor were rounded slightly so as to show no corners, making the room oddly featureless, and circular patches on the ceiling shed a bright light. I could sense that the lights were magical, which confirmed that this place was very, very old. Like I said, creating permanent magical items is a real hassle. It’s far less effort to use modern technology, which means the only places that use permanent effects like this are ones that were created before modern technology. Luna and I walked to the exit to see a curving corridor. Up ahead, we could just see that it opened into a T junction. “Good job,” I told Sonder as we approached.

“I thought that would work,” Sonder said. He looked pleased with himself. Next to him was the control panel he’d used to activate the lights. I touched my hand to the panel and focused, working out what Sonder had done. Meanwhile, Luna was looking around curiously. “What is this place?”

“It was sealed up just after the end of the Dark Wars,” Sonder said. “But there’s nothing saying why. I’m starting to think the records about this place were deliberately erased. All I could find was something about the ‘resting place of Abithriax.’ ”

“You said this was his tomb,” Luna said.

Sonder hesitated. “Yes, but I’m starting to think I might have been wrong. I’ve been doing some reading, and it turns out the Precursors didn’t actually build tombs. Not like this.”

“But if this was his resting place…”

“I know, but it still doesn’t make sense. If you look at the studies that have been done of Precursor religion, the design—”

“Sorry, Sonder, wait a second. Um, Alex?”

I was busy with the control panel. Like most Precursor designs, it was sparse; a few spheres that looked like glass, and some rods set into the wall. They were controlled with fine magical impulses. With my divination magic I could see how to make them do what I wanted, but I had no idea how they worked. Still, that was enough to—

“Alex!”

“Hm?” I said absently.

“What’s that on your arm?”

I glanced down to see that the bracelet on my right wrist was crackling and spitting feebly. Black energy leaked from it, making my arm tingle. “Oh,” I said. “Looks like Onyx decided to kill me.”

Luna and Sonder stared. “They’re called death bracelets,” I said. “Dark mages use them to keep prisoners in line.”

The bracelet was still crackling. “Um.” Sonder said. “Shouldn’t you…?”

“Oh, it’s fine. I dialled down the power by a factor of a hundred or so. Onyx must have fired it at maximum, otherwise you wouldn’t even see it.”

“What does maximum do?”

“Kills an adult human in ten to twenty seconds, depending how strong their heart is. Anyway, we’d better get moving. Don’t touch anything without checking with me first, don’t go anywhere I haven’t gone already, and if I tell you to do something, do it fast. Okay?”

Luna nodded, Sonder a little slower. Both were still staring at the bracelet. As they watched, it fizzled and fell silent. We headed to the T junction and stopped while I stood between the two paths.

“What’s he doing?” I head Sonder whisper after a minute.

“He’s looking ahead to see what’ll happen if we go down each corridor,” Luna said quietly.

I smiled to myself and pointed. “Left.”

It was an hour later and the three of us were clustered in a small room. In a small alcove, set into the wall, was a single recessed crystal sphere. Before us was a closed door.

Sonder was examining the sphere while I leant against the wall next to him. Luna stood back, well out of range. “Sonder, we’re on a clock here,” I said at last.

“Sorry.” Sonder stepped back. “Well, it’s definitely a focus for some kind of mind effect—”

“I know.”

“—and I think it might be telepathy based. Anyway, it’s for communication.”

“You said you could get the door open?” Luna asked.

“Probably, but there’s a trap, And after what happened last time, I don’t want to take the chance if we can avoid it.”

Sonder flinched slightly at that. The previous room had held an electrical trap that would have turned anyone who came close enough into a lightning rod. “So that leaves this thing?” Luna asked.

“That leaves this thing.” I stared at the crystal sphere, frowning. “It’ll help us get past. I just don’t know how.”

“What’ll happen if we touch it?” Sonder asked.

“Nothing.”

Sonder and Luna looked at each other. “If I touch it, I’ll do nothing,” I said. “I’ll stand still with my hand on this thing for maybe ten minutes, and I won’t move or say a word, no matter what you do. And I don’t know why.”

“That would make sense if it’s a telepathy focus,” Sonder volunteered.

I didn’t answer. The truth was that not knowing what would happen if I touched this thing made me uneasy. Normally I always know what’ll happen. You don’t realise how accustomed you get to something until it’s suddenly taken away from you.

When I didn’t move, Sonder shifted. “I could try it…”

“No,” I said, and stepped forward. “You two watch my back. I don’t think I’ll be able to sense anything else while I’m using this. If you hear trouble coming, pull me off it. Kick me if you have to.”

They nodded. “Be careful,” Luna said.

I turned to the sphere, took a deep breath, the placed my hand upon it. There was a moment of disorientation as the world seemed to flicker, then it was gone. I let my fingers rest on the sphere. Nothing happened.

I tried a command word. “Annath.”

Nothing.

“Open. Transmit. Sagashiette.”

Still nothing.

I sighed and turned away. “Well, that was underwhelming.”

Luna and Sonder looked past me. “Nothing,” I said. “Weird. I’m pretty sure it should have…”

I trailed off. Sonder hadn’t moved. Luna glanced aside anxiously, then went back to looking over my shoulder, her eyes passing over me. “Hey,” I said. “You guys okay?”

No reaction. “What are you—?” I began, turning round, and stopped dead. What Luna and Sonder were staring at was me. My body was standing right in front of me, my right hand clasped on the sphere. I looked down at my hand just to convince myself it was still there, looked up, and stared. “What the hell?”

I reached forward hesitantly. My hand passed through my body as though it were light, and I jumped. This was really weird.

I turned back to see Sonder’s lips moving. He was saying something to Luna, and now Luna turned aside slightly to reply, her eyes still fixed on my body, but I couldn’t hear their words. In fact, now that I stopped to listen, I couldn’t hear anything at all. It was dead silent.

“Good evening. Might I be of assistance?”

I only barely managed to keep myself from jumping as the voice spoke from behind me. Standing in the doorway was an old man. He had a flowing beard and long hair, both snow white, with thin streaks of red running through them. His clothes were red as well: robes, gathered at the waist, of several shades from bloodred to crimson.

For a moment I couldn’t remember where I’d seen him before, and then suddenly it clicked. I’d seen his face, but it had been stone, not flesh. “Abithriax,” I said.

Abithriax bowed. “And whom do I have the honour of addressing?”

I stood staring at the mage in front of me. Abithriax stood looking back with an expression of mild inquiry. “How are you alive?” I said at last. It wasn’t polite, but I was shaken.

Abithriax didn’t seem particularly offended. “Well,” he said, “that’s rather an interesting question. Perhaps you’d like to walk with me? One gets so little exercise cooped up in here.”

I took a glance back at Luna and Sonder. They were talking to each other, although I still couldn’t hear them. They didn’t seem able to see Abithriax either. “You’ll be quite safe,” Abithriax said, as though reading my thoughts. “No one is going to arrive for a little while.”

I hesitated a moment, then fell into step beside Abithriax and we began walking back down the corridor. Despite his age, he moved smoothly, with no trace of stiffness. “How am I talking to you?” I said.

“The crystals on these walls form a communication network that extends throughout this facility,” Abithriax said. “Mental projection only, I’m afraid; your body is still back in that room. The network works with your mind to translate the information.”

“If I’m here, where are you?”

“At the centre, of course.”

I stared at Abithriax for a second before it clicked. “You’re the fateweaver.”

Abithriax just smiled. I kept walking, my head spinning as everything fell into place. Of course. Something as powerful as the fateweaver would have to be an imbued item. And the more powerful it was, the stronger its own identity would be…I looked up at Abithriax. “How? You were supposed to have died.”

“Oh, I did.” Abithriax looked inquiringly at me. “Perhaps you’d like to hear the story?”

I stared back at him and finally nodded.

“Oh good. It really is so nice to have someone to talk to…Let’s see, where to begin? People still remember the Dark Wars, I hope? I’ve afraid I’ve rather lost track of time.”

“You lived through them.”

Abithriax nodded. “From the beginning to the end. I remember Syriathis, and its destruction. I fought through the retreats in the early campaigns, seeing my friends and allies die one by one. I was promoted, and promoted again. After our victory at the Ebon Fields I was granted my fateweaver. Years passed, the tide turned, the strongholds lost in the early years were retaken, and I was at the forefront of every battle. When the final sieges began, I was battle commander of all the Light armies.”

We’d come to a junction and Abithriax stopped. “And then I was betrayed.” His eyes stared off into nothingness, distant. “The Council had become afraid of me. I was too famous, too powerful. So in the last months of the war, once victory was guaranteed, they sent me to my death.”

Abithriax fell silent. I stood looking at him. “How did you do it?” I said at last.

Abithriax blinked, looked at me, then shook his head and turned left down the junction. I followed. “My fateweaver. All our generals carried one, but the craftsmen were never able to stabilise the design. They were always…unpredictable. But I learnt the secret of investing myself into it, binding my identity into it a piece at a time, and as its power grew, so did mine. It was almost a part of me. Perhaps that was how I was able to make the final leap at the very end…”

Abithriax shook his head, and suddenly his voice became brisk. “Well then. I assume that’s what you’re here for? My fateweaver? Oh, there’s no need to hide it,” he added as I hesitated. “It’s not as if you’d come here for any other reason. Besides, it’s not as if I can carry it myself anymore.”

“Yes.”

“And the others?”

“Which others?”

Abithriax raised his eyebrows. “The other mages attempting to reach me. I may lack a physical body, but I’m not entirely blind. Half a dozen or so, I believe?”

I walked for a little while in silence. “Can you help me against them?” I said at last.

Abithriax snorted. “A handful of mages? I’ve defeated armies. However…without a wielder, I am nothing. And more to the point, there is no guarantee my wielder will be you. If one of those mages reaches me first, I’m afraid my powers will be at their disposal, not yours. In this form, I am a servant to my wielder.”

Something made me look up at that, searching Abithriax’s face. He looked back at me calmly. “And I have no control over who that wielder is. So if you have any enemies within this facility, I would suggest you make sure they do not reach me first. Because if they take possession of me and order me to use my powers to hunt you down and kill you, I am very much afraid I will have no choice but to obey.”

Abithriax and I had taken two turnings and we were almost back at the room we’d started from. The two of us stood looking at each other. “Then I guess I’d better get moving,” I said at last.

“Of course,” Abithriax said with a nod. “Tell that scholarly looking apprentice with you to try a command word in the right corner. I’m not sure of the password but I’m sure you can deduce it.”

“Right. See you later.”

“Hopefully so.” Abithriax smiled slightly. “For what it’s worth, I hope you succeed.” His image seemed to dissolve into mist and he was gone.

I walked back into the room. Luna and Sonder were still there, throwing glances at my body. Somehow I knew how to break the connection. I walked into my body, layering my mental self over my physical one, placing my hand over where my real hand grasped the crystal. There was a moment of dizziness, then—

“—be in trouble.” Sonder’s voice.

“He said not to do anything.” It was Luna’s voice; to most people she would have sounded calm, but I could hear the trace of anxiety. “We could— Alex!”

I turned around—really turned around, this time. Luna gave me a searching look, then let out a sigh of relief. “You’re okay.”

“I’m okay,” I said. “Sonder? Take a look at the right corner. While you’re doing that, I’ve got something to tell you both.”

As Sonder worked, I relayed what I’d learnt. I briefly considered keeping it a secret between me and Luna, but there wasn’t any good excuse to send Sonder out of earshot, and anyway, I wanted his input. “That’s incredible,” Sonder said once I’d finished. “I mean, just the idea of surviving that long…The Dark Wars were almost two thousand years ago! The things he’d be able to tell us!”

“Sonder,” I said. “Priorities. Survive first, research afterwards. Does what he said match with what you know?”

Sonder thought for a minute. “We’ve never been able to recover a fateweaver before. It was just assumed they were all destroyed, but if they were unstable, that would explain it. And there’s always been a mystery about Abithriax’s death. Some writers did argue for the betrayal theory, but there’s never been any proof. The Old Council fell into infighting after the Dark Wars, and most of the records were destroyed.”

“Do you trust him?” Luna asked.

I hesitated. “I’m not sure,” I said at last. “I had the feeling he was keeping something back. But I’m pretty sure he was telling the truth about what he’d do if Onyx found him first.”

“So what should we do?” Luna said.

Sonder had stopped, and both he and Luna were looking at me, waiting for my decision. “We go for the fateweaver,” I said. “If we can take it for ourselves, we’ve got a chance. But I don’t want either of you involved in the fighting. Onyx and the rest are going to be after me, not you. Don’t do anything to draw their attention.”

I made my voice sound confident, and both of them nodded, Sonder quickly, Luna a little more reluctant. The two of them turned back to what they were doing and I bit my lip, wishing I were as sure as I was pretending to be.

The truth was that none of our options were good. I knew that trying to beat Onyx and the others to the fateweaver was likely to end in a fight, and I also knew that if it came to a battle, our little group was almost certain to lose. It was tempting to run and hide. If we weren’t going for the fateweaver, Levistus and Morden’s agents would be too busy fighting each other to worry about us.

Except that if we did that, whoever won the battle would be free to hunt us down afterwards, with all the power of the Precursor artifact at their disposal. Whether we lived or died would be up to them. My instinct told me our best chance was to act. But it’s one thing to risk your own life and another to risk someone else’s. I looked at Luna withdrawn into the corner, and Sonder examining the wall, and felt suddenly afraid. For all my brave words, I didn’t know if I’d be able to protect either of them.

Then I shook it off and focused, going back to watching Sonder and sifting through the futures. After a moment I knew Abithriax’s advice had been good. “There,” I told Sonder. “Try some command words.”

“Uh…which ones?”

“Every one you can think of.”

Sonder looked back at the wall and hesitated. “This feels silly.”

I sighed inwardly. For all Sonder’s knowledge, it was painfully obvious how inexperienced he was. Once you’ve been around the block a few times you stop caring about looking silly, especially when you’re dealing with magical traps. Better to be laughed at than dead, and he wouldn’t have been laughed at. “Just give it a go.”

Sonder started reciting in the old tongue. He spoke like a scholar, each word carefully pronounced. “Stop,” I said after a moment. “Say that last one again and put your hand on the wall, fingers spread. Up a bit,” I said as Sonder obeyed. “Left a bit. Hold that. Now say that word again.”

Reluctantly, Sonder did as I said. “Etro.”

Right in front of Sonder, a section of wall seven feet high and three feet wide glowed for an instant and simply vanished. Sonder started and jumped back. Beyond was a short corridor, bending left. “Now I see,” I said. “The whole room is a trap. The only safe way is to go around.”

“Is it safe?” Luna asked.

“Yes. It’s—” I stopped.

“What’s wrong?”

I stared for a moment before answering. “It’s not empty.”

The corridor was about five feet wide. All the way along the left side was a one-way mirror into the trap room, and as we looked in we got a perfect view of what would have happened to us if we’d stepped through that door.

Every inch of the other room—walls, floor, ceiling—was covered in mirrors. Instead of being placed evenly, they were tilted, casting images at odd angles. Reflecting from the mirrors, filling the room with a crisscross of white light, were beams of energy, white lines that looked harmless but which I knew could cut like razors. The room was so filled with the beams that it took a moment to realise that there were in fact only three. They emerged from a single tiny panel on the back wall, then bounced around the room at every angle, multiplied a thousand times over.

In the middle of the room, trapped in a cage of beams, were Rachel and Cinder. Rachel was in a half crouch, a beam just above her head stopping her from rising any farther. Cinder was standing, leaning sideways to fit into the empty space. Beams laced the air around them, and I could see burnt patches on their clothes where they’d brushed up against the energy. Both were standing dead still.

Luna stopped as she saw them. “Alex—”

“They can’t see us,” I said. Neither Rachel nor Cinder reacted as we spoke. “Or hear. Sonder, do you know what that is?”

“It’s an energy lattice,” Sonder said. He was staring in fascination. “I’ve never seen one before.”

“What does it do?”

Sonder started. “Um, they were defence systems from the Dark Wars. They were meant to contain intruders. Once the beams are up, you have to stand there until someone comes to turn it off.”

“What happens if no one comes?”

Sonder paused. “I don’t really know.”

On the other side of the glass, Cinder said something and Rachel answered silently. Both were only inches away from beams on all sides. Sooner or later they would get tired and fall, and when they did, the beams would kill them.

It’s a strange feeling, holding someone’s life in your hands, and it affects people in different ways. Some hate it; they can’t stand the burden and get away as quick as they can. Others revel in the power. You can think of it as a choice, and it is, but the truth is that for most of the big things, the choice was made long ago. It’s only when you reach the crossroads that you discover what it was. It was nothing new to me; I’d been here before. But the others…

Both Luna and Sonder stared through the one-way mirror. Neither spoke, but it was so easy to read their thoughts. Rachel and Cinder were their enemies; all they had to do was walk away. But when it came to it, they hesitated. One after another they turned to look at me, and I knew they were waiting for me to make the decision, just as I’d done a few minutes ago. I could order them to help Rachel and Cinder or to walk away and leave, and they’d obey.

“What do you think we should do?” I asked them.

I saw their faces change. The seconds ticked away, and even here, I couldn’t help but be curious. I looked into the future, trying to see how they’d decide, and couldn’t predict either. You can’t see beyond a choice that someone hasn’t made. I watched as the possibilities wavered, shifting and changing.

“We have to help,” Sonder said.

“Leave them,” Luna said at the same time.

Sonder turned on Luna in shock. “But they’ll die!”

“Better them than us.”

“They’re mages! You can’t decide someone’s life like that!”

“I decide that every day,” Luna said quietly. “This time at least they deserve it.”

Sonder looked horrified. Luna turned to me and waited. “You can’t be going to—” Sonder said. “I know they’re dangerous, but—!”

“Stay here,” I said. “You can watch, but don’t get involved.”

A beat, then both nodded, though there was an uneasiness between them now. I left Luna and Sonder in the corridor and walked around the edge. There was another secret door at the far end, and I sealed it behind me. Ahead of me was the trap room’s exit, but it wasn’t an exit anymore. Someone had destroyed the external controls, sealing Rachel and Cinder inside.

There were more one-way mirrors to either side, and through them I could see Rachel and Cinder, still motionless. As I studied the pattern of energy beams, I realised that if any one of us had entered the room, the changing angles of reflection from the door swinging inwards would have sent the energy beams slicing through Rachel, Cinder, and anyone in the doorway. Not only did it trap those inside, it was designed to kill anyone attempting a rescue. Nasty.

The spell that had destroyed the controls had left cracks in the wall near the door. Leaning in close, I could hear the whisper of Rachel and Cinder’s voices from the other side. “Hello?” I said. “Can you hear me?”

The whispering stopped. “Who’s there?” Rachel demanded.

“Alex.”

“Verus?” Cinder demanded. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“More or less the same thing as you.”

“You bastard,” Cinder said. He tried to turn around to look at the wall I was speaking from, but couldn’t. “How are you still alive? Onyx fired your bracelet!”

“Cinder, given your current situation, do you really think this is the most productive way to spend your time?”

“What do you want?” Rachel said. She was holding quite still. Behind the mask, I couldn’t see her expression, but I knew she was focusing on me.

“I’m here to help you out of that room.”

“Bullshit,” Cinder snarled.

“Turn off the beams,” Rachel said.

“Can’t.”

“Then open the door.”

“Can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Last guy through smashed the controls.”

Rachel swore. “Khazad,” she hissed. “That motherfucker.”

“There’s an emergency cutoff inside the room,” I said. “It’s just under where the beams are coming from.”

Cinder and Rachel flicked their eyes sideways to look. The mirrors beneath the beams looked exactly the same as the ones covering the rest of the room. “That takes us away from the door,” Rachel said at last.

“I know.”

“I don’t see any cutoff.”

“I know.”

“Fuck him,” Cinder snarled. “You want us dead, don’t you?”

I didn’t answer. A few seconds ticked by with no sound other than the humming of the beams. “How do I get there?” Rachel asked.

Cinder started and nearly got his arm burnt off for his trouble. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Shut up, Cinder,” Rachel said wearily. “Alex? How do I get there?”

“There’s a route through,” I said. “Move your head forward and shift about six inches to the side and you’ll see the first part.” I paused. “It’ll have to be you. Cinder’s too big.”

Rachel only nodded. She moved her head and shifted. “I see it,” she said and began to move.

“Del—” Cinder said.

“Catch me if I fall,” Rachel said, and started sliding through the beams.

If it had been Luna I’d have been terrified, barely able to look. As it was, I watched Rachel with something like indifference. Despite everything, I had to admire her body control. She didn’t tremble at all as she crawled and stretched and balanced over and under and through the beams, heading for their source. I looked into the future and saw her slip and die in agony, and each time I spoke, telling her which way to move, when to stop and when to go. Rachel obeyed without question. Despite everything that had happened between us, in a weird way we still understood each other. I wondered what Luna and Sonder must be thinking, watching from the sealed corridor.

At last Rachel made it. She rested in a crouch, body angled to avoid the beams streaming from the opening just above her. “What do I do?” she said without looking.

“Put the middle three fingers of your right hand against the mirror just below the beams,” I said. “Up. A little to the right. Now press.”

There was a click and a small section swung open. “There should be two crystal spheres,” I said. “Can you see them?”

“Yes.”

“Put your finger between.”

There was a pause, then a tiny spark. All of a sudden, as if someone had thrown a switch, the beams vanished. Cinder and Rachel were standing in an empty room.

Cinder turned, looking from side to side. Rachel rose and walked towards the door. “It won’t open,” I said as she disappeared from my sight. “You’ll have to—”

At my side, the door seemed to flash green, then crumble to powder, becoming a fine dust that hung in the air. Rachel strode through, followed an instant later by Cinder. “—disintegrate it,” I finished. The room on this side of the trap was a small one, with corridors leading off right and left. Cinder and Rachel entered and stopped, facing me from only a few feet away.

Cinder looked at the smashed controls, then back at me. There was an expression on his face I’d never seen before. “Why?” he said at last.

I shrugged. “We had a deal.”

Cinder looked at Rachel. She was studying me, her eyes opaque behind her mask. “Outside,” she said at last, addressing Cinder. “We keep him alive, he gets rid of these bracelets.”

I nodded. Rachel stepped forward and held out her right wrist, pushing back the sleeve to reveal the bracelet. “Well?”

I pulled out a tool and set to work. Rachel waited patiently while I probed at the bracelet’s inner workings, looking into the future to see the outcome of every action. From time to time my hand brushed against Rachel’s skin. She didn’t react, and neither did I. I might have been her dressmaker.

I finished after five minutes and moved on to Cinder, who stuck his arm out with poor grace. He was in worse shape than Rachel; I could see patches where his clothes had been burnt away, and he smelt of ash and scorched flesh. As the minutes ticked past he made a growling sound. “Why don’t you just burn ’em off?”

“Same reason you can’t. I’m guessing you’ve tried.”

Cinder was silent. “I can’t break the locks,” I said. “But I can shut down the receptor so it can’t receive Onyx’s signal. He won’t be able to tell they’re sabotaged until he tries to zap you.”

“That’ll work?” Cinder said suspiciously.

Without looking away, I held up my right wrist, which still held Onyx’s bracelet. “It worked for me.”

Cinder shut up then, and the three of us stood there quietly. After all our history, it was a strange feeling to have them just wait there. At last, it was finished. I stepped back. “Done.”

Cinder and Rachel looked at their bracelets. “Doesn’t look different,” Cinder said.

“It’s different,” I said.

“I believe you,” Rachel said. She looked at me. “So.”

“So,” I said.

The moment stretched out, silent, tense. I stood watching the pair of them, looking at the two possible futures, wondering which one they were going to choose.

“Don’t get in our way,” Rachel said at last. She turned and walked towards the nearest exit. Cinder gave me a final scowl and followed her.

As their footsteps faded away into the distance, I let out a long breath and let my shoulders slump. I stood still for a moment, alone with my thoughts, then shook myself and looked across at the secret door. “Guys? You can come out.”

Cautiously, Sonder and then Luna emerged. Sonder looked around. “Where did they go?”

“Farther in,” I said. Suddenly I felt very tired.

“Oh,” Sonder said, and scratched his head. “Well…I guess that’s better.” He walked forward, rummaging in his bag. “You know, I think I’ve seen this layout before…”

Luna waited for Sonder to get out of earshot, then looked at me. “We’re going to run into them again,” she said at last.

I didn’t answer. I led Luna and Sonder into the corridor Rachel and Cinder hadn’t taken, and together we headed deeper.

chapter 13

The hands on my watch pointed to 2:13. As I stared, they blurred and seemed to swim until I was no longer sure what I was looking at. I forced my eyes to focus, knowing I couldn’t afford to sleep.

We’d been inside the tomb for four hours. The closer we spiralled in towards the centre of the facility, the more lethal and hard to bypass the traps and security systems were. Our progress had slowed to a crawl—worse, the number of paths was steadily diminishing, forcing us closer to the others hunting the fateweaver.

Cinder and Rachel were the easiest to spot, and I stayed away from them, not wanting to find out how long our truce would last. More of a concern was Khazad. He had split from the others and was searching the corridors on his own, and in the last hour we’d been forced to hide from him three times. Each time we let him pass, he reappeared again a short while later. I was starting to worry that it wasn’t a coincidence and that he was actively hunting us. I could vaguely feel his presence through the futures of our meetings, somewhere behind us and to the left. Having to stay constantly on the alert was wearing me down.

I shook off my fatigue and looked up at Sonder. “Which way?”

Sonder had held up better under the strain than I’d expected, but he was looking tired as well. He’d managed to piece together a sketch map in his notebook, extrapolating from the parts of the facility we’d seen and from the designs of other Precursor structures he’d read about. It wasn’t perfect, but it was getting better. “Left, I think. It shouldn’t be trapped.”

I glanced ahead through the futures. We were standing at a T junction. “They’re both trapped.”

“There’s supposed to be a corridor. It might not be easy to open the other end, but…The right way is open, but I think the traps are denser.”

I sighed and slid down against the wall. “I need to rest. Try to figure out which path will get us through.” I closed my eyes and made myself relax.

I’d been sitting only a few moments when a voice penetrated my thoughts. “Alex?”

I opened my eyes to see Luna looking at me. She was crouching in the room’s far corner, the crystal cube held absentmindedly in her fingers, as though she’d forgotten about it. Luna had been quiet for the past two hours, her thoughts and manner more distant since the encounter with Cinder and Rachel, and I knew she’d been thinking about it.

When she spoke, though, the subject came as a surprise. “These traps and barriers. This isn’t normal, is it?”

I gave Sonder a glance, and he shook his head. “No. We’ve found defence systems before, but nothing like this.”

“I’ve been thinking about it too,” I said. “All I can think of is what Abithriax said. Fateweavers were supposed to be very powerful. If what he said was true, his might have been the only one stable enough to be preserved.”

“Why, though?”

I frowned. “Why the traps? To make sure no one could get it.”

Luna shook her head. “No, I understand that. I mean, why would they seal it away and not keep it for themselves?”

I opened my mouth to answer and stopped.

“Maybe they thought it was too powerful?” Sonder said doubtfully.

“No,” I said with a frown. “She’s right. If it was that useful, there’d have to be one hell of a good reason for them to give it up.”

Sonder suddenly got a thoughtful look. “You know…” he began, but as he did my precognition flashed a warning. I looked into the future and my fatigue vanished as I pulled myself to my feet. “Damn it.”

Luna scrambled up, pocketing the cube. “What’s wrong?”

“Khazad again.” I looked through the futures, calculated. “We’ve got less than five minutes. Sonder, which way?”

Sonder hesitated. “I don’t know.”

“Then we go with your first guess.” I turned left and started down the white corridor. Luna followed me without hesitation, and Sonder hurried after.

We reached a crossroads. A doorway led into a long hall, while the corridor went further, bending out of sight. Behind, I could feel Khazad following in our footsteps. He was moving faster now, and I wondered if he had some way of tracking us. “Into the hall,” I said. “We’ll seal the door behind us.”

“But we’ll be trapped!” Sonder protested. “The door at the other end’s sealed too!”

“We can open doors faster than Khazad can.” I glanced back; I thought I could hear footsteps. “Out of time. Let’s go.”

Luna stepped through, and with only a moment’s hesitation Sonder followed. I stepped inside and touched the control crystal on the wall. The area across the doorway darkened and became an opaque wall of force. The sound of distant footsteps cut off abruptly, and everything was silent.

“Can he get in?” Luna asked absently. She was playing with the crystal again.

“Eventually,” I said, reaching out with my senses to search ahead. “We just have to…” I trailed off. “Someone’s here.”

Luna and Sonder turned, their eyes flicking. The hallway was crowded with square pillars, providing plenty of cover. I reached into my pocket for a weapon. “Show yourself,” I said, my voice echoing around the columns. The silence stretched out, tense.

Movement, footsteps. A man leant out from behind a pillar and stopped, staring. “Verus?”

It was Griff. I searched the hall quickly and verified that no one else was inside. “Master Griff!” Sonder said in relief.

Griff walked closer and the four of us stood still for a moment. Only Sonder had relaxed; Griff and I were watching each other closely. Luna had hidden the cube away, and I kept my hand in my pocket.

Then Griff spoke. “You okay?”

I nodded, and the tension eased suddenly. “You?”

“So far.” He looked at the door. “You closed it?”

“Khazad’s outside.”

“Shit.” Griff ran a hand through his hair. “I was hoping I’d lost him.”

Now that Griff was closer I could see that he looked on edge. There were rips in his clothing, and he had the look of a man who’d been fighting hard. “What’s at the end of the hall?” I asked.

“Locked door. I was trying to get past when I heard you.” He looked at Luna. “You got that cube? Maybe that’d do it.”

The four of us came together, Luna staying a little back. I took my hand from my pocket but didn’t drop my guard. “What happened at the entrance?”

Griff grimaced, his hand creeping towards a rip along the side of his coat. “Khazad and that bastard Onyx tried to take my head off. Didn’t miss by much, either. If they hadn’t been in such a hurry…”

“No one else made it in?” I asked

Griff shook his head. “We’re all there is.”

Which means it’s either you or Sonder. “Let’s have a look at that door.”

The hallway bent right and left and right again, ending in a sealed door. I studied the door for a second, then nodded and walked up to the controls, pulling out a tool. “I can open it. Griff, I’ll need you to throw up some barriers. Khazad’s going to be in the hallway before long.”

Griff gave a glance at me and Luna, then nodded. “Will do. Sonder?”

Sonder jumped eagerly. “I’ll help!” The two of them disappeared back around the nearest corner.

Luna watched them go, then looked at me. “You think it’s one of them.”

I nodded as I began working on the controls. “Or both.”

Luna stood there for a while. “Can you tell which?”

“I can’t see beyond a choice that hasn’t been made,” I said. “Right now we need them and they need us. Once that changes…”

I didn’t finish, and Luna didn’t ask me to. We couldn’t depend on either Griff or Sonder, and our only sure ally was Starbreeze. It was tempting to call her, just for the reassurance of having her around, but Starbreeze couldn’t carry Luna, and the air elemental was our one trump card. I didn’t want to reveal her to Sonder and Griff until I had to.

“Alex?” Luna asked.

“Hm?”

“Why did you let them go?”

My hands went still. I didn’t need to ask who Luna meant.

Why do we do what we do? I think the reasons run deeper than we can know, and often we can only guess at the truest one. “If you can’t have another ally,” I said at last, “next best thing is to give your enemy another enemy.”

Luna was silent, but I could feel her gaze on me. She knew I was holding something back. I stopped work on the controls and sighed quietly. “That’s one reason. The other one is…whenever you kill someone, it becomes a little easier to do it the next time.” I turned to look at Luna. “You’ve never killed.”

A shadow flickered over Luna’s face. “I’ve—”

I cut her off. “Not the same. I mean deliberately.” I paused, looking at her. “It might come to that before this night is out. If it does…then be very sure about what you’re doing. Because either way, you’re going to have to live with the consequences forever.”

Luna stared back at me, then dropped her eyes. After a long moment, I turned back to the controls. It took me a while to get back my concentration.

When I heard Griff’s footsteps again, I glanced back to see that Sonder was with him. “I’ve set some wards,” Griff said. “But the lock on the door’s going screwy. You sure it’s Khazad?”

“It’s Khazad,” I said. “He’ll be inside in ten minutes. Your wards’ll hold him another ten, maybe less.”

“Can you get this open before then?”

I nodded. “Give me a hand.”

Griff came forward to help, and Luna stepped back. The minutes ticked by as the two of us worked together, me guiding, Griff using the power of his earth magic to manipulate the controls more quickly than I could. Griff was skilled with wards, and smart enough not to question what I told him. We worked quickly and efficiently.

There was a distant grating from far down the corridor. “Khazad’s in,” Griff said with a grunt.

“So are we.” I pointed. “There.”

Griff aimed a surge of earth magic, and with a rumble the door slid open. Beyond was a dark corridor. I scanned quickly ahead and confirmed that it was safe. “Sonder, get the lights,” I said. “You go in too, Luna.”

They obeyed. “Wait,” Griff said sharply. He pointed back down the hallway, and I turned to look.

There was a scuffle of movement. I spun back just in time to see Griff dart into the corridor after Luna and throw a scattering of gold discs down at the floor where the corridor opened out into the hallway. As they struck the ground they flared to life and a wall of transparent force sprang up, blocking the entrance. Sonder had just gotten the lights working; now he spun. “Master Griff! What—”

Griff gestured and a hammer of earth magic smashed Sonder into the wall with stunning force. Sonder’s head cracked against the stone and he hit the ground limply, his glasses bouncing away. In the same motion Griff swung back and Luna was slammed against the wall, dull-brown energy pinning her arms and legs.

I hit the barrier as Griff turned back to face me. The wall didn’t give, and Griff watched me struggle for a few moments before giving me a nod. “Sorry, Verus. Looks like you’re staying behind.”

“You!” I snarled, straining against the invisible wall. “It was you!”

Griff shook his head. “Don’t act so surprised. You were recruited by Levistus, same as me. Difference is I’m permanent and you’re temporary.”

“Alex!” Luna cried.

Griff gestured and the brown energy flowed up over Luna’s nose and mouth, cutting off her breath. I saw her eyes go wide with panic as she struggled to breathe. My fist tightened against the wall of force. I was less than five feet away but the barrier was just as unbreakable as the one I’d used on Canary Wharf. “Griff,” I said, my voice low and deadly. “If you hurt her—”

Griff ignored me and stood and watched Luna choke. There was nothing I could do, and he knew it. After a few seconds he drew his finger down and the energy withdrew just far enough for Luna to gasp in a breath. “Stay quiet if you want to breathe,” he told her before turning back to me. I willed myself to remain calm. “You’re making a mistake,” I said. “If we stayed together—”

“Sorry, Verus,” Griff said. “I’d been hoping to have you around to help with Onyx. But you see, it’s you Khazad’s after. He told me two hours ago. This way I get rid of you and him. That’s too good a deal to pass up.”

“You want the fateweaver? Take it. Let them go.”

Griff shook his head and started working on the door controls. “Love to cut out the deadweight, but I need her along. The fateweaver’s got a lock that works the same as the front door, and she”—he nodded at Luna—“is the only one who can open it. Well, her and that cube.”

I looked down at Sonder, lying sprawled at Griff’s feet, and hoped desperately for him to get up, but as I looked into the future my heart sank. Sonder was out cold. There was nothing I could do to stop Griff from sealing the door behind him.

“Oh, one more thing,” Griff said. He snapped his fingers and I felt a surge of energy from down the hall behind me. “I just took down the wards. Have fun with Khazad.” He took a step back towards Luna.

“Griff,” I said. I didn’t speak loudly, but there must have been something in the way I said it. Griff paused and looked at me.

Griff was next to Luna, within her danger zone, and I could see the silvery mist of her curse drifting through the bonds imprisoning her. The strands flowed lazily through the air, reaching Griff, soaking into him. “You are going to find,” I said, my voice soft, “that Luna is very bad luck for people who try to hurt her.”

Griff looked back at me, and I had one second to remember him like that: stocky and strong, his iron-grey hair mussed slightly from the struggle. He gave me an amused smile. “I’ll take my chances.” He put out one hand, and a fist of brown energy smashed the control crystals. The ones on my side flickered and went dead, and with a rumbling sound the door rolled across. I had one glimpse of Luna’s eyes going wide in panic, then the door ground shut with a thud.

I was alone in the hall. And distantly, from behind me, I heard Khazad’s footsteps coming closer.

Back when I was a prisoner in Richard’s mansion, Tobruk would sometimes play cat and mouse. He’d set me loose to run the dungeon, give me a head start, then come after me. Some of my memories of that time are blurred, but that feeling I remember crystal clear. Pressed against a wall, my heart in my throat and my breath coming fast, straining my ears for the sound of footsteps, feeling only dread because hiding never worked; Tobruk always found me, the only question was when.

Standing in that hallway, I felt all the old terror rush into me. Khazad was coming and he was stronger and crueller than I was, and when he found me he was going to hurt me and he was going to kill me, and there was nothing I could do. I scrabbled in my pocket, pulled out the glass rod, and channelled a thread of magic into it, speaking in a rush. “Starbreeze. Starbreeze, can you hear me? I need you. Please come. If you’ve ever listened to me, come now, please—”

I broke off as I felt something black and cold open up within me. Starbreeze would hear me, and she would answer…but too late, far too late. I turned, searching frantically for a way out, another exit. There wasn’t one. All that was left was to face Khazad. Me with my tricks and toys against the full power of a Dark mage. I stood helplessly in the empty hallway, listening to the footsteps draw closer, and I was nineteen years old again, cowering in the dark, paralysed with fear.

And then something spoke inside me, something older and steadier. You aren’t a child anymore. You told Luna there’s always a way out. Time to prove it.

I took a deep breath, stood up straight, and waited.

Khazad came around the corner like falling night. The Dark mage was a small man, but as he walked a cloak of shadow seemed to gather around him, turning him into something larger and more menacing. The lights dimmed slightly as he passed, and didn’t brighten. Black eyes met mine.

“Hello, Khazad,” I said. My voice shook the tiniest bit.

Khazad strode forward without answering. I watched him and wondered as I did how I could have ever thought he looked like a bird. He moved with a smooth, unhurried grace, not taking his eyes off me. I knew he was probing the area, scanning for traps, making sure I couldn’t trick him the same way again.

Khazad came to a stop twenty feet away, studying me. “Where are the rest?” he said at last.

“Griff took them,” I said.

Khazad smiled. “So he did something right.”

We stood looking for a moment more. “I want to make a deal,” I said.

Khazad kept smiling. “Really.”

I gestured down at the bracelet of black metal that Khazad was still wearing. “I can switch that off.”

Khazad raised his eyebrows. “Like you did with yours?”

“I can disable the receptor. Stop Onyx from activating it.”

“And?”

“A truce,” I said. “You don’t harm me, I don’t harm you.”

Khazad stood looking at me for a moment, his eyebrows still raised, then raised his hands and sent a bolt of black lightning straight into my chest.

The pain was so intense I didn’t even feel it when I hit the ground. My lungs had frozen and I struggled to breathe. Flashing spots swum before my eyes.

“You have no idea how much I’ve been wanting to do that,” Khazad said thoughtfully. As my vision cleared, I saw he was crouching down in front of me, only a couple of feet away. He was looking at me, eyebrows raised. “I told you this was coming.”

“Onyx—” I managed to say.

Khazad smiled, a flash of bared teeth. “Oh, I’m sorry. You didn’t know? I’ve decided to throw in with Onyx instead of Del. Wasn’t hard, after what she did in the forest.” His smile widened. “Oh, Verus, you should have heard her after I left them in that room, once she realised I wasn’t coming back. I wonder if she’s still alive. Hope she is. I wouldn’t want it to be too quick.” Khazad blinked and looked down at me. “But what are we going to do with you?”

I started to speak, and suddenly everything went blank.

The next thing I remember is lying against a pillar on the opposite side of the hall. I guess Khazad must have thrown me, though I don’t remember it. The back of my head was wet, and my right side felt like fire. Once my head had cleared enough for me to hear, I realised Khazad was talking again. “—and then Onyx told me to go back and kill you! Amazing how things work out, right? Even promised me a reward.”

I tasted copper and spat blood. I knew this was my last chance. Cat and mouse, I thought dizzily. The way to win is not to be the mouse. “Only one mage can use it,” I said to the floor.

“I mean, I’d have done it for free.”

I made myself look up. Khazad was strolling towards me, keeping a casual eye on me to see whether I was going to make things interesting. I drew a breath and spoke clearly, meeting his eyes. “Only one mage can use the fateweaver. That mage is going to be Onyx. Once he has it, he won’t need you. You think Onyx is planning to come back to Morden with anyone? You think he’s going to share the credit? Why do you think you’re still wearing that bracelet?”

Khazad stopped, and I knew I’d gotten through. I kept pushing. “Onyx told you he’d take it off if you killed me, didn’t he? He’s lying. As soon as you’ve done your job, he’ll trigger it. Once he’s got the fateweaver, there’s no reason to leave you alive. Why do you think Morden didn’t care about us being recognised? We were never meant to survive this. None of us were. We’re just one more set of pawns—”

“Shut up,” Khazad said. He stared down at me. I held very still and felt my life hanging in the balance. I knew Khazad was waiting for me to keep talking, but I didn’t. Everything I’d said was true. My only hope was that Khazad would realise it.

Khazad stepped forward and held out his right arm. “Take it off.”

I swallowed. “I can’t,” I said very carefully. “But I can change it so it won’t work.” I began to rise, just slightly.

“Stay on your knees,” Khazad said, and I froze. Khazad touched his left hand to the side of my neck. It felt very cold, and I could feel the tension of a spell hovering in his fingers, waiting to be let loose. “You have five minutes.”

I swallowed. “I do this, you let me go.”

Khazad studied me, and I knew exactly what he was thinking. “Agreed,” he said at last. He held his right wrist in front of me, the bracelet gleaming dully. “Do it.”

Have you ever had to work under pressure? You probably think you have. You’re wrong. Real pressure is knowing that if you make a mistake you’ll be dead without ever knowing what you did wrong.

Believe me when I say I worked very carefully.

“It’s done,” I said after a few minutes, lowering my tool. Khazad looked down at the bracelet. It looked the same as before. I’d made the same change that I’d made to Rachel’s and Cinder’s.

“If Onyx triggers it?” Khazad asked.

“Nothing.”

Khazad nodded. “You said you’d let me go,” I said, my mouth dry.

Khazad looked down at me and I held my breath. His eyes were opaque, dark. Up close Khazad smelt of dust and death, the scent of old bones. I felt the thoughts running through his head, saw the futures shift. Come on, Khazad, I prayed silently. Be a typical Dark mage. Play with your food.

“Go on,” Khazad said, and stepped back.

Slowly I picked myself up. My head spun, and for a moment I thought I was going to fall. My body ached all down my right side where I’d been thrown against the pillar, and my head was pounding. When my vision cleared, Khazad was still watching. I limped away.

Khazad let me get almost to the end of the hall. “Oh, Verus?”

I stopped and turned. Khazad was standing there, smiling. The hallway was quiet.

As Khazad lifted his arm to cast the spell that would kill me, I made a small gesture with the fingers of my right hand, the same one Onyx had made.

Black lightning surged from the bracelet on Khazad’s wrist, crackling over his body, and the spell he’d been about to throw dissolved. Shock flashed across his face, followed by agony. He hit the floor with a scream.

“Did you know death bracelets work on a signal?” I said to Khazad. The bracelet was still discharging, pouring out lethal energy as Khazad writhed and screamed. I walked back towards Khazad and stopped, my voice absent. “They’re old magic, these things. Not many people study them anymore. If you understand how they work, you can change the signal. Make it respond to your command, instead of someone else’s.”

Khazad’s head snapped up. He glared at me, but all he could do was twist in agony as the negative energy crackled into his body, his limbs, his heart. “You—” he managed to gasp. “You—”

I looked down at Khazad without expression. “I warned you. At the ball. I gave you a chance. But you could never believe it, could you? That someone like me could ever be a threat to someone like you.” I paused. “Tobruk was the same, you know. Right to the end.”

Khazad couldn’t speak anymore, but he stared hate at me even as he clawed at the stone. I looked down and I watched the black lightning play over his body, and I waited for him to die.

I didn’t wait long.

When Starbreeze arrived, I was slumped against one of the pillars. Starbreeze whisked in and hovered over Khazad’s body, looking down with wrinkled nose. She was in her elfin form, short stickingup hair and skinny arms. “Dead man,” she announced.

“Dead man,” I agreed. I pulled myself to my feet, wincing at the pain in my muscles. “Starbreeze, I need to get to the heart of this place. The centre. Can you take me there?”

“Middle?” Starbreeze said in interest.

“Middle.”

“Middle!” Starbreeze swept around me and turned my body to air. I had one last glimpse of Khazad’s corpse, then Starbreeze whisked me forward, through the gaps in the stonework, carrying me the last stretch of the way.

The heart of the facility was a huge circular room. Columns rose around the edge, supporting a high domed roof. There were inscriptions of some kind on the walls, but the light was too dim to make them out clearly. On the columns were magelights, weak and widely spaced, leaving the room just bright enough to see in, yet dark enough to cast shadows. The middle of the room was bare except for a dais at the exact centre. Upon the dais was a pedestal. Two figures stood before it.

Starbreeze set me down behind one of the columns, hidden in the darkness. As I scanned the area I felt other presences. We weren’t alone.

“Alex,” Starbreeze whispered.

“I know,” I said quietly. I peered around the column. Griff and Luna were on the dais at the centre, just visible in the gloom. Luna was standing stiffly upright, as if she were being held, and Griff was close. Too close. There was a small cage of force over the pedestal’s surface, and something was inside it.

“Men,” Starbreeze whispered.

“I know,” I said again. Griff and Luna weren’t the only ones here. I could sense three more: two hiding in the columns to the left, and one opposite. A moment later, I knew who they were. Cinder and Rachel to the left, and Onyx up ahead. From where they were standing, they could see Griff and Luna, but they couldn’t see each other.

“Three more,” I whispered to Starbreeze.

Starbreeze shook her head vigourously. “No!”

“What?”

“Another.” Starbreeze pointed towards the ceiling.

I looked up and saw nothing. I scanned the area and again found nothing…and then had a sinking feeling as I realised who it was. “Oh. Right. Her.”

“She’s wrong.”

“You can feel her?”

Starbreeze shivered. “Wrong.” She swept in a tight circle, looking distressed. I looked into the futures in which I moved forward towards the dais, getting a closer look.

The pedestal on the dais was three feet high, and resting on it was a plain, slim, ivory-coloured wand. A cube of unbreakable force topped the pedestal, just barely visible against the darkness. A moment later, I saw why Griff hadn’t opened it. On the rim of the pedestal, just outside the force barrier, were square holders exactly the right size and shape to place Luna’s cube into, just like the one at the entrance. Three of them.

Griff was up on the dais. He was holding Luna’s arm twisted up behind her back, forcing her onto tiptoes. “Think harder,” he was saying.

“I don’t know!”

I focused on Griff with my mage’s sight and saw that the silvery mist of Luna’s curse was crammed in so brightly around him that he looked like a searchlight, the glow so intense that it actually made it hard to see. I’d never seen the curse so concentrated, and more and more was pouring in. Griff twisted Luna’s arm a little higher, and she gasped; the silvery mist flowing from her into Griff seemed to intensify. “Think harder,” Griff said again.

“I don’t know!” Luna’s voice was high, laced with pain. “How could I know? I’ve never been here!”

Griff pushed Luna sprawling to the floor. He lifted a hand, and pale brown energy glowed. The stone of the dais flowed and reshaped itself into chains, locking around Luna’s ankles and binding her to the foot of the pedestal. “Well, then,” he said calmly. “We’ve got a problem.”

I snapped back to the present. “I’m going to get her.”

Starbreeze looked upset. “No!”

I shook my head. “Let’s go,” Starbreeze urged. “Away.”

“Griff’s going to kill her.”

Starbreeze shrugged.

“You don’t care. I know.” I looked at Starbreeze. “But I do. I need you to send a message. Whispering wind.”

“Who?”

“Cinder and Rachel. The two over there.” I pointed, then leant close and whispered into Starbreeze’s ear. “Cinder, Deleo. It’s Alex Verus. Onyx is waiting in ambush behind the column at the north side of the chamber, ten pillars to the left of where you are now. He’s expecting you to come from the middle.”

There was a moment’s silence as Starbreeze carried the message, then a whisper floated back. “Verus, you bastard! How the hell are you still alive?”

I smiled. “Hi, Cinder. Before you ask, we’ve still got a common enemy.”

“You think we owe you anything?”

I didn’t reply. After a second, I heard Rachel’s voice through the whispering wind. “Is he moving?”

“No.”

“Tell us if he does.”

Then silence. Starbreeze looked at me. “Gone.”

I nodded and started to plan my course.

“Alex!”

I turned to see Starbreeze floating in the air, gazing at me imploringly. She looked miserable, and even with everything else, I felt a sudden stab of pity. Starbreeze is a creature of whim and freedom and ever-changing movement. Violence isn’t in her nature. She was lost here, out of her depth, and I knew her instincts were telling her to flee. One word and she’d take me with her.

“Sorry, Starbreeze,” I told her. “I can’t run this time.” I pulled up the hood of my mist cloak and disappeared into the shadows.

As I circled the room, I reached out with all my senses, keeping tabs on the other mages. Onyx was watching and waiting, a spider in his web. Rachel and Cinder were creeping around towards him, and as far as I could tell Onyx hadn’t spotted them. I knew I wouldn’t see Thirteen until she struck, so I didn’t waste time worrying about her. Most of my attention was focused on Luna and Griff. Once I’d circled far enough I stepped into the open, trusting to my mist cloak and my magic to keep me unseen.

I could make out the outline of the fateweaver through the barrier, and for the first time in days, I was calm. All my decisions were made. I would take the fateweaver and use it. If I succeeded, Luna and I would live. If I failed, both of us would die. As I walked softly forward, I wondered if Abithriax was watching us, pieces on the chessboard all fighting for the same prize.

My circling had taken me behind Griff, and as I crept across the open stone I could see that he was focused on Luna. “Put the cube in,” he ordered.

“I don’t know which!”

There was the thud of a blow landing, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I heard Luna gasp. “Figure it out,” Griff said.

“I don’t know!”

Another thud, and Luna cried out. I sped up, pushing the limits of how fast I could safely move. Griff knelt down next to Luna, giving me a clear view of her. Luna’s lip was cut, drops of blood staining her skin. She looked up at Griff, afraid, but Griff’s voice when he spoke was suddenly gentle. “Luna,” he said. “I really don’t have anything against you. You’re obviously in over your head here, and it looks to me like you don’t have any idea what you’re dealing with.” Griff looked at her, his voice steady. “But you see, I need that barrier opened, and if you can’t do it, you’re no use to me. So I’m just going to keep hurting you until you try.”

“You said it’d kill me if I pick the wrong one!”

Griff raised his eyebrows. “Then you’d better make sure you get it right.”

I’d covered half of the distance to the centre. Across the room, I could sense Rachel and Cinder closing in. Onyx hadn’t moved. Luna was lying awkwardly on the stone chains that trapped her, breathing quickly.

Then Luna’s head came up, and I caught my breath at the look in her eyes. “I always hated my magic,” Luna said quietly. “It’s taken away my life. But it’s what I am. It’s part of me and I’m not hiding from it anymore.” She stared up at Griff and spoke softly and clearly. “Die.”

I felt something shift, and I realised that all of a sudden I could actually feel Luna’s curse radiating from Griff, an aura of doom that was almost tangible. I reached the dais, swift and silent, as Griff looked down at Luna and the futures flickered and changed.

Then the futures settled as Griff made his decision. “You know,” he said, and his voice was quite calm, “you don’t need to be healthy to use that cube. You just need to be alive.”

I saw then what Griff was going to do. Normal people, when something bad happens, get to tell themselves that they couldn’t have known. Diviners don’t. I knew what Griff was about to do, and I knew that if I tried to stop him he would swat me like a fly.

I held still.

Griff broke Luna’s wrist.

Luna’s scream was physically painful, like knives scraping down my spine. Griff waited for it to trail away into sobbing, then spoke again. “Try the cube.”

“I—I—I—”

“Try the cube.”

“I won’t. I won’t. I—”

There was the sharp crack of another bone and Luna screamed again, a heartbreaking sound. I clenched my fists, a fine tremor going down my arms. “Try the cube,” Griff repeated.

Luna only sobbed.

Griff made an exasperated noise, and I felt him channelling earth magic. I couldn’t see what he was doing; the pedestal was in the way. All I could see was the faint brown glow. Then Luna shrieked, and kept on shrieking. It was earsplitting, but underneath it I could hear a grinding, scraping noise, like rock grating against rock. Griff spoke again, but this time I couldn’t make out his words. I dug my hands into the stone until they bled. I knew Cinder and Rachel were right on top of Onyx’s hiding place. Come on, I prayed, come on, come on, come on—

There was a roar and a flash of flame. The glow from the other side of the pedestal snapped out, and Luna went silent. Griff whirled, searching for the noise, and for an instant his back was to me. It was long enough.

Griff felt me coming. You don’t catch a battle-mage totally off guard, no matter how quick you are. He was turning back towards me when I reached him, a shield of energy coming up to block my attack, but I wasn’t using a weapon. I slammed into him in a bull rush, and as I did I felt Luna’s curse suddenly take, hard. Looking into the future, it was as if every strand but one were extinguished. The one strand that led to Griff’s fate pulsed brightly, becoming real.

Griff staggered backwards, off balance, on the edge of falling but not quite going over. He kept going much farther than he should have and was halfway across the room before he came to a halt.

The shadows around Griff moved. Onyx strode out to his right, Rachel to his left, Cinder behind. The three Dark mages formed a triangle with Griff at the centre. Sea-green light flowed at Rachel’s hands; fire burned around Cinder’s. Onyx showed nothing at all. All three noticed Griff at the same time and turned to stare at him.

Griff looked up, and there was just enough time for his eyes to go wide. “Oh, shi—”

Battle-mages have a frightening amount of destructive power. Mages fighting a duel spend most of their energy preventing the other from landing a solid hit. It’s very rare for a mage to hit an opponent with all his strength, but when it happens, it’s always fatal. One spell from a battle-mage can shred a human body like tissue paper.

The effect of three of those spells hitting at the same time doesn’t bear thinking about.

I won’t try to describe what it looked like. All I’ll say is that it was over very fast.

Then Onyx and Rachel and Cinder turned their attention to each other, and I dived behind the pedestal as the room lit up with death and fire. “Luna! Luna!”

Luna was leaning against the pedestal, her eyes fluttering. Griff’s stone chains still locked her ankles to the pedestal, her right arm was twisted at a horrible angle, and her face was dead white. “Don’t touch me,” she said, her voice faltering. “It’s different, I—”

From the other side of the pedestal I could hear the roar of flame and the flat, deadly wham of Onyx’s force magic. “It’s okay. Don’t move.” I looked around, trying to figure out some way to get Luna out of here. “We need to—”

I only had a second’s warning. I dived sideways off the dais, rolling, just as something swept through the spot I’d left with a swoosh of air. As fast as she had struck, Thirteen was gone. I came to my feet and slipped one hand in my pocket, tense, waiting.

Less than a hundred feet away a furious battle was raging as Rachel and Cinder hammered Onyx with all of their power, trying to break down his shields and kill him, but I couldn’t spare the time to look. I stood on the open stone, and it was Thirteen I was watching for, waiting to see how she would come at me: from the left or from the right or straight above. I couldn’t see her, but I could see into the futures where she killed me, and I could see how to move to make sure that didn’t happen. Not yet…not yet…

…now.

As Thirteen swept in I pivoted, and her claws missed my throat by inches. I kept turning, and as Thirteen flashed past next to me my hand flung a handful of glittering dust over her.

Thousands of the glowing grains of light fell to the floor and winked out, but hundreds more covered the air elemental and clung to her. Thirteen darted away, trying to shake the stuff off, but it had stuck. She was visible now, an outline of glittering particles in the shape of a woman. “What’s the matter, Thirteen?” I asked. “Shy?”

Thirteen made a final effort to rid herself of the dust, then gave up. As she looked at me her invisibility faded and the lines of her body came into view beneath the dust. Pale white eyes looked at me, and she began to glide forward.

I backed away, a nasty feeling in my stomach. I could reveal Thirteen, but I had nothing that could harm her. “Listen,” I began, “maybe we got off on the wrong foot. The truth is, I actually really like air elementals.”

Thirteen kept advancing, and I kept backing away. Thirteen was pushing me back in a tightening spiral, coming closer and closer to the pedestal. I could feel Luna slumped against the base, fighting to stay conscious, the battle still raging behind me. “You want the fateweaver, right?” I said. “You need us to get it. If we’re dead, you can’t take it back to Levistus.”

Thirteen didn’t answer, and with a sudden chill I realised that she wasn’t listening to me because she couldn’t. She’d been made to follow orders and nothing else, and right now her orders were to kill me. Thirteen was getting closer and closer. “Wait—” I said urgently, and Thirteen sprang, claws reaching for my throat.

Something flashed across my field of vision and hit Thirteen in midleap, knocking her sideways. I caught one glimpse of Starbreeze’s face, then the two air elementals were rolling away in a blur of motion and slashing claws.

I stared after them for a moment, then turned back. “Luna!”

Luna had managed to pull herself up against the pedestal, her crippled arm cradled in her lap. Her head was right next to the three receptacles for the cube, and the force barrier holding the fateweaver glowed silently above her, casting a faint white halo around her hair. “Go away,” she managed.

I crouched down next to her. “Luna—”

“Go away,” Luna said. Her eyes were cloudy with pain, but her voice was clear. “Not you as well.”

“Put the cube in one of the holders.”

“I don’t know which, Alex, just go, I—”

“Close your eyes and guess.”

Luna stared at me. Her eyes were clear again—I think the sheer craziness of what I was saying had shocked her lucid. “Alex?” she said carefully as the battle raged around us. “This isn’t a good time for making jokes.”

From the far side of the room, there was a hollow boom and Cinder came flying through the air. He slammed into one of the pillars with the crack of breaking bone and hit the floor. A moment later Onyx appeared. His eyes had gone pitch-black and wisps of darkness trailed from his hands as he turned on Rachel. Rachel faced him, and there was no fear in her eyes; beneath her mask, her lips were curled in a silent snarl. From the other side, Starbreeze and Thirteen were a whirlwind of deadly motion.

Two mages, two elementals, two battles; as soon as Onyx or Thirteen won, we were finished. “Don’t choose,” I said to Luna, raising my voice over the sounds of battle. “Leave it up to luck.”

“I don’t—” Luna began, then stopped. Her eyes went wide as she understood.

From behind, I heard Starbreeze give a yelp of pain. “Alex! Hurts!”

Luna took a deep breath, then pulled herself to her knees, gasping slightly as her right arm shifted. My hands itched to help her, but I stood my ground. Carefully Luna drew out the crystal, closed her eyes as the sounds of battle raged all around us, then reached out blindly.

The crystal slotted neatly into the leftmost holder.

There was no fanfare this time. The crystal pulsed, and the force field over the fateweaver pulsed with it. Then the barrier was gone, and the fateweaver was clearly visible: a simple, unmarked wand of ivory. I snatched it up, and—

—silence.

I didn’t hesitate. As soon as I felt the momentary dizziness, I stepped back, looking around. I could see my body crouched over the pedestal, Luna slumped beneath. “Abithriax!”

“Well, well.” I spun to see Abithriax walking towards me across the floor, picking his way through the battle in his red robes. Onyx and Rachel were duelling all around him, and a blast of force passed straight through Abithriax’s image without touching him. “Things have gotten lively.”

“I need to use the fateweaver!”

“Yes, you do,” Abithriax said. “Listen carefully. To use the fateweaver, you and I must merge. I will open my mind to you; my knowledge and skill will be yours. The link requires your willing consent.” Abithriax’s eyes held mine. “Hold back even a little, and it will fail.”

Behind Abithriax, Onyx shattered Rachel’s shield into shards of sea-green light. I knew the kind of mind magic Abithriax was describing was dangerous. If I went along with this, I wasn’t sure who I’d be when I returned to my body. I looked down at Luna. She was crouched down on the dais, trying to hide from the battle raging around us. “Do it.”

Something flickered in Abithriax’s eyes, then they were smooth again. He nodded and walked up to the dais. “Then hold out your hand.”

I lifted my right arm. Abithriax reached out, then paused. “I suggest you brace yourself.” He looked into my eyes. “This will feel…a little odd.”

Abithriax grasped my hand, and everything went white.

chapter 14

When I came back to my body it was like waking up for the first time.

Luna was saying something, but I barely noticed. I knew exactly what was happening without needing to look. I started walking down off the dais, twirling the fateweaver absentmindedly in my right hand. “Starbreeze,” I called. “Break off.”

Starbreeze tore herself away from Thirteen. Her form was tattered, mist leaking from her wounds. She shot me one terrified look and fled. Thirteen didn’t pursue, instead turning back to me, her primary target. She’d shed the last of the glitterdust, and as she moved she faded into invisibility again.

Thirteen was the greater threat; I should eliminate her first. I turned my back on her and looked to the other side of the room. “Onyx!”

Onyx had crippled Rachel, sending her limping into the darkness of the pillars; now he turned to me. “Rules changed, Chosen,” I told him. I kept walking, placing myself between the two killers. “Surrender or die.”

Onyx didn’t waste time answering. A whirlwind of razor-edged discs of force flashed towards me.

I sidestepped and the attack hit Thirteen just as she swept in at me from behind. She flashed into visibility as the force blades chewed her to pieces. Her mouth opened in surprise, and she looked at me with wide eyes, and for a moment I thought she was going to speak. Then she was nothing but wisps of drifting air.

I looked back to see Onyx staring at me in shock. That attack should have hit me; I knew it, and he knew it. “Last chance,” I said.

Onyx threw a lance of force at me, followed by a spinning saw blade that could have cut me in half. Next was a series of hammer blows, then a force wave, then he just blasted the entire area in a thirty-foot radius.

He might as well have saved his strength.

The power the fateweaver gave me was beautifully simple. My divination magic let me see what might happen; the fateweaver let me pick what would happen. Together, they were invincible. Fighting Onyx was like a chess match where I got to play both sides of the board. Each attack had a hole, a flaw; I lined up each flaw with my own movement so that it would miss. I didn’t even move fast enough to break a sweat.

“What the fuck!” Onyx screamed as I walked through the blast, bits of stone chipping and bouncing around me.

I kept advancing, and Onyx backed away. “Your aim really is terrible, you know that?”

Onyx threw an entire wall of force at me. He was panicking now, and that made it even easier; I found a flaw in the wall, enlarged it, and chose the future where the flaw was aligned with my course. I had to dip my head slightly as the wall ruffled my hair, then I straightened up and kept walking. “What the fuck!” Onyx screamed again. “I hit you! I know I hit you!”

I sprang at him.

Onyx struck with everything he had, but my attack had been a feint and I slipped away as Onyx filled the air around him with missiles. Onyx’s strikes were frantic, uncontrolled, and it was easy to curve one of the bolts of force around to strike him in the back. The impact threw him from his feet, blood spattering the stone.

Onyx struggled to rise, gasping, until the sound of my footsteps made him look up. I was walking towards him, and as I did I slid my knife from its sheath, letting its blade glint in the dusk. “Should have listened when you had the chance,” I told Onyx, and I was smiling as I said it.

Onyx looked up at me, and for the first time I saw fear in his eyes. I knew Onyx was no coward. He could face battle without flinching, but this was something beyond his understanding, and the magic that had been a sword and a shield since childhood had betrayed him. To Onyx it must have seemed as though his world had turned upside down. He made his decision and acted in the same instant, and his body vanished in a mote of darkness as he teleported away. All that was left were drops of blood on the stone.

I came to halt with an annoyed tch. If I’d been paying more attention, I could have anticipated Onyx’s flight and prevented it. Still, not bad for a first try, I suppose.

“Alex?”

I looked around to see that Luna was the only one still moving. She was still kneeling, chained to the pedestal, staring at me with wide eyes. “He got away,” I said, unable to keep the irritation out of my voice. “Stay there.” I began a circuit of the room, checking for survivors.

Griff, needless to say, was very dead. After being shredded, incinerated, and disintegrated all at once, what was left of his body could fit in a pencil case. Anyone planning to give him a burial would need a mop and a vacuum cleaner. Thirteen was gone as well, though with her I wasn’t sure how permanent it would be. The trouble with incorporeal creatures is that it’s always so hard to tell if they’re really dead.

The big surprise was that Cinder was still breathing. The back of his head was a mess, and he was carrying a few broken bones, but he was still alive, for the moment at least. I searched his body, then glanced up as I sensed movement.

Rachel was standing a few pillars away. Her mask had been torn away in the battle, and for the second time that day she was Rachel rather than Deleo again. She didn’t move. “Rachel,” I said with a smile, rising to my feet. I lifted the fateweaver and raised my eyebrows. “Want to try to take it?”

Rachel didn’t answer, and I walked towards her. “Don’t tell me you’re not thinking about it,” I said. “You’re wondering if you can succeed where Onyx failed.” I reached Rachel and began to walk slowly around her. “Do you think you can?”

Rachel swivelled to stay facing me, limping slightly as she did. Her hair was disarrayed, matted in one place with blood, but her eyes followed me unblinkingly. “Well?” I said.

Rachel shook her head slowly, not taking her eyes off me.

“Why not?” I leant in and suddenly I was right behind Rachel, whispering into her ear. I could smell her scent, blood and sweat and dust…and something else, as well, something that made my nerves quicken. “You like to kill by touch, don’t you? You’re close enough. Show me what you’ve learnt.”

Rachel shook her head again. “Why not?” I said again, softly into her ear.

Rachel was silent for a long moment. “You’d win,” she said at last, her voice as soft as mine.

“Yes,” I said. “You were always good at knowing when you were outmatched, weren’t you? Not like Shireen.”

Rachel held very still. I withdrew, pulling away from her. “Now,” I said coldly. “Why should I let you live?”

“We had a deal—”

I laughed then, my voice suddenly cruel, and Rachel stopped. “Did you think I was that stupid?”

There was fear in Rachel’s eyes, but there was something else too: she was looking at me with respect for the first time, and I found that I liked it. “Still,” I said. “You might be some use. But payment is only put off. I’ll be calling on you. Understand?”

Rachel nodded carefully. “I understand.” She stepped away, backing towards Cinder.

I lifted an eyebrow. “You want him as well?”

“He’s all I have,” Rachel said. She spoke simply, and I had the odd feeling that for once she was being honest.

I shrugged. “He can share your obligation. Go.”

Rachel nodded again, then opened a gateway and started to pull Cinder through it. Her movements as she pulled the big man were oddly tender. Then the gate closed behind them and I was walking back towards Luna.

“I don’t understand,” Luna said as I reached the dais. She’d gotten to her feet and was standing with her arm cradled awkwardly, staring at me. “How did you do that?”

“Back off two steps,” I said. Luna did, causing the chains to rattle and draw out. As the links stretched I identified the weakest points, created a pair of hairline flaws, then shattered them with two stamp kicks. I turned towards the wall. “This way.”

“But—” Luna said, then found she was talking to my retreating back. She hurried after me, the broken chains rattling. “Where’s Starbreeze?”

“She’ll be fine.” I stopped in front of a featureless section of wall, then spoke a command word. It darkened, then faded away, and I stepped inside. “Come on, unless you want to stay.”

Luna started, then followed me in. I touched a control crystal on the wall, and with a shudder the room sealed itself and began to move.

“Alex?” Luna asked. “What does that thing do?”

I smiled. “Oh, Luna, I wish you could feel it. It’s like being able to see where you were blind. Watch.” I stepped forward.

Luna flinched. “Don’t!”

I laughed. “Your curse? That can’t hurt me now.” I could see the silvery mist drifting around me, never quite reaching. Occasionally a strand would touch me, but I simply grounded it in the floor, along with the remnants I’d picked up from earlier. It was just as well I’d found the fateweaver when I had; I’d gotten altogether too close to Luna over the past few days. I pointed at Luna’s broken arm, and as she flinched I translated her movement into resetting the bone, aligning the fragments into their proper place. Luna gave a yelp of pain, then stopped suddenly, staring down at her arm. “It doesn’t hurt.”

“I did some encouraging of your body’s healing system. Once we find a healer I’ll have it fixed before you know it.” I raised my eyebrows. “And what do you say to having your curse lifted?”

“…What?”

I laughed again. “Anything that’s possible, I can make real.” The room came to a sudden end and one side opened. “Our stop.”

The journey out didn’t take long. Luna trailed along behind me, shell-shocked, as I strode along the corridors, eagerly laying plans for everything I was going to do once I got outside. Before anything else, I’d visit Morden. I was going to enjoy our next meeting, though I didn’t think he would. After that, I had a score or two to settle with Levistus. Then there were the others…

I was so absorbed, I hardly noticed once we reached the exit. “Hold up the cube,” I told Luna.

Luna hesitated, looking around. We were in a small, featureless room. “This isn’t the way we came in.”

I felt a flash of annoyance that I had to explain things to her, then smoothed it over. “This is the back door. It’ll take us into the countryside.”

Luna hesitated a moment longer, then obeyed, speaking the command words I ordered her to use. The cube lit up and a gateway opened in the wall, carrying with it a breeze that smelt of leaves and grass and cool night air. I stepped before the portal, next to Luna, and looked upwards. For a moment I could see nothing, then I started to make out pinpoints of white light. Gradually the stars took shape before me, and as my eyes adjusted I could see the shape of a hillside, trees silhouetted against the night sky. I stood there for a long moment, drinking in the starlight, basking in the rush of triumph. I’d done it. I’d won.

“Let’s go, Luna,” I said. “We’ve got a world waiting for us.”

Then suddenly there was a whirlwind in front of me, pushing me away. I jumped back with a curse, bumping into Luna and making her cry out. The whirlwind solidified, taking the form of a waiflike girl with spiky hair. “Don’t!” Starbreeze said urgently.

“Starbreeze?” I recovered my balance. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Wrong! Don’t go!”

“You’re in the way.” I tried to walk forward and again found myself in the middle of a whirlwind of air, driving me back. I came to a stop and looked angrily at her. “Starbreeze!”

Starbreeze didn’t move. “Can’t go!”

Luna looked at me puzzlement. “What’s going on?”

“I have no idea,” I said in exasperation. Starbreeze wasn’t intending any harm, else my precognition would have sensed her, but she wasn’t budging either. “You can’t go,” Starbreeze insisted. “Wrong!”

“Maybe it’s dangerous?” Luna asked doubtfully.

“Luna, there’s nothing out there within a hundred miles that’s a danger to me,” I said impatiently. “Starbreeze, get out of the way!”

Starbreeze shook her head again. “Wrong.”

I took a threatening step forward. “You stupid little—”

“Wait!” Luna said urgently, looking between us. She was close enough to Starbreeze to be dangerous, but Starbreeze was focused so desperately on me she didn’t even notice. “What’s wrong?” Luna asked Starbreeze. “Isn’t this the way out?”

Starbreeze shook her head again. “Can’t go.” She stared at me anxiously. “He’s wrong.”

“This is the way out,” I said. “Starbreeze, move or I’ll make you move.”

“Wait,” Luna said. “What does she mean?”

“Who cares?”

“Wrong,” Starbreeze said again, insistent.

“She keeps saying that…”

“Who cares?” I wanted to get out of this place, walk outside the boundaries of the tomb and taste the night air, wanted it so badly I could taste it. Starbreeze was stopping me, and that was making me angry.

Luna hesitated. “Shouldn’t we listen to her?”

“No!” I said in frustration. “There’s nothing for us to go back for. We are done with this place!”

As I spoke, Luna started. “Wait!”

I was almost ready to kill Luna. “NOW what?”

“There is someone we need to go back for. Sonder!”

I stared at her for a second. “Who?”

“Sonder! Alex, you saw him, Griff hurt him, don’t you remember? He must be back in those corridors.”

“He’s probably dead.”

Luna started as if I’d slapped her. “He’s not! He was breathing when Griff took me away. He could still be alive!”

I started to answer and suddenly came to a halt. Luna was right. When I’d last seen Sonder he’d been alive. Griff hadn’t killed the younger mage, he’d only stunned him. So why had I been so sure he was dead?

Luna was looking at me as if waiting for something. “What?” I said at last.

“Aren’t you going to…?” Luna said. When I didn’t respond, she trailed off.

“We’ll go back for him later.” I didn’t want to think about Sonder. I just wanted to get out.

“He might be dead by then!”

“Plenty more where he came from.”

Luna started again, her eyes going wide. “Why do we have to deal with this now?” I said in irritation. “Let’s get out of here.”

“I can’t believe you’re saying this! Alex, you were the one who told him to stay with us!” Luna was staring at me in shock. “What about what you told me? You said that you shouldn’t let someone die if you could help it. I believed you.”

“When did I…?” I trailed off as I remembered telling Luna that. It had been after we’d helped Cinder and Rachel. Except I didn’t really believe it, it had just been something to say to—

No, it hadn’t just been something to say. I had believed it. I did believe it. Luna was right. I couldn’t just leave Sonder back there, I needed to go back and help him.

No, Sonder didn’t matter. What I needed was to get out.

Wait, that was wrong. Leaving Sonder in the middle of that maze would be like killing him.

But I didn’t care about that.

Yes, I did.

I made a noise and turned away, holding a hand to my forehead. I was getting a headache; it felt like there were two voices in my head at once. I paced back and forth between the walls of the tunnel. “I don’t know,” I muttered. “Let’s just get out of here.” I felt I’d be able to think clearly if I only got outside.

“No,” Starbreeze said urgently to Luna. “Wrong.”

“Shut up,” I snapped. Their voices were making the headache worse. “I don’t—” I turned and saw that both Starbreeze and Luna were looking at me now, and both had the same strange look on their faces. “What are you staring at?”

“Back in the chamber,” Luna said slowly. “You were ready to kill them.”

“Of course I was!”

“I’m not sorry about Griff,” Luna said. Her left hand moved unconsciously to her crippled right, but she seemed to have forgotten about her broken arm. She was staring at me intently. “But I’ve never seen you like that, not until—” Luna stopped, and something changed in her eyes.

For some reason I felt a sudden stab of fear. I wanted to push past, make a run for the exit, but Luna and Starbreeze were blocking my way now, staring at me. “What?”

“Alex?” Luna asked, and all of a sudden her voice was very careful. “What happened when you picked up that thing?” She gestured to the wand in my hand.

I opened my mouth to reply, and suddenly everything was silent and I was standing outside my body again. Luna and Starbreeze were looking at where I stood, but I couldn’t hear them anymore.

I rolled my eyes. “Not you again.”

“Are you going to stand around all day?” Abithriax demanded, striding into view. He’d appeared right next to me in his red robes, and he looked seriously pissed off.

“Shut up,” I muttered. As soon as Abithriax had reappeared, my headache had gotten worse, bad enough that it felt like someone taking a hammer to my skull. Just talking was making me nauseated.

“Listen, Verus,” Abithriax said. His voice was on edge, tense. “I’ve been sitting listening to this conversation and I’m thoroughly bored with it. Just get us outside and I’ll teach you to help this Sonder boy however you want.”

“Leave me alone,” I said through clenched teeth. If only my head would stop hurting. “Why do you care about getting outside anyway?”

Something flickered in Abithriax’s eyes, and I stopped. I’d only wanted to shut him up, but that look made me pay attention. I’d stumbled onto something Abithriax didn’t want me to know. More than one thing. I shook my head. If only I could think straight.

“Look,” Abithriax said carefully. He’d calmed down again and his voice was calm, reasonable. “I’ve got nothing against the boy. It just wouldn’t be sensible to go back now. If we can get to somewhere with more facilities, then we can…”

Abithriax kept talking, but I wasn’t listening. I was looking up through the portal at the stars shining down from the night sky. Starlight. What did that remind me of?

“…more safely,” Abithriax was saying. “In any case—”

“The greater power for the lesser,” I said absently.

“What was that?”

“Abithriax?” I said. All of a sudden my headache was gone. I could think clearly again, and all of my attention was focused on the man in front of me. “How do you know my name?”

“I’m sorry?”

“My name,” I said pleasantly, and I didn’t take my eyes off him.

“Well—your friend.”

I shook my head slowly. “Luna calls me Alex. Not Verus.”

“One of the others, then.”

“Which one?”

Abithriax hesitated. Just for a second his eyes shifted, and I saw something behind them, something calculating and cold.

No, it had always been there, I just hadn’t been looking for it. “I will open my mind to you; my knowledge and skill will be yours…” Stupid, stupid, stupid. If I could look into his mind, he could look into mine. Why hadn’t I asked how someone who’d been sealed away two thousand years could speak perfect English?

“Why do you want to get out of here so badly, Abithriax?” I kept my voice friendly, but inwardly I was tensing. When I’d merged with Abithriax last time, I’d touched him. He might be a ghost to everyone else, but if I could get close…

Abithriax stood still for a long moment, then straightened. “All right.”

I tried to move, but Abithriax was faster. All of a sudden I was paralysed, frozen. There was no spell or gesture: one moment I was talking, the next rooted to the spot. All I could move was my eyes.

Abithriax walked forward. As he did he seemed to grow in presence, become larger, more there, as if until now he’d been holding himself back. The red streaks in his hair and beard stood out brightly, and all of a sudden they made me think of blood. “You just had to make this difficult, didn’t you?”

I couldn’t answer. Behind Abithriax, I could see Luna and Starbreeze. They were talking, speaking to my frozen body, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. “Still, I suppose I should be impressed,” Abithriax said. “Normally my wielders never even notice. The name was careless of me…lack of practice, I suppose, it’s been such a long time…” He glanced at me. “You asked how I did it. I suppose it’s only fair. I was a mind mage. That was how I was able to imbue myself into my fateweaver. But I always hesitated to make that final jump…until the alternative was death. But once I’d adjusted to my new form, learning to control a bearer was quite straightforward…”

Luna was standing next to my body, now. She was trying to pull the fateweaver out of my hands, struggling with her one good arm. Starbreeze had joined her, and Luna was shouting silently, her face frantic. “Interesting,” Abithriax said. “She’s worked it out. I think I’ll keep her, if she doesn’t make too much trouble…Where was I? Oh, yes. First I took revenge on my betrayers in the Light Council. It took them quite some time to realise what was happening. They’d kill my wielder, but then they’d take the fateweaver for themselves, and of course I’d just start all over again.” Abithriax shook his head. “And yet even when the last few figured it out, they couldn’t bear to destroy me. All that power, you see. So they built me this tomb and sealed me away, hoping to find a way to take my power for themselves. And eventually they stopped coming and I was left to wait out the years, alone in the dark.”

I was struggling to move, but couldn’t. I wasn’t panicking yet, but things were looking bad. Abithriax was talking to me the way you do to someone who’s not going to be around long enough for it to matter.

“And then you came,” Abithriax said. “I hadn’t expected it to be this easy. But perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. It may have been two thousand years, but mages haven’t changed. Power, power, power.” Abithriax took a final glance back at Luna and Starbreeze, and nodded to himself. “Well, we’d better get on with it.”

Abithriax placed his hand flat against my chest. For a moment nothing happened, then I felt a draining sensation, as if the strength were flowing out of me and into the man—the ghost—in front of me. I fought against it, trying to pull it back. “There’s no point resisting,” Abithriax said calmly. “Each time you used my powers you granted me more of a hold. If you’d fought me from the instant you picked me up, you might have had a chance, but it’s far too late now.”

Starbreeze was still trying to pull the fateweaver away, with no success. Luna was standing in front of me, and I could see she was crying. I could make out the silver mist of her curse clearly, its tendrils soaking into Starbreeze, but curling away from my body. “There’s no need to be afraid, Verus.” Abithriax’s voice was reassuring. “I looked into your memories, and isn’t this what you always wanted? To be powerful enough that you needn’t be afraid anymore? Soon you’ll be the most powerful mage in the world. Well, it won’t exactly be you. But you’ll still be in there, watching everything that happens.” Abithriax paused. “At least, I think so.”

Abithriax’s voice was getting stronger, and I realised it was starting to sound like mine. He was taking over my mind, and soon he’d have the rest of me as well. My strength had been drained so far now that if I hadn’t been paralysed, I wouldn’t even have been able to stand. All I could do was look at Luna and taste despair. Oh Luna, I’m sorry. All this way, and this is how it ends. I don’t want to think about what this man’s going to do with you once I’m gone, but I can’t stop him. He’s going to win, and there’s nothing I can do…

The light seemed to be fading, but I knew it wasn’t the light that was going, it was my vision. Because of that, it took me a moment to notice what was different about Luna, and when I did, I would have blinked if I could. The silvery mist around her was changing to gold. She was standing close to me, head down as if praying.

“Good-bye, Verus,” Abithriax said, and he was smiling. “I’ve never known exactly what this feels like, but I don’t think it’ll hurt.” But I don’t very much care if it does, his eyes added.

Behind Abithriax’s back, Luna placed her good hand on my body’s shoulder, pulled herself up on tiptoes, and kissed me.

The golden light around Luna seemed to flash, then jumped into my body. To me, it felt like being struck with a bolt of energy. I felt Abithriax’s hold on me slip, and all of a sudden I was free, my strength rushing back. I staggered, and Abithriax jerked in surprise, staring at me. For a moment he hesitated.

I didn’t. Before Abithriax could react I’d caught his wrist, twisted, and come in behind him, my arm locked around his throat. Abithriax choked. “Surprise,” I snarled into his ear.

“What—?” Abithriax gasped. “How did—?”

“That was a interesting talk, Abithriax,” I said, my voice shaking with anger. “I was paying very close attention. You said I might have a chance if I’d fought you from the beginning? Let’s find out.”

Abithriax was struggling desperately, but I was stronger and better trained. I brought up my other arm, changing my grip to a hammerlock, and I felt Abithriax struggle wildly as I cut off his air and blood supply. “You’ll kill us,” Abithriax managed to gasp. “If I die—you—”

I tightened my grip and Abithriax’s voice trailed off in a gurgle. “Oh, I don’t think so,” I said. “I learn fast, you notice that? I think you’re lying again, and this time you’re not getting any more chances.”

Abithriax couldn’t speak anymore. The side of his face that I could see was red, turning purple. He clawed at my arms, but I only tightened my grip further. Around me, the world was starting to blur, the corridor and Luna and Starbreeze going in and out of focus. “Good-bye, Abithriax,” I snarled into his ear. “I don’t know if this’ll hurt, but I really hope it does.”

Abithriax made a last desperate attempt to get free, then went limp. All around me, reality seemed to unravel and fade to black.

When I woke up, I felt as though I’d just taken a long, relaxing nap. I would have liked to stay sleeping, but someone was calling my name, and I had the feeling I ought to answer. I shifted slightly and let myself come awake.

“Alex? Alex!”

I opened my eyes to see Luna’s face. “Oh,” I said agreeably. “Hey.”

“Alex!” Luna looked like she’d been crying, and her face was drawn and pale, but she was desperately hopeful now. “It’s you?”

I yawned and looked up. “Hey, Starbreeze. You stuck around too?”

Starbreeze was floating a little way off, her face anxious. Luna looked back at her happily, then froze. She looked back at me, suddenly watchful. “Wait. How do we know it’s you?”

I smiled. “Good girl.”

Luna let out a breath and slumped back against the corridor wall. “It’s him.”

I looked to my right. The fateweaver was lying on the floor, an inert wand of ivory. Experimentally I tried to manipulate the futures ahead of me, and found I couldn’t. The power had gone with Abithriax. “By the way, what happened?”

“What happened?” Luna demanded. “I couldn’t move you, and Starbreeze couldn’t either, and she kept saying that it wasn’t you, and I didn’t know what was going to happen, and— You tell us what happened!”

I closed my eyes and couldn’t help but smile. “Let’s just say it’s good to have friends.”

We rested a little longer before I pulled myself to my feet. I reached down and picked up the fateweaver between thumb and forefinger. “Wait!” Luna said in alarm.

“Don’t worry,” I said. The fateweaver was a wand of ivory again…for now. “I just think we should put things back where we found them.”

Starbreeze looked at me closely, then nodded in satisfaction. “Sleeping.” She looked through the portal at the piece of night sky, hopefully. “Go?”

“Soon,” I said. I took a look up at the stars, then turned back. “Well, then.” I gave Luna a grin. “I think we’ve got someone we need to go back for.”

Luna scrambled to her feet. It must have hurt her, but she was smiling. “You wait here,” I said.

Luna shook her head, still smiling. “I think I’ll go back with you.”

“Find someone?” Starbreeze asked in interest.

I looked between the two of them, then laughed. I turned and started walking back down the corridor, and both Luna and Starbreeze followed. The power from the fateweaver had gone, but my magic hadn’t, and I could still tell where to find Sonder. I didn’t think it would take long.

chapter 15

It didn’t.

We found Sonder back in the central room, searching for us amidst the traces of the battle. I think he was under the impression that we were the ones who needed rescuing by him. I would have laughed, except I was actually pretty impressed he’d been able to follow us at all.

I put the fateweaver back on its pedestal, and Luna relocked the force barrier with the cube. It’s sat there for two thousand years, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s where it can stay.

Luna and I were nearly dead on our feet by the time we stepped out under the night sky of England. A call on the communicator brought Talisid running, who took one look at us and fetched a healer. Luna went out like a light as soon as she was treated. The life mage who mended her arm told me afterwards she was surprised Luna had been able to stay conscious, much less walk.

Starbreeze followed us part of the way back, then got distracted and flew off somewhere. I didn’t mind.

The official Council report was released a week later. It stated that a group of renegade mages had launched an unprovoked attack upon a Council research team studying an archaeological find. A volunteer force had mobilised to protect the researchers, and a battle was fought. Although there had been numerous casualties, the only mage to die was Griff Blackstone, the leader of the research team, who had been tragically killed while protecting the mages under his care. The attack appeared to have been random and unmotivated, with no organisation behind it. Several prominent Dark and Light mages were quoted as condemning the attack, stating that it demonstrated the need for greater integration. The report finished by stating that since the item had been damaged beyond repair, it would henceforth be placed in stasis.

Probably the biggest surprise from my point of view was that no one tried to blame me. In fact, the report singled me out for praise for my “heroic efforts to protect noncombat-ants.” I was invited to a ceremony where I was publicly congratulated by a low-ranking Council representative. Before and after the ceremony, I was taken aside by several less public and considerably higher-ranking Council representatives and told to keep my mouth shut, or else. I did as I was told. I was fairly sure I’d made enough enemies without going out of my way to look for more.

With the crisis over, the ones who’d been in hiding emerged again. Helikaon returned to his country house, and Arachne came back to her lair.

And I went home.

And that’s how it is.

I still run my shop in my quiet little side street in Camden. Most of the time it’s still clueless kids, but I get a lot more mages now. Ever since the affair at the museum, quite a few people seem interested in talking to me. Sonder drops by from time to time, and sometimes he brings friends.

I haven’t heard anything from Levistus or Morden, or from their servants. With the fateweaver out of play, I’m not important to them anymore. I’ve taken precautions though, and it’ll be a long time before I forget again to scan ahead for danger when I travel somewhere.

Rachel and Cinder disappeared off everyone’s radar, and I haven’t seen them since. No surprise.

For a week or so after returning I was dogged by bad luck—tripping, hitting myself, little things going wrong at the worst possible moment—all aftereffects of Luna’s curse. I didn’t complain; it was cheap at the price.

Speaking of Luna, she visits every couple of days now. She still brings me items, but that’s not her reason for coming, not anymore. Instead we go to Arachne’s lair. After all, apprentices need a place to train.

She’s started to learn how to control it, you see. That was how she was able to help me against Abithriax; she took the protection her curse gives to her and lent it to me, just for a little while. Since then, she’s begun to control the negative sides: keeping it away from people she doesn’t want to hurt, directing it where it’s safe. She can’t do it reliably yet, and her touch is still almost as deadly as ever, but for the first time she can hope that one day that might change.

And as for me? I left something behind in Abithriax’s chamber, something that had been following me a long time. And I took away something in exchange, something harder to name. Maybe a sense of purpose, maybe simply knowing who my friends are. The memories are still there, and I still don’t fit into either world, but that’s okay. There are worse things than not fitting in, worse things than having to watch your back. Rachel taught me that.

My nightmares have stopped too. Mostly.

I think sometimes about Abithriax’s claim that he could cure Luna of her curse, and I remember what it felt like to wield that power…and I think about the fateweaver, resting on that pedestal within that bubble, locked away to all but those of us who know the secret. I wonder whether I killed Abithriax, or whether he’s still there, trapped in the artifact that’s become his prison, waiting for the next mage to pick him up. But then I shake it off and go back to what I was doing.

My world’s still not a safe place to be. The proposal to appoint Dark mages to the Council was dropped, but the Dark mages are still out there, still doing what they do in their mansions, behind soundproofed walls. Not all of them stay in their mansions either. There are things that come out after nightfall that you’d do well to stay away from.

But in my little corner of the city, things aren’t so bad. So if there’s something you need help with, drop by the Arcana Emporium. It’s easy enough to find if you try. You probably won’t take it seriously at first, but that’s okay.

Seeing is believing, after all.

Unforeseen Circumstances

My precognition warned me just in time and I jerked my head back. Half a second later there was a high harmonic crack as a bullet whipped through the space that had just a moment ago been occupied by my right eye. My would-be assassin was a very good shot.

That last bit of information was enough to make me sure that I did not want to make a run for it. The ground around the tree was rolling grassland for fifty yards in every direction and I had no intention of trying my luck. I hugged the tree and waited.

Ten seconds passed, twenty. How long would the assassin stay with his sights trained on the tree? He couldn’t afford to wait forever; the more time he spent in his position the better the chance of being found. Thirty seconds. Forty. I looked into the future and saw that putting my head out wasn’t going to attract another bullet. Maybe he’d gone? No, there was another attack coming, it was—

My eyes went wide. He’s going to shoot me with a WHAT?

Praise for
FATED

“Fated is an excellent novel, a gorgeously realized world with a uniquely powerful, vulnerable protagonist. Books this good remind me why I got into the storytelling business in the first place.”

—Jim Butcher, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Benedict Jacka writes a deft thrill ride of an urban fantasy—a stay-up-all-night read. Alex Verus is a very smart man surviving in a very dangerous world.”

—Patricia Briggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Jacka deftly invents the rules of magic as he goes along, creating an emotionally satisfying story arc and a protagonist who will keep readers coming back.”

—Publishers Weekly

Ace Books by Benedict Jacka

FATED
CURSED

cursed

BENEDICT JACKA

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

CURSED

An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author

PUBLISHING HISTORY
Ace mass-market edition / June 2012

Copyright © 2012 by Benedict Jacka.
Excerpt from Taken by Benedict Jacka copyright © 2012 by Benedict Jacka.
Cover photographs: Tower Bridge © Paul Knight / Trevillion;
sparkler © Patrycja Mueller / Shutterstock.
Cover design by Judith Lagerman.
Interior text design by Laura K. Corless.

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ISBN: 978-1-101-56891-0

ACE
Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
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ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is
stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the
author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

ALWAYS LEARNING

PEARSON

cursed

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

chapter 1

The old factory was the kind of place you only find in the very worst parts of big cities. Its bricks had once been red, but years of grime and pollution had darkened them to a brownish-grey. The outer wall was topped with ragged coils of razor wire. The wire was rusted and full of holes that hadn’t been repaired in years, as if the owners had decided that they couldn’t keep the burglars out but might at least be able to give them tetanus on the way in.

The rest of the dead-end street was dark, empty-looking buildings and shops hiding behind steel security gratings. The gratings were covered in graffiti and it was hard to tell whether the businesses locked behind them were still open or whether they’d been abandoned too. The only shop that looked in good shape carried the triple-sphere sign of a pawnbroker’s. Behind the shops and factory was the sort of council estate where the muggers use broken bottles because they can’t afford knives.

It was only eleven o’clock and the rest of London was filled with the sounds of the city, but on the street nothing moved. The road was empty except for parked cars. Half of them were missing wheels, windows, or both, and none would have looked out of place in a junkyard—except for the minivan parked at the top of the street. Its polished black paint melted into the shadows, with the orange glow from the streetlights picking out the silver hubcaps and lights along with the Mercedes symbol mounted on the grill. I rolled my eyes when I saw it. My senses told me there was no immediate danger but I stayed in the shadows of the alley and scanned the street for another minute before walking out towards the van.

Most of the streetlights were broken and the ones still working were patchy. I walked the street’s length cloaked in darkness, with only the occasional circle of orange piercing the gloom. Looking over my shoulder I could see the pillars of light of the Canary Wharf skyscrapers, visible over the rooftops. We were close to the river, even if I couldn’t see it, and as I walked I heard the mournful sound of a boat’s horn echoing off the water. Ragged clouds covered most of the sky, their cover blending with the glow of the streetlights to hide the stars.

As I reached the van one of the front windows slid down, and the street was quiet enough that I could hear the purr of the motor. I stopped by the door and looked at the man sitting inside. “Could you possibly have made it any more obvious?”

My name is Alex Verus. I’m a mage, a diviner. In mage terms I’m unaligned, which means I’m not affiliated with the Council (the main Light power block) but don’t count myself as a Dark mage either. Although I’m not part of the Council I do freelance jobs for them, like this one. The man in the passenger seat to whom I was talking was my contact with the Council, a mage named Talisid, and he gave me a patient nod. “Verus.”

“Good to see you.” I looked the van up and down. “Seriously, a Mercedes? Did you get it waxed, too?”

“If you’re concerned about stealth,” Talisid said, “perhaps we shouldn’t be talking in the open?”

Talisid is a man in his forties, shorter than average, with greying hair receding from a balding head. He always seems to be wearing the same understated business suit, but with a sort of steadiness that suggests he might be more than meets the eye. I’d met him in the spring, at a ball in Canary Wharf where he’d offered me a job. Things didn’t exactly go to plan, but Talisid had held up his end of the bargain, and when he’d asked for my help tonight I’d agreed. I stepped back and watched as the passengers piled out of the van. Talisid was first and following him was a tall, thin man with a long face like a greyhound, who gave me a nod. His name was Ilmarin, an air mage. I didn’t recognise the next three but I hadn’t expected to; their guns marked them as Council security.

“Still planning to take the lead?” Talisid asked me quietly as the security team went through their preparations, checking rifles and headsets.

“That’s what I’m here for.”

“It’s also what they’re here for,” Talisid pointed out. “It’s their line of work.”

I almost smiled. When Talisid had called me yesterday and given me the briefing, he’d assumed I’d be staying at the tail end of the formation, maybe all the way back in the van. He was offering me another chance to back out. But there was another message in there too, which wasn’t so funny: the security men were expendable and I wasn’t. “I’m not going to be much use from a hundred yards back,” I said. “I’ll give you all the warning you need, but I need a good view.”

Talisid held up a hand in surrender. “All right. You’ll be on point with Garrick. We’ll move on your signal.”

The man Talisid had nodded towards was the one who’d been in the driver’s seat, now standing a little apart from the others. He was tall, with short sandy hair and an athlete’s build, strong and fast. He was wearing black body armour with a high-tech look, along with dark combat fatigues, black gloves and boots, and a webbing belt that held a handgun, a machine pistol, a knife, and half a dozen metal cylinders that looked suspiciously like grenades. A second pistol rested in an ankle holster, and he carried a weapon in a sling that looked like a cross between a submachine gun and an assault rifle. He watched me with calm blue eyes as I walked up. “Garrick?” I asked.

Garrick nodded and spoke in a deep voice. “What’s the layout?”

“I’ll tell you once we get inside.”

“Going with Talisid?”

“With you.”

Garrick raised an eyebrow and looked me up and down. I was wearing combat trousers, black sneakers, a belt with a few things hooked into it, and a light fleece. If Garrick looked like something out of a military thriller, I looked like an amateur camper. “I’m flattered,” Garrick said, “but you’re not my type.”

“I’m your recon,” I said.

“That’s nice,” Garrick said. “You can do it from the van.”

“I’m not going to be in the van.”

“This is a combat mission,” Garrick said patiently. “We don’t have time to babysit.”

A lot of people think diviners are useless in a fight. All in all it helps me more than it hurts me, but it’s still a bit of a nuisance when you want to be taken seriously. “I’ll be the one doing the babysitting,” I said. “Those guns won’t do much good if this thing takes your head off from behind.”

I expected Garrick to get annoyed but he only gave me a look of mild inquiry. “What are you going to do? Punch it?”

“I’m going to tell you exactly where it is and what it’s doing,” I said. “If you can’t figure out a way to beat this thing with that going for you, then you can back off and let us handle it.”

Garrick studied me a moment longer, then shrugged. “Your funeral.” He turned to the other men. “Let’s move.”

The inside of the factory was pitch-black. The power had been turned off a long time ago and the lights that hadn’t been smashed or lost their bulbs were dark. Corridors were cluttered with old machinery and pieces of junk that had been piled up and left to decay, forcing us to pick a winding path through the obstacles and making it difficult to get a clear line of sight. The air smelt of dust and rusted metal.

The creature we were hunting was called a barghest: a shapeshifter that can take the form of either a human or a great wolflike dog. They’ve got preternatural speed and strength, and they’re difficult to detect with normal or magical senses. Or so the stories say; I’ve never met one. But all the sources agreed that the creatures killed with claws and teeth, making these sort of dark, cramped quarters the absolute worst place to fight one. There were too many possible hiding places, too many ways the creature could lie in wait to attack from behind.

Of course, that was the reason Talisid had brought me along.

To my eyes, the factory existed on two levels. There was the present, a world of darkness and shadow, broken only by the torches in my hand and on Garrick’s rifle, looming obstacles blocking our path and the threat of danger around every corner. But overlaid upon that was a second world, a branching web of lines of glowing white light, the web branching over and over again through four dimensions, multiplying into thousands and millions of thinning wisps, every one a possible future. The futures of the corridor and the objects within it were fixed and solid, while my and Garrick’s futures were a constantly shifting web, flickering and twisting with every moment.

Looking through the futures I saw my possible actions, and their consequences. I saw myself stepping on the loose piece of scrap metal in front of me, saw myself tripping and falling, and corrected my movements to avoid it. As I did, the future in which I fell thinned to nothingness, never to exist, and the futures of me stepping around it brightened in its place. By seeing the future, I decided; as I decided, the future changed, and new futures replaced those never to happen. To anyone watching, it looks like pure fluke; every step in the right place, every hazard avoided without seeming to notice. But the obstacles were just a detail. Most of my attention was on the near and middle future, watching for the flurry of movement and weapons fire that would signal an attack. As long as I was paying attention, nothing in this factory could surprise us; long before anything got into position for an ambush, I could see it and give warning.

This was why Talisid had wanted me along. Just by being here, I could bring the chances of things going seriously wrong down to almost zero. Knowledge can’t win a battle, but it’s one hell of a force multiplier.

Something caught my attention as we passed through a doorway, and I signalled for Garrick to stop. He gave me a look but held up his hand and I heard the main body of the group halt behind us. I crouched and brushed a hand across the dusty floor, feeling the chill of the concrete.

“What is it?” Garrick said at last.

“Someone forced this door,” I said, keeping my voice quiet. “Not long ago either.”

“Could have been the barghest.”

I held up a broken link of chain. The outside was rusted but the edge where it had been broken glinted in Garrick’s torch. “Not unless our barghest uses bolt cutters.”

Garrick raised an eyebrow and we moved on. I didn’t mention the second thing that had been out of place: The rest of the chain had been taken away.

We moved deeper into the factory. Garrick and I were on point with two of the security men ten paces behind. Talisid and Ilmarin walked in the centre of the formation, the last of the Council security bringing up the rear. When I sensed that the barghest was near, I was to withdraw and let the mages and soldiers move up into a combat formation, ready to take it by surprise. At least, that was the plan.

Things weren’t going to plan. By now I should have sensed where and how the fight was going to start. Looking forward into the future, I could see us searching every room of the factory, yet there wasn’t any sign of combat. In fact, I couldn’t see any future in which any of us got into combat. I could feel the men behind us growing tense; they knew something was wrong. The only one who seemed unconcerned was Garrick, radiating relaxed confidence. Had Talisid’s information been wrong? He’d been certain this was the place …

Around the next corner was a bigger room with a high ceiling and again I signalled for the others to stop. I closed my eyes and concentrated. Searching for combat wasn’t working. Instead I started following the paths of our group through the timeline, looking to see what we would find. Something in the next chamber would occupy everyone’s attention, and I looked more closely to see what it was …

And suddenly I knew why there wasn’t going to be any fighting tonight. I straightened with a noise of disgust and called back to Talisid, no longer making any effort to keep my voice down. “It’s a bust.”

There was a pause, then I heard Talisid answer. “What’s wrong?”

“We came here for nothing,” I said. “Somebody beat us to it.” I walked around the corner and out onto the factory floor.

Most of the machinery on the floor looked to have been removed or cannibalised for parts long ago, but a few pieces were still rusting in the gloom, piles of rubbish in between. My torch cast only a weak glow in the darkness, the beam of light disappearing up into the wide-open ceiling, and my footsteps echoed in the silence as I picked my way through broken boards and half-full plastic bags. The smell of dust and old metal was stronger here, this time with something underneath it that made my nose twitch.

The barghest was lying in the centre of the room, and it was dead. With its life gone, it looked like a grey-brown dog, big but not unnaturally so. It was lying on its side, eyes closed, with no blood or visible wounds. There was no smell of decay; it obviously hadn’t been there long.

The others moved up into the room, following me. Garrick came up to my side. Although his weapon was lowered, his eyes kept moving, checking the corners and upper levels of the room. Only once he’d swept the area did he look down at the body. “Doesn’t look like much.”

“Not any more it’s not.”

The next two security men reached us, followed by Talisid and Ilmarin, and we formed a circle around the creature. They made a lot more noise than Garrick, as if they didn’t know where to place their feet. “Well,” Talisid said at last.

“It’s dead?” Ilmarin asked me.

“It’s not getting up any time in the next few years,” I said. “Yeah, it’s dead.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Garrick said, “but I thought the mission was to kill this thing.”

“Looks like someone else had the same idea.”

“Can’t find any wounds,” Ilmarin said. Air mages are great at sensing movement but not so good with objects. “Verus, any idea what killed it?”

I’d been looking through the futures of me searching the body of this thing, watching myself rolling it over and running my hands through its fur. All I’d found was that it was heavy and smelt bad. Actually, I didn’t need my magic to notice that it smelt bad. “No wounds, no blood. Looks like it just dropped dead.”

“Death magic?”

“Maybe. Anything from the living family could do it.”

Talisid had been studying the body; now he looked at me. “Is there any danger in splitting up?”

I looked through the futures for a few seconds, then shook my head. “This place is a graveyard. The only way anyone’s going to get hurt is if they fall off the catwalks.”

Talisid nodded and turned to the others. “Spread out and search in pairs. Look for anything unusual.” Although he didn’t raise his voice, there was a note of command that assumed he would be obeyed. “Check in every ten minutes and we’ll meet back here in an hour.”

Somehow or other I ended up with Garrick. We worked our way through the factory’s ground floor, searching methodically.

The bodies of the barghest’s victims were in a side room off from the factory floor. There were seven, in varying states of decay. I didn’t look too closely.

“Had an appetite,” Garrick remarked once we’d left the room and called it in.

“That’s why we came,” I said. I was trying not to think about the corpses.

“Really?” Garrick looked mildly interested. “My contract was to make sure it was dead.”

“Looks like someone did your job for you.”

Garrick shrugged. “I get paid the same either way.” He gave me a glance. “So how far into the future can you see?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

I returned Garrick’s gaze. “On who’s asking.”

Garrick looked back at me, then gave a very slight smile. It made me think of an amused wolf.

I went back to the factory floor and found Talisid. “The bodies are in the second room off the back corridor. Nothing else worth checking.”

Talisid nodded. “I’ve called in the cleanup crew. You may as well take off.”

I looked at the barghest’s body, still undisturbed amidst the rubble. “Sorry I couldn’t help more.”

Talisid shrugged. “The problem’s been dealt with.”

“Even though we didn’t do anything?”

“Does it matter?” Talisid said. “There’ll be no more killings and we took no losses.” He smiled slightly. “I’d call this good enough.”

I sighed. “I guess you’re right. Did you find anything else?”

Talisid’s smile faded into a frown. “Yes. Scorch marks on the walls and signs of weapons fire. Several places.”

I looked at Talisid. “A battle?”

“It seems that way.”

I nodded at the barghest. “But that thing wasn’t burnt or shot.”

“Not as far as we can tell.”

“So what happened here?”

Talisid surveyed the dark room, sweeping his gaze over the rusting factory floor. With everyone else gone the place looked like it had been abandoned for a hundred years, and once we left there would be no trace of our visit but for footprints. This was no place for living people, not anymore. “We’ll probably never know,” Talisid said at last, and gave me a nod. “Good night, Verus.”

I left the factory, passed Talisid’s new Mercedes, and turned right at the corner of the street. I walked half a block, turned back towards the river again, then slipped down an alleyway next to a dark, squarish building. A fire escape took me up to the roof.

Stepping onto the roof felt like coming out of the woods. The Thames was just a stone’s throw away, the vastness of the river winding past like an enormous serpent, forming a huge meander around the Isle of Dogs. Surrounded by the Thames were the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf, reaching up into the night, shining from a thousand points, the white double strobe of the central tower flashing regularly once a second. The lights of the skyscrapers reflected off the black water, forming a second set of towers that seemed to reach down into the darkness. Off to the west I could see the lights of Whitehall and the West End and the landmarks of central London. I could still hear the sounds of the city, but this close to the Thames it was almost drowned out by the rhythmic shhhh of the water, the waves lapping against the banks as the water continued its steady flow out to sea. The air carried the scent of the river, not pure, but not unpleasant either.

“It’s me,” I said into the darkness.

There was a moment’s pause, and then a girl stepped out from the shadow of the building. She was a touch below medium height, with wavy brown hair held up in two bunches, and had a careful, deliberate way of moving, always looking where she was going. Her age would have been hard to guess—she looked perhaps twenty-one, but there was a distance in her manner that didn’t match her youth. Her name was Luna Mancuso and she was my apprentice.

“It’s cold,” Luna said with a shiver. She was dressed warmly, in a green pullover and faded jeans, but it was September and there was a chill breeze blowing off the water.

“There’s a warmer spot down in the alley.”

Luna followed me quickly, leaving her corner perch. The roof of the building had a clear view down onto the factory, which was why I’d picked it. If anything had gone wrong, I’d told her to get out. “Did you get a count?”

“You went in with six others. That was it.”

“Did you see anyone else?”

“No. Was there?”

“No.”

The alleyway bent through an S shape at the bottom of the fire escape, leaving a corner sheltered from the wind, obscured by machinery and old boxes. It was the kind of place that would make most people afraid of being mugged, but one of the fringe benefits of being a mage is that you don’t have to worry much about that kind of thing. A pair of hot-water pipes ran vertically into the concrete, raising the temperature a few degrees, and I let Luna huddle against them, keeping my distance. There was space for me, but that would mean coming within arm’s reach of Luna. “What was I watching for?” Luna asked.

“No idea,” I said. “You don’t bring backup for the things you know about. You bring backup for the things you don’t know about.”

Luna was silent for a moment, rubbing her hands together next to the heating pipes. “I could have watched a lot better if I’d been closer.”

“Luna …”

“I know I can’t go inside,” Luna said. “Not that close. But can’t I meet them?”

“It’s dangerous.”

“You said the barghest was inside the factory.”

“I meant the mages.”

That made Luna look up in surprise. “I thought you were working with them?”

“Today?” I said. “Yes. Tomorrow?” I shrugged.

“Seriously?”

I sighed. “Luna, if an order went out tomorrow to bring the two of us in, those guys would be first in line to do it. I might not be on the Council’s hit list anymore but that doesn’t mean they like me. I don’t think they’re out to get me. But if it ever became in their interests to get rid of me, I doubt they’d think twice. And every bit of information they have on you makes you an easier target.”

Luna was silent. I hoped she was listening because I wasn’t exaggerating. Tonight I’d worked with Garrick and Ilmarin and the security men, and we’d done a good, professional job. But if one of those same men tried to threaten or kidnap or even kill me, a week or a month or a year from now, it really wouldn’t surprise me much. “What about Talisid?” Luna said at last.

“He doesn’t know everything that you can do, and the more time you spend with him, the harder it’ll be to keep that secret.”

“I don’t care about keeping everything a secret. What’s the point in staying safe if I can’t do anything?”

I could hear the frustration in Luna’s voice and was about to reply but stopped. I could have told her she needed to be patient. I could have told her mage society was a dangerous place, and that sometimes the best thing was to stay away from it. I could have told her that her position as my apprentice wouldn’t do much to protect her if things went wrong.

All of those things would have been true, but they wouldn’t have helped. Luna is an adept, not a mage. An adept is like a mage with a much narrower focus; they can use magic, but only in a very specific way. In Luna’s case it’s chance magic, altering the flow of probability. Chance magic can only affect things that are sufficiently random. It can’t win you a chess match or make money appear out of thin air, because there’s nothing for the magic to work on. But it can send a breeze a different way, make someone slip a fraction, cause something to break at a certain point: countless tiny changes that can make the difference between success and failure, danger and safety, life and death. It’s not flashy, but it can be powerful.

Unfortunately for Luna, her magic isn’t a gift; it was laid upon her as a curse, passed down through the generations all the way from one of her ancestors in Sicily. The curse twists bad luck away from Luna and onto everyone nearby. For Luna, it’s like she has a charmed life. She doesn’t get sick, she doesn’t have accidents, and any bit of random ill fortune will always hit someone else. You’re probably thinking that doesn’t sound like much of a curse, and you’d be right … except that all that bad luck gets intensified and redirected to everyone nearby. To my mage’s sight Luna’s curse looks like a cloud of silvery mist, flowing from Luna’s skin to surround her in a protective cloud. To anyone who comes too close, that mist is poison. Passing within arm’s reach is dangerous, and a touch can be fatal. There’s no way to defend against it, because there’s no way to know what it’ll do—it might be a scraped knee, it might be a heart attack, and you’ll never know until it happens. Luna knows, every minute of every day, that simply by being near anybody she’s making their life worse, and that the best thing she can do for them is to stay as far away as possible.

It adds up to a pretty horrible form of isolation, where every time the bearer lets herself get close to another living thing, something terrible happens. From what I’ve learnt, most victims go insane or kill themselves within a few years. Luna grew up with it. She survived … but not by much. Luna told me once that the reason she started the search that eventually led her to me was because she realised that if she didn’t, there was going to come a day where she simply didn’t care enough to stay alive anymore.

And what all that meant was that warning Luna of the dangers of the mage world wasn’t going to work. Not because she didn’t understand the danger, but because she’d quite coldbloodedly decided a long time ago that any amount of danger was better than the life she’d had. “All right,” I said at last. “Next time, you can come along.”

Luna blinked and looked at me. She didn’t smile but she seemed to lift somehow, as if she’d grown a couple of inches. With my mage’s sight, I felt the mist around her ripple and recede slightly. I turned and started walking back towards the main road, and Luna followed at a safe distance.

Somehow, as of a little while ago, Luna’s started to learn to control her curse. I still don’t know exactly how she managed it, partly because I don’t really understand how her curse works in the first place and partly because it happened in the middle of a rather eventful few days during which I was trying to keep myself from being killed, possessed, or recruited. Since then Luna’s been training to master it, under what guidance I can give her. “Next session is Sunday morning,” I said. “Make sure you’re at Arachne’s for ten.”

Luna nodded. We’d reached the railings where Luna had locked her bike—she can’t take public transport without killing whoever sits next to her, so a bike is about the only way she can get around. Luckily no one had tried to steal it. I watched as Luna unlocked it, but instead of getting on, she hesitated. “Um …”

“What’s up?”

“You’re at the shop tomorrow, right?”

I nodded. “Coming in?”

“Yes. Well … Could I bring someone?”

I blinked at that. “Who?”

“A friend.”

I almost said but you don’t have any friends. Even I’m not usually that clumsy, which should tell you how surprised I was. Luna’s company is lethal to anyone who doesn’t know to stay clear. How did … ?

It must have shown on my face, because Luna ducked her head with an expression that didn’t look happy. “I know,” she said at the pavement. “I won’t go near him. I just … he was interested. In your shop. He wanted to see.”

I looked at Luna; she didn’t meet my eyes. Again I wanted to warn her and again I held back. God knows I don’t need to remind Luna of how bad her curse is. But if she was just setting herself up for something worse …

“What’s his name?” I said at last.

Luna looked up with a quick flash of gratitude. “Martin.”

I nodded. “I’ll be in all day. Drop by whenever you like.”

“Thanks!” Luna climbed onto her bicycle. “Bye!”

I watched Luna as she cycled out of sight, checking quickly through the futures to make sure she’d be safe. Her curse protects her from accidents but not from things done on purpose; it wouldn’t stop a gang from deciding to pick on her, though it’d mess them up pretty badly if they were stupid enough to go through with it. But that wouldn’t be much consolation to Luna, so I watched until I was satisfied she’d make it out of Deptford safely before turning to leave myself.

I’d been planning to go home to bed but instead found myself taking the trains past Camden to Hampstead Heath. Once there, I got out and walked, passing Parliament Hill and carrying on, heading deeper into the Heath. Within a few minutes the lights and sounds of the city had been left far behind, and I was alone in the vastness and silence of the park.

Not many people go into Hampstead Heath by night. Partly it’s because of crime, but there’s something else as well, something more primal: the ancient fear of the woods. The Heath is the wildest of London’s parks. During the day it’s easy not to notice, but at night, when the rolling hills blot out the lights of the city to leave the park in utter darkness, when the branches and undergrowth rustle and whisper in the silence, when the forest itself seems to be watching and waiting …

Most people would admit it’s scary. But not many would admit why. Deep down, in the corners of their minds, the reason people don’t go into dark forests at night isn’t because they’re afraid there might be people. It’s because they’re afraid there might be things.

And it doesn’t help that they just so happen to be absolutely right.

The little earthen ravine was tucked away behind a ridge, concealed by the lay of the land and by thick bushes and trees. None of the footpaths came near and even during the daylight hours it was deserted. But for the distant sounds of the city, I could have been alone in the world. I found the overhanging oak, then felt around its roots embedded into the bank until I found the right one and pressed two fingers into it in a certain way. “Arachne?” I said into the darkness. “It’s Alex.”

There was a moment’s pause before a clear female voice spoke out of nowhere. If you listened closely you might hear a faint clicking rustle under the words, but only if you knew it was there. “Oh, hello, Alex. I wasn’t expecting you. Come right in.”

With a rumble the roots unwove themselves, earth trickling away as the bank gaped wide to reveal a tunnel, sloping gently down. I stepped inside and the hillside closed up behind me, sealing me into the earth.

Although it doesn’t look it, Arachne’s lair is one of the best-protected places in London. Tracking spells can’t find the lair or anyone inside, and gate magic can’t transport in or out. The only way to get in is for Arachne to open the door. An elemental mage could probably smash his way in but by the time he did Arachne would have more than enough time to prepare some surprises. It’s not as unlikely as you might think, either. While Arachne doesn’t get many visitors, mages know she exists—and generally mages and creatures like Arachne don’t get on too well.

Arachne is a ten-foot-tall spider, her body covered with dark hair highlighted in cobalt blue. Eight thick legs hold her body well off the ground, and eight jet-black eyes look out from over a pair of mandibles that do little to conceal her fangs. She’d weigh somewhere near half a ton, but for all her bulk she can move with the speed and grace of a predator. She looks like a living nightmare and a glance would be enough to make most people run screaming.

She was also on a sofa sewing a dress, which made her a bit less intimidating. Not that I was paying attention anyway. Arachne looks like a horror out of darkness, but you don’t last long in the mage world if you put too much stock in appearances, and I don’t even notice her looks anymore unless someone points them out. “You’re up late,” I said.

“So are you,” Arachne said. The dress was some sort of green one-piece thing that shimmered slightly and she was working on it with all four front limbs at once, moving in a blur of motion. Arachne’s legs are covered with hairs, becoming gradually finer and finer the farther down you go, and she can use the tips better than I can use my fingers. I’ve always suspected she uses magic in her weaving, but there’s no way to tell; for creatures like Arachne, everything they do is tied in with their magic one way or another. “Something wrong?”

Arachne’s main chamber is so covered in brilliant-coloured clothing that it’s hard to see the stone. There are sofas and tables scattered around and every one of them is draped with dresses, coats, skirts, jumpers, shirts, scarves, shawls, tops, gloves, belts—you name it. They’re red, blue, green, yellow, and every colour in between, and the whole room looks like a clothes shop with so much stock there’s no room for customers. “No,” I said.

Arachne rubbed her mandibles together with a clicking, rustling sound. “Hm. Just move that pile over there. No, the other one.”

I did as Arachne said, shifting a double handful of jackets over to a nearby table before settling down on the sofa with a sigh. It was pretty comfortable. “Sewed any good clothes lately?”

“All the clothes I make are good.”

“Yeah, I was just making conversation.”

“You’re terrible at making conversation. Why don’t you tell me why you’re really here?”

I sat on the sofa in silence for a few moments, listening to the quick ftt-ftt-ftt of Arachne’s sewing. I wasn’t thinking about what to say; I was trying to work up the courage to say it.

I’ve known Arachne for ten years. For me that’s a long time; for her, not so much. When I first met Arachne I was still apprentice to the Dark mage Richard Drakh. She didn’t trust me at first, and with hindsight I can’t really blame her. But if it hadn’t been for her I doubt I’d have survived, and over the years she’s become probably my closest friend, funny as it sounds. “Do you think I’m doing the right thing teaching Luna?”

“What an odd question.” Arachne didn’t look up from her work. “You’re hardly going to turn her out on her own.”

“Of course not. It’s …” I hesitated. “Am I teaching her right? She’s still pushing to get involved with other mages. I thought she’d ease off on that. I mean, she gets to meet people at the shop.”

“Not very often, from what you tell me.”

“She can’t afford to do it very often. With her curse …”

“Is that the real reason?”

I sighed and let my shoulders slump. “No. It’s that I don’t want her around other mages more than I can help it.” Even as I said it, I knew it was true, and it shocked me a little. The whole reason Luna had come to me in the first place was out of a hope that she could become part of the mage world. And yet I’d been trying to avoid it …

Arachne only nodded. “And she can tell. And you feel guilty for keeping her away.”

“I’d feel more guilty if I got her into trouble.” I looked up at Arachne. “I still don’t think she understands how dangerous mage politics can be. I was out tonight on a hunting mission. But tomorrow or next week or next year those same men might be my enemies. And if she’d been there …”

Arachne didn’t answer. “You think I’m trying too hard to protect her,” I said at last.

“I think what you’re really afraid of is that you’ll introduce her to something that’ll get her hurt or killed.”

I sometimes wonder whether Arachne can weave more than threads; whether she can see the connections between people, as well. She can seem to pay no attention, and yet strike right to the mark. “I’ve done it before,” I said.

“Yes,” Arachne said. “But it was her choice too.” She set down the dress and turned her eight eyes on me. “Alex, the trouble with you is that you’ve spent so long on your own you’ve forgotten how to live with someone else. The only way she’ll learn these things is by experience.”

“Yeah, well, I guess she’s getting that one way or another. She’s bringing some guy to the shop tomorrow.”

“Jealous?”

“No,” I said automatically.

Arachne just went back to her sewing. She doesn’t have any eyebrows to raise, but somehow she conveyed exactly what she thought of that.

I sat grumpily for a minute before remembering the other reason I’d come. “Oh. Something weird happened tonight.” I put Luna out of my mind and leant forward. “Talisid tracked down the barghest in Deptford, and he called me in to help. I met up with his team outside the lair, and we made it all the way in. But here’s the thing: it was dead. Someone had taken it out before we got there.”

“Strange.” Arachne picked up the dress she was working on in her front two legs and examined it, turning it around. It was turning into a narrow, vaguely Chinese-looking gown that reflected the light and sent it back with a pale green shimmer. She put the dress down at a different angle and returned to work. “Have you any idea who it was?”

I frowned. “No. And it’s a bit odd. I mean, sure, that creature was preying on people, but it’s not as if most mages would care. Not enough to risk a fight anyway. I mean, barghests have a pretty scary reputation. Why would anyone go after one when they could just wait and have the Council take care of it?”

“Was it an escapee?”

I nodded. “Yeah, Talisid and I were wondering that. If it was some mage’s fault that the thing was there, then it makes sense they’d want to clean it up quietly. But we couldn’t find any trace that it used to be someone’s property. Besides, if they really wanted to keep it quiet, they would have gated away the body—oh. And another thing. There were signs of a battle at the lair—fire and ice magic—but no freeze or scorch marks on the barghest.”

“What killed it, then?”

“Nothing. At least, nothing I could see.”

The ftt-ftt-ftt stopped. I looked up to see that Arachne was watching me, her needles still. “Elaborate.”

“Um …” I tried to think of what to say. “It was just … dead. Wolf form. No marks. I thought it might have been death magic but …”

Arachne didn’t answer. “Arachne?” I asked.

Arachne seemed to twitch, then returned to her sewing, the ftt-ftt starting up again. “I see.”

“Something wrong?”

“Perhaps.” Arachne paused. “If you could establish the cause of death, I would appreciate knowing.”

I hesitated a second before nodding. “Okay. I’ll see what I can dig up.”

Arachne went back to her work. She didn’t say anything further, and I didn’t ask. “How many of them do you think there are?” I said after a pause.

“Of which?”

“Magical creatures like that barghest. Living here in our world.”

“Few. Fewer each year.” Arachne continued to work, but there was something a little distant about her voice. “So many have been killed or enslaved. The survivors have hidden themselves in remote places or in other worlds. Perhaps what you saw today was the body of the last barghest.”

An hour later, walking back home through the darkness of the Heath, I found my thoughts going back to Arachne’s words. I’m so comfortable with Arachne that I forget other mages think of creatures like her as aliens at best and monsters at worst. This was the first time I’d gone on this sort of hunt, and I’d had a good reason—but that didn’t change the fact that the creature I’d been intending to kill was basically not that different from Arachne.

For the first time I wondered exactly how long magical creatures would still be around. As far back as mage histories go, they’ve always been there, but for a long time the number’s been decreasing, mostly because of expeditions like the one I’d been on today. Usually it’s only the dangerous ones that mages go after … but not always, and dangerous is pretty subjective. Now that I thought about it, the only magical creatures I’d seen over the past few months had been either working with mages or under their control. I hadn’t come across one in the wild for a long time. If things kept going the way they had been, then the only creatures left would be property, powerful enough to hide themselves, or dead. It would mean no more killings like the ones the barghest had been responsible for … but it would mean none of the gentler or more wondrous creatures, either.

I wasn’t sure how much I liked the idea, and I wasn’t so sure any more that I’d done the right thing by agreeing to help Talisid. I headed home to sleep and to see what the next day would bring.

chapter 2

It was a new day and it was raining.

My shop’s tucked away down a little side street in Camden, only a minute’s walk from the canal. The rail and road bridges that interlock the area make it tricky to find, but plenty of tourists still filter through. The sign above my door says Arcana Emporium, along with a description of the contents that’s technical enough to stop most people immediately thinking magic shop. A notice on the door lists my opening times as ten A.M. to five P.M. Mondays to Saturdays, and every now and again it’s actually right.

As far as I know, I’m the only mage in England who runs a shop. Most mages think it makes me eccentric or just plain stupid, and to be fair they’ve got a point. Money isn’t a big concern to most mages. Sure, they need it, but it isn’t the primary medium of exchange the way it is to regular folk, for the simple reason that most mages who know what they’re doing and are willing to put in the work can leverage their power into as much money as they’re realistically likely to need. They aren’t all millionaires, not by a long shot, but they don’t generally have to worry about paying the rent either. So as a rule you can’t buy anything really valuable from a mage with cash, because cash isn’t scarce enough for them to value it.

The real currency of the magical economy is favours. Mages are specialists: A typical mage is great at one thing and poor to useless at everything else. If he’s faced with a problem that requires a different type of magic from the kind he can use, he can’t do anything about it—but he probably knows someone who can. And that mage might need someone else’s help a bit further down the line, and so on. Established mages have whole networks of friends and contacts to call on, and let me tell you, mages take those favours seriously. Failing to pay your debts in mage society is bad. We’re talking “sold to Dark mages as a slave” levels of bad. Of course it still happens if the guy in question thinks he can get away with it, but it’s rarely a good idea in the long term and at the higher levels a surprising number of things run on simple promises. They might not be as good as gold, but they can buy you a hell of a lot more. That was the basis on which I’d been working for Talisid last night. He hadn’t offered payment, and I hadn’t asked, but all of it was done on the understanding that the next time I asked him for help he’d give it to me, no questions asked.

Or maybe not. But life would be very boring if it was too predictable.

Anyway, to get back on topic, what this means is that anyone with enough magical items to set up a shop is generally powerful enough that they don’t have any reason to sell said items in the first place. They also tend to be leery (for good reason) of putting large stocks of highly valuable items in an easily accessible place. Or maybe they just think serving customers is beneath them. Who knows.

There’s a certain band of items, though, that you can make a business out of selling—the stuff that’s just useful enough to be worth keeping but not powerful enough that a mage would bother to trade a service for, like old or weakened focuses, or the kind of one-shots that don’t do anything dramatic. Then there are rare components, which don’t do anything useful on their own but are really inconvenient to run short of right in the middle of a ritual. And finally there are things that aren’t magical at all, like crystal balls and tarot decks and herbs. They’re pretty much useless for anything except window dressing, but they’re good camouflage.

Put all of that together and you’ve got the contents of my shop. There’s a roped-off area in the back-right corner next to the door to the hall that contains the genuine magical items, or at least the weaker ones. Two shelf stands hold a collection of nonprecious and semiprecious stones, as well as figurines and materials, and a rack holds herbs, powders, and various types of incense that together make the whole shop smell vaguely like a herbalist’s. Staffs, rods, and blades of various types take up another corner, and you can get a good view out onto the street through a wide window, which was currently streaked with water from the steadily falling rain.

And lastly, you get the customers.

My clientele used to be strictly small fry. A tiny fraction who knew what they were doing, a slightly larger fraction who sort of knew what they were doing, and a whole lot whose knowledge of magic would fit on a Post-it note. After the business five months ago, things changed. My shop suddenly got popular, and adepts, apprentices, and even mages started coming along.

Trouble is, along with the influx of knowledgeable people, I’ve also picked up a whole lot of idiots. On a Saturday like today, I’m lucky if one customer in five knows enough to be trusted. The rest …

…well.

“Hi, I’m looking for some gaff coins?”

“You want the Magic Box, other side of Camden. Here’s one of their cards.”

“Oh. Which tricks have you got?”

“None of them. You’ve got the wrong shop.”

“So what do you sell?”

“…”

“Wait, this is supposed to be a real magic shop?”

“…”

“Oh my God, you’re serious! Ha-ha-ha!”

“…”

“Ha-ha … oh man, this is awesome. Okay, okay, I’m going.”

“Um …” (giggling)

“Can I help you?”

“We’re looking for—” (more giggling)

“…”

“Have you got, um …”

“Take your time.”

“…a wand?” (chorus of giggling from all three)

“No. And my name’s not Harry and I didn’t go to Hogwarts.”

(yet more giggling)

“Um … hee hee … what about …”

“…”

“Do you know how to find any vampires? Like, the really hot ones?”

“I want a refund for this spell.”

“Which spell?”

“This one.”

“Hmm … ‘A Spell to Make You Win the Lottery.’ I’m going to go out on a limb and say it didn’t work.”

“I want my money back.”

“Your money, right. How much did you pay?”

“Fourteen ninety-nine.”

“Uh-huh. How much would you expect to get from a lottery win?”

“At least a million.”

“…”

“…”

“And you don’t see a problem with this.”

“What?”

“Okay. The first problem is that you’ve got a product here with a sale value of fifteen pounds—”

“Fourteen ninety-nine.”

“Fourteen ninety-nine, sorry, which is supposed to win you over a million. Now, stop and think how that would work.”

“I don’t care. I want a refund.”

“Right. The second problem would be I never sold you this spell.”

“I bought it from this shop.”

“That would be quite impressive, given that I don’t sell spells.”

“I know my rights. If you don’t give me a refund I’ll sue you.”

“If your understanding of the legal system is on par with your grasp of economics, I don’t think I’ve got much to worry about.”

“Oh, is that right? I’m going to call the police! I can get this shop closed down, I think you’ll find!”

(stomp stomp stomp SLAM)

“…”

“Um, hello? Excuse me?”

“Yes?”

“Uh, could I get one of those spells to win the lottery?”

“Hi!”

“You again?”

“Yeah, I decided I didn’t want to go all the way across Camden. So what tricks do you sell?”

“We don’t sell tricks.”

“Okay, okay. So what ‘magic’ do you sell?”

“Could you not make a hand gesture in the air when you do that?”

“Sure. Whatcha got?”

“Just what you see.”

“Okay, okay.”

“Um, hi.”

“Hey. What do you need?”

“I heard you can … uh … find out things?”

“Who told you that?”

“Uh … it was … can you find out something for me?”

“Not likely.”

“But I need to know! It’s really important!”

“Fine. What is it?”

“I … I need to know if my girlfriend’s cheating on me.”

“Probably.”

“What! Why?”

“Because if you’re asking that question, the answer’s probably yes.”

“So is there any way to use magic to talk with people who’ve … passed on?”

“Passed on?”

“I mean, died.”

“No.”

“But all those psychics say—”

“Psychics make their living telling people what they want to hear. Magic can’t let you talk to someone once they’re gone, and as far as I know neither can anything else.”

“So … there’s no way they can send a message?”

“No.”

“Nothing at all? Once someone’s dead, that’s it?”

“Yes.”

“And they couldn’t tell anyone how they died, right?”

“No, they—wait. Why do you want to know this again?”

“Um, no reason.”

“…”

“…”

“That death spell won’t work.”

“Wh-what? I-I wasn’t …”

“…”

“Could—”

“No, I’m not going to teach you how to do it.”

“Hey, man.”

“Oh, for the love of God. Why are you still here?”

“Look, I’m just curious. Now, I know you don’t sell tricks over the counter—”

“We. Don’t. Sell. Tricks.”

“Hey, what are you so angry for? I’m just asking.”

“I’m going to go through this one last time. This is a shop. There are things on the shelves. You want to buy the things on the shelves, bring the things on the shelves to the counter.”

“C’mon, I’m not that stupid. I’ve seen loads of guys coming up. You must have some good stuff, right? I mean, for people in the know?”

“And you want to know the secret?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. It’s a secret.”

“Fine, I get it. I’m going.”

“…”

“Oh, one more thing—”

Afternoon edged into evening. It had been raining all day, but as evening drew near, the clouds became thicker and the rain heavier. By five o’clock the light was dim, the window was translucent with running water, and the raindrops were drumming so hard on the pavement outside that I could feel the vibration through the legs of my chair.

The weather had finally driven the customers away and only one was left, a guy in his twenties. He circled the shop a couple of times before drifting over to the counter. I didn’t lift my eyes from my paperback. He cleared his throat.

“Can I help you?”

“Oh, hi. Yeah, I was wondering if I could ask you something.”

“I don’t sell spells.”

“…Okay.”

I turned a page. “I don’t sell spells, and I don’t sell tricks. I don’t carry illusions or marked cards or weighted coins. I can not sell you an endless purse or help you win the lottery. I can’t make that girl you’ve got your eye on fall in love with you, and I wouldn’t do it even if I could. I don’t have a psychic hotline to your dead relatives, I don’t know if you’re going to be successful in your career, and I don’t know when you’re going to get married. I can’t get you into Hogwarts or any other kind of magic school, and if you even mention those stupid sparkly vampires I will do something unpleasant to you.”

“…Ookay?”

“Good. Now that’s settled, what do you need?”

“You’re Alex Verus, right?”

“That’s me.”

“Hi, good to meet you.” A hand appeared above my book. “Martin.”

I looked up and got my first good view of Martin. He was twenty-four or twenty-five, slim, with small blue eyes and dark blond hair that was spiky from gel and swept in a fashionable style from left to right. I guessed most women would have found him good-looking. He was wearing a button-down shirt and trousers, with a coat slung over one shoulder, and moved with a sort of casual confidence that made me think of money.

I disliked him on sight. I probably would have disliked him anyway, but the haircut made it a lot easier. I said, “Hey,” and reached out to shake his hand.

In the fraction of a second before our hands touched, I focused on Martin with my mage’s sight. The technique isn’t really sight—it’s a whole other sense, separate from the five—but for whatever reason sight seems to be the way all mages interpret it. It lets you perceive magic directly rather than just the vague feelings a sensitive or adept gets, all the wisps and auras and strands that make up the currents in the world around you. Most are so faint you have to strain to see them but anything really powerful, like a mage’s spell, is dazzling. If you’re good—and I’m very good—you can pick out what the spell does, how long it’s been there, and even the nature of whoever cast it. I didn’t need any skill to recognise the silvery mist around Martin though. It was Luna’s curse, and it meant he’d been close to her. The mist was only a thin layer swirling gently around his skin. Despite all the time I’ve spent around Luna I’ve rarely seen her curse in action, and I wasn’t sure how long it would have taken for Martin to pick this much up. I didn’t think it was enough to put him in serious danger, but it might be.

My hand clasped on Martin’s and the moment was gone. I couldn’t feel the silver mist over Martin’s skin but I could see it. It didn’t spread from him to me; that’s not the way the curse works. “Great to finally meet up,” Martin said as he shook my hand. “Luna’s told me a lot about you.”

“She’s not supposed to.”

“Not— Oh, ha-ha! Yeah, I see what you mean. Don’t worry, I won’t spread it around.”

I had my doubts about that. “Looking for something?”

“Yeah, I really wanted to have a look at some focuses and one-shots. They’re over there behind the rope, right? Mind if I have a root through?”

“You don’t want to mess with those things unless you know what you’re doing.”

“It’s fine, I know the score. Besides, you can tell me what they do, right?”

I really wanted to say no. But the aura on Martin confirmed he was the guy Luna had been talking about and I didn’t have a good reason to tell him to get lost. Reluctantly, I walked over as Martin unhooked the rope and started looking through the contents of the shelves, asking me questions all the while.

In between answering Martin’s questions, I asked a few of my own. According to Martin, he’d grown up here in London, moved away for university, then moved back to get a place of his own. He was a musician and played in a band. He was vague on the details of exactly how he’d learnt about the magical world. He’d just picked things up, he said. He’d been trying to break into mage society but was finding it difficult. He’d met Luna through a mutual friend. She’d mentioned my shop to him and he’d wanted to learn more.

I learnt other things about Martin too, not so much from what he said as how he said it. He had charm, knew how to be funny, and knew how to flatter. He was clever, though maybe not as clever as he thought. Although he didn’t come out and say it, he knew I was a mage. He knew the basics of how magic worked but couldn’t use it himself—he was only a sensitive. That was the only point at which his smile slipped a little. It was only for a second, but enough to make me wonder if it was a sore spot. Maybe he’d just made friends with Luna to take advantage of her connection to me.

And maybe I was just being jealous. I didn’t like Martin, but if I was being honest with myself I had to admit I didn’t have a good reason for it. He was pleasant, charming, and probably the only new friend Luna had made in months.

Which also put him in danger, as the silver mist hanging off him proved. I’d have to find out from Luna how much she’d told him. As if I didn’t have enough to remember already. “So would any of the focuses work for me?” Martin was asking.

“Probably not. They’re for helping with a spell or a type of magic you have trouble with. They don’t let you cast from scratch.” I nodded at the twisted wand of rowan in his hands. “That’s a defensive focus. If you could put together a protective spell and if you put in the work to attune yourself to the wand, it might help, but on its own it’s just a stick.”

“How do you attune it?”

“Trial and error. You have to figure out how the thing interacts and adapt your own way of doing things to match it. Sometimes it’s impossible and there’s no way to know without trying.”

“Can’t you just make it do what you want?”

I shook my head. “Doesn’t work that way.”

“Okay, what about something that worked on its own?”

I raised my eyebrows. “You’re talking about imbued items.”

“That’s how they work, right? Anyone can use them?”

“Not … exactly. Imbued items choose their bearers. They decide when to use their powers, not you.” I thought of an ivory wand beyond a sealed door and pushed the memory away.

“But I’d be able to use one?”

“If you ever got one, yeah. And no, before you ask, I don’t have any here.” Which was true, if by here you meant on these shelves. I had several upstairs, which I was most definitely not telling Martin about. Imbued items are priceless, and mages will quite literally kill for them.

Martin was quiet, no doubt dreaming of an imbued item of his own. If he’d known more, he might not have been so eager. Imbued items have minds of their own and the stronger their power, the stronger their will. The most powerful imbued items can reduce their bearers to little more than puppets. Oh, it looks like the bearer’s in charge—but somehow, everything they do ends up being what the item wanted.

I scanned through the futures, looking to see when Luna was going to turn up. Her arrival had been vague all through the day but as I looked I saw that she was due to knock on the door any minute. I was glad. The rain hadn’t let up and the glass of the shop window still ran with water.

And then I felt something snap and change. I jerked my head around, looking for danger. The shop was quiet and Martin was holding a white and blue lacquered tube in his hand. The silver mist of Luna’s curse was gone. “What’s this?”

I stood dead still. The two of us were alone in the shop, and the only sound was the steady patter of rain. Martin looked at me. “Hey, Alex? What’s this one?”

I spoke quietly. “I wouldn’t take that if I were you.”

Martin frowned and looked down at the tube. It was ten inches long and two inches wide, its ends rounded, made out of what looked at first glance like lacquered wood. The tube was white, with raised engravings of blue flowers twining about its length. A braided cord hung from one end. “Why not?”

I didn’t answer. Martin started to return the tube to the shelf and stopped. He stared at me. “Wait. This is one of those, isn’t it? An imbued item?”

I stayed silent, and Martin’s eyes went wide. “Thought you said you didn’t have any?”

“It’s not mine.”

“So why’d you put it on the shelf?”

I looked at Martin and spoke quietly. “I didn’t.”

Martin didn’t seem to hear. He held up the tube to the light, turning it around. When nothing happened he shook it gently, and there was a faint katta-katta sound. “There’s something inside.”

“Yes.”

“How much is it?”

I took a deep breath. “Martin, listen very closely. I don’t know you and you don’t know me, but you have to believe me when I tell you that if you take that thing away with you, you will regret it for the rest of your life.”

For an instant Martin hesitated and I saw the choices branching before him. Then his eyes narrowed and the choice was gone. “Imbued items choose their wielder, don’t they?”

I sighed. I could see the futures laid out ahead of us and in every one of them, Martin was going to leave my shop with that item. “Yeah,” I said with an effort.

Outside, hurrying footsteps blended with the rain and the door opened with a rush of sound and a cold wind. Luna ducked inside, trying to fit through the door while folding a big golf umbrella, water running everywhere. “Sorry I’m so late! Ugh, it’s awful out there.” After three failed tries she managed to get the umbrella folded up, then she pushed the door shut and the shop was quiet again except for the drip of water from her clothes. “The weather was so bad my bike …” Luna finished propping the umbrella in the corner and finally noticed something was wrong. She looked from me to Martin. “Hello?”

Martin and I hadn’t taken our eyes off each other. “Martin, I need to talk to Luna,” I said. “Could you wait here for five minutes, please?”

There was a beat, then Martin nodded. “Sure.”

I turned to Luna, who was still looking between both of us, trying to figure out what was going on. “In the back.”

The door at the back of my shop leads into a small, dark hallway. What little space it has is mostly filled with the stairs up to my second-floor flat. There’s one side door leading into a back room where I store stuff that isn’t important enough to secure properly, and I led Luna inside and shut the door behind her. “You have to get away from Martin.”

“What?” Luna stared at me. “Why?”

“Because he’s done something very stupid and you don’t want to be around to get caught in the results.”

“How—? I don’t understand.”

“You remember the little white and blue lacquered tube I showed you three months ago in the safe room? The one I told you to never ever touch?”

“Yes … Wait. It was that? You gave him that?”

“I didn’t give him anything.”

“Then why didn’t you tell him not to take it?”

“You think I’d be telling you this if he’d listened?”

I turned away from Luna and walked to the corner. There was a single window of frosted glass high on the wall and I stared up at it. “What does it do?” Luna asked from behind me.

“It’s called a monkey’s paw,” I said without turning around. “It grants wishes.”

“Wishes? You mean … anything?”

“Pretty close. It’s the most powerful item I’ve got.”

“Is there some kind of catch?”

“Of course there’s a catch. You don’t get anything like that for free. Trying to use that thing is really bad news.”

“How? I mean, do the wishes have a price or some-thing?”

“I don’t know, Luna, because no one who’s ever tried using the damn thing has been around afterwards to answer questions.” I turned to face her. “I want you to keep your distance from Martin as long as he’s got it.”

Luna paused. There were drops of water clinging to her hair and the sleeves and ankles of her clothes were still wet. “Wait. You just said that nobody’s …”

I was silent, and Luna went still. “You’re waiting for something to happen to him.”

“I’ll do what I can to make him give it up,” I said. “But as long as he has it, he’s a threat.”

“Until when? Until he’s dead?”

“Luna …”

“Why do I have to stay away?”

“Because he’s dangerous.”

“I don’t care if he’s dangerous.” I could see Luna was starting to get angry. “You said you weren’t going to keep me away anymore!”

“There’s nothing you can do to make it better and a lot of ways you could make it worse,” I said harshly. “He had your curse on him when he came today.”

As soon as I said it, I knew I shouldn’t have. Luna stared at me, then I saw understanding dawn in her eyes. “You think it’s my fault.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore.” I wished I hadn’t brought it up now but there was no use going back. “But it’s sure as hell not going to help if you stay nearby. The best thing you can do is keep your distance.”

“If this thing’s so bad why can’t I just talk to him?”

I sighed. “Because taking the monkey’s paw wasn’t the only stupid thing Martin did.”

“What?”

“He’s not waiting for us to finish. He walked out into the street thirty seconds ago.”

Luna looked in the direction of the shop, then back at me. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she said quietly, and now for the first time I knew she was really angry.

I stood my ground, meeting her gaze. “Because if Martin were the kind of person who’d listen to warnings, the monkey’s paw wouldn’t have picked him in the first place.”

Luna stared at me for a second longer, then in two quick steps was at the door. “Luna!” I said. “Wait!”

“Maybe you don’t care about him,” Luna said. “But I do.” She pulled the door open.

I started towards Luna, wanting to hold her back—and stopped. To my eyes, the silver mist of her curse glowed around her, filling her space and the doorway. One more step forward and it would be me that mist would be touching. “Luna, you don’t understand how bad this thing is. As long as Martin’s carrying it, he’s a danger to everyone around him.”

Luna looked back at me. Her blue eyes were cold and when she spoke, her voice was too. “Like me?” The door slammed and she was gone.

I moved to follow her, then stopped. I heard the sound of running feet, cut off by the bang of the shop door. Luna had run out into the rain after Martin. Looking through the futures I could see the exact point at which she’d catch him up. I could track them down and find them.

And all it would do was make things worse. If I went after Martin he’d think I was trying to chase him, and if I went after Luna it would lead to a worse fight. I wanted to run after them, or do something, and all I could do was stand there. I smacked a hand into the door, hard, and swore, then stood there and listened to the rain beating against my window.

I was angry and upset. I wanted to go after Luna. Instead I went upstairs to the small living room in my flat, hung up the heavy bag that I keep in the corner, and started beating on it. The bag shook and I felt the vibrations run down the beams and through the floorboards of the house. While I kept punching, I scanned through the futures, waiting to see if Luna would come back. She didn’t.

After forty-five minutes I knew Luna wouldn’t be coming back that night. I abandoned the bag and went for a shower to wash the sweat from my body. I washed my hair, towelled myself dry, and dressed in a clean shirt and a pair of jeans. Once I’d done that I checked again to see if the future had changed. Nothing.

Now I’d burnt through the worst of my frustration I could think clearly again. Unwillingly, I had to admit that it had been stupid to tell Luna to stay away from Martin. If I’d thought about it I’d have realised that telling her not to go near one of her only friends was a bad idea. I haven’t had many fights with Luna, and this was the angriest I’d seen her in a long time.

The sun had set and the sky outside my window was darkening from grey to black. The rain had died away to a steady drizzle, forming a fine mist in the air that was visible only in the yellow glows cast by the streetlights. There were lights in the houses and blocks of flats beyond the canal—many lights; few people were out in weather like this. As the evening turned into night and the weather began to dry, the streets would begin to fill once again. I paced back and forth across my small room and thought about the monkey’s paw.

I don’t keep records, but I remembered the day I’d acquired the thing very clearly. One winter evening three years ago, an old man came into my shop and asked if I would be interested in an imbued item. There would be no charge; he just wanted to pass it on to a good home. He explained that it could grant any five wishes its owner desired and I could use it however I saw fit.

I refused. I told the old man that wish-granting items usually came with some sort of horrible price, and you never got something for nothing. If he was offering it for free, it was a pretty safe bet it wasn’t something I wanted to have.

The old man agreed that the wishes came at a high price. He asked if I would be willing to simply keep hold of the item and give or sell it on.

I refused again. If the thing was that dangerous, I wasn’t going to be responsible for handing it over to anyone else. The old man smiled and left.

The next day, the monkey’s paw was sitting on the shelves in my shop next to the focuses. I put on a pair of gloves, picked the thing up, and placed it in my safe room upstairs. Three months, six months, nine months went by and I forgot about it.

Then one day a woman picked the monkey’s paw off my shelves, out of a spot I would have sworn was empty. She wanted to buy it. I said no and closed the door firmly behind her. When I checked that evening the monkey’s paw was gone. I found out the woman’s name and learnt that the monkey’s paw was in her possession.

She committed suicide a week later. The monkey’s paw was back on the shelves the same evening. I put it back in the safe room and left it there.

A year later, someone else picked up the monkey’s paw in the exact same way. This time I didn’t try to stop the man from taking it. I agreed to give it to him on the condition that he promised never to use it. He gave me his promise and left, happy.

The man came back to my shop one last time, on a Saturday evening just before I closed up for the night. I remembered his shifty eyes, the tension in his movements, his insistence that everything was fine. Under pressure he admitted he’d been using the paw. According to him he’d made four wishes. There had been problems. He wouldn’t go into details but he wanted to know if there was some way to make a wish do exactly what you wanted.

I never saw him again. By the next day he had disappeared, and no one ever found out where he’d gone. But while cleaning the shop that Sunday night, I saw the monkey’s paw had returned.

And now Luna was alone with the thing’s next owner. Just the thought of that made my skin crawl. I thought of ringing her, but what would I say? To stay away from him? Yeah, that had worked so well last time …

I wondered whether Luna’s curse would be enough to keep her safe. The luck-twisting effect of the curse is a powerful protection but it has its limits, and I didn’t know how it would interact with the monkey’s paw. The only bit of reassurance I had was that judging from the last two times, the monkey’s paw wouldn’t do anything straightaway. Luna was supposed to be meeting me tomorrow to train at Arachne’s. I couldn’t tell for sure whether she’d show up but I didn’t think anything terrible would happen before then. Maybe she’d have calmed down enough to listen to me. And maybe I wouldn’t screw things up so badly next time.

With that decided, I felt a bit better. I went and fixed myself some dinner, then washed up and returned to my room. As I did, I turned my attention to the immediate future and saw that someone would be wanting to get into my shop. It was well past closing time but most mages don’t like to go shopping during business hours. It’s not common for them to show up after dark but it’s not rare, either, and it’s happened enough that I’ve installed a bell by the front door.

The bell rang just as I finished tying my shoes. I pulled on a jumper and walked down the stairs, flicking on the light as I reentered the shop. The place always feels a little eerie after dark; row after row of silent shelves, watching and waiting. I could see the outline of somebody through the shop window, half hidden by the door.

I opened the door and the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen stumbled in, gasping and wide-eyed. “Please, I need your help! There’s something trying to kill me!”

My precognition screamed. I took one look at what had set it off, grabbed the woman, and yanked her back, pulling her with me into the middle of the shop. An instant later, the shop window exploded in a shower of glass as something came flying through, landing with a slam on the spot the woman and I had been standing in just a second ago. Without pause the creature pulled itself to its feet and lunged straight for us.

Some days are just better spent in bed.

I shoved the woman out of the creature’s path and let the momentum push me back so the thing went between us. The move would have been a lot more graceful if I hadn’t hit the herb rack on the way, almost tripping over. The woman stumbled and fell, and the creature was on top of her before she could recover. It dropped to its knees, its hands reaching for her throat.

The creature looked human, but wasn’t. It had two arms, two legs, a head and a body, but there was something about it that was just wrong. Before it could get a grip on the woman’s neck, I took a step and swung a roundhouse kick into its ribs.

I’m not a real hand-to-hand expert but I’ve done a fair bit of training in the past, and a swinging kick against a low target carries an awful lot of force. The impact flipped the thing over and sent it rolling to slam against the shelves. The shelves swayed and crystal balls and statuettes rained down on the thing with a crash. I pulled the woman to her feet and hustled her towards the door to the hall. “Get out! Go!”

The creature stood up. Now that I got a good look at it, I saw it had the face of a nondescript man in his thirties with brown hair, brown eyes, and a bland expression. The eyes were locked on me now, and as I looked into the future I saw that its movements were solid lines of light, changing to match my decisions but without choice or variation. A construct. The woman and I backed to the door and the construct followed.

My counter is an L shape set against the wall. As the woman opened the door I moved into the dead-end space, reaching for what was under the counter. I’m not so paranoid as to carry weapons in my own home, but I’m just paranoid enough to stash them where I can reach them quickly. I knew without looking that the construct would follow me, and as it came around the counter I straightened up with the gun in both hands, thumbed off the safety, sighted at a range of less than two feet, and shot the thing in the middle of the chest.

My gun’s a M1911, a single-action semiautomatic. It had been a while since I’d fired the thing and I’d forgotten how damn loud it was. The crash echoed around the shop and made me flinch, and the construct jerked. As a general rule anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice, so I brought the gun down and shot the construct again.

The construct jerked a second time, then closed in. In the instant before it reached me, I had just enough time to realise two things: first, the shots had done absolutely nothing, and second, I was backed into a corner with nowhere to run. A moment later, the construct had its hands around my neck.

By construct standards, the thing was weak. Unfortunately, weak by construct standards is still freakishly strong for a human. The thing’s fingers locked around my throat like iron, crushing my windpipe and cutting off the flow of blood to my brain, and in panic I dropped the gun and grabbed at its hands, trying and failing to pull them away. The construct stared at me, its eyes empty and bland as it methodically choked me to death. My vision was just about to grey out when I remembered my training. I put my hands together under my chin knuckle to knuckle, fingers down and slightly hooked, then jerked my arms apart in a single explosive motion.

The leverage was enough to break the construct’s grip. Its hands flew apart, air flew back into my lungs, and before the construct could recover I kneed it in the groin with the strength of panic and slammed both palms into its chest. The knee to the groin did nothing but the palm strike sent it stumbling backwards. Its legs caught on the rope to the magic item section and it went over, its head slamming into the floor with a crack. It started to get up immediately.

I staggered through the door into the hallway, gasping for breath. The woman was there, looking at me with wide eyes, and I gestured and rasped, “Up!” The woman turned and ran up the stairs, I followed, and as I scrambled upwards I heard the construct come through the door right behind us.

Constructs are made things, a physical body animated by magical energy. The most powerful ones use the bound spirit of an elemental, but even the weakest can be deadly because they’re so persistent. They don’t feel pain, they don’t get tired, and they can’t be bought off or bargained or negotiated with. Once a construct’s been given an order, it’ll follow it to its own destruction, and it’s not harmless until it’s completely destroyed. I’d been fighting for less than a minute but already I was gasping for breath, my limbs heavy and tired. The construct hadn’t even slowed down.

The woman raced up the stairs with me right behind her. The construct reached through the banisters, grasping for my ankle, and missed. The extra few seconds were enough for me to reach the landing. The woman was there and looking from side to side. I rushed past her into my living room. “Hold the door!”

The woman hesitated. She was small, frail-looking, with long dark hair. “I can’t—”

I slammed the door behind her just as the construct appeared at the top of the stairs. “Learn!”

The moment’s breather had given me time to get my brain working. Weapons weren’t going to hurt this thing—the only way to physically destroy it would be to literally tear it to pieces. But I’d picked up an item a long time ago designed specifically for this. Now where had I put it?

My bedroom’s just through the living room, separated from it by a connecting door. I pulled open a desk drawer and started rifling through. There was a thump as the construct hit the living room door and out of the corner of my eye I saw the woman recoil, then throw herself desperately against the door and slam it closed again. I rummaged through the drawer: knives, tassels, jewellery boxes, marbles, figurines, carved stones, bags of powder, vials, clear plastic boxes filled with everything from dried flowers to Russian dolls. Wrong drawer. I yanked open the next one. Counterspell ingredients, no. Gate stones, no. Notebooks, no. Wands—

“It’s coming through!” the woman shouted from the living room, her voice high and panicked.

“Hold it a second,” I told her. Fetishes, no. Crystal holders—wrong kind. I moved on to the next drawer.

“I can’t!”

There. Beneath a sheaf of handwritten papers was a needle-thin stiletto made of gleaming silver. I snatched it up and moved back into the living room. The construct had stopped hitting the door and was simply pushing. The woman was being slid back as the door was forced steadily open, the carpet scuffing up beneath her heels. “Let go!”

The woman jumped back almost as soon as I spoke and the door flew open. I’d been watching the futures and I knew exactly how the construct would come through the doorway, its hands up, grasping blindly. I let the door breeze past my face, saw a flash of the construct’s emotionless eyes as it came in at me, then I ducked and the thing’s hands swept over my head. The construct ran straight onto the stiletto, the blade piercing its stomach.

The construct’s eyes seemed to flash. Sea-green energy wreathed its body, pouring out into the air, soaking down through the floor, then the energy cut out and the eyes went dead. It was over in an instant. The construct dropped to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.

And everything was quiet.

I stood still, feeling my heart pounding in my chest. The construct lay motionless and a scan of the futures confirmed that it wouldn’t be getting up. I kept looking, searching for other threats.

“Is it dead?” the woman asked at last.

I opened the window and stuck my head out, looking down into the street. I could see movement at the far end near the corner, but no one was approaching. I scanned through the futures, checking to see if police were coming. The fight had been noisy, and there had been shots fired, but I couldn’t find any trace of a future in which police cars arrived. I gave a silent thank-you to the rain and to the fact that most Londoners don’t know what gunshots sound like.

“What was that thing?” The woman’s voice was shaky. “How did—?”

I held up a hand. “Wait here. Don’t touch anything.”

The shop downstairs was a mess. Shattered glass and merchandise were scattered across the floor and a cold wind was blowing away the smell of gunsmoke. I checked to see if either of the bullets had gone through the construct and into the wall behind (they hadn’t), then got some plastic sheeting from the stockroom and tacked it over the broken window. It didn’t do anything to keep the cold out, but it blocked line of sight. With that done, I locked the door and hid the gun. The adrenaline rush of the battle had worn off, and I knew that if I did what my body was telling me and sat down, I’d go to pieces. Experience has taught me that the best way to get through postbattle shakes is to walk them off, so I went back upstairs.

The woman was sitting on my sofa with her knees together and her hands clasped, shivering slightly. She didn’t try to speak as I knelt over the construct and gave it a quick search. I came up empty, as expected; mages don’t send construct assassins out with identification. The wounds hadn’t bled or oozed. Most constructs are basically a big energy battery with a simple guidance program and this seemed to be one of the more basic types, an outer shape wrapped around a jellylike storage material. At a glance it looked similar to the ones I’d seen made at Richard’s mansion: a short-range design, without the intelligence or stamina to operate for long on its own. That suggested whoever had sent it was close by. The stiletto had been a one-shot designed to disperse a construct’s energy pattern. It had worked perfectly. I’d have to get another.

I was avoiding looking at the woman. I sat on the chair facing her and met her gaze.

It’s hard to describe just what made her so incredibly beautiful. She had near-black hair, long and slightly wavy, falling down her back and framing a diamond-shaped face with slightly tanned skin and dark eyes. She was small, only a little over five feet, but with such perfect proportions that you wouldn’t realise it unless you stood right over her. She wore dark clothes that looked so simple that they had to be very expensive, and a single ring on her right hand. Somehow, though, neither her clothes nor her features seemed to matter—they were the adornments of a painting or a picture, not the real thing. What made her so captivating was something else, not so easily named: the way she moved, the glance of her eyes, the manner and sound and form. All I wanted to do was sit and gape. If I’d let myself fall into her eyes, I think an army of constructs could have battered down the door and I wouldn’t have noticed.

“What’s your name?” I said. I’d meant to say Who are you? but found myself changing my mind at the last second.

“Meredith.” She leant forward a little. “Thank you so much. You saved my life.” Her dark eyes shone with a hint of tears. “Without you I wouldn’t have had a chance.”

I felt my face burn and wanted to look away. A less polite but more vocal part of me spoke up with several suggestions as to how she could show how grateful she was. “Don’t worry about it. Where did that thing come from?”

Meredith shivered. “I don’t know! I was just—” She covered her face with her hands and started to cry.

Somehow I found myself on the sofa next to her, my arm around her shoulders, speaking quiet reassurances. Meredith hung onto my sleeve and kept crying. Gradually her tears ran dry and eventually she excused herself and vanished into the bathroom. She was gone for ten minutes and when she reappeared she looked a bit more composed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to go to pieces. I’m not usually like this.”

“It’s okay, you just had a shock. I did a lot worse my first time.” Was that true? I couldn’t remember. “Feeling better?”

Meredith nodded. “Yes, thanks. I must look terrible.”

“Really, you don’t.”

Meredith returned to the sofa, sitting down naturally next to me. “I’m sorry for all this. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I was trying to find your shop and then that … that thing started chasing me.”

I glanced over at the construct’s body, still lying on the floor. Meredith followed my gaze. “I’ve never seen one before. I heard stories but—”

“It’s an assassin,” I said. “Programmed to go after you. It only attacked me when I got in its way.”

Meredith shivered. “It’s horrible. There … won’t be any more?”

I shook my head, and Meredith sighed in relief. “Do you know who sent it?” I asked.

“I don’t know their names. I was so afraid they’d come after me. I heard it and I just wanted to find you and—”

“Why me?”

Meredith looked up in surprise. “But you’re famous. Everybody knows about you. You fought all those Dark mages in that battle in the British Museum. And you can see the future.”

“Um …” That took me aback. I’m definitely a lot better known since that business with the fateweaver but it was the first time I’d heard the word famous. “And you thought I could help you?”

Meredith clutched my arm. “Please don’t send me away! I don’t know if they’ll try again. I know it’s a lot to ask but can’t I stay here? Just for tonight?” Wide dark eyes looked up at me pleadingly.

I’m not sure I could have said no even if I’d wanted to.

And that was how, an hour later, I found myself lying on my bed with Meredith on the sofa in the next room, about ten feet away. The house was quiet but for the sounds of the city. I could hear the shouts and calls from the restaurants one street over and the hum of traffic from the main hub of Camden Town.

I found myself listening for what Meredith was doing. I couldn’t quite hear her breathing and I wondered if she’d moved. Maybe I should have offered her the bed. No, that wouldn’t have been smart. All of my items were here. But still …

I shook my head sharply in frustration. What was wrong with me? I’d even found myself wondering if she might come through into my room—

No. Stop being stupid and think. Who was she? She obviously wasn’t a normal. An adept or a mage? It was the kind of thing I would normally have asked but for some reason I hadn’t. In fact, I hadn’t taken any of my normal precautions.

It’s rare for there to be a woman sleeping over in my flat. Like, once-in-a-blue-moon rare. I could say it’s because I’m a diviner and it would be sort of true—being able to know another person’s secrets doesn’t do wonders for a relationship. I could also say it’s because I suck at romance and that’s definitely got something to do with it—I’ve never been good at knowing what to say to women and my lifestyle hasn’t given me much chance to improve. I could say it’s because I used to be an outcast from both mage factions and that sure didn’t help.

But if I’m being honest the biggest reason is that I have serious issues with trusting people. Since I was young, every time I’ve put my trust in another person and depended on them, it’s ended badly. Sometimes very badly. I first learnt magic as a Dark apprentice in a society where everyone was a predator and giving away the wrong piece of information could get you hurt or killed. Things got worse before they got better and by the time I got to relative safety it was burnt into me to treat everyone as a potential enemy. I don’t like it—it’s not natural to me—but it’s an ingrained habit and it’s saved my life at least once. Even if I don’t have any reason to be suspicious of someone, or even if I’m actually trying to be trusting, there’s a part of me that stays on guard, always alert.

So I didn’t fall asleep. I dozed, but that wary animal instinct stayed alert, listening for movement from the living room. And when Meredith’s phone gave a muted buzz, I was awake instantly. I heard the sound of her picking up and the murmur of her voice, then her footsteps crossing the room and the creak of the door.

I swung my legs off the bed and moved to the connecting door, my bare feet silent on the carpet. The living room was empty and I could see the blanket lying ruffled on the sofa. The door to the landing was open and I could hear the sound of Meredith’s voice from below.

I crossed the living room and slipped through, the planks of the landing cool under my feet. Through the banisters, I saw a flicker of movement: Meredith was below, in the hall, her head down, speaking into her phone. “…have much choice!” Her voice was pitched low and she sounded scared and angry. “You said they wouldn’t come after me!”

The other person replied, an inaudible buzz. Whatever they said, it didn’t make Meredith any happier. “Don’t give me that! Did you know this was going to happen?”

“…”

“No! This wasn’t the deal.”

“…”

“Don’t you dare.”

“…”

“What, be your bait?” Meredith gave a shaky laugh. “You wish.”

“…”

“No shit I’m angry! If I hadn’t come here I’d be dead right—”

“…”

“Oh, now it’s my fault?” Meredith paced up and down the hall, only barely keeping her voice down. “Screw you!”

“…”

“Go to hell. Why am I even talking to you?”

“…”

“Yeah well, I’m a lot safer here than with you.”

The voice on the other end started to answer again but Meredith cut it off halfway through. “You’re gonna have to do better than that.” She hung up and switched off the phone.

I withdrew silently back across the living room, pulled the door to behind me, and lay down on my bed. A minute later I heard footsteps on the stairs, followed by the sound of the door to the landing being softly shut. A moment later the sofa’s springs creaked and there was the rustle of blankets followed by a soft sigh.

I lay awake, listening, but nothing further came. It was a long time before I fell asleep.

chapter 3

I woke to the sun on my face. Rays were streaming through my bedroom window, lighting up the drab room in yellow and white. Outside the window I could hear the chatter and bustle of the city. The storm had passed and the sky was blue with white cloud.

From the living room and kitchen, I could hear the bustle of movement. Meredith was making breakfast. I rose quietly and slipped into my jeans and shoes, then moved out onto the landing. The smell of something frying drifted from under the door to the kitchen and I heard the clink of plates. I opened the door out onto the balcony and stepped outside, shivering slightly in the cold, and the sounds from the kitchen cut off as I shut the door behind me. I climbed the ladder set into the wall and stepped off onto the roof.

It was a beautiful morning. Puffy white clouds were scattered across a clear sky and the sounds of the city washed up all around me, carried upon fresh, cold air. Puddles of water were scattered on the flat roof, left over from last night’s storm, but the sun had been up long enough for most of the damp to dry. A breeze was blowing, cool and brisk, sending ripples racing across the water. Chimneys and TV aerials rose up all around, and a little farther away were road and rail bridges as well as the square shapes of blocks of flats. The morning sunlight was clear and crisp, outlining every brick and stone in sharp-edged shadow. It was London: dense, ancient, and my home.

I took out my phone and dialled Talisid’s number. In case you’re wondering why I was climbing onto the roof to make a phone call, it’s because I didn’t want to be overheard.

It’s a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Stop looking at me like that.

Talisid answered when I’d expected. “Morning, Verus.”

“How did things go on Friday?”

“Routine. As far as the Council’s concerned, the matter’s closed.”

“Did you figure out what killed the barghest?”

“No need. Now that it’s dead, no one has any reason to spend the time.”

“Is the body in storage?”

“Destroyed.”

“Oh.”

“Did you want it examined?”

“I’d been hoping it would be.” I couldn’t honestly say it was unexpected but it was a bit disappointing all the same.

“I could always give you the autopsy report.”

“…Wait, what?”

I heard Talisid chuckle. “Glad to see you’re not entirely immune to being surprised.”

“I thought you just said there wasn’t any need?”

“There wasn’t. I had the corpse analysed anyway.”

“Why?”

“Because you were curious.”

“And you thought you’d satisfy my curiosity?”

“No, I decided if you were curious, it was probably worth looking into. Consider it a compliment.”

I snorted. “All right, Sun Tzu. What did you find?”

There was the rustle of paper in the background. “Physically, the barghest was completely undamaged apart from minor bruises and lacerations. As far as nonmagical analysis can show, the creature was in perfect health.”

“Apart from being dead?”

“Apart from being dead. Magical scans also negative. Fatal life or death magic usually leaves distinctive evidence in the cellular structure, and the same goes for mind and charm magic in the brain. There was no evidence that living family magic had caused the creature’s death.”

I frowned. “So that means … what? It wasn’t killed by injury or by magic?”

“Not quite. There was no spell residue but there was something missing. The creature’s natural residual aura was only a fraction as strong as it should have been. Something drained the energy right out of the thing. The examiner thinks that was the cause of death, and I agree. Barghests are magical creatures. Take away their magic, no more barghest.”

“Huh.” I stood thinking. “That’s not a normal way to kill something, is it?”

“It’s not. What’s your interest in this?”

“Favour for a friend. Do you want me to copy you in if I find anything?”

“Please. Was there anything else?”

“Yeah. Know anything about a woman called Mere-dith?”

“Meredith … Dark, petite, late twenties to early thirties? Could cause a traffic accident walking down the street?”

“That’s the one.”

“Unaligned mage. Affiliated with several different Council mages over the years, but she’s always stayed independent. Probably got a few connections in the Dark camp as well, though nothing’s been proven. She dabbled in politics for a while and used to be a regular on the social circuit, but she got too close to that business with Dagon last year and had her fingers burnt rather badly. Haven’t seen her at the balls since then.”

I paced slowly up and down. “What type of mage?”

“Enchantress. Not too powerful but very skilled. Could twist men around her little finger.”

I stopped moving.

“Verus? You there?”

I was silent for a few seconds. “Yeah,” I said at last.

“Is there a problem?”

“No,” I said. “No problem. Any connections?”

“No master, no apprentices. Her name’s been linked with plenty of other mages, but the relationships never seem to last. They’re usually active in Council politics and always men. You can guess what the rumour mill has to say about that, but the truth is no one knows very much about her.”

I stood quietly on the roof. “Thanks for the help,” I said eventually.

“No problem. I take it you weren’t asking from academic interest.”

“No.”

Talisid sounded amused. “Well, consider yourself forewarned. You’ll have to tell me how it goes.”

“Assuming I’m around to tell you. I’ll be in touch about the barghest.”

“Good to hear. Until then.” Talisid hung up.

I lowered the phone and stared down at it. The cool wind blew over me, ruffling my hair and chilling my bare arms, and I shivered.

Enchantresses use charm magic, also known as emotion magic. Men who can use it are called enchanters, but they’re rarer and it’s always seen as one of the stereotypically female branches. They can’t affect thoughts and concepts in the way a mind mage can, but they’re masters of feeling and emotion. In terms of raw power they’re on the low end of the magical scale but they have one distinctive ability: their magic is incredibly hard to detect. It’s almost impossible to tell when an enchantress is using her magic and when she’s not. The whole distinction between magical and normal is much more fuzzy for enchantresses than it is for other mages; magic for them is as natural as talking and just as easy, and they’re sometimes not aware they’re using it at all.

Mages tend to be wary of enchantresses, almost as much as they are of diviners. Our emotions are one of the most basic parts of what we are. The idea that someone can make you like or love or hate, and that there’s no way to know when they’re doing it … well, most people find it dis-turbing.

Including me. As soon as Talisid had said the word enchantress, I’d had a jolt. Right now I was running back through my memories from last night. Had I been under Meredith’s spell? Was that why I’d let her in and helped her so readily? I’d hardly even asked her any questions. A subtle urge to trust, to protect …

Or maybe it was what I would have done anyway. This is why charm magic’s such a headache. It could have been magic. Or it could have been because Meredith had needed my help and asked me for it, or because if I hadn’t acted she would have been killed right there on my shop floor, or because she was really hot and I’m single.

I shook my head and started climbing back down to the balcony. It was time to ask Meredith some questions.

The smell of frying bacon greeted me as I walked into the living room. The table was set, and Meredith was working at the kitchen unit. She looked different in the morning sunlight, but just as lovely. She turned at the sound of the opening door. “Oh, you’re up! I’ll be done in just a minute.”

“Okay,” I said, but didn’t sit down. Instead I walked over to see bacon sizzling in the frying pan, along with some mushrooms.

“Was it okay to use your kitchen?” Meredith asked. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

“No, that’s fine. Uh … where did you find all this?” My kitchen isn’t exactly what you’d call well stocked.

“Oh, I went out and got a couple of things. You don’t mind? I made some for you too.”

“Thanks.” My breakfast usually doesn’t get any more advanced than cereal. This smelt really good.

“Great!” Meredith took out a couple of mugs. “Tea or coffee? I didn’t know which you prefer so I made both.”

“Tea would be great.” I’m used to being alone in the mornings. Looking around at the warm kitchen and the smell of cooking food, it occurred to me that this was really nice. Much better than eating on my own and—

Suddenly I shook my head. What was I doing? I’d come in resolved to get some answers out of Meredith yet as soon as she’d started talking to me I’d forgotten all about it. “Look,” I said. “Don’t take this the wrong way. But I think it’s about time you explained what’s going on.”

Meredith was turned away from me so that I couldn’t see her face. She didn’t react visibly. “What do you mean?”

“I think you’ve got a pretty good idea.”

Meredith paused a second, then turned and looked at me with those big dark eyes. “What do you want to know?”

“Let’s start with the basics. Who sent that thing after you and why were you coming to my shop last night?”

Meredith hesitated. “It’s … Do you mind if we sit down?”

I sat. Meredith moved things from the counter to the table. I waited, knowing she was going to speak eventually. “I don’t know their names,” she said at last.

“How did you meet them?”

“I didn’t! I’ve never met them.”

“All right,” I said. “Why don’t you start from the beginning? How did you get involved in this?”

Meredith leant against the counter, her hands wrapped around her arms. She was staring off into the corner and seemed to have forgotten about both me and the food. “It was …” She hesitated. “It was Belthas.”

“Who’s Belthas?”

“A Light mage. With the Council.”

I didn’t recognise the name, but that wasn’t surprising. I know the names of the Junior and Senior Council and a few of the heavy hitters but I’m not well connected enough to know everyone the way Talisid does. “Same cabal?”

Meredith shook her head. “No. He came to me and wanted my help with something. We’re not partners or anything … Oh, you know.”

I nodded. A lot of business amongst mages gets done in these kinds of loose arrangements. Sometimes they last, sometimes they go their separate ways once the job’s done, and occasionally they fall apart right in the middle of what they’re supposed to be doing (doesn’t happen often, but when it does it’s usually spectacular). Once you start to pick up a reputation, it’s pretty common for mages to approach you with offers like this. Sometimes it’s genuine and sometimes it’s a con, and it can be tricky to tell which is which. “What did he want?”

Meredith hesitated again. “I’m not sure—”

“Come on, Meredith,” I said. “You want my help, this is part of the deal.”

Meredith looked at me for a second, then turned back to the stove. She switched off the heating ring and the kettle and started putting out the food. I waited, knowing she was making up her mind about what to say.

“Belthas told me about a group of Dark mages,” Meredith said without looking up. “They were supposed to have gotten their hands on some sort of ritual, something powerful. He wanted to stop them.”

“What kind of ritual?”

“I don’t know. He just told me that he wanted me to find out where they were.” Meredith set the plates down on the table with a clink. “I found they were in London and where they were going to be. Belthas and his men went to meet with them to make a deal. Something went wrong. There was a fight. After that, the Dark mages started hunting me. They knew I’d been talking to Belthas.”

“Why did you come here?”

“I was scared,” Meredith said quietly. “The other people at the meeting got hurt really badly. Belthas wasn’t answering and … and I came to you. You’ve done this sort of stuff before, haven’t you? With that thing that happened at the British Museum?”

I picked up my knife and fork and took a bite, chewed, and swallowed. “Don’t believe everything you hear.”

“But everyone says—”

I cut across without raising my voice. “And if it were true, it would be covered by Council secrecy and I wouldn’t be allowed to talk about it.”

“So … you did do all that?”

I looked at Meredith silently. After a few seconds she dropped her eyes.

“Meredith, don’t get the wrong idea,” I said. “I’m a diviner. I find things out. I don’t get into fights if I can help it. If you want a bodyguard, you’re in the wrong place.”

Meredith looked down at the floor. “I haven’t anywhere else to go,” she said. “There isn’t anyone who’ll help me, not without …” She trailed off, staring at the wooden floor, looking very small and vulnerable.

I suddenly felt a wave of sympathy for Meredith, wanted to help and protect her. I fought it off; I didn’t trust my feelings at the moment. “So you want my help,” I said.

Meredith nodded, without raising her eyes.

Damn it. The sensible thing would be to tell Meredith that I was sorry but it wasn’t my problem and turn her out. I didn’t want to get into a fight with a bunch of Dark mages and I didn’t know how much I could trust Meredith or what her real intentions were. I still had the feeling she wasn’t telling me everything.

But I was pretty sure she was telling the truth about being scared. That construct had been no joke. If I hadn’t been there it would have killed her. And when it came right down to it, I hate turning someone away who’s come to me for help. It’s not that I’m especially selfless or anything, but I know what it’s like to be alone and hunted and afraid. I’ve seen the expression on people’s faces as they decide not to get involved, the look in their eyes as they shut you out, and I hate it. Maybe when it comes down to it, that’s all that matters.

“All right,” I said. Meredith’s eyes lit up in relief and I raised a hand in warning. “Two conditions. I’m not fighting your battles for you. I’ll do what I can but I’m going to avoid trouble as much as possible. Second, you tell me everything. If I find out you’re keeping anything back, you’re out. Understand?”

Meredith nodded instantly. “Yes. Thank you. If there’s anything I can do—”

Her eyes were really distracting. “You can owe me a favour. I think the first thing is to talk with Belthas. I’d like to know what got these Dark mages so upset.”

“I can try and get through by phone. He’s got a business address in the City.”

I nodded. “Get in touch and set up a meeting as soon as you can.” I glanced at my watch; it was almost ten o’clock. “Right now I’ve got somewhere to be.”

Meredith wasn’t completely happy about being separated from me, but once I’d promised she wouldn’t be in danger for a few hours she reluctantly agreed to wait. Settling her down and explaining what she should do took longer than I’d expected and by the time I’d finished I didn’t have time to make it to the Heath on foot.

I went back up to my roof. Camden had woken up and the air was filled with noise and the rumble of traffic. This time I hopped across to the roof next to mine and kept walking until I was amidst the chimney stacks and ventilators of the block of flats a few buildings down. I use this roof when I don’t want anyone watching or when I’m feeling especially paranoid, both of which happen more often than they probably ought to. I took out a small glass rod from my pocket—a focus—and wove a thread of magic through it, whispering. “Starbreeze. Traveller, watcher, listener, queen of cloud and sky. I call—”

Something flipped my hair into my eyes and I cut off, turning around with a sigh. “Heard it before, huh?”

Starbreeze is invisible to sight and to most other senses too. It’s not that she conceals herself, it’s just that she’s made of air, and she looks exactly like what air looks like. To my mage’s sight, though, she looks like a woman drawn in blurry lines of blue-white, ever-shifting. She changes her looks daily but there’s something in her face that’s always the same, something ageless. Starbreeze is an elemental, and she’s immortal and eternal, fast as the wind and as powerful as the sun.

She’s also got the memory of a goldfish. It’s like her mind’s got a storage limit, and for every new thing that comes in, one old thing goes out. Sometimes I think her immortality and her ditziness are connected: she can never age because she can never change. But she’s saved my life at least once and I care about her a lot, though I’d never tell her so.

Today Starbreeze looked like a woman in a flowing dress with long hair falling to her ankles. She whipped around me in a tight corkscrew. “Where’ve you been?”

“I’ve been dealing with monsters and assassins and trying to persuade someone not to … You know what, if I explained it you’d forget halfway through.”

“Forget what?” Starbreeze said brightly.

“Never mind. Can you take me to Arachne’s lair?”

Starbreeze came to an abrupt halt, upside down with her head eye level with me, her hair hanging down to the floor. “Present first.”

“Here you go.” I took a small silver piece of jewellery out of my pocket, a stylised dolphin designed as a brooch. I keep a stack of them in a drawer. “I just—”

“Ooh!” Starbreeze snatched the dolphin out of my hands and whirled up into the air, tossing the brooch around in delight. “Starbreeze!” I yelled.

Starbreeze halted, looking down at me from twenty feet up. “Hmm?”

“Can you take me to Arachne’s lair?”

Starbreeze’s face cleared. “Oh right.” Before I could blink she’d darted down, turned my body into air, and whisked me up into the sky.

I love flying with Starbreeze. When I was younger I used to wish I could fly but being carried by an air elemental is better. Starbreeze transforms the bodies of whoever she’s carrying into air, then mixes them with her own form, carrying them along with her. It means you can go as fast as she can, and Starbreeze is fast.

The city shrank underneath me as Starbreeze rocketed upwards, the buildings and roads becoming a winding grid. London looks sprawled and confusing from above, the twisting, irregular roads making it hard to pick out where you are. I could see the winding shape of the Thames to the south, and the green spaces of Regent’s Park and the Heath ahead and to the left. Starbreeze could have gotten me to Arachne’s lair in ten seconds flat but she was obviously enjoying herself far too much to hurry. She kept climbing until we were on the level of the clouds then started soaring between them, twining her way between the fluffy masses like they were some kind of gigantic obstacle course. Looking down at London spread out below me, I could see the shadows of the clouds dotted across the city, the sun and darkness alternating almost like a chessboard. I was supposed to be at Arachne’s lair, but really, I didn’t mind that much. I relaxed, letting the scenery scroll beneath me.

There was a flat-topped cloud the size of an aircraft carrier drifting over Crouch End. Starbreeze swung towards it, soared vertically up its bumpy sides, then levelled off over the top, her wake brushing the cloud’s surface as she cruised over it. “Oh!” she said suddenly. “Someone’s asking about you.”

“Asking about me?” I said. My voice sounds weird when I’m in air form; a sort of buzzy whisper, though Starbreeze seems to understand it easily enough. “Who?”

Starbreeze brought us up onto a tower reaching up out of the top of the cloud. It gave a panoramic view of London, the city stretching away in all directions. “You!” Starbreeze said. “Cirrus told me a nightwing told him a man asked the nightwing.”

“About me?”

“Mm-hm.” Starbreeze frowned. “Wait, the nightwing told me. Maybe a man told Cirrus.” Her frown cleared. “Where are we going?”

“Just a second. What were they asking about me?”

“Who?”

“The men talking to Cirrus.”

“No, to the nightwing.”

“And they were talking about me?”

“They were?”

I sighed. “Let’s go to Arachne’s lair.”

“Okay!” Starbreeze whirled me up, did a somersault, and dived straight down into the cloud. There was a second of icy chill as near-freezing vapour rushed past us, then we were diving towards the Heath at what felt like a thousand miles an hour. I had one lightning-fast glimpse of rushing grass, people, and flashing trees, then Starbreeze turned me solid again, dropped me in the ravine, and darted off before I could even say good-bye.

I checked that no one was watching, found the right spot in the oak roots, waited for Arachne to recognise my voice, and entered the tunnel, my mind focused on what Starbreeze had just told me. Starbreeze hears everything and she probably learns as much of what happens in the mage world as the highest members of the Council—it’s just that she forgets it as fast as she learns it. But the fragment she’d repeated was enough to worry me.

I’m not ranked amongst the movers and shakers of magical society, and all in all, I like it that way. I’ve found my life is much easier if no one thinks I’m important enough to mess with. Having someone asking about me was disturbing. When mages take a sudden interest in a guy it usually means one of two things: they’re considering an alliance, or they’re planning to get rid of him.

Luna was waiting for me in Arachne’s living room, twirling a ribbon between her fingers. Arachne was perched over a table to one side, sewing away at something and apparently paying no attention at all. I felt awkward talking to Luna and it seemed she felt awkward too; I think both of us kind of wanted to apologise but didn’t want to raise the subject. It was a relief to focus on training.

Mages normally take an apprentice who specialises in the same type of magic that they do. The branches of magic are very different; trying to teach a type of magic you can’t use is a lot like trying to teach an instrument you can’t play. But sometimes you just have to live with it, especially if you happen to be landed with one of the more uncommon kinds: If some kid’s just discovered a talent for shapechanging, it’s not exactly practical to wait five or ten years for one of the handful of master shifters to free up his schedule to teach him. In Luna’s case, I wasn’t sure if there even was a mage with her exact talent, and she wasn’t a true mage either, meaning it was me or nobody.

Unfortunately, I was just as new to the master business as Luna was to being an apprentice, and the teaching methods I’d tried out over the last five months had been kind of hit-and-miss. Most had been ineffective, a few had turned out promising, and two or three had led to really spectacular disasters. But while sweeping up the mess from the last one, it had occurred to me that there might be a way of making use of how Luna’s curse worked on objects. Her curse affects inanimate things as well as living ones; it’s just that it’s a lot weaker against dead material. But as we’d found out the hard way, the more vulnerable an item was to random chance, the more easily the curse seemed able to destroy it. After a bit of research, I tracked down the most unreliable and fragile brand of lightbulb on the market and bought a case of them.

Which was why Luna was standing in the middle of Arachne’s living room with a lamp in either hand. We’d cleared a section of the room of fabric and furniture, and the brilliant white light cast a rainbow of colour from the clothes hanging all around, the fluorescent bulbs making a faint, persistent buzz. “Do I have to do this?” Luna asked.

“The better you learn to control your curse, the less likely you’ll hit someone you don’t want to.”

“I get that part. Why do I have to dance?”

Luna was perched with her weight on her right foot, the left foot resting lightly with the leg straight, her right-hand lamp held at chest level in front of her and the other down by her side. This was her third session on Latin—the last two weeks had been ballroom—and it had taken me a good hour to get her stance right. It’s a lot harder to correct someone’s posture when you can’t touch them.

To my mage’s sight, the silver mist of Luna’s curse swirled around her like a malevolent cloud. At her hands, though, the mist was reduced to a thin layer. The two lamps had a few strands of mist clinging to them, but not many. Luna was holding her curse back, keeping it from reaching the items in her hands. The bulbs were fragile and I’d learnt from experience that a single brush from her curse at full power was enough to burn them out. “Again,” I said. “From the top.”

Luna rolled her eyes but did as I said. I’d been teaching her a routine, and as I watched she ran through each move in the sequence. The silver mist flickered and swirled, but it stayed clear of her hands and the lamps shone steady and bright. “Good,” I said once she’d stopped. “Now start doing basics and I’ll give you instructions.”

Luna settled into the basic rhythm, soft-soled shoes quiet on the stone floor. “Wouldn’t it be more useful if I learnt martial arts or something?” she asked after a while.

“No.”

“Why not?”

It was something I’d already thought about and decided against. Given the kind of situations I tend to get into, it would be a useful skill for Luna to know … except she’d be far more likely to end up hurting a friend than an enemy, and quite honestly, her curse is lethal enough already. “What you practice, you use without thinking. The last thing I want is to teach you to hit someone by reflex. Flares.”

Luna hesitated an instant, then stepped into left and right stretches, one arm holding a lamp low, the other lifted high to the ceiling. “I can’t even dance.”

“New Yorks,” I said. Luna obeyed reluctantly, turning on the spot in place of the backwards step. “I know dance, so you get to dance. Be grateful it’s Latin and not Morris dancing.”

“Might as well be,” Luna said under her breath.

Ballroom dancing was one of the odder skills I picked up as apprentice to Richard. Light and Dark mages are quite traditional at the upper levels and a proper apprentice is supposed to be able to fight a duel, dance a waltz, and know which fork to eat dinner with afterwards. “Fan and hockey stick.”

Luna hesitated again, trying to remember the complex figure, and this time the silver mist around her hands pressed outward. For just a second the lights flickered, then she stepped into the move and they steadied. She finished with a basic and started the next. “See? It’s not—”

“Alemanas.”

This time Luna managed without any hesitation. “Outer balance helps with inner balance,” I said. “Your routine again.”

Luna stopped talking for a few minutes as she worked through the pattern. The first time she got it wrong, but her concentration didn’t waver and the lights shone steady. The second time was perfect. “Good,” I said. “Now backwards.”

“Oh come on!”

“And keep doing it till I tell you to stop.”

Luna rolled her eyes again. I noticed, though, that even when she was struggling over the transitions, the silver aura around her didn’t flicker. I’d started to suspect over the past week that Luna’s control over her curse was tied more to her emotions than her thoughts: There didn’t seem to be any connection between the difficulty of what she was doing and how likely it was that she’d slip. “There,” Luna said after she’d done the reverse sequence three times in a row.

“Not bad. Now freestyle. Basic rhythm, any moves you like.”

“How much longer are we going to stick with this?” Luna said as she stepped smoothly into the figures. Her technique was still pretty bad, but she was moving with more grace. Luna’s never done much sport but she’s not naturally clumsy and she was learning fast.

“Until you can dance with someone without killing them.”

Luna stumbled, and the silver mist around her flared. The lights buzzed and flickered but she recovered control just in time, clawing the mist away from where it had been reaching for the lights. For a few seconds she stayed on basic steps, recovering her equilibrium. “That’s not easy,” she said at last, her voice quiet.

“Didn’t say it was. But if you can dance body to body with someone without letting your curse touch them, that’s when you’ll be ready.”

Luna returned to her routine, though with a little more caution in her steps than before. “How long?”

“However long it takes.”

“It’ll take forever.” Luna’s curse flickered, but only slightly.

I smiled slightly. “There’s a story that Napoleon once told his advisors he wanted to plant trees by the sides of every road in France, so that his soldiers could march in the shade. His advisors said, ‘But sir, that will take twenty years!’ And Napoleon said, ‘Yes, so we must start at once!’”

Luna was silent.

“You see, if something is going to take a long time—”

“I get it.”

“How did things go last night with Martin?”

The silver mist around Luna surged. There was a blue-white flash and a ringing sound, and both bulbs blew out.

Luna rounded on me, glaring, and with my mage’s sight, I saw tendrils of silver mist reaching towards me. They were ten feet away, five, and I tensed … then the tendrils halted and slowly pulled back, thinning as they withdrew. Only once they had merged back into the aura around her did Luna speak. “That wasn’t fair.”

“Wasn’t meant to be,” I said quietly. I didn’t think Luna understood what she had just nearly done. But she understood what the lights burning out meant.

“It doesn’t even—” Luna started to say in frustration, then caught herself. She turned and walked to the corner, unscrewing the bulbs from the lights, and dropped them into the bin. There was a clinking sound as they joined the pile.

I waited for Luna to cross the room and come back, giving things time to settle. “We’re done for the day,” I said. “I need to speak with Arachne. Wait outside and I’ll catch you up.”

Luna obeyed silently. I watched her go with a frown, then turned to see that Arachne had stopped work. Her eight eyes studied me, unreadable. “Okay, so that could have gone better.”

Arachne didn’t answer and I looked at her. “What’s wrong?”

“I see why you were unsure about training her.”

I winced. “That bad?”

“She isn’t acting like your apprentice. And you’re not acting like her master.” Arachne crossed the cavern and settled down with her front legs brushing my sides, her head and fangs looming over me. “But that’s a matter for the two of you. What did you learn?”

I hesitated, then put Luna out of my mind. “A friend of mine had the barghest’s corpse looked at. He’s not a hundred percent sure but best guess is that the thing was killed from having its magic drained out of it.”

Arachne went still.

I waited but she didn’t speak. “Arachne?” I said after a moment.

“I … see.” The clicking sound under Arachne’s voice was stronger.

“All right.” I put one of my hands on Arachne’s front leg and looked up at her. “What’s going on? Something’s bothering you about this.”

Arachne turned and started walking slowly across the room. I followed her closely, keeping pace by her side and skirting around sofas and chairs. “You’re worried this thing might be coming after you, aren’t you?” I said. Arachne didn’t react and my eyes narrowed. “No, that’s not it. You’re worried you might die the same way.”

Arachne’s mandibles rustled. “You see clearly in such matters.”

“You mean when it doesn’t involve Luna?” I shrugged. “If you tell me what you know, I might be able to help.”

Arachne halted at the north end of her chamber. Arachne’s living room/workroom is huge and roughly circular. The south end is the exit out to the Heath, to the northwest are a few small changing booths, and to the east are some spare rooms in which Arachne keeps supplies and facilities for her few guests.

At the north end, though, just next to where we were standing, was a tunnel sloping down into darkness. It wasn’t lit, but from what light was reflected, I could see that it led into a T junction, forking away and down. Arachne’s never told me what she keeps down there and I’ve never asked. But from what I’ve seen, I’ve gotten the impression that the tunnels keep on going down … maybe a long way down. For all the time I’ve spent with Arachne, she keeps a lot of secrets, and there’s enough space under the Heath for those tunnels to spread a very long way.

I had to resist the urge to poke my head in and look. It wouldn’t be polite, but it would really satisfy my curiosity. “Do you know of the Transcendence movement?” Arachne asked.

I frowned. “Vaguely. They were that group of rationalist mages who thought magic was the next stage in human evolution. They were trying to find ways of boosting magical potential, turn everyone into a mage.”

“And what happened?

I shrugged. “They never got anywhere. People decided it couldn’t be done, they started losing members, and then the Gate Rune War kicked off and everyone had other stuff to worry about. Why?”

“Most of your account is true but there is one fact you leave out. There was a way to increase magical power and the Transcendents were well aware of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know it as Harvesting.”

I flinched. Harvesting is the act of ripping a mage’s magic from his body and taking it for yourself. It’s always fatal for the victim, often fatal for the harvester, and usually comes with a variety of horrible consequences. It’s the blackest of black magic, even forbidden by Dark mages, and that should really tell you something. “Are you serious? There’s a reason that ritual’s banned. Besides, it doesn’t make any sense—the Transcendents wanted to make more mages, and anyone with half a brain can tell you that if you go in for Harvesting, you end up with fewer mages.”

“Yes,” Arachne said. “They could not draw the magic from humans. So they drew it from magical creatures instead.”

I stopped. I’d never thought of that. “What happened?”

“They were successful,” Arachne said. “The recipients gained the power and strength of the creature they harvested. The process also drove them insane. After enough deaths, the project was abandoned.”

I frowned. It was the first I’d heard of the story; thinking about it, though, it made sense. Mages have a few (not many) compunctions about killing other mages but treating nonhuman creatures as living battery packs would suit them just fine. And mages don’t like to publish failure. If experiments go disastrously wrong, they usually cover it up. “What are you getting at?”

“There are rumours that a mage—perhaps more than one—has returned to the Transcendents’ research. I did not know whether they were true.” Arachne turned her eight opaque eyes on me. “It seems they were. I believe this will be our last meeting for some time.”

I nodded, resigned. Arachne hasn’t lived however many hundreds of years by being careless, and I’ve seen her do this before. When danger comes, she vanishes. I’ve never known where she goes but I suspect the answer’s somewhere down in those tunnels. “Well, I’ll tell you if anything happens.”

“I will be contactable for another two or three days,” Arachne said. “After that …” She gave an odd rippling motion that I’ve come to recognise as a shrug.

Walking up out of Arachne’s lair, I wondered just how many times she had done this over her long life, and how it worked. I’ve never heard of any other creatures like Arachne—giant intelligent magical spiders aren’t a known type in the way that, say, elementals are. I’ve wondered sometimes if Arachne is unique … but then where did she come from? Are there others of her kind, out there somewhere? Or was she once something else?

I watched the earthen bank rumble back into place, the roots writhing and retwining themselves to lock the door closed, and knew I wouldn’t be going back there for a while. It made me a little sad. There aren’t many places where I feel comfortable, and Arachne’s lair is near the top of a very short list.

Luna was standing nearby. I started walking out of the ravine and she fell in by my side. With my mage’s sight I could see that the silver mist around her was muted. “What were you about to say back there?”

The sun shone down out of a blue sky, white clouds drifting with a brisk east wind. It was September and there was a chill in the air, but even so there was a scattering of people around the park, most wearing greatcoats or ski jackets. “When?” Luna said.

“You were about to say that trying to control your magic doesn’t matter.” I looked at Luna. “What’s up with you? I thought you wanted this.”

Luna walked silently for a few seconds. She was wearing her green coat, and the wind whipped at its sleeves and ruffled her hair. We reached a path that would lead us southeast and turned onto it. “What if there’s another way?” she said without looking up.

“What do you mean?”

Luna sighed quietly. “Look, I’ve been doing this for months, okay? And I suck at it. It’s been half a year and I still can’t get through a session without burning the lights out!”

“We always knew it was going to take time,” I said. “Luna, mages spend years learning to control their powers. It’s not just you.”

“Yeah, well, they don’t kill everyone around them when they make a mistake.” Luna stared down at the path. “I know what it means when one of those lights burns out. I can’t make it so that it never happens. What’s the point if I only sometimes kill people? It’s just as bad.”

The path crested the ridge and sloped into a wide, open hillside. We were in the part of the Heath just north of the tumulus, where the rolling meadows descend gradually in a long stretch of grassland before flattening out into the woods and ponds at the park’s edge. It’s open to the sky and we could see for miles. People, alone and in twos and threes and with dogs, were scattered across the great meadow, strolling. On the other side of the ponds, the ground rose again into the huge shape of Highgate Hill, the roofs of houses and a single church poking up between the trees. The valley between gave the illusion that the hill was much closer than it was, almost as if you could reach out and touch it. In the distance East London stretched away, clear in the autumn sun.

Luna and I turned off the path and started down the meadow. Beyond the ponds at the bottom was the main road. “So what are you going to do?” I asked. “Give up?”

Luna walked quietly for a minute. “What if there was another way?” she said again. “Make it safe without all the work. Wouldn’t that be better?”

I looked sharply at her. “Are you—?”

Something flickered on my precognition and I stopped talking. Precognition is a kind of mental discipline and pretty much any diviner who spends much time in dangerous situations learns it by necessity. All diviners have the ability to see the future but we can only look in one place at a time. So what we learn to do is to recognise the outlines of the most important events that’ll affect us personally, things like sudden changes or danger, and then we train our awareness so as to always keep a vague eye on the immediate future, at the back of our mind. It’s like peripheral vision: you can’t see details, but you can sense if something’s about to happen, enough to turn your head and took a closer look.

I took a closer look.

Somebody was about to shoot me through the head in exactly eight seconds.

“Luna,” I said. I kept my voice calm, even as my heart sped up, dumping adrenaline into my system. “We’re about to get shot at. On my mark, go right and take cover.”

Luna stared at me. “Wait, what did—?”

From somewhere on Highgate Hill a rifle fired, and a supersonic bullet flew towards me.

chapter 4

Most mages don’t use guns. Mages will tell you that gunpowder weapons are crude and inferior, and it’s kind of true: While mages have whole libraries of spells and tricks, all a gun can do is kill people. What mages tend to overlook, though, is that guns are really good at killing people. If someone lines up a gun on the right spot and twitches their finger, you’re dead, end of story. Oh, it may not look impressive compared to battle-magic—a fire mage could incinerate your body, a life mage could stop your heart with a touch, a water mage could disintegrate you into dust—but when you get right down to it, most of that is just overkill. Dead is dead.

In a face-to-face fight, spell generally beats gun. Spells are just so much more versatile; a mage can counter pretty much anything with a second’s warning. If the mage doesn’t get that second’s warning, though … well, a shot in the back has been the death of an awful lot of mages. Once a bullet’s gone through your heart, it doesn’t matter much how tough you are.

If I’d been an elemental mage I would have died on that hill. But I’m not; I’m a diviner, and while I have no power to affect the physical world, one thing I can do really well is spot an ambush. I shouted “Go!” to Luna and jumped to the left. An instant later a sniper bullet went through the space my head had been occupying.

A supersonic bullet makes a really distinctive noise and once you’ve heard it you never forget it. First there’s the high-pitched crack of the sound barrier breaking, then an instant later the pitch drops into an reverberating echo as the sound waves from the bullet’s flight path wash over you. The noise makes your heart jump, but hearing a sniper bullet is a good thing. The bullet outruns the sound wave; if it’s on target, it kills you before you ever hear the sound of the shot.

I broke into a sprint, racing down the slope at an angle. I couldn’t spare the time to look back at Luna; all I could do was hope she’d listened. The grass swished under my feet, and looking into the future I could see another shot coming. The hillside was open and bare, and I wouldn’t get to cover in time.

The sniper fired again and I went into a roll. Another crack lashed my ears as the bullet whipped over me, driving into the grass and earth. I came up without breaking stride and kept running. There was an old thick tree up ahead, on a low rise; if I could reach it I’d be safe. I could sense the sniper getting ready to fire again, and I’d had long enough to mark the delay on the shots. His bullets were taking about half a second to cross the space between us. Doesn’t sound like much but in combat that’s a long time. The next shot was aimed at my body, and just as he fired I braked, slowing enough that the shot cracked past a couple of feet in front of me. A final shot fell short as I dived behind the tree and hit the deck.

I lay flat, my heart hammering. The earth under the tree was covered with thin grass, twigs, and nut shells, and they pricked my hands as I held myself still. The sun was shining down and the echoes of the shots had faded into the sounds of the city. There was no way you could have told from looking that someone was trying to kill me.

I was about halfway down the slope of the meadow. The ponds and forests at the bottom of the hill were clearly visible but to reach them I’d have to cross more than a hundred yards of open grass. As I looked around, I saw to my amazement that there were still people walking. A couple were looking around to see what the noise was, and one woman with a dog was shading her eyes and watching me, but most of them didn’t seem to realise anything was wrong.

I pushed myself to my knees, being careful to keep the trunk of the tree between me and the sniper, and looked around for Luna. I couldn’t see her, which was good. Carefully I leant my head around the tree trunk. The sniper had to be firing from Highgate Hill. I could see the giant shape of the hill rising up half a mile away and I scanned it with my eyes, but it was useless. Trees, houses, buildings, a thousand places to hide, all of them with a straight line of sight across the valley to the open meadow I was stuck in the middle of—

My precognition warned me just in time and I jerked my head back. Half a second later there was a high harmonic crack as a bullet whipped through the space that had just a moment ago been occupied by my right eye. My would-be assassin was a very good shot.

That last bit of information was enough to make me sure that I did not want to make a run for it. The ground around the tree was rolling grassland for fifty yards in every direction and I had no intention of trying my luck. I hugged the tree and waited.

Ten seconds passed, twenty. How long would the assassin stay with his sights trained on the tree? He couldn’t afford to wait forever; the more time he spent in his position the better the chance of being found. Thirty seconds. Forty. I looked into the future and saw that putting my head out wasn’t going to attract another bullet. Maybe he’d gone? No, there was another attack coming, it was—

My eyes went wide. He’s going to shoot me with a WHAT?

I scrambled to my feet, leapt around the tree, and threw myself flat. Just as I dropped, something with an exhaust glow flashed very fast over my line of vision, then hit the ground on the other side of the tree and exploded.

It made a hell of a noise. I was less than five yards from the thing and all I heard was a massive bang followed by a ringing sound. Concussion whacked at my legs and arms but the tree was thick and solid and the shrapnel embedded itself on the other side. Leaves and twigs showered down. I couldn’t hear but I knew another sniper round was coming and I scrambled back around the other side of the tree again, getting out of sight before the sniper could manage to fire.

I lay still as the ringing in my ears began to fade. The ground was warm and there was a blackened patch of scorched earth and grass about fifteen feet away where the explosive had gone off. I scanned frantically through the futures, trying to see if another rocket was coming so that I’d be able to get out of the way in time. Nothing. The people who’d been watching were scurrying away. Londoners might not be much good at recognising gunshots but they aren’t going to stick around when someone’s firing a bloody rocket launcher.

Gradually, as my hearing returned, I realised I couldn’t sense any more attacks. I poked my head out cautiously, ready to spring into movement. Nothing happened. The tree trunk was pockmarked with scars where bits of shrapnel had torn into the bark. I looked into the future to see what would happen if I left the cover of the tree and saw nothing. I double-checked and triple-checked, but the futures stretching out before me were free of weapons fire. The assassin was gone.

I pulled myself to my feet and started jogging uphill. I looked through the futures for the ones where I ran across Luna and adjusted my course to match. The adrenaline was still coursing through my system and I covered the first hundred yards at a good pace until the reaction hit me and I suddenly felt like I’d just run a marathon. I forced my legs to keep going until Luna peered out from behind a clump of trees ahead of me. As she saw me, relief flashed across her face and she said something I couldn’t hear.

“What?” I shook my head. “Sorry. Ears. Don’t stop.”

I fell into the fastest walk I could manage and Luna hurried to keep up, torn between wanting to get close and having to keep away. “Are you okay?” she said more loudly, her voice anxious.

“I’m okay. Keep moving.” I adjusted our course to avoid curious bystanders. People were heading for the site of the attack but we would be able to steer clear of them.

My hearing returned as we reached Parliament Hill, just in time to pick up the distant wail of sirens from behind us, first one and then several. We headed down the hill as the sirens grew louder, passing the athletics track on our left and heading southwest. Only once we’d crossed the railway bridge and left the Heath behind us did I start to relax. “What was that?” Luna said at last.

“That was somebody trying to kill me,” I said, managing to keep my voice steady. “Congrats, you’ve just had your first assassination attempt.”

“They were trying to shoot you?”

“Yes they were.” I shivered at the thought of how close they’d come. Divination magic is great for avoiding danger but it also lets you see every possible fate in vivid detail. In the process of dodging those shots, I’d seen exactly what would have happened if I hadn’t dodged them and I’d gotten to watch myself torn apart by high-velocity bullets over and over again. It’s gruesome and it’s one hell of a mental shock if you’re not prepared for it. I stuffed my hands into my pockets to stop them from shaking. “He was firing from Highgate Hill, across the valley.”

Luna hesitated. “Do we … ?”

I shook my head. “No point. He’ll be miles away by now.”

“Who—”

“Not a clue.”

Luna fell silent and we headed west on foot towards Camden Town, taking the back streets instead of the main roads. As I walked, I started making a list of everyone in the mage world whom I’d opposed, fought with, or otherwise irritated. After I ran out of fingers to count on I decided to limit the number to people I’d pissed off relatively recently. Two names topped the list: Morden and Levistus.

Five months ago I got involved in a hunt for a Precursor relic, a powerful imbued item called a fateweaver. Levistus wanted me to bring him the fateweaver and (as I found out the hard way) didn’t want any witnesses to his involvement. Morden wanted the fateweaver too, and by a funny coincidence he didn’t want anyone left to point fingers either. For my part, I didn’t particularly care who got the fateweaver but did have quite strong opinions on staying alive.

As you’ve probably guessed, neither Morden nor Levistus got what he wanted, and I’d been expecting them to do something about it ever since. There was no way to be sure which one to blame the sniper on but my instincts said Levistus; sending agents to kill from a distance was very much his style. But there was a snag. If Levistus had wanted me silenced, the time to do it would have been five months ago. It was possible he just held a grudge and I wasn’t ruling that out, but as a motive for murder it felt a bit thin.

There was a more recent and more obvious person to blame: the Dark mage who’d sent that construct. If I hadn’t been there last night, it would have killed Meredith. Maybe this assassination attempt had been intended to make sure that next time I wouldn’t get in the way.

But whoever it was, it was clear I’d gotten into something a lot bigger than I was prepared for. I walked the rest of the way in silence, laying plans. Luna didn’t break into my thoughts. It wasn’t until I was almost home that something occurred to me to cheer me up. Despite the argument, Luna had obeyed me instantly when danger had arrived, and the relief in her eyes when she’d seen that I was uninjured had been real. It was enough to make me feel a little better as I unlocked the door to my shop.

Luna did a double take. “Uh … ?”

“Hm?”

Luna pointed and I turned to see the smashed window. “Oh, right. That was the other assassination attempt.”

Luna stared at me.

I sighed. “I need to get it fixed. Go on, I’ll catch up.” Luna picked her way through the trashed shop, looking around at the damage, as I called the number of a glazier who I knew wouldn’t ask any questions. It’s not like it’s the first time this sort of thing has happened. Once I’d made the arrangements I followed Luna upstairs, then walked into the living room and stopped.

Luna was next to the sink with the cupboard open, having just taken out a glass. Meredith was in front of the balcony with the doorknob in one hand and her mobile phone in the other. She’d obviously just stepped inside after having made a call. In between Luna and Meredith was the body of the construct. I hadn’t done anything about the thing and it was still lying facedown where I’d left it. Meredith was staring at Luna. Luna was looking up and down between Meredith and the dead construct. Then, in perfect unison, both of them turned to look at me.

“Uh,” I said brilliantly.

The silence stretched out and I tried to figure out what to say. Well, both of them were technically my guests. “Okay, so. Introductions. Luna, this is Meredith, a mage. Meredith, this is Luna, my apprentice. Luna, this is Bob the Dead Construct. Bob, meet Luna. So now we all know each other.”

Okay, so social graces aren’t my strong point. Hey, you try to come up with a polite way of introducing an apprentice, a mage, and a dead body.

Meredith reacted first. “Oh, of course.” She glanced at Luna. “You didn’t tell me you had an apprentice, Alex.”

“No, I—” Luna looked from the construct to Meredith to me.

I was about to explain but Meredith spoke, moving to my side. “It was a construct assassin sent last night to kill me. Alex”—she put her hand on my arm—“saved me.” She smiled up at me.

My face went red. “No, that’s—”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Meredith looked at Luna, contrite. “Do you usually stay here? I didn’t realise I was taking up your space.”

Luna stared at the two of us for a long moment before answering. “No.” Her voice was toneless.

“That’s good.” Meredith smiled at her. “So, you’re Alex’s apprentice? Have you been studying long?”

Luna was still staring and I realised she wasn’t looking at me but at Meredith’s hand where it rested on my shoulder. I moved away, breaking the connection, and as I did, Luna’s eyes flicked up to my face, then down. “No.” She put the glass down. “I should go.”

I stared. “Already?”

“I’m supposed to meet Martin.” Luna moved towards the door. Her movements were sharp, jerky, without her usual control. My precognition flared and instinctively I moved out of her way, and a moment later Luna was through the door.

“Luna, wait!” I followed her out into the landing.

Luna was halfway down the stairs. She stopped as I spoke, and as she did I pulled myself up short. To my mage’s sight, the silver mist was lashing around her, its range and strength far greater than normal, tendrils snaking through the air and soaking into the walls and floor. Another step and I’d be in deadly danger.

I stood my ground. “I need to talk to you. Martin as well. Ask him to come to the shop tomorrow morning.”

“Why?” Luna’s voice was flat but there was an edge to it I hadn’t heard before.

“You wanted me to help, right? If he comes in, maybe I can do something about that item.”

A beat, then Luna nodded. “Fine.”

I hesitated. I wanted to say more, something to encourage her, about how she’d done well today. But before I could think how to say it, Luna started back down the stairs and her curse flared again in the instant before she vanished into the hall. I heard the door shut, followed a second later by the bang of her leaving by the front door.

I frowned. For a moment I tried to figure out everything that had just happened, then my thoughts vanished in a wave of exhaustion. I returned to the living room and made it to the sofa before my legs collapsed.

“Alex?” Meredith said in concern. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I said without looking up. The reaction from my near-death experience on the Heath hadn’t worn off yet, and for some reason I didn’t want to talk to Meredith right now. I felt as though what had just happened was her fault, though I couldn’t explain why.

“Well … I got in touch with Belthas.”

For a moment I didn’t know who Meredith was talking about. It was funny; while I was with Luna and Arachne, all the details with Meredith just didn’t seem important. Then I remembered. “Belthas, right.”

“He says he’d like to meet you. I could take you to him this afternoon?”

All I wanted to do was sit there. “Okay,” I said with an effort. “Give me half an hour and we’ll go.”

Meredith hesitated an instant, then withdrew. I leant back on the sofa and closed my eyes. I needed to figure out who was trying to have me killed and why. I needed to find out more about Belthas and Meredith and what their goals were. And I needed to do something about Luna and Martin and the monkey’s paw. But right now all I wanted was to sit and rest, and remember a simpler time.

I made my preparations and travelled with Meredith to Canary Wharf. According to Meredith, Belthas had an office in one of the skyscrapers. It’s not as rare as you’d think: Mages like towers. They’re a kind of status symbol in the magical world, even though no one seems able to explain exactly why. Some say it’s a leftover from the old days where mages had to worry about actual armies laying siege to their homes and a tower gave you a tactical advantage. Others say it’s from when mages went in for astronomy—a tower makes a better observation platform. Other explanations I’ve heard include a better view, attracting attention, reducing electromagnetic interference, impressing members of the opposite sex, a way to reduce the danger of vertical teleportation mishaps, and my tower is bigger than yours. My personal suspicion is that mages like to feel above everyone else, but I usually keep that to myself. Belthas’s office was near the top floor of the second- or third-highest skyscraper in the cluster, which meant he was either powerful and successful, concerned about his reputation, or compensating for something, depending on your point of view. The ground floor was huge, with tall wood-panelled walls and a shining white floor. A doorman showed us through the security gates and we stepped into a lift that carried us upward.

The back of the lift was mirrored and as we ascended I used the mirror to study Meredith. She’d been quiet all the way, hardly saying a word, and I wondered if she was thinking about the mage we were about to meet. I hadn’t forgotten about the conversation I’d overheard last night and I wondered if it had been Belthas she’d been talking to. Meredith had sounded as if she wasn’t happy about their deal.

There was a ding and the lift stopped on the thirty-eighth floor. From what I could see, Belthas seemed to own about half the floor space. There was a receptionist to greet us but my attention was on the men with guns and body armour standing against the wall watching us with alert eyes: Council security. We were shown into a room, and after a brief wait, the receptionist put her head in with a smile. “Mr. Belthas will see you now.”

It’s not the first time I’ve been to see an important mage in Canary Wharf. The last time, it was at night in the middle of a ball, I was shown in alone, and I very nearly never walked out again. The mage I’d met had been Levistus and it had been a near thing. I could still remember the soundproofed room, silent and empty.

Belthas’s office was very different. It was set into the corner of the tower and sunlight streamed in from two glass walls, leaving bright patterns on the carpet and keeping the air comfortably warm. Belthas rose from his desk as we entered and walked around to shake my hand. “Verus. I’m glad you could make it.”

Belthas was tall, almost as tall as me. His hair was almost entirely white and he looked like a very well-preserved fifty. His features were difficult to place: His face looked English, but a faint accent to his words made me think of Eastern Europe. He had a pair of clear blue eyes and a ready smile, and his manner as he greeted me was friendly, but there was something in those eyes that made me cautious. You don’t get places in Council politics without playing the system and somehow I had the feeling that Belthas was watching me just as I was watching him. He went through the usual formalities while I gave the usual replies. Belthas wasn’t acting as though he had anything to hide … but then the best manipulators don’t.

“Well then,” Belthas said once we were seated and I’d refused the offer of a drink. “What can I do for you?”

“How much has Meredith told you?”

Belthas frowned. “I haven’t been fully filled in. I understand you came under attack?”

“That’s one way to put it,” I said dryly. “Someone sent a construct assassin after Meredith.”

Belthas’s eyebrows went up. “I see.”

“Yes. I’d appreciate knowing why.”

Belthas steepled his fingers, seeming to think. Meredith was sitting quietly to one side, but otherwise the three of us were alone in the office. “I can certainly understand why you’d be upset,” Belthas said. “And I’m grateful for your assistance. However, as I’m sure you’re aware, the details are not common knowledge.”

“Belthas, please don’t play games,” I said. “I’m a diviner. If I wanted to find out I could, and you know it.”

Belthas didn’t react, which was revealing: If he’d really meant to keep it a secret he wouldn’t have taken it so calmly. “Perhaps this would go more smoothly if you explained your goals.”

“I don’t have any,” I said. “At least I didn’t until that construct came through my front window last night. Now whoever sent it’s got a reason to go after me too, and Meredith’s asked me to help her. Whether I agree depends on you.”

Belthas didn’t answer straightaway. I could feel the tension in Meredith off to my right but I couldn’t detect any danger. The futures branching before us were only conversation … for now. “I can understand why you’d feel that way,” Belthas said at last. “Perhaps if I explained how this situation came about.”

I nodded and Belthas leant back in his chair. “It begins with a mage named Jadan. He was Dark, but not as hostile as some, and I had some small contact with him. As far as I was aware he was devoted to his research and rarely ventured from his sanctum. He died last month, but it appears that before his death he made a breakthrough. From what I’ve learnt, he was able to finally develop a genuinely practical method of drawing energy from magical creatures.”

I went dead still. I don’t think I showed anything on my face, but it was a near thing. Belthas was looking at me, waiting for a reaction. “Harvesting is banned under the Concord,” I said at last.

“Harvesting of humans. The laws don’t apply to magical beasts.”

“And the side effects?”

“As I understand it, the subjects came out sane.” Belthas regarded me. “However, as far as I know, the knowledge of how to perform the procedure is currently in the hands of only one group: a small cabal of Dark mages. They are, for obvious reasons, attempting to keep it secret.”

“And you found out about it.”

“Yes,” Belthas said. “I met with them recently and attempted to come to an understanding. It was my hope that we could negotiate something in exchange for an agreement that the technique would not be used. Negotiations were … unsuccessful.”

“And after that they decided to finish off your associates.”

“It appears so.” Belthas looked at me. “I hope you can see why I don’t wish the information to become public. Jadan’s technique has the potential to place a vast amount of power in the hands of this Dark cabal. This would not be to anyone’s advantage. In addition, there are suggestions that the technique could be adapted to humans. If this were the case, I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of the potential consequences.”

“I get it,” I said shortly. My head was still whirling as I put everything into place.

Belthas glanced at Meredith, then leant forward, placing his elbows on the table. “Then with that in mind, perhaps you would be interested in hearing my offer.”

I knew what he was going to say. “Your offer?”

“A simple contract of service. At present Meredith and I are the only mages opposing this group, and to be frank, we could use some assistance. You’ve already proved your ability. I would like to hire you.”

“To do what?”

“Find the Dark cabal. Stop them.”

“I’m not a battle-mage.”

“From what I understand, you’ve acquitted yourself quite well against opponents who are.” Belthas raised an eyebrow. “I’ve read the reports of the fateweaver incident. The uncensored reports.”

“Then you know I don’t get into fights if I can avoid it,” I said. “If you’re looking for someone to kill these guys, I can’t help you.”

Belthas shook his head. “Force is not in issue. I have enough influence with the Council to deal with the cabal in any direct engagement. What I need is an investigator. Someone to find the Dark mages and discover what they know about Jadan’s method. Once we know that, we can move in.”

“You can move in,” I said. Belthas nodded and I thought fast. “And in return?”

“As I said, I have some influence with the Council. I could assist you in any endeavours with them, should you require it. If not, I can promise future service. I would of course insist on paying for your time as well, if only on a token basis. Would ten thousand pounds a day be reasonable? In advance, of course.”

I had to stop my eyebrows going up at that. Like I said before, mages don’t value money all that much. But they still use it as a sense of scale: that much per day meant that the favours he was promising were significant. Of course, if this job would put me in the sights of a Dark cabal, they’d have to be.

“There are some things I’d like to know first,” I said.

“Of course.”

“Meredith was on her way to see me when she was attacked. Why?”

“We had already identified you as a potential ally,” Belthas said. “I delayed approaching you in the hope that we could resolve the matter without spreading the information any more than was strictly necessary. It seems Meredith decided on her own initiative that the priorities had changed.” He glanced at Meredith, who nodded after a second.

“What are you going to do with this technique if you get it?” I said.

“I would prefer knowledge of its existence suppressed if possible.”

“And if it’s not possible?”

Belthas frowned. “Then the task will be considerably more difficult. However, I see no way to avoid that risk.”

I fell silent. Belthas waited patiently for my answer. Looking into the future, I could see that I wasn’t in any danger: Belthas wasn’t going to try to silence me or anything if I said no. The question was whether I wanted to.

If this technique of harvesting magical creatures really existed—and from what Belthas and Arachne had said, it seemed pretty damn likely—I wanted it destroyed. The idea of the magical creatures of our world being hunted down in a race for their life force made me feel sick. I didn’t know if it could be done but I was going to try.

On the other hand, I wasn’t sure how much I trusted Belthas. His explanation had been plausible and smooth but something still made me hesitate. I’m pretty good at telling when I’m being lied to; if I had to bet, I’d have said Belthas was telling me the truth but not the whole truth. Although his manner was friendly, I couldn’t shake the feeling that underneath it was something calculating. He was keeping something back, maybe something important.

But for exactly that reason, I didn’t want to refuse. If I walked away, I’d have no way of learning what Belthas was up to. I already knew I wasn’t going to let this drop; it was a choice of investigating with him or without him. Then there was Meredith. I didn’t like the idea of just cutting her loose and it was pretty clear the Dark mages weren’t going to give up easily. I looked at Belthas. “You’ve got a deal. On one condition. I don’t want anybody else to gain access to Jadan’s research. If we get it, I want it destroyed.”

“Agreed.” Belthas smiled slightly. “Welcome aboard.”

To my side, I felt Meredith relax slightly. “So what’s your plan?”

“I’m working with my contacts in the Council to assemble a strike force. I need you to find out where the Dark cabal is operating from and how powerful they are.”

“And once I do?”

“I will eliminate them.” Belthas’s words were matter-of-fact, with no sign of bragging, and I pricked up my ears.

The split between Light and Dark mages is thousands of years old. There have been wars in the past, but at present there’s an uneasy peace governed by a set of rules called the Concord. Under the Concord, there’s a truce between all mages, whether Light or Dark … in theory. In practice, all the rules really come down to just one: don’t get caught. Open warfare is rare nowadays but violence isn’t, and a lot of brief, brutal skirmishes take place in the shadows of mage society, away from witnesses. Dark mages tend to come off best in these fights. It’s not that they’re any more powerful than their Light counterparts—they’re not—but they’re meaner and a hell of a lot more experienced and there aren’t many Light mages who’ll willingly engage a Dark one. Conventional wisdom is to steer clear of them; sooner or later someone else will take them down, and it’s a lot safer if that someone isn’t you. But somehow, as I met Belthas’s steady gaze, I didn’t get the feeling he was exaggerating.

“How much do you know about them?”

Belthas nodded. “As you say, that is the weak point. So far, the cabal have worked hard to keep their identities secret. I’ve only seen them once and they were masked. There were at least two, of which one was a fire mage, but the encounter was too brief for me to learn much of value.”

“Any leads?”

“They would have had some connection to Jadan, but I do not know what. I suspect, to start with, the best avenue of investigation would be the location of the battle. I met with the Dark cabal last Thursday at—”

“—an old factory in Deptford, just south of the river,” I finished.

Meredith started and Belthas raised his eyebrows. It was the first sign of surprise he’d shown. “You’re well informed.”

I just looked at him. I didn’t explain how I knew. Bad for the mystique.

“Meredith.” Belthas turned to her. “I think it would be best if you assisted Verus.”

Meredith’s eyes went wide. “What? No!”

“You have a problem with working together?”

“I don’t want to get anywhere near these guys. It’s too dangerous. I didn’t sign up for this!”

“I believe you agreed to gather information.” Belthas’s voice was mild.

“Not like this. You—” Meredith hesitated, then started again. “You know what I agreed to. This isn’t it.”

I wondered exactly what Meredith had agreed to. The silence stretched out and Meredith shifted uncomfortably. “Well,” Belthas said finally. “If you wish to distance yourself, I will not do anything to stop you. However, I cannot guarantee the same of our opponents.”

Meredith frowned. I wondered what Belthas was getting at; it didn’t sound like a veiled threat unless … oh.

“What do you mean?” Meredith said suspiciously, then suddenly she got it. “Wait! They’re still after me!”

“Then it would seem to be in your best interests to stay with Verus, wouldn’t you say?” Belthas said. He looked at me. “Assuming Verus has no objection.”

After a moment, I shook my head. Meredith stared at Belthas. She wasn’t happy and I could tell she wanted to say more; maybe my presence was stopping her. If nothing else, I was sure by now that Meredith and Belthas weren’t close allies. Unless I missed my guess, Meredith was only still working for him because she couldn’t see any other way out. “Then it’s agreed,” Belthas said. “I’ll see to the arrangements.”

I left Belthas’s office an hour later. As promised, he’d given me a run-through of the other information he had as well as setting up payment into one of my bank accounts. I didn’t have any worries about the money, but the information was another matter. I walked out into the waiting room at exactly the same time that a familiar blond-haired man strolled in the other door.

Garrick was wearing civilian clothes instead of the body armour and fatigues that I’d seen him in on Friday night but he was unmistakable; there was something about the lazy grace with which he moved that made me think of a predator. His eyes registered me without surprise. “Verus.”

“Garrick,” I said. I looked him up and down. “No guns?”

“Off duty.”

“Working hard?”

Garrick smiled slightly. The two of us faced each other across the small reception room. The window to one side gave a spectacular view across London but neither of us paid it any attention. “Up to anything interesting?” I asked.

“Looking to hire me?”

“Depends who you’re working for.”

“Sorry. Confidential.”

I looked at Garrick. He looked back at me. I’d been fired at just a few hours ago by someone involved in mage business who was a very good shot. There wasn’t any proof that that someone had been Garrick … yet. “Funny coincidence you showing up here.”

“Business.”

“What is your business, by the way? You don’t exactly act like Council security.”

“Could say the same for you,” Garrick tilted his head. “So you’re working with Belthas?”

“Business,” I said. Garrick’s mouth twitched.

We stood looking at each other a moment longer. “Want some advice?” Garrick said suddenly.

“Why not?”

“Take a holiday.”

I looked at Garrick with raised eyebrows. “I’m kind of busy.”

“Didn’t say you weren’t.” Garrick studied me. “But if I were you, I’d clear my desk and take a break. Maybe a month.”

I started to answer, then paused. It sounded like a threat, and Garrick was the kind of guy you’d pick to deliver one. But as I looked at him, I got the odd feeling that he was giving me not a threat but a warning.

The door behind me opened and Meredith stepped out. She stopped as she saw Garrick. Garrick gave me a nod and walked past into Belthas’s study. I gave him a last glance, then headed for the elevator. Meredith hurried to catch up. The security guards watched us impassively as we left and I wondered if I’d be seeing them again.

As you’d guess from the name, Canary Wharf wasn’t always a financial district. Only a few decades ago it was a dock, part of the vast wharf network running along both sides of the Thames in what used to be the greatest port in the world. Nowadays it’s steel and glass, skyscrapers rising up past the Docklands Light Railway and mixing with cafés and shopping malls, but the layout is still that of the old Docklands. Channels are carved out of the mud, inlets flowing in from the Thames. It’s gracefully landscaped and framed with stone but there’s no hiding the huge bodies of water, enough to make the skyscrapers feel almost like islands. I walked along one of the old piers, watching the crowds thronging the plazas. The concrete was warm from the late-afternoon sun but the breeze off the water was cold.

Meredith was still with me. She seemed to have come out of herself since meeting Belthas and I could tell she was about to speak. There was a stone bench near the waterside, and I sat down on it. “Thank you,” Meredith said.

“For what?”

“Agreeing to help.” Meredith sat down next to me, close enough that our knees were touching. It might just have been the cold. “I know you didn’t have to.”

Meredith’s dark eyes looked up at me but I avoided meeting them; I probably would have said yes to Belthas even without her, and I felt uncomfortable being thanked for it. “What about you? Why did you sign up with him?”

Meredith’s gaze drifted down and she looked out over the water. “I’m not sure.” Her voice was doubtful. I looked at her as she gazed away, watching her brush her long hair back as she stared over the Thames. “I mean, he offered the same things … favours, credit, you know. It’s been so much harder since last year, since …” She seemed to realise what she was saying and looked back at me. “Do you think I should have said no?”

“I’m not sure.” Meredith was right next to me, looking into my eyes, and it was really difficult to think straight. I forced myself to look away. “It’s your choice to make.”

Meredith sat quietly. “What should we do now?” she said at last.

“I can think of a couple of things,” I said. I braced myself and turned to Meredith. “The question is what you’re doing.”

Meredith looked up at me in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Look, Meredith, it’s pretty obvious you’re not too keen on the parts of this that involve people trying to kill you. And I can promise you it’s not going to get any safer. Are you sure you want to stick around?”

“Belthas said—”

“I don’t care what Belthas said. The investigation side of this is going to be dangerous. If you want to stay out of it, it might be best if we found you a place to stay out of trouble.”

Meredith hesitated, and I felt the forks of a decision opening up before her. She was really thinking about this. Then the futures settled and she shook her head. “No.”

“Are you—”

“I want to stay with you. And I won’t be useless. I can help.”

Now it was my turn to hesitate. But Meredith’s answer had put me on the spot and it was likely I really would need the help. “All right,” I said at last. “We could ask around to find out more about this cabal. But that was what you were doing when you got targeted, right?”

Meredith nodded. “Did you have any leads?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. I thought I was getting somewhere but …”

“But some of the people you were asking tipped off the people you were looking for.”

Meredith looked at me in surprise. “How did you know?”

I shrugged. “Not hard to guess.” Asking around about a mage is dangerous. Mages who aren’t prepared for trouble tend not to live very long so one of the first priorities of most mages is to establish an early-warning network to spot potential threats, in the same way I’d been warned by Starbreeze. And anyone willing to sell you information about the mage you’re looking for is just as likely to sell the information to them the instant you turn your back. “Anyway, it sounds like this cabal’s gone into war mode. I don’t think there’s much point going fishing. Last thing we want is for them to jump us halfway through.”

Meredith nodded with obvious relief. Apparently she hadn’t been looking forward to that idea either. “So let’s try Belthas’s plan,” I said. “Check out the factory.”

“Right now?”

I shook my head. “Not yet. I need to make some calls.”

The classic thing to do in this situation would have been to go to the factory, magnifying glass in hand, and look for clues. There were several good reasons why I wasn’t going to do that, the main one being I’d already tried it and it hadn’t worked. I hadn’t been able to find much on a search even before a bunch of mages and Council security spent several hours tromping around the place. Besides, why root around when someone’s done it for you?

I called Talisid but came up dry. The investigation of the barghest and factory hadn’t turned up anything else useful. In exchange, I relayed the information from Arachne. “Harvesting nonhumans?” Talisid said in surprise. “Really?”

“Do you know anything about it being tried?”

“God no.” Talisid sounded revolted. “In every instance I know of, the harvester went violently insane. If that was what they killed the barghest with, I’m surprised we didn’t find their bodies too.”

“Why’s it so lethal?” I kept my voice casual, as if from idle curiosity, though I didn’t expect Talisid to believe it for a moment. “Harvesting works on humans, doesn’t it?”

Talisid snorted. “If you can call that ‘working.’ It’s like ripping out half someone’s mind and injecting it into your own. Usually turns whoever did it into a deranged psychopath, though if they were willing to use Harvesting in the first place, most people probably wouldn’t notice much difference.”

It matched with what I’d heard. Magical power isn’t something that can be given away; it’s part of who you are. The only way to take a mage’s power is to rip out most of him with it. I can’t imagine what it would be like to try to merge that maimed fragment with your own self, and that’s if what you were taking came from a human. Trying to assimilate something totally alien, like a barghest …

“So now what are you up to?” Talisid broke into my thoughts. “Trying to track down the mages who did it?”

“Yup,” I said. “Anyone still searching the factory?”

“Empty.”

“Okay.”

“You didn’t have anything to do with that business on Hampstead Heath, did you?”

“What would that be?”

“Someone tried to settle a disagreement with military-grade weapons.” Talisid’s voice was dry and I knew he had his suspicions. “Anything you want to tell me?”

“Yeah, but I shouldn’t.”

“Hm. Watch yourself.”

Talisid broke the connection and I dialled another number, and this time I had more success. It took only a few minutes to tell the story and fix a time for the meeting. I dropped my phone into my pocket and went back to Meredith. “We’re done.”

Meredith looked up from her coffee. We were sitting in a Starbucks, the late afternoon sun slanting through the glass of the shop front. “Did you find the guy you were looking for?”

“He won’t be here till tomorrow.” My meeting with Luna and Martin wasn’t until the morning either, meaning I had nothing immediate for the rest of the evening. “Want to get dinner?”

“Really?”

“Not much we can do for the rest of the day. Besides, we might as well relax while we’ve got the chance. There’ll be trouble enough soon.” Which was about to prove more prophetic than I would have liked.

There was a beat, then Meredith nodded, looking at me appraisingly. “I’d like that.”

Meredith wanted to go back to her flat, having been away for more than a day, and I went with her. Apart from anything else, the Dark cabal might be planning to take another shot at her, and if they were, her home was the natural place to set an ambush.

Meredith’s flat was in Kensington and Chelsea, a little west of Cadogan Square. It’s expensive even by London standards and I don’t go there much. As we turned into the street, I saw that it was lined with old white-pillared terraced houses. Once upon a time, sixty or seventy years ago, those would have been used by the gentry and their servants and families; these days they’d been converted into flats for rich professionals. Some things change, some stay the same. The sides of the road were tightly packed with lines of well-polished sedans and sports cars. I stopped on the patio of Meredith’s house, my instincts warning me to check the area before going in. The sun had set during our journey and as I looked from west to east I could see the colour of the sky fading from a deep yellow sunset to midnight blue. There was a scattering of people but the street was quiet with the coming evening and nothing set off my alarms. I followed Meredith inside.

Meredith’s flat was the top one of four, the stairs thickly carpeted. “I really need to change,” Meredith said. “Could you wait a few minutes?”

If there was anything messy about her appearance, it was more than I could tell. “No hurry.” Meredith disappeared into the bedroom. I knew what “a few minutes” meant in girl talk and settled down to wait. A moment later I heard a shower start up from somewhere past the bedroom and I added another quarter hour onto my guess.

Meredith’s living room was decorated in pale green, with tables and chairs of light wood, and a carpet lined the floor. A bookcase stood by one wall—the shelves were less than half full and most of what was there seemed to be boxes or CDs. There was a TV and stereo system, both new looking, the remote controls on the table next to a bowl of dried flowers. Two soft-looking white sofas were piled with cushions and the wall held a piece of artwork made of curves of black metal. The room looked nice but somehow I didn’t feel particularly comfortable. It was a room for receiving visitors, not a place where you could put your feet up and relax. I sat on the sofa and found it was as soft as it looked.

“Where are we going?” Meredith called. I could make out her voice clearly, which meant the bathroom door was probably open … and I stopped that line of thought before it went any further.

“It’s a surprise,” I called back. Actually I hadn’t thought ahead that far. I tried to think of somewhere to take Meredith and came up blank. There are a lot of things I’m really good at but entertaining women isn’t one of them.

“So what should I wear?” Meredith called over the sound of the shower.

“Meredith, I think you’re going to look good whatever you wear.”

Meredith laughed; she sounded pleased and for some reason that put me in a good mood. The sound of the shower stopped, replaced a moment later by the whirr of a hair dryer. I got up and wandered over to the bookshelves. There wasn’t much there; it seemed Meredith was more into music than reading.

“Alex?”

I turned to see Meredith standing in the doorway wearing nothing but a small towel and a couple of hair clips. My brain kind of shorted out at that point and I didn’t notice much else. Gradually I realised that she’d just asked me a question. “Sorry?”

“Which one do you like better?”

I managed to tear my eyes off Meredith long enough to see that she was holding up a couple of dresses on hangers in front of her. “That one,” I said.

“Which, this?” Meredith let one of the dresses she’d been holding in front of herself fall to her side, giving a very interesting view for half a second before she draped the other one over the front of her body. “Do you think?”

“Yeah,” I said. Honestly, I was having trouble even noticing what colour it was. Meredith was looking down at the fall of the dress, apparently completely absorbed, thin tanned arms bare all the way to her shoulder blades. “Go with that.”

Meredith disappeared back into her bedroom and I let out my breath, only then realising that I’d been holding it. This was getting dangerous.

I still didn’t know what to do about Meredith. I knew she’d been recruited by Belthas and I knew she had a very different set of priorities than he did. I was tempted to think of her as a partner … except for that nagging voice of paranoia wondering what her real motives were. Was Meredith staying close to me because she wanted to? Or because she’d been told to? Or for some other reason I couldn’t guess?

As if that weren’t enough, there was Meredith’s ability to manipulate emotions. I still didn’t have a clue just how much of what I felt towards her was my own feelings. She could be nudging me for her own ends … and then again she might not be, and the hell of it was I didn’t have any idea how to find out. So I hesitated, and the longer I hesitated the more I found myself thinking about her. The sounds from the bedroom suddenly went quiet and I turned to see that Meredith had returned.

Even prepared, it was hard not to stare. Meredith had changed into a black dress trimmed with gold. A deep V-neck showed off her cleavage and the lines of the dress followed the curves of her body closely from the waist down to the knees. She’d somehow found the time to restyle her hair and it hung loose around her shoulders with a slight wave. “Well,” I said at last. “I feel underdressed.”

Meredith smiled and walked forward, running her hand down the lapel of my shirt. “I think you look nice.”

“You’re about the only one.” Stupid thing to say.

Meredith didn’t take her hand away and I found myself staring down into her eyes. Her touch was soft and I couldn’t help thinking how nice it felt. It had been a really long time since I’d had a pretty woman do that. “Maybe we should …” I began, and tailed off.

“Mmm?” It was a wordless sound, rising inquisitively, and my heart beat faster. I looked down at Meredith and wondered what would happen if I were to—

The doorbell was loud, an electronic shrill, and it cut right through my head, making me jump. Meredith started as well and looked towards the door with annoyance. After only a few seconds it shrilled again, and Meredith sighed. “I’ll get rid of them.” She walked out into the hall. “Who’s calling this late … ?”

I stared after her, standing and feeling out of place. Something was nagging at the back of my mind but my thoughts were moving slowly. Meredith picked up the receiver just as the bell shrilled again. “Hello?” she said over the sound of the bell.

Suddenly my head cleared and I saw what was about to happen. “Meredith!” I shouted. As Meredith turned in surprise I grabbed her around the waist, dragging her back into the living room as the handset clattered against the wall.

Just as I did so, a column of searing flame tore through the door. The hallway of Meredith’s flat became an roaring inferno, red fires tinged with black. The walls crisped and ignited and the handset Meredith had been holding melted, the plastic liquefying and evaporating as the air heated to a furnace.

Then just as suddenly, the torrent of flame cut off. The hallway was left burning fiercely, flames licking up the walls and reaching eagerly into the living room. Over the crackle of flames, I heard footsteps. Heavy boots kicked the burning remnants of the door aside and stepped into the flat.

chapter 5

It was a good ambush. Anybody caught by that blast would have been turned into a living torch, writhing and screaming in horrible pain for the few seconds it would have taken for the fire mage to finish them off (and yes, I saw that in more detail than I wanted to). The fight would have been over before it began, which was of course the point. There’s a duelling code under mage law for resolving formal challenges. The code is impartial, requires mages to give their opponent fair warning, and is completely ignored by almost everyone. Any mage with the tiniest bit of sense knows that combat is dangerous and that the best way to survive it is to finish the battle as quickly as possible. If you’re a diviner, like me, that means running away. For a fire mage, like the guy who’d just kicked down the door, it means killing your enemy with the first strike.

Of course, for the same reason, mages who are easily ambushed tend not to live very long. I’d pulled Meredith far enough back that the first blast had done nothing but dry our skin, but in only a couple of seconds the fire mage would be in view, and I dug through my pockets for something to hold him back.

But I’d underestimated Meredith. I hadn’t expected her to be any use in a fight, and to be fair, she hadn’t given me much reason to think otherwise: in the battle with the construct, the best that could be said was that she hadn’t gotten in my way. But it hadn’t occurred to me that the reason she’d been so scared was because she’d been facing something her magic couldn’t touch. The fire mage was deadly and powerful but he was still human, and even caught by surprise, Meredith didn’t waste more than a startled breath. She turned to face the door and my senses tingled as she sent something into the hallway.

Over the crackle of flames, I heard the sound of staggering footsteps as the mage fell back. He recovered fast, though, and I saw the attack coming in time to snap “Down!” and pull Meredith to the floor.

A beam of fire slashed through the doorway and sawed sideways through the wall, slicing through wood and plaster and sweeping the living room at waist height. I covered Meredith with one arm and tried to burrow into the carpet. A flash of terrible heat rolled over my back and I felt the hair on the back of my head crisp, then in an instant it was gone and I looked up just in time to see the beam cut through the shelves. The shelving and everything on it literally vapor-ised in the instant before the beam cut out, leaving the burning upper half of the shelves to crash to the floor.

The beam had left a neat one-foot gash in the wall and past the red-hot edges I could see the upper body of the fire mage silhouetted against the flames. He’d only have to bend his head slightly to see us too, so before he had the chance to realise that I pulled what looked like a marble from my pocket and hurled it. I’ve picked up a few unusual ways to use my divination magic over the years and one of them is a way of accurately throwing small objects. All in all it’s probably one of my more useless skills, but it does occasionally come in handy. The projectile flew neatly through the centre of the gap, past the fire mage, and shattered against the opposite wall.

The object I’d thrown was a sphere of glass with a fingernail-sized bit of mist swirling inside it. The mage who makes them calls them condensers but I think of them more as instant cover. A cloud of fog rushed out, enveloping the hall, the flames, the fire mage, Meredith, and me, cutting out all vision beyond a few feet. The mist was totally harmless, but the fire mage fell back reflexively, probably wondering if the thing was mind-fog or poison or worse. I felt the surge of a protective spell as Meredith rolled over and sent another strike at her would-be killer, making him stagger again.

The fire mage seemed on the back foot but I didn’t expect that to last, so I pulled Meredith to her feet and hurried back to the bedroom, my magic picking the path that my eyes couldn’t see. As we made it through the doorway there was a roar and another red flash, but this time the blast didn’t come near us and I slammed the door.

My heart was racing as though we’d fought a full-length battle, though looking back on it the whole thing couldn’t have taken more than ten seconds. I dug through my pockets, vaguely taking in the look of Meredith’s bedroom: fluffy pillows, dresses tossed carelessly on the bed, a big window. “Can you hold him off?”

Meredith shook her head. “He’s too strong!”

The floor juddered and there was a boom from the other room. I pulled out a pair of gold discs and dropped them on either side of the door, saying a command word. There was a faint thrum as an invisible vertical barrier sprung up, barring the door and reaching almost to the edge of the room. Meredith looked at it in surprise. “What did you do?”

“Forcewall.” It wouldn’t last long but it would buy us time. I pulled the window open. Already the air inside the bedroom had heated to uncomfortable levels; hot air rushed out as cooler air was drawn in. I pulled out my glass rod, channelling a thread of magic through it. “Starbreeze.” The focus tingled, carrying my words away into the night. “I need help. Please come here, and hurry!” Starbreeze could pull us out but there was no guarantee she’d arrive in time. “There’s—”

We must have been speaking too loud. Meredith ducked as another searing beam slammed into the wall separating the bedroom and living room. It looked like fire but cut like a razor; I didn’t want to know what it would do to living flesh. The beam sawed left to right and the wall melted into flames, but the force barrier behind it held. Through the red-hot gash I could see mist and smoke. The temperature shot up.

“Alex!” Meredith called, and I turned to catch something glittering as it flew towards me. It was cold against my palm. “Ice crystal!”

I pulled open the door to the bathroom. “Anything that’ll get us out of here?”

Meredith shook her head. She was rummaging through a bag that had been under her bed and as I watched she slung it over her shoulder, hurrying past me to the bathroom. As she crossed the threshold the fire mage hit my forcewall with a wide-angle blast, setting what was left of the wall behind it alight.

The bathroom was tiled in green, with a spacious bath, and would have smelt nice but for the smoke. So far we’d survived by giving ground, but we were quickly running out of places to run, and as I stuck my head out the window my heart sank. The back of the building was a sheer wall, opening into a doughnut block of enclosed gardens, and we were on the fourth floor. “Tell me there’s another way out.”

Meredith shook her head with a cough. “Gate stone?”

“He’d rip the building apart before we got halfway.”

The fire mage struck with another of those white-hot beams and this time he’d obviously figured out about the forcewall. The beam carved upwards, reaching over the force barrier and slicing into the ceiling and the attic beyond. Burning fragments showered into the bedroom, landing on the carpet and the bed. The beam cut off and I leant around the corner and threw the ice crystal. A hundred possible trajectories flickered through my senses and I released the crystal as they merged with the target. The crystal arced through the air to drop through the gap the fire mage had opened up with his beam. “Now!” I called.

Meredith said a word in a harsh-sounding language, and on the other side of the force barrier, the ice crystal detonated. I ducked back into the bathroom. “How good are you at climbing?”

Meredith looked at the window and back at me with wide eyes. “Out there?”

“There are two ways out of here—out there or past him.”

Meredith took a look over my shoulder and went pale. Forcewalls are great at holding off direct attacks but there were still plenty of ways for the heat to get in, and most of the flat was either on fire or getting that way. The living room was blazing and licks of flame were starting to spread around the bedroom, the dresses on the bed smouldering and catching alight as embers tumbled down from above. Even with the windows open, the air was growing thick with smoke, hot enough that it was getting hard to breathe. Smoke kills more people than flames; in a regular house fire you’re in more danger from asphyxiation than you are from burning to death, though having a pyromaniac throwing magical napalm around changes those odds a bit. But if this went on much longer, it’d be a race to see which killed us first—the smoke, the fire, or the mage.

A patient attacker would have backed off at this point and let the smoke and flames do his work for him. Apparently the fire mage wasn’t very patient because he chose this point to smash a curling blast of flame through the side wall and around the force barrier, igniting the whole far half of the bedroom. Meredith ducked back with a yelp as a wave of searing air rolled in. It was so hot I could barely stand to look through the doorway, but as I did my heart jumped. The part of the floor holding up the left disc was burning fiercely. The gold discs needed to stay steady to maintain the barrier; as soon as that patch burnt through, there’d be no more forcewall.

But it gave me an idea. If this fire mage was so impatient, maybe we could lure him in. “Got another ice crystal?”

Meredith placed it in my hand. This one was bigger, a blue-tinted gem of cold glass. “Last one.”

I leant around the door frame, ducking my head against the scalding heat, and tossed the gem. It rolled to a stop a couple of feet behind the door. An instant later a piece of ceiling fell in with a crash, taking a patch of floor with it.

I felt the forcewall go down and the fire mage did too. I ducked back into the bathroom and slammed the door as a red light flashed and the wood of the door heated as the fire mage hosed down the bedroom. A second later, over the roar of flames, I heard the tread of footsteps. I waited until the fire mage was on top of the crystal, then signalled to Meredith.

The timing was perfect. The crystal exploded into a hundred tiny shards of jagged ice, throwing the fire mage from his feet and stunning him. “Come on!” I called to Meredith as I pulled the door open.

But as I looked out into the bedroom I realised with a chill that we’d left it too late. Everything in the bedroom was blazing. The bed was a bonfire, a wall of flame separated us from the living room, and the living room itself was an inferno. A wall of heat hit me, crisping the hairs on my arms, and choking smoke rolled over us, setting us ducking and coughing. I slammed the door again.

Meredith looked up me at with wide eyes. I tried desperately to think. Run through the flames—suicide. Stay here—suicide. Climb out—probable suicide. Probable suicide won. “Out the window.”

Meredith stared. “I’ll fall!”

“Falling beats burning.”

Meredith took a step to the window, looked out at the sheer drop, and turned back, her face ashen. “It’ll kill me!”

“Going out might. Staying here will. Pick!”

Meredith hesitated, then began to climb out, white-faced. There were enough handholds on the wall to make the climb just about possible for a expert mountaineer. Meredith wasn’t one and neither was I. I looked into the future to try to gauge her chances …

…and saw to my disbelief that the fire mage was coming back for another go. The roar of the flames through the bathroom door drowned out almost everything else, but I could just hear the sound of embers going crunch under the soles of heavy boots. “Oh, come on!”

“Come where?” a cheerful voice said in my ear.

I spun and saw to my utter delight the shape of Starbreeze, hovering just outside the window. “Starbreeze! Get us out of here!”

Starbreeze pointed in interest at Meredith, hanging halfway out of the window. “Her too?”

“Yes!” Meredith shouted.

The bathroom door exploded inwards, filling the bathroom with a cone of burning splinters. It missed Meredith by a couple of feet and I had just enough time to dodge into the corner. “Starbreeze, go!” I shouted as the fire mage strode in.

He was a big man, as tall as me and much heavier, with muscles that bulged under his dark clothes. A dim orange glow flickered around him, so faint as to be almost invisible, flaring where the flames licked around his feet. A black mask covered his face but I knew who he was; I’d known as soon as he’d cast that first spell. As he saw me, Cinder stopped dead, staring.

An instant later Starbreeze had turned the both of us to air and whipped us out into the night. I had one lightning-fast image of Cinder diminishing behind us through the window, then we were out of view and climbing. Smoke was pouring from the house’s top floor, flames glowing from the bedroom and attic, and as we rose higher I could see people emerging into the street to point and stare. Higher still and I spotted the flashing blue lights of the fire service, half a dozen streets away but closing in. As we kept rising I could see the yellow spark of the fire and the flickering blue of the engines becoming a cluster of points, then a faint glow, then a fuzz. And then there was nothing but the London sprawl.

The night view over the city was beautiful, a web of light against the dark patches of the parks and open spaces, but I wasn’t in the mood to enjoy it. Now that we were out of danger, as weird as it might sound, I was angry. I’d saved Cinder’s life and this was the thanks I got?

Cinder hadn’t looked very dangerous the last time I’d seen him. He’d been bloodied and out cold after losing a duel with another Dark mage named Onyx. I’d let him go on the condition that he owed me one. Okay, I hadn’t exactly been myself at the time, but I had been myself when I’d found him in a Precursor energy trap a few hours earlier and saved his life again. I hadn’t expected gratitude, but I’d kind of hoped he’d at least stop trying to kill me.

I sighed. Apparently I’d been optimistic. It wasn’t quite as stupid as it sounds. At the time I’d needed all the help I could get and having a couple more mages who weren’t immediately hostile had done a lot to tip things in my favour. And, odd as it sounds, some Dark mages—not all, but some—do have a sense of honour. They’ll kill you without a second thought but if you help them out they’ll try to return the favour, if only to encourage other people to do the same in the future. I’d known Rachel was way too nuts to be depended on in that way but I’d hoped Cinder might be different.

Thinking of Rachel reminded me of something else. I spoke to Starbreeze, asking her to drop us off on my roof, and she did so cheerfully enough. I gave her something in thanks (she’d already forgotten what I was thanking her for) and watched her vanish into the night.

Meredith wasn’t talking and started to shiver as I brought her down from the roof. I recognised the signs of shock and guided her into my bedroom. She lay down without complaint, and by the time I’d fetched her something to drink she was asleep. Lying on my bed, her hair spread across the quilt, she looked very small and fragile. I looked at her for a little while before spreading a blanket over her and going back into my living room.

For whatever reason, the usual postcombat shakes hadn’t hit. Maybe it was because this time I’d had Starbreeze and Meredith instead of doing everything myself. Or maybe it was because it was the third bloody assassination attempt in twenty-four hours and I was getting desensitised. I turned my attention to Bob the Dead Construct, who was still lying on the carpet where I’d left him yesterday.

Now that I knew what to look for, I found it quickly. The construct wasn’t just similar to the ones I’d seen made in Richard’s mansion; it was identical. More than that, I recognised the style. The magic from the thing had faded but there was enough of a residue to identify the water magic of Rachel, otherwise known as Deleo, a Dark mage, dangerous, powerful, and close to insane. She was Cinder’s partner, but I’d known her longer than he had. After all, we’d been apprenticed to the same master.

There had been four of us, back then: Rachel, Shireen, Tobruk, and me. In the mansion of Richard Drakh we worked together, studied together, lived together. But in the end, there was room for only one. Tobruk died. Shireen died. Rachel won … sort of. She got the power and status she’d always wanted, the position of Richard’s Chosen. But I’m not sure it was worth the price she paid. When next I saw her, she called herself Deleo … and there was very little left of the girl I’d once known.

It was time to get rid of Bob. Constructs don’t biodegrade but even the off chance that Rachel could track the residue was more risk than I was willing to take. First I had to get the construct through a gate stone portal (which was not what the things were designed for) and then I had to bury it at the other end. It took a long time. I don’t have much experience disposing of bodies. I suppose it would be a bit worrying if I did.

I stepped back into my living room, letting the portal close behind me, and dropped onto the sofa, staring at the wall. For the first time I seriously considered taking Garrick’s advice: drop everything, get out, and wait for the dust to settle. I didn’t want to fight Rachel and Cinder. For one thing, they were stronger than me. Meredith and I had thrown everything we had at Cinder tonight and barely slowed him down. One on one, Cinder would take me apart, and Rachel would probably do it even faster.

But if I was being honest, the bigger reason was our history. Rachel and I had never been friends; we’d tolerated each other at best and hated each other at worst. I’d fled Richard once I finally understood what he was, while Rachel had given herself over wholly to his path. But twisted as she was, Rachel was one of the last links to my past—someone once told me that she was what I could have been and they were right. And as far as I knew Cinder was the only person she trusted. The more you know about someone, the harder it is to kill them. I didn’t want to kill Rachel or Cinder, and if I got into a fight without being ready to kill them, there was a good chance they’d kill me.

But if I didn’t do anything, I’d be leaving them free rein with creatures like Arachne.

I sighed and rubbed my eyes. I hate decisions like this. No matter what I did, bad stuff was going to happen. What I wanted was for Rachel and Cinder and Meredith and Belthas to drop the whole thing and stop trying to kill each other (and stop catching me in the crossfire while they were at it). But I couldn’t make them do that. The only choice left to me was whether to be involved. I studied my phone, thinking how easy it would be to send a message to Belthas telling him I wanted out.

The sound of the opening door brought my head up. Meredith was standing there, looking at me. “Hey.” I came to my feet. “Feeling better?”

Meredith walked forward. Her bare feet were quiet on the carpet; she’d lost her heels somewhere in the fight. Her dress was dotted with tears and ash marks and her hair was tangled, although it didn’t do anything to diminish her looks. “Are you okay?” I said. Somehow, the closer she got, the harder it became to do anything but look.

Meredith stopped next to me, looking into my eyes. She had to tilt her head to do it; she barely came to my shoulder. Her eyes were a deep brown and I started to lose myself in them. “Alex?” she said softly, and her voice seemed to come from all around me. “I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

I stood dead still for a second. A small voice at the back of my mind was trying to tell me something, but it was hard to listen. Then Meredith stood on tiptoe to kiss me and I stopped thinking about anything at all.

I don’t usually sleep well. I sleep even less well the closer I am to someone else. But I found some peace that night and when I woke I felt better than I had in days. I lay propped up on one elbow for a while, watching Meredith as she slept, until she stirred and opened her eyes to give me a smile. “Morning.”

Over breakfast, Meredith and I talked about our plans for the day. “You’re staying in your shop?” Meredith said in surprise.

“It’s a workday.”

“What about … ?”

“I’ll close early,” I said. “I need to check out the factory in the afternoon. You?”

“I’m meeting some people.” Meredith brushed at the ash-stained dress with a resigned look. “And shopping. All my stuff was in my flat.”

I hesitated. “You could stay here if …”

Meredith shook her head with a smile. “That’s okay. I don’t want to be too much trouble.”

“Are you going to be okay on your own?” I’d made the mistake last night of thinking that there wouldn’t be another assassination attempt so soon and I didn’t want to be caught napping again.

“I don’t know.” Meredith looked worried. “How did they find us last night? I was sure they couldn’t track me.”

“They probably didn’t,” I said. “Just posted someone to watch your flat and waited for them to call in.”

“Oh. Could you … ?”

“No problem.”

It didn’t take me long to sweep the area for spies. My area of Camden isn’t large and I know it like the back of my hand. Meredith left after a kiss. I watched her go, then returned to the shop in a good mood. My doubts about Meredith from last evening didn’t seem to matter anymore. Although I was planning to stay in the shop all morning, I didn’t feel like keeping it open for customers. Instead I flipped the sign to CLOSED and settled down at my desk to wait.

Most mages will think twice about attacking another mage’s home. Not only is it messy, but mages tend to treat fortifying their house as a personal hobby. My shop had been raided five months ago, and since then I’d gone to some effort to set up a few surprises for intruders. I could probably give even Cinder a run for his money if he tried to break in, and for exactly that reason I didn’t expect him to do it—mages who make a habit of launching attacks on prepared targets tend not to live very long. But after last night I wasn’t in any mood to take chances, and I spent a couple of hours exhaustively searching the futures for attacks. I came up blank, which was moderately reassuring. At least nothing was being planned right at the moment.

The glazier arrived while I was working and replaced the window. Once he was finished the morning light was pouring in again, making the shop much more cheerful. Luna arrived ten minutes later, and to my surprise, Martin was with her.

I’d included Martin in my invitation more for Luna’s sake than anything else; I hadn’t seriously expected him to show up. But he followed right behind Luna as she let herself in. I raised my eyebrows and he had the grace to look embarrassed. “Martin,” I said.

“Hey,” Martin said. “Listen, I’m really sorry about Saturday. I was just kind of out of it. Didn’t think about what I was doing.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So, uh, how much do I owe you? I meant to pay for it, it was …”

“Martin, did you listen to a word I said? You didn’t pick it. It picked you.”

Martin hesitated. “Uh … okay. Sure.”

“Look,” Luna said. She’d been watching from one side and now she sounded like she was choosing her words carefully. “We did listen. I told Martin why the thing was dangerous. We talked about it and we did some research too. This thing’s really famous.”

“Eyewitness reports?” I asked. “Or stories?”

“Just stories. But they matched with what you said.”

“I’m guessing they didn’t have happy endings.”

Luna nodded.

I looked at Martin. “But you decided to keep it any-way.”

Martin looked confused. “Well, yeah.”

“And you think this is a good idea because … ?”

“Look, we’re not idiots, okay?” Luna said. “We talked it over.”

I took a breath. “Okay,” I said once I’d gotten myself under control. “What did you figure out?”

“The monkey’s paw only takes things,” Luna said. “It was in all the stories. It can’t make anything new but it can take something away and give it to someone else.”

I stopped. I’d never considered it but now that I thought about it, it made sense. “All right.”

“And you told me imbued items have a purpose, right?” Luna said.

“Yes,” I said slowly. “Okay. I see what you’re getting at. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s been bad news for everyone else.”

“Only if you use it wrong,” Martin broke in. “Look, all the characters in the stories are stupid. They wish for something that’ll kill them. All you have to do is word it right and you can get anything you want! You’d have to be crazy to give it up.”

Luna and I both looked at him. I looked at Luna. “It worked,” she said defensively.

A nasty feeling went through me. “What?”

Luna didn’t answer. “You used it,” I said.

“Martin did.”

“For what?” I asked Martin.

But it was Luna who answered. She rose from where she’d been sitting on the edge of the table and walked to Martin. Four steps brought her next to him, and she placed a hand on his shoulder.

My jaw dropped. “Wait!” I called, starting to move, then stopped. Looking at Luna with my mage’s sight, I could see the silver mist of her curse being drawn off her in a steady flow. Instead of soaking into Martin, it was streaming into something in the pocket of his jeans … the monkey’s paw. Luna’s curse wasn’t gone, it was just as strong as ever … but instead of hovering around her it was being drawn in.

“It’s okay,” Martin said with a grin. He slipped an arm around Luna’s waist with an easy familiarity. “Safe, see?”

I just stared with my mouth open. I knew I looked stupid, and I had the feeling both Martin and Luna were enjoying it, but I was trying to understand what I was seeing. Luna was touching Martin, yet instead of flowing into him, the mist was sliding along the surface of his skin, funnelling into the monkey’s paw. I’d never seen this—wait, yes I had. Just once. It must be the same—

“It was Martin’s first wish,” Luna said, echoing my thoughts. “Protection from magic. We’ve been testing it and it works. It works. My curse can’t hurt him!”

I kept staring, trying to make sense of it. I’d seen it once before. Arachne had woven a ribbon to counter Luna’s curse, drawing it in and nullifying it. But it had lasted only a few hours before crumbling to dust and Arachne had admitted to me afterwards that it had taxed her to her limits. If what Luna was telling me was true, this thing could nullify all magic, not just Luna’s, and do it indefinitely. There wasn’t a mage alive who could match that.

I suddenly realised that both Martin and Luna were looking at me, Martin cocky, Luna expectant. “Taking,” I said. “What the monkey’s paw does.”

Luna nodded eagerly. “That was what I thought. It’s what it’s made to do!”

In other words, Martin had just done in one evening what I’d failed to do in five months. “I guess that’s good,” I said after an awkward pause.

“Of course it’s good! Aren’t you happy?”

Luna was looking at me, her eyes bright. Martin still had his arm around her, but she seemed to have forgotten. I shifted uncomfortably. I knew how Luna wanted me to react and it wasn’t what I was feeling. “I hope it works,” I said at last.

“It does work! And if it can do this, think about what else it can do! Maybe it could take my curse away completely!”

Alarm bells went off in my head at that. But Martin shifted. “Come on, Lun.” He pronounced it loon. “We said we weren’t going to try that.”

Luna flinched away from Martin, seeming to remember he was there, before stopping herself. “Listen, we were hoping you could help us,” Martin said. “With figuring out how to use it. I mean, you know as much about this thing as anyone, right?”

“Maybe,” I said slowly.

“Okay, so how many wishes do you get? Three?”

“The man I got it from said five,” I said. I could see Luna listening attentively. “I know one man who used it four times. He disappeared right after.”

“So five,” Martin said.

“What happened to him?” Luna asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t know. The last conversation we had, he was asking how to make the thing do what he wanted.”

“So it was doing what he told it to, right?” Martin said. “He just wasn’t wishing for the right things.”

“Maybe,” I said reluctantly.

“What about after all five?” Luna asked. “Once you’ve finished? Someone else can use it, right?”

“Yes—no! Luna, don’t even think about it!”

Luna’s expression didn’t change; she’d obviously expected my reaction. “Those stories are just to stop people trying it, aren’t they?” Martin said confidently. “They don’t want anyone else getting something this good.”

I looked at Martin in disbelief.

“I want to try it,” Luna said quietly. “If there’s any chance.”

I took a deep breath. “I want to ask you something,” I said once my voice was steady. “You’re hoping if you use it in the right way, the monkey’s paw will give you what you want, right?”

“Yeah,” Martin said. Luna nodded.

“What does it get out of it?”

Both of them stared at me. “What do you mean?” Martin asked.

“It’s what it’s made to do, isn’t it?” Luna said.

“If it were that easy, everybody would be using these things.”

“Unless they didn’t know how to use it right,” Martin pointed out. “People are smarter now.”

I restrained the urge to hit Martin over the head. “Look,” I said. “You don’t need my help to use the monkey’s paw. It wants to be used. Not using it is what’s hard.”

Luna and Martin looked back at me, and I knew I hadn’t convinced them. “I know it’s dangerous,” Luna said at last. “But it’s the best chance I’ve got.”

And that was that. There was some desultory conversation between me and Luna, but Martin’s presence put a damper on it. “I’ve got some new work,” I told Luna. “We’re going to do some investigating. Want to come?”

“When?”

“About an hour. Same place as Friday. I could use some help.”

Luna hesitated. “…I can’t.”

“You can’t?”

“Martin and I were going to do some more research.” Luna looked awkward. “Sorry.”

I looked at Luna. She shifted uncomfortably. “You’ve been asking to come on these jobs for months.”

“It’s not that,” Luna said. “It’s just …” She looked at Martin.

“Yeah, you’re right.” Martin glanced at his watch. “We better go.”

I looked between Luna and Martin. Luna avoided my eyes. “Okay, then,” I said at last.

“So yeah, great talking,” Martin said cheerfully, getting up. “Sorry again about the whole Saturday thing. Really appreciate you being so big about it.”

I didn’t answer, looking at Luna. “See you later,” she said at last, and walked to the door. Martin held it open. As the door swung closed I saw him put his arm around her again. And then they were gone.

I sat there for a long time, staring out the window. There was an odd feeling inside me. It had been a long time since I’d felt it, and it took me a while to remember what it was. It was the feeling you get when a relationship that’s been fraying finally breaks.

What do you call an apprentice who doesn’t train and doesn’t join their master on jobs?

You don’t call them an apprentice at all.

I started to get angry. I’d known Luna for more than a year. In all that time I’d helped her whenever I could and hadn’t asked for much in return. And now she was disappearing. I got up and started pacing up and down.

I might have kept doing that a long time, getting more and more pissed off, but a knock snapped me out of it. The help I’d been waiting for had arrived. I took a deep breath, cleared my head, and opened the door.

The boy standing on the doorstep was about average height, with glasses, untidy black hair, and scruffy clothes. He looked like a research assistant and the hand he stuck out was ink-stained. “Hey, Alex,” he said with a grin. “Need some help?”

I found myself smiling back. “Hey Sonder.” I stepped out into the street. “I’ll tell you the story on the way.”

chapter 6

We took the Tube to South London, changing at Bank. I’ve had an aversion to taxis ever since an incident with a fire mage five months back—it’s a lot harder to ambush someone underground. The noise of the train is also handy when you don’t want to be overheard.

I first met Sonder during the business with the fateweaver (the same day Cinder blew that taxi out from underneath me, in fact). Back then he was on probation, having just completed his journeyman tests. Although he was working for the Council, I found myself liking him, and to my surprise the feeling turned out to be mutual. After everything settled down he started dropping by, and kept dropping by even after my brief flurry of publicity faded. He’d helped me out several times since, usually without asking for any particular reward.

For that reason, I made sure he knew about the possible dangers on this one. “So it’s Cinder and Deleo?” Sonder asked.

“Cinder definitely,” I said. “Deleo almost definitely. I haven’t seen her but it’s a safe bet she’s around.”

“Any others?”

“Maybe. I’m hoping you can narrow it down.”

Sonder nodded. “I was wondering what those two were up to.”

It was a pretty calm reaction, but as I’ve learnt, there’s more to Sonder than meets the eye. He looks like a history geek (which, to be fair, he is) but he’s smart and surprisingly cool under pressure. The biggest reason I like him, though, is that he’s honest. If you ask Sonder a question, his first reaction is to tell you the truth. That’s pretty rare among mages.

“So is Luna coming?” Sonder asked.

Of course, his social skills could use some work. “No.”

“Is she meeting us there?”

“She’s not coming.”

“Why not?”

I resisted the urge to tell Sonder to stop asking. It wasn’t fair to take it out on him and he was Luna’s friend too. “She’s gotten involved with some idiot who’s taken up the monkey’s paw.” I sketched out the story in a few short sentences.

“That’s … really bad,” Sonder said. His eyebrows had climbed up beneath his hair.

“Yeah.”

“But she knows the thing’s dangerous, right? You’ve told her?”

“Yes, Sonder, I told her.”

Sonder fell silent. I could tell from his expression that he was worried. “Don’t focus on it for now,” I said. “I don’t think there’ll be anything dangerous waiting for us, but let’s not get distracted.”

Unfortunately, now that Sonder had made me start thinking about it again, I couldn’t stop. The worst part was that even though I hated it, I could kind of see Luna’s point. This was what she’d always wanted: a way to deal with her curse. My training was slow, hard, and boring. The monkey’s paw was fast, simple, and easy. It wasn’t hard to see why she’d want it.

And there was the nagging worry underneath it all. What if I was wrong? What if the monkey’s paw really was Luna’s best chance of a normal life? I didn’t like Martin, and when it came to magic he had the common sense of a gerbil, but the uncomfortable truth was that so far it was working. Maybe by luck or cleverness, he really could manage to get the monkey’s paw to do what he wanted. It didn’t make any sense that the monkey’s paw should be a meal ticket … but life doesn’t always make sense. Sometimes stuff happens that you couldn’t have expected and you just have to deal with it.

And following up on that was an even nastier thought. Luna had come to me in the first place because she needed help with her curse. If Martin and the monkey’s paw could cure that … then maybe she didn’t have any reason to stay.

The factory didn’t look any better by day. The sunlight did a little to reduce the general aura of creepiness but it also enhanced the view of the rubbish scattered around the yard and the rust on the barbed wire. The street outside was emptier than any healthy neighbourhood should be, and the couple of people I could see seemed to be trying to avoid being noticed. “There’s nobody inside, right?” Sonder asked.

I did a scan, taking my time to do it thoroughly. In the futures before me, Sonder and I explored every room of the factory, branching at every turn. All that greeted us was empty darkness. “We’re clear.”

The Council search team hadn’t bothered to lock the place behind them, which made it much simpler to get in this time. The midday sunlight faded into gloom before we’d gone five steps and the sounds from outside died almost as quickly. The walls seemed soundproof. “This place is really creepy,” Sonder said under his breath, clicking on a torch.

I nodded. There really is such a thing as a good or bad aura when it comes to places, and the factory had a bad one—dark, rotting, and cold. It wouldn’t do any harm on a visit but you wouldn’t want to live here.

The journey into the factory was uneventful, beyond Sonder tripping a few times. “This is it,” I told Sonder as the corridor opened out into the factory floor. There was still a space where the barghest’s body had been, but not much else.

Sonder nodded. His eyes had that abstracted look that I knew meant he was concentrating. He pushed his glasses up as he looked around. “What am I looking for?”

“The battle,” I said. “It—”

“Found it. Eighty-four hours ago … no, eighty-five. Thursday midnight.”

Sonder’s a time mage. It’s one of the most difficult of all types of magic to learn; while elemental mages learn their craft in months or years, mastering time magic takes decades. Sonder doesn’t know many tricks yet, but what he does, he does very well. “I need to know what happened here,” I said. “Details of the battle, lead-up, conversations—anything you can find.”

Sonder nodded. He still had that absent look and I knew he was seeing the past, not the present. He took a notebook from his pocket and began circling the room, pencil in hand, while I watched out of curiosity. I always find it interesting to see the way Sonder does things; the types of magic we use are so similar and yet so different. Then I shook it off and got back to work. Sonder was pretty much oblivious while he was doing this, which meant it was my job to watch out for him. Scanning ahead, I saw that nothing much was going to happen while we were in the room. Sonder would finish, we’d head out, and—

Fire, pain, darkness. My reflexes took over and I forced the vision away and I was back in the present again, staring at the blackened walls. What the hell? We’d been walking down the corridor by which we’d come in, then …

I looked again and understood. A bomb. Someone had booby-trapped our way out. In fact, they were doing it right now. There was another assassin, here in the factory, fewer than eighty feet away, and he was trying to kill us.

I snapped.

“Hey, Sonder,” I said, not taking my eyes off the corridor. “Need to take care of something. Back in five.”

Sonder didn’t answer. I snapped off my torch and walked into the darkness.

The man was dressed in dark clothes and he was crouched halfway up the corridor. He’d placed his torch on a nearby box where it illuminated a splash of the hallway. In the white light, I could see a backpack leaning against the wall and a gun resting on the floor where it could be quickly snatched up. He wore a knitted cap.

The land mine was already almost hidden. The man had tucked it behind a heating pipe and he was busy covering it with pieces of rubbish. It looked like a metal cylinder about the size and shape of a coffee can. Looking into the future, I could see that when it was tripped, it would hurl a bomb into the air to burst at about waist height. The explosion would throw a spray of metal balls in all directions, ricocheting off the walls and turning the corridor into a death zone.

I stood quietly in the shadows at the end of the corridor, watching as the man finished setting the mine. He’d already placed the trigger mechanism. I didn’t know whether it was a trip wire or some sort of beam but I knew that once he armed the mine, anything going down the corridor at a certain height would set it off.

I’m not all that proud of what I did next. All I have to say in my defence is that I had had enough. It was the fourth attack in two days and I was sick of it.

The man twisted the switch to arm the mine and there was a click. I picked up a length of wood, then stepped out and threw it down the corridor.

It took the stick just over one second to complete its flight. It took the man a quarter second to catch the movement, a half second more to snatch up his gun and see what was happening. And by the time he realised that the stick was on course to fly through the trigger area of the mine—the same mine he was next to—it was far too late.

Sonder was looking in my direction as I walked back into the room. “What was that?”

“What was what?”

“I thought I heard a bang.”

“Rats.”

“And something that sounded like a scream?”

“Big rats.”

Sonder looked at me. “Sonder, trust me,” I said. “You don’t want to know.” Violent death is a long way outside Sonder’s comfort zone. The same does not apply to me, which is not really a good thing. “We should go.”

Sonder’s not great at taking hints but he got the message. The two of us took the back way out, my divination magic picking the way through the obstacles. I didn’t know if the man I’d just killed had a partner and I didn’t plan on sticking around to find out. We negotiated our way through the council estate, and ten minutes saw us out in the sunlight again, on the main road.

“So how much did you find?” I asked once I was satisfied no one was going to be coming after us.

“A lot,” Sonder said, the distraction forgotten. “Want to know about the Dark mages first, or the ones fighting them?”

“The Dark mages.”

“Well, it was Cinder,” Sonder said as we turned onto another main road, heading towards a different Tube station. “And Deleo, just like you said. They hid on that gantry, waited for the barghest to show up, then stunned it.”

“Was there anyone else?”

“Just them.”

That was a relief. Cinder and Deleo were bad enough, and I still had nightmares about the last guy they’d partnered with. “It was over really fast,” Sonder said. “Then they went down and started working on the barghest.”

“What were they doing?”

Sonder frowned. “I don’t know. Some sort of ritual. They had a couple of focuses I’ve never seen before: like sort of dark purple metal spikes. But it took a long time. They kept stopping and starting.”

“Timing requirements?”

Sonder shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think they were … working it out as they went along? Like they weren’t really sure what they were doing.”

I hesitated. Something in that seemed off but I wasn’t sure exactly what.

“That was when the others showed up,” Sonder continued. “There was one mage and eight auxiliaries. I think the mage tried to talk to them. At least he said something, but Cinder and Deleo attacked him on sight. He was under a shroud so I couldn’t see much.”

“Huh,” I said. Shrouds are highly specialised items designed to block surveillance magic, rare and expensive. “So I guess you couldn’t see who it was.”

“Actually, I did,” Sonder said. I looked at him in surprise, and he shrugged. “It wasn’t that good a shroud.”

Sometimes I think Sonder doesn’t realise how talented he is. “Belthas?”

“Belthas. I just got bits and pieces from there. The auxiliaries opened fire and so did Belthas, and they drove Cinder back. Cinder dropped one of those focuses—the purple things—and one of the men ran to grab it but Deleo disintegrated him.” Sonder shivered slightly. “Literally. There was nothing left but dust. Cinder grabbed the focus and they fell back to the east doorway. Deleo held them off while Cinder opened a gate, and they got out.”

I frowned. “Wait. You mean Belthas was the only other mage?”

Sonder nodded. “And he still forced them back. He’s an ice mage and he’s really good. I think he would have been a match for them on his own.”

I remembered how calm Belthas had been at the prospect of facing the Dark cabal. If he was really that good, he had little to fear from anything short of an entire Dark kill team. It gave me another thing to think over as we turned into the station.

I spent the trip back quizzing Sonder about what else he’d learnt. There were no revelations but a few useful titbits. According to Sonder, the barghest had died either before the fight had started, or as a result of Cinder and Deleo getting interrupted midritual. Either way it was clear the ritual hadn’t been a success: the barghest might have had its magic drained, but neither Cinder or Deleo had profited from it. While that was probably a good thing, what I really wanted was some way to track them down. “You’re sure they didn’t gate in?” I asked for the second time.

“I’m sure,” Sonder said. “They walked in the same way we did.” He hesitated. “I got a look at their exit gate. I might be able to track it …”

I shook my head. “It’ll be a staging point.” Smart mages never gate directly home; there’s too much risk of being followed. Instead they jump to another location, usually somewhere desolate and empty, walk a short distance, then do the same thing again, maybe two or three times if they’re being particularly careful. Experienced mages keep libraries of literally hundreds of staging points and it’s all but impossible to track them. “Anything else about them?”

Sonder held up his notebook. “I think I found out Cinder’s phone number. Would that help?”

I couldn’t help smiling. “Probably not.”

We’d come out of the Underground at Euston and were talking amidst the square concrete pillars of the bus station. The station was busy with the afternoon rush, people of all looks and ages crossing the plaza. “Thanks for coming today,” I said. “Anything I can help out with?”

Sonder hesitated. “What are you going to do about Luna?”

I sighed, my brief good mood fading. The attack at the factory hadn’t been fun but it was the kind of thing I knew how to deal with. This wasn’t. “I don’t know.”

“But you’re not going to leave her with this guy, right?”

“What am I supposed to do, Sonder?” There was an edge in my voice; Sonder was hitting too close to what I was thinking myself. “She wants this. If I push her, she’ll just say no and I can’t make her.”

“But you’re supposed to,” Sonder said. “You’re her master.”

“Am I?” I leant against one of the pillars, staring out at the hurrying people. “Luna’s not part of the mage world the way you are. She didn’t grow up with the customs. I’ve been teaching her, but she never really agreed to be an apprentice. I’m not even sure she knows what it means.”

“Well, she ought to.”

“You really think that?”

“Yes. The master and apprentice system is important.” Sonder looked at me earnestly. “Yes, it goes wrong sometimes, and the kind of things Dark mages do with their apprentices are pretty awful. But it’s how mages learn—not just their magic, everything. It’s what everything’s built on.”

I looked back at Sonder. He was serious, and for the first time I stopped and faced up to the question of how I really felt about Luna.

Partly I thought of her as a friend. I lead a fairly lonely life and Luna’s one of the few people I like and trust. Partly I thought of her as a sort of protégé. I’d been teaching her for months now and I wanted her to be able to make a life for herself in mage society. And partly I thought of her as something more.

But as I thought about it I realised that I’d been acting like a mixture of all three. I’d been trying to treat her as a friend and as an apprentice and as a potential girlfriend all at the same time, and it wasn’t working. I remembered Arachne telling me that she wasn’t acting like my apprentice and that I wasn’t acting like her master, and I understood that Arachne had been right. I couldn’t be both Luna’s master and her friend, and I definitely couldn’t be both her master and her lover. I was going to have to pick one of the three.

But no matter which, one thing I was sure of was that I wanted to keep Luna safe, and that meant the monkey’s paw came first. “What do you think we should do?” I said.

“What if I went and talked to Luna?” Sonder said. “And I could find out some more about this Martin guy. He sounds dodgy.”

I couldn’t help smiling; I couldn’t honestly see Luna paying Sonder any attention. But Sonder had surprised me before. “Can’t hurt to try,” I said. “But if that’s what you’re planning, do you think you could spend some time researching the monkey’s paw first? How it works, what it wants—anything you can find. The more we know about this thing, the better.”

Sonder nodded immediately. “I will. And, um, be careful.”

“You too.”

I got back to my flat and started trying to figure out how to find Cinder and Rachel. It took a long time.

A lot of people think divination magic can tell you anything you want to know, but it can’t. What it can do is tell you the consequences of a possible action. If I want to know what’s behind a door, that’s easy. I look into the future in which I open the door. Cracking a password is easy too: I look into the futures in which I try every possible password and see which one works. If there are a lot of choices it might take a while, but sorting through even millions of passwords is easier than you’d think because all the possible futures except for one are so similar. In 999,999 futures the lock doesn’t open; in the last one it does.

But once you start dealing with people instead of machines, it gets much, much harder. With people, all the possible futures are different. If I look into the futures of searching two different houses I see totally different things, and I have to look at each one individually to see if it’s right. Cracking a password is like spotting one white marble in the middle of a million black marbles. Finding a person is like spotting one white marble in the middle of a million multicoloured marbles. One is a hell of a lot harder than the other.

That doesn’t mean divination can’t find people; it can. In fact, it’s really good at finding people. If I know who I’m looking for and the rough area that they’re in, I can pinpoint them in seconds. But I need a place to start. Otherwise, divination magic is just a slightly faster way of taking a wild guess.

I had three points of contact for Cinder and Rachel: the construct attack at my shop, the burning of Meredith’s flat, and their battle with Belthas at the factory. Unfortunately, none of those were any use for finding them. They’d be operating out of a base and there was absolutely no reason that base had to be anywhere nearby. The fact that they’d used a short-range construct did suggest they were somewhere in London, but that didn’t narrow it down anywhere near enough. I didn’t have anywhere to start looking.

Although … I frowned. Maybe I did.

I’d been to one of Cinder and Rachel’s bases, five months ago. It had been a brief and not very pleasant visit but I’d managed to identify the place: a disused warehouse in Battersea. It was deserted now of course; there was no way Rachel or Cinder would go back again. And there was no reason for them to have picked a similar place this time.

Except … I knew Rachel. And one thing I knew about Rachel was that she tended to do things the same way. It had always been Shireen who had been the original one, Shireen who had come up with the ideas. Rachel had liked to think of herself as unpredictable, a rebel, but the truth was she’d always been more conservative than she’d been willing to admit.

So I worked on the assumption that she’d do things the same way again. I took out a map of London and started making a list of warehouse districts and industrial parks within close distance of the city centre. Then I struck out all the ones that saw high traffic or were otherwise too busy for secrecy. That still left too many, so working on a hunch I limited it to places near water.

By the time Meredith returned, it was late afternoon. “Hey,” I said without looking up as she walked in.

Meredith leant over next to me to look at the map. She’d replaced the ash-stained dress with a dark jumper and pair of jeans, and she smelt of some fragrance I couldn’t place. “What are you doing?”

Meredith was giving me an odd feeling at the moment. When I was with her, looking at her, I couldn’t stop thinking about how beautiful she was. But as soon as I spent any time thinking of something else, Meredith seemed … less important, somehow. So despite how close she was, I didn’t meet her eyes, keeping my attention on the map. It wasn’t that I didn’t want her around or anything—I did. I liked having Meredith there, because …

…because …

…I couldn’t think of anything. When I tried to think past Meredith’s beauty and her magic to what kind of person she was, I came up blank. And that was odd, wasn’t it? We’d spent enough time together, the last couple of days. But somehow all our conversations seemed to end up being about me or our work, rather than her.

For some reason, that bothered me. “Trying to find those Dark mages,” I said.

Meredith pointed to the map. “What are those tags?”

“I think we should try searching there.”

Meredith looked taken aback. “All of them?”

I looked up at Meredith. “Unless you’ve turned up any leads.”

“No, but … Isn’t there a better way?”

“Like?”

“Tracer spells?”

I shook my head. “These two aren’t stupid. If it were that easy Belthas would have done it already.” Cinder and Rachel had made use of those spells to track down prey before. They’d be ready and waiting for someone to try the same trick against them.

Meredith hesitated. “All right,” she said at last. “If you think so.”

Five hours later, the sun had set. It had turned into one of those clear, freezing autumn nights, where the stars are sharp and bright and your breath makes puffs of vapour in the air. We were huddled by the side of a long, deserted road, only a few parked cars breaking up the emptiness. To the south was the Thames, far wider and darker than it had been at Deptford, and from the north, over the rooftops, came the distant roar of aircraft. The air smelt of river and cold stone.

I was tired and cold and wanted to go home to bed. We’d been searching our way eastwards along the river as the light faded from the sky and the crowds of commuters poured out of the city and towards the suburbs. By the time we’d reached Silvertown, all but a few stragglers had been driven away by the deepening cold, and now the streets were deserted.

“Can we stop for the night?” Meredith asked. She was wrapped in a coat bigger than she was, hunched over with her arms engulfed by the muffler, but she was still shiv-ering.

“Just three places left,” I said.

Meredith sighed but fell in behind me as we started down the road. In truth, I didn’t think we had much chance of finding anything. It had been a lonely, cold evening, walking though lonely, cold parts of London, looking through warehouse after warehouse with my magic, and it was looking like my hunch had been wrong. But we were here and we might as well finish the job. Besides, there was another reason, one that I didn’t especially want to say out loud: Cinder and Rachel might be looking for us too and it’s a lot harder to find someone who keeps moving.

Meredith stayed quiet for the length of the road, and as we reached the next industrial park she went smoothly into the routine, moving to the front gate to talk to the security guard at the checkpoint. The guard looked up from his desk with a what do you want? expression. It didn’t last—he was smiling in seconds and had told Meredith everything she wanted to know within a minute.

“There’s a maybe,” Meredith told me after he’d waved her good-bye. “A couple renting a unit who might match.” I nodded and the two of us walked past the guard unchallenged. He was staring after Meredith with his mouth slightly open and I don’t think he even noticed I was there.

Ten minutes of scanning the park turned up nothing. I hadn’t really expected much—the place didn’t feel right, not deserted enough. But as we were finishing up, I caught a glimpse of an older pair of warehouses behind the back wall, cut off from the road. “I’ll check there and we’ll move on,” I said. I had to speak loudly—we’d come in close to London City airport, and it was hard to talk over the roar of planes. Meredith nodded with another shiver and we split up, Meredith heading back towards the exit while I went further into the maze of buildings.

The back warehouse was dark and windowless, and passing the outer fence, I found that the building itself was sealed. I couldn’t pick up any magical wards, but that didn’t prove anything: Cinder and Rachel weren’t stupid enough to leave obvious defences. But there was something off about the place all the same, even if I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was.

I took a look around. The warehouse was built right between the industrial park and another complex of buildings next to the airport. Apart from the way I’d come in, there didn’t seem to be any other way out; trying to go in any other direction led me to a dead end. High walls limited vision, giving the place a cramped, uncomfortable feel, and the nearby airport made it hard to hear anything.

I decided to take a closer look. I circled the building and approached the door, reaching into my pocket for my picks and wrenches. Since diviners aren’t as good in combat as elemental mages, we tend to pick up a bunch of less-than-reputable skills to make up for it. Lockpicking’s easy when you can see into the future, and I’m pretty good at it.

As I examined the door, though, I frowned. The lock looked simple, but for some reason, looking into the future didn’t reveal any way to open it. That was odd. I knelt by the door, feeling the cold of the concrete through my jeans, and studied the keyhole. There didn’t seem to be anything unusual, but—

My precognition warned me just in time. I caught a glimpse of something coming, took a closer look, and jumped to my feet in a dead run. As I ran I pulled a grey cloak from my bag and swept it around my shoulders. I was up against the wall with the mist cloak wrapped around me within five seconds. A moment later, the far corner of one of the buildings went black.

People describe night as black, but it isn’t; it’s more like a patchwork grey. When something that’s an actual, light-eating black appears, it stands out against the darkness like a black hole. The blackness formed a vertical oval, starting at ground level and reaching seven feet in height, then shimmered and began to lighten. The shadows of another place were briefly visible, then two people stepped through.

My mist cloak is an imbued item like the monkey’s paw, and it’s the only imbued item I really trust. Mist cloaks are designed for concealment, and inactive, they look like soft cloth, coloured a sort of neutral grey that your eyes slide over. When worn, though, their colours shift and change, fading into the background so subtly that if you’re not watching it happen you’d never even notice. But mist cloaks conceal more than sight; they block magical senses completely. You can pick out someone in a mist cloak if the light’s good and you know what to look for, but to magical detection, it’s like someone in a mist cloak just isn’t there.

Which was good because right now that was the only thing stopping the man up ahead from turning me into charcoal. Cinder is a fire mage, and as I learnt the hard way a long time ago, fire mages can see a man’s body heat as easily as you or I can see light. Cinder swept the area from left to right as he emerged from the gate, waiting for the woman behind him to step through before ending the spell. The gate turned back into darkness and dissolved away to nothing.

Even though Rachel was only a silhouette in the darkness, I knew it was her. She was saying something to Cinder but just barely too far away for me to hear. The two of them walked towards the warehouse and I held perfectly still, straining my ears to hear their conversation.

“—not going to work,” Rachel said.

Cinder said something in his low rumble that I didn’t catch. Rachel shook her head. “Not enough time. We have to kill him.”

The two of them stopped by the warehouse door. They were maybe twenty feet away, and I tried to breathe quietly. Cinder seemed to be thinking. “Back off?” he said at last.

“No!” Rachel said angrily. “I’m not letting some Light mage chase us away. This is ours.”

“Can’t get what he knows if he’s dead,” Cinder pointed out.

“We don’t need him. We can make it work.” Rachel stared past Cinder. “All we need is enough time.”

My skin crawled. I didn’t know if it was coincidence, but Rachel was staring right at me. At some level I knew that in these shadows and with my mist cloak, I’d look like nothing but a patch of wall. But still …

Even through the darkness, we were close enough that I could see the dark smudge of the mask covering the top half of Rachel’s face. “Which?” Cinder said.

“The enchantress,” Rachel said, as if talking to herself. “Blind him … Yes. But only if …” She looked suddenly away from me back to Cinder. “Let’s go.”

Cinder gave a grunt and fished in his pocket for a key. There was a tiny flicker of light as he inserted and turned it with a click. The door swung open and Rachel marched in. “What about Verus?” Cinder said just as he swung the door shut behind them. It closed with a clang and I couldn’t hear anything more.

I’ve never felt so relieved and yet so frustrated. I was glad to have a solid wall between me and those two—but just one more sentence and I’d have known what they were planning. I thought about getting closer to eavesdrop and actually seriously considered it for a few seconds, which should tell you how badly I wanted to hear it.

But common sense won. I slipped away into the shadows.

Five minutes later, I was two streets over and out of danger. My mist cloak was tucked back in my bag where it could be drawn out quickly if needed. I’d picked a place by a crossroads, hidden in the shadows of a doorway where I had clear lines of sight down two streets. The only light came from the phone in my hand.

On the small screen was a short message addressed to Belthas containing Cinder and Rachel’s location. My thumb hovered over the Send button, then moved away. I kept staring at the message until the screen went dark.

All I had to do was press the button and I’d be done. Belthas would take over and deal with Cinder and Rachel. I wouldn’t even have to get involved; I could back off and watch the fireworks.

So why was I hesitating?

The last time I’d gotten involved with Cinder and Rachel, they’d alternated between trying to recruit me and trying to kill me, as well as taking the odd shot at Luna. They’d been working with a third mage, Khazad, who would have killed me if I hadn’t been quicker to do unto others. It wasn’t as though we had fond memories.

And yet I probably couldn’t have gotten out alive without them. It hadn’t been due to any warm feelings on Rachel or Cinder’s part, but by the end we’d at least gotten to the stage of talking to each other rather than shooting on sight. And I’d definitely saved their collective butts at least once, on condition that they’d owe me a favour.

Of course, Cinder’s assassination attempt had pretty much put paid to that. But still I hesitated. Was I being sentimental because of our history? Stupid. Rachel would kill me without a second thought …

I saw Meredith coming a long way off. Once she’d reached visual range I stepped out of the shadows, letting her see me. “What happened?” Meredith said once she was close enough.

I looked at Meredith and shook my head. I tapped the screen of my phone and heard the quiet delivery sound. “I found them.”

Meredith’s eyes went wide. “Did they—”

“No.”

“Are you going to—”

“Already called him.”

Meredith looked around, then wrapped her coat tighter around her and stepped into the doorway. We waited in silence.

Belthas didn’t waste time. In less than half an hour I heard the growl of engines and looked up to see headlights at the end of the street. As they grew brighter I saw that they belonged to a van, black and unmarked, with two more following behind. The vans pulled in by the side of the road and the engines died. In the silence I heard the slam of doors.

A man walked towards me. I stayed leaning against the corner and didn’t raise my head. The footsteps stopped a few feet away. “Verus,” a familiar voice said.

I lifted my eyes. “Garrick.”

Garrick was wearing the same body armour I’d seem him in three nights ago, along with enough guns to star in a production of The Matrix. Behind him a steady stream of armed men piled out of the vans. “So I guess this answers the question of who you’re working for,” I said.

“For now.” Garrick holstered the same compact-looking assault rifle I’d seen him carry before. “What’s the layout?”

“Warehouse, single storey. Two access routes, through the industrial park at the front or a back entrance. Internal map’s here.” I handed Garrick a paper I’d sketched while waiting. “No outside defences, didn’t get a look at the interior.”

“It’s a start. Still want to take point?”

“I think I’ll leave this one to you guys.”

“And here I thought you had something to prove.”

I just shrugged. When he saw he wasn’t going to get a rise out of me, Garrick moved away.

Belthas had disembarked from the end of the convoy and was speaking to Meredith. I walked over and Belthas turned to face me. “Ah, Verus. Well done.”

“Don’t break out the champagne yet,” I said. “They were in the warehouse half an hour ago. Can’t guarantee they’re still there.”

“Nevertheless, your speed is impressive.” Belthas looked like a ghost in the darkness, thin and pale. “Let’s make sure it’s not wasted.”

Meredith was watching the men. I followed her gaze to see that Garrick had grouped them into a loose circle and was issuing orders. They had a dangerous look, more so than usual for Council security, but they weren’t carrying any magic. “No other mages?”

Belthas raised an eyebrow. “Are you volunteering?”

“I’m not a battle-mage.”

“Yes, you mentioned.” Belthas smiled slightly. “If you’ll excuse me.” He walked towards Garrick and the men, who fell silent at his approach. He issued some quick orders and the men began to take out submachine guns, checking the weapons and loading ammunition. They’d stopped talking and the only sound was the clack of metal. There was a feeling of tension in the air.

I looked at Meredith. “I’m guessing you don’t want to join in.”

Meredith shook her head. “Is there somewhere safe?”

“Come with me.”

The industrial park was big and—in theory—locked up. But between the two of us, it didn’t take long to find a building with a good view and get inside.

By the time we reached the top floor, Belthas’s men were moving into position. The building we were occupying overlooked the south and east sides of Cinder and Deleo’s warehouse, and beneath us I could see dark shapes slipping from shadow to shadow, moving to encircle the warehouse. Although the building we were in was sealed, it wasn’t heated and I shivered as I stood by the window and looked down into the darkness. In less than five minutes Rachel and Cinder were about to get one hell of a nasty surprise, and for once I wasn’t going to be on the receiving end. It was an odd feeling.

I took out a small black headset, examined it briefly, then clicked a switch. A red light flashed and there was a brief hiss of static, quickly damped. Meredith looked at me in surprise. “Did Belthas give you a radio?”

“Not exactly.” I clicked through the channels until I found the right one, typed a three-digit code, then settled down to wait.

A voice spoke through the radio link. “North entrance in sight.”

Garrick’s voice answered. “Hold position. Wait for the scan.”

A hiss, silence, then Garrick again. “External clear. Move to breach.”

“Moving.”

“Look,” Meredith said quietly, pointing. I followed her finger and saw shadows closing on the warehouse, converging on the doors.

The radio spoke again. “Alpha team at north entrance.”

“Bravo team, south entrance.”

“Setting charges.”

A silence, then Garrick’s voice. “Alpha team, charges ready. Bravo, what’s your status?”

“This is Bravo, charges set.”

“Copy that. All teams check in.”

“Alpha team standing by.”

“Bravo team standing by.”

“Charlie team standing by.”

Garrick spoke again. “Weapons free. We are weapons free.” His voice was calm. “Breach on my mark. Five … four … three …”

Meredith was staring down at the shadows at the south end of the warehouse. I put my hand to her head and gently turned her face away. “Cover your eyes.”

“Two … one … mark!”

I closed my eyes just as the charges detonated and saw the white flash even through my eyelids. The roar came a fraction of a second later, and I opened my eyes to see a cloud of dust swirling about what had been the south door. Shadowy figures moved through the opening, lights flickering, searching for targets.

The radio crackled. “South clear.”

“Contact north!”

I heard the stammer of three-round bursts: ratatat, ratatat. An instant later sullen red light flickered from the windows and there was a piercing scream.

“Man down!”

“—hit, hit, we—”

More gunfire, followed by a flat boom. “Taking fire, taking fire!”

“Bravo, tossing flashbangs, fire in the hole!”

The warehouse lit up with white flashes and two deafening bangs. The wounded man continued to scream as Garrick’s voice spoke over the radio. “Move up!”

Lights flashed again, blue flickering against red over the staccato of the gunfire. I could sense spells being thrown, full-strength battle-magic intended to cripple or kill. Voices spoke over the radio, shouting, giving orders, drowning each other out. There was a final roar and a blue flash, followed by an ominous silence.

“Cease fire, target is down, cease fire.”

Garrick’s voice. “Bravo, take the stairs. Alpha, secure our position.”

“Bravo, moving up.”

Through the walls, I felt the signature of a gate spell. “Movement!” someone called.

“Flash the room. Go, go, go!”

Another white flash and a bang, this one slightly muffled. More gunfire and the distant thump of something heavy. Then the gunfire stopped. The warehouse below was silent but for the distant patter of boots.

“Clear left.”

“Clear right. First floor clear.”

“Ground floor clear.”

“Bravo, report.” It was Garrick’s voice.

“We got—” There was a burst of static. “—went in.”

“Bravo, repeat.”

“Negative, negative. We hit him, he fell through.”

“Confirm status of Target Two.”

“Evac’d. He’s gone.”

“Target One’s breathing.”

“Confirm that,” Garrick said. “Lock the place down. Charlie team, you’re on medic duty.”

The radio traffic died away. The man who’d been wounded earlier started screaming less often, then went quiet. I realised I’d been holding my breath and let it out. Meredith was still tense and the two of us stayed there, watching and waiting.

Infantry combat doesn’t end with a bang or fanfare. It draws out into a long, tense silence as the ones still holding the field search to make sure the enemy’s gone. Only as the minutes tick by and the silence stretches out does the tension ease.

After fifteen minutes Belthas’s men began to emerge, making a sweep of the immediate area. Once they began looting the warehouse, I knew the battle was over. The vans drove into the industrial area, parking near the warehouse with their back doors opened and turned towards it, and a steady stream of men moved back and forth.

The wounded were brought out first. I suspected it was public relations on Belthas’s part rather than genuine concern for the men but it made sense either way. Two were still walking, while the third was on a stretcher. I could see burns down his left side but he wasn’t moving.

Next came items. I couldn’t make out any pattern in the things Belthas’s men were taking from the warehouse and I suspected they were just grabbing anything that wasn’t nailed down. There were clothes, weapons, and papers. One thing in particular caught my eye: a set of spikes about the length of my hand. Light reflected off them with a flicker of purple but before I could get a close look they were stowed away.

And finally they brought out Rachel. She was on a stretcher, pale and unconscious in the artificial light. Garrick and two other men were guarding her as the stretcher was wheeled out and lowered behind the van. Rachel’s mask had been lost somewhere in the fighting and I could almost make out her features, her hair spread out like a fan on the pillow. I stood next to Meredith, looking down through the tall windows over the industrial park, watching the men bustling around Rachel’s still form as she was lifted into the van. The doors shut behind her with a clang.

No one else came out. Rachel had been captured but Cinder had escaped. I considered asking Belthas what had happened but decided against it. They were a lot of men with guns down there, and now that Rachel and Cinder were gone, they didn’t have any need to stay quiet. It wasn’t that I expected Belthas to have me shot just to tie off a loose end; I just didn’t see any reason to give him the opportunity. I caught a glimpse of Belthas getting into one of the vans next to Garrick and the three vans pulled out one after another. The growl of their engines grew louder as they passed our building, then softer, until they’d faded into silence.

Meredith and I descended the building and left the industrial park by the front entrance. The security post was empty. We walked back to the station in silence.

Only when the glow of the railway station was in front of us did I speak. “Want to get some dinner?”

“I can’t,” Meredith said. “I need to sort out a new place to stay.”

I hesitated. “You can use my flat if—”

“Thanks,” Meredith said. “But I need to get some other things done as well.”

“Okay.”

There was the crunch of tyres on gravel and as I looked into the road I saw a taxi pulling up. The driver signalled through his window and Meredith waved at him before turning back to me. She gave me a quick hug, then pulled away. “Will you be okay getting back?”

“Uh, sure. What about—?”

“I’ll be fine. Thank you for everything.”

Meredith walked quickly to the taxi and slipped inside. It pulled away and I watched the red lights disappear into the distance. It turned a corner and vanished, and I was alone.

I took the train home. My flat was empty and I went to bed.

chapter 7

I woke up early next morning, heart racing and breath quick. Another nightmare. I don’t get them as often now but when I do they’re just as bad. The sounds of the London morning drifted through the window. My flat was quiet.

There was a message on my phone from Belthas, congratulating me on the successful completion of the mission. I skimmed it and hit Close. I didn’t feel like talking to Belthas.

The next message was from Sonder; he’d started research on the monkey’s paw but was having trouble finding all the books he needed. I closed that too and looked to see if there was anything from Meredith or Luna. There wasn’t.

I reviewed and tested my home defences. I had breakfast, went over my stock of items, and laid out the most useful ones in case of another attack. Finally, at nine o’clock and with nothing else to do, I opened my shop.

The morning dragged. I enjoy running my shop most of the time but nothing makes work less fun than wishing you were somewhere else. The customers annoyed me more than they should have, and I kept glancing at my phone to see if I had a message from Meredith or Luna. Finally, at noon, I gave up, shooed out the last few stragglers, and flipped the sign to CLOSED.

I was restless. Something was bothering me and I didn’t know what.

I didn’t want to work but pushed myself to do it anyway. Sonder’s message had included a list of books that were supposed to contain references to the monkey’s paw so I put on my coat and went out into central London to look for them. I didn’t expect it to be easy, and it wasn’t—the books Sonder had listed were obscure as hell. But finding a book in a bookshop, even an obscure book, is a lot easier than finding a person in a city.

Two and a half hours and twelve bookstores later, I’d tracked down seven out of the nine books on Sonder’s list and decided to call it a day. I went home to my desk upstairs and pulled the first volume from its parcel. It was old and smelt of dust. A third of the way through, I found what I was looking for.

…the First Age, where the monkey god was brought to battle by Morthalion the Destroyer. For three days and three nights they battled but the monkey god’s claws could not pierce Morthalion’s shield. Neither could Morthalion’s death magic slay the god, for being divine, its spirit could not be parted from its body by mortal means.

Seeing this, on the fourth day Morthalion reached down and tore away a part of his own shadow, from which he formed himself a blade of darkness, slim as a leaf and sharper than the frost. Wielding it, he struck off the god’s foot, then before the two could be reunited Morthalion burnt the foot in black fire until it crumbled to ash. Again and again Morthalion struck, cutting and burning feet, legs, arms, head, and finally body. At last only one part of the god remained: a single paw.

Morthalion could not destroy the paw and instead bound it up with a white thread, enspelling it so that all should forget the monkey god’s name, and thus his power could never be restored. But the monkey god’s spirit lived on within the paw, and survives to this day, filled with hate for the race that destroyed him.

The passage ended. I flipped to the end, but the monkey’s paw wasn’t mentioned again. I closed the book and picked up the next.

—of wish-granting items, little needs to be said. Their powers are generally overrated and greatly inferior to those of True Mages, who—

I rolled my eyes and tossed the book aside. The next one, titled Encyclopaedia Arcana, was thicker and the writing denser.

Wish magic, or desire magic, works quite differently. It magnifies the power of speech: Rather than the words being a trigger, it is the speaking of the wish itself that rewrites reality.

Stories abound of carelessly or ambiguously worded wishes causing disaster; these legends, unfortunately, have a firm basis in fact. While wish magic will not misinterpret or “twist” a wish, neither will it take into account context or intention, and phrasing is absolutely crucial. Clear, simple sentences are best; convoluted wording often results in too weak a “lens” for the magic to focus through, and vague wishes bring totally unpredictable results. Many mages blame such results upon malicious intelligence on the part of the granting power, but this is inaccurate. Wish magic is essentially neutral. It grants only what is asked; nothing more and nothing less.

There is a qualification, however. Most sources of wish magic have individual prohibitions against wishing for a certain outcome, a common example being the taking of a life. Should the user attempt a forbidden wish, the magic will fail to take effect or rebound upon the wisher. There is usually no way of discovering such limitations except through trial and error, making such experimentation a highly dangerous process.

More than any other, wish magic is capable of creating extraordinarily powerful effects; however, experienced mages generally consider it more trouble than it is worth.

Books four and five didn’t have anything new. The sixth was more interesting.

…imbued items capable of bestowing wishes, generally referred to as “monkey’s paws” regardless of their actual form. Their magic works as an unspoken contract, granting the user between three and as many as seven wishes.

At first, the wishes will appear to work to the user’s benefit. However, with each wish the monkey’s paw gains a greater hold over its bearer and soon it will begin to twist the wishes, subtly at first, then more forcefully. In every case, the user is made to feel that the only way to escape his problems is to use the paw again; each wish leads to greater and greater calamity, until he is destroyed.

Although wholly evil, a monkey’s paw is bound by rules. First and foremost, the monkey’s paw cannot force a bearer to accept its contract. It can tempt or promise but the truly innocent are safe; at some level, the bearer must knowingly and willingly consent to the item’s power. The monkey’s paw must also follow the letter of a wish, if not the spirit. This has led many to believe that a clever wielder could make extended use of a monkey’s paw by wording his wishes carefully, but such success is rare.

The final book was a slim volume that seemed handwritten rather than printed. Squinting, I realised it skipped from account to account, and I was in the middle of a paragraph before realising that it was what I was looking for. I went back to the beginning of the section and read it from start to finish.

The monkey’s paw is one of the most ancient of all artifacts and the truth of its origin is unknown, though many have crafted lesser copies in an attempt to imitate its power.

The monkey’s paw grants wishes with few if any limitations. Most believe that these wishes follow fixed and certain rules. This is false. The monkey’s paw is sentient and free-willed. The paw, not its bearer, chooses whether and how to grant a wish. Any bearer who believes he controls it soon learns his mistake.

While inactive, the paw lies dormant. In these periods, the monkey’s paw will often adopt a place, or a person, to remain with. This “host” seems to enjoy limited protection from the item; perhaps the monkey’s paw prefers not to harm those who do not use its power, or perhaps it simply chooses not to bite the hand that feeds it. The reason, as with so much else concerning the item, is unknown. The monkey’s paw is not in the habit of explaining itself and rarely leaves witnesses in its wake.

The section ended. I read it through twice more, then sat back in my chair. Something about that last one made me uneasy. A host …

I tried to figure out some way I could put the information in the books to use but came up blank. Bound or unbound, limited or unlimited, evil or neutral: Each book told a different story, and without knowing which was true they weren’t much help. The one thing they all agreed on was that the monkey’s paw was dangerous—and I’d known that already. I walked to my window and looked out over London.

The morning had been overcast but the clouds had vanished one by one and the sun was shining down out of a clear sky. Sunset was only a couple of hours away and the colour of the sunlight had changed to a rich yellow-gold, the chimneys and rooftops casting long shadows with the coming evening. The windows in the houses and flats were still illuminated by the sun but as dusk drew nearer I knew they would light up one by one, making squares of light in the darkness.

I was still restless. I’d tried to shrug it off all day and it hadn’t worked, and I didn’t know why. I’d done a job for Belthas and succeeded. Okay, I didn’t know everything, but Rachel and Cinder had been stopped. I wasn’t completely happy about the way things had ended, but I hadn’t had much choice.

Was it about Luna and the monkey’s paw? I thought about it and realised that wasn’t it. Working on the monkey’s paw wasn’t making me feel any better; the problem was somewhere else. Something was wrong.

But what?

It was because I didn’t understand. I’m like all diviners: I need to know things. I’d learnt bits and pieces but that wasn’t enough. I had to know how they fit together. The assassination attempts, Belthas, Rachel and Cinder, Arachne …

Start at the beginning. Which part related to me the most?

The assassination attempts.

There had been four. The construct in my shop, the sniper on the Heath, Cinder burning Meredith’s flat, and the bomb-maker in the factory.

Why did someone want me dead so badly?

The obvious explanation was because I’d stopped that first attack on Meredith. I’d prevented Rachel and Cinder from killing her so they’d turned their attention to me. The sniper and the bomb-maker had tried to kill me, and Cinder had tried to kill both of us. I remembered that last glimpse I’d had of Cinder, staring at me as Starbreeze snatched me and Meredith out of the window.

I frowned. Staring at me … There was something nagging at me. What was it?

It was the method. It didn’t fit. The construct and fire had been brute-force magical attacks. The sniper and the bomb-maker had used modern technology, precise and deadly.

And now that I thought about it, I’d never seen Rachel or Cinder use guns. Like most mages, they rely on magic for pretty much everything. If they wanted me dead, they’d either send a construct or do their own dirty work.

But that was stretching things. It made sense that the same group would be behind all the attacks. I knew Rachel and Cinder had been trying to get me killed …

…didn’t I?

Again I remembered how Cinder had looked when he’d seen me in Meredith’s flat, the way he’d stopped to stare. Except …

…if he’d been trying to kill me, why had he stopped?

I knew how fast Cinder was. He’d had more than enough time to get off an attack. But he hadn’t.

And the only way that made sense was if Cinder hadn’t been trying to kill me at all.

What if Cinder hadn’t known I was there? Meredith had been Rachel’s target when she’d sent the construct. Maybe Meredith had been Cinder’s target, too. It had been Meredith’s flat; even if he’d been expecting anyone else, Cinder would have had no way of knowing it was me. Which would mean he hadn’t known I was involved at all.

But the sniper had been targeting me, not Meredith. And the sniper had tried to kill me before I’d met Cinder at the flat …

A nasty feeling crept up inside me. That meant Rachel and Cinder hadn’t sent the sniper—and probably not the bomb-maker, either. Someone else had done it. Which meant that someone else was still out there. And odds were, they still wanted me dead.

But who?

I shook my head in frustration. It didn’t make sense. I wanted to blame Belthas. He had the contacts and the resources, as well as Garrick, who I still suspected had been the one shooting at me on the Heath. But I’d been working for Belthas—in fact, I’d just won a battle for him. Why would he want me dead before I’d told him where Rachel and Cinder were hiding? And if it was someone else, like Levistus, why would they choose to strike at me now?

I was missing something.

I tried calling Meredith and got her voice mail. I hung up and called Luna, and this time I got through.

Luna took a long time to answer, and when she did, her voice was blurred by the sound of wind. “Hi.”

“Luna, it’s Alex. Are you free?”

“What was that?” Luna said loudly.

“Where are you?”

There was the sound of voices and I heard the crunch of footsteps. The background noise dropped slightly. “Hi, Alex?” Luna said again. “Sorry, it’s hard to hear.”

“Where are you?”

“On the Heath.”

I blinked. “Why are you on the Heath?”

“Um … I was going to see Arachne.”

There was something in her voice. “Is Martin with you?”

There was a pause. Luna’s not a good liar. I closed my eyes. “Luna, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“We were just going to talk to her. To see if she knew about the monkey’s paw.”

“She said she was leaving.”

“But that wasn’t going to be for a few days, right? If I asked her …”

I sighed inwardly. Luna’s one of the very few people whom Arachne’s willing to let inside her lair. It was possible; I just didn’t like the idea of Martin being there. “Have you seen anything unusual?”

A loud rustling drowned out my words. I heard someone talking and recognised Martin’s voice. “Just a minute,” Luna called back to him, then spoke into the receiver again. “Sorry, what was that?”

“Forget it,” I said. “Just drop by first chance you get, okay? I need to talk to you. Privately.”

“Okay,” Luna said. “Um, I don’t know when Martin and I’ll be done. I’ll call you afterwards?”

I was really sick of hearing about Martin. “Sure.” I heard Martin say something else as Luna cut the connection. I dropped my phone back into my pocket.

I’d been indoors all day. I locked up the shop and started walking. Maybe some exercise would help me think.

The city was bustling in the sunset. I crossed the canal and walked up Kentish Town Road, watching the rush-hour traffic pile up nose to tail. The air was filled with noise and car exhaust.

After a while I realised my feet were leading me towards the Heath. Usually when something’s bothering me I go and talk it over with Arachne. But Arachne was either gone or busy with Luna, and I didn’t want to deal with Luna and Martin. I changed direction, heading for the southern part of the Heath instead of the deeper regions that hold Arachne’s lair.

By the time I reached Parliament Hill, the sun had set and the light was fading. I climbed the hill and sat on one of the benches facing south. It’s a beautiful view. Ahead, through the branches of the trees, were the jagged skyscrapers of Liverpool Street; to the right was the looming ugly Tetris block of the Royal Free Hospital. The towers of Canary Wharf were away to the left, small and squat in the distance. The sky was the dusky blue of twilight, and lights were coming on in the windows as I watched.

I noticed my phone was about to ring and pulled it out. I was a bit disappointed to see that it was Sonder but I kept it out anyway and answered on the second ring. “Hey, Sonder.”

“Hi.” Sonder sounded worried. “I’m glad I got you.”

“I found some of those books.”

“What?”

“The ones you said you needed. About the monkey’s paw.”

“About— Oh, oh. Right.”

“Okay,” I said. “So I’m guessing that’s not why you called.” Although the Heath was darkening, there were still people scattered across the hill. A spaniel ran past, nose to the ground, stumpy tail wagging. “Something’s bothering you.”

“Yeah.” Sonder seemed to get hold of himself. “Okay. You know the thing we agreed I should check up on?”

“Not the monkey’s paw.”

“The other thing.”

I thought back to the conversation and remembered. “About Martin.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you talk to Luna?”

“Um …” Sonder hesitated. “She said she was busy.”

I’ll bet. “Okay.”

“So, um …”

“You went sniffing around anyway,” I said. I couldn’t honestly say I was surprised. It was the kind of thing I might have done.

“Yeah,” Sonder admitted.

It sounded from the echoes as though Sonder was in a corridor. “Are you at Luna’s flat?”

“…Yeah.”

“You didn’t break in, did you?”

“No! Well … not exactly.”

“Sonder …”

“I didn’t go inside! And she’d said she might be around, I was just waiting to see if—”

“Okay, okay.” I knew Sonder would get sidetracked if I let him, and I didn’t really want to hear the details. “What did you find?”

“Well … it was Martin. He made a phone call.”

“What, right now?”

“No, on Saturday night.”

“Saturday—okay. And you were listening?”

“Yeah, a few minutes ago.”

You really need a couple of extra tenses for a conversation about time magic. “Okay,” I said. “Who was he talking to?”

“Belthas.”

I stopped. “What?”

“I know,” Sonder said. “He’s not supposed to be working for Belthas, right?”

“…No. He’s not. Working for him?”

“That was what it sounded like. Martin was giving a report and then he said he was on his way to meet him. As in, right then.”

I tried to figure out what was going on. I’d missed something, something big. “What was he telling Belthas about?”

“About Luna.”

I went still.

“He said he’d spent the evening with her and things were going well.” Sonder sounded worried. “Then he said something about two or three days. Then he said he was on his way.”

Two or three days from Saturday night would be … about now. “Sonder, I’ve got to go. We’ve got a problem.”

“Why?”

“Because Luna’s taking Martin to Arachne’s lair right now.” I got to my feet and started walking. “See what else you can find but be careful.”

“Okay.” Sonder paused. “Alex? What do you think Belthas wanted with Martin?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t think I’m going to like the answer. I’m going to find Luna. I’ll check in when I do.”

“Okay.”

I hung up and speed-dialled Luna’s number. I got her voice mail. I tried again—same result. It could mean she was in Arachne’s lair. Or it could mean something very bad.

I wanted to run but forced myself to keep to a walk. There was no way this could be a coincidence. Martin and Luna, Meredith and me …

An idea stirred, something blank and terrible, the shape of it making me shy away. I tried to think of what Belthas could want with Luna. Luna’s curse is powerful in its way, but it doesn’t serve anyone but her. If Belthas wanted a chance mage, he could find someone else. Had he done the whole thing to get to me? No, that couldn’t be it—Martin had hardly spoken to me.

There must be something Luna had that Belthas wanted. It wasn’t her magic and it wasn’t her status. Belthas had gotten me involved as well. Maybe it was something to do with both of us. What did Luna and I have in common?

We both knew about the fateweaver. But that didn’t fit with what Rachel and Cinder had been doing, and besides, it was old news. We both knew Starbreeze … no, I’m the only one with a connection to her.

What about Arachne? We were two of the very few people Arachne trusted enough to let into her lair … which was where Luna was taking Martin …

I stopped dead.

Arachne. A magical creature.

The technique Rachel and Cinder had been using.

And now Belthas had it too.

“Oh shit,” I said quietly. And started to run.

It took me ten minutes to cover the distance. I spent less than five putting the pieces together.

Half of that was kicking myself for being stupid. I’d known Belthas was keeping something back. Of course he didn’t want Rachel and Cinder getting their hands on something this powerful. He wanted it for himself. And now he had it, he needed a creature to try it out on.

Arachne was too well protected to attack directly. Behind the wards of her lair, she was almost invulnerable. But if you had someone Arachne trusted enough to let in … that changed things. And if you had someone like Martin, with the monkey’s paw making him immune to Arachne’s magic … and a small army of men to follow him …

Night had fallen by the time I reached Arachne’s lair. The Heath was silent but for the sound of distant traffic. I crept forward to the ravine and peered through the trees.

It was dark enough that I had to stare for a few seconds to be sure of what I was seeing but once I did, my heart sank. The entrance to Arachne’s lair was open.

Something caught my eye, lying in the grass, and I moved silently to retrieve it. It was a white ribbon, the kind Luna uses to tie her hair. A faint silver mist still clung to it, the residue of Luna’s curse.

I should have backed off. It would have been the smart thing to do. The careful thing to do.

I walked down into the ravine. As I came down the slope I heard someone catch their breath just in front of me. The mouth of Arachne’s cave was a mass of shadows and I walked towards one of them, straight as an arrow. “Meredith,” I said into the darkness, my voice soft in the empty night. “We need to talk.”

One of the shadows moved. There was a click and a faint light illuminated Meredith, pale and frightened. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

I kept walking towards her. “Who’s in there, Meredith?”

Meredith backed up. “I—what do you mean?”

“No,” I said. “No more games.”

“I’m not supposed to—” Meredith stopped.

I nodded. “You’re out here to turn people away. While Belthas works.” I stepped closer. “I’ll make this simple. Where’s Luna?”

Meredith hesitated.

I turned towards the entrance. “You’re wasting my time.”

“No, wait!” Meredith stepped in front of me, hands up.

“Then answer. Where’s Luna?”

“She’s—” Meredith shook her head. “Just go. Okay?”

I didn’t even bother answering. I stepped in. Meredith pressed herself against the earth wall, her eyes going wide.

Suddenly my anger vanished. I’d been splitting my attention, watching for any sign of Belthas’s men; now I found myself focusing on Meredith, noticing as if for the first time her softness and beauty. I realised that I didn’t want to hurt her, even if it was to … What was I doing again? “What’s happening?”

Meredith’s eyes flicked over my shoulder, then back again. “It’s nothing. Alex, you should go. It’s dangerous here.”

It seemed like a good idea. If Meredith wanted me to leave, I ought to. Except … I shook my head. There was something …

“Alex? Please.”

“Where’s Luna?”

Meredith flinched, just for a second. “I … don’t know. Alex?”

I tried to remember what I was doing. It was hard, like trying to think while asleep. I could feel something fighting me but I resisted it, piecing my thoughts back together one at a time. “She’s in there, isn’t she?”

Meredith’s eyes flicked to one side again. “No. She isn’t.”

Meredith was lying. It was hard to believe it—I wanted to trust her—but a clearer, stronger part of me was telling me not to. And she kept on looking away, as if …

…as if she were looking at something behind me.

I tried to turn but my dulled reactions were too slow. Something stung the back of my neck and a wave of dizziness washed over me. It was hard to move, and with a vague feeling of surprise I noticed I was lying on the ground. A man was saying something in a deep voice but I couldn’t seem to focus on the words. And then I stopped noticing anything at all.

Mages have developed a lot of ways to knock someone unconscious. Light mages use them to avoid killing; Dark mages also use them to avoid killing, though for different reasons. I’ve had more experience with them than I’d like and this had been one of the “softer” ones—I didn’t feel any headache or nausea. As I came awake I began to hear the echoing scrape of movement from nearby. I could tell from the sounds that I was in a big room. I opened my eyes.

I was in Arachne’s lair, though the layout seemed different. I was lying a rug near the far side. Sofas and chairs had been pushed up against the wall and Luna was sitting on one of them. She was looking down at me. “Hey,” I said, still a little blurry. “You okay?”

Luna gave a tiny nod. She was sitting quite still. I couldn’t see any injuries on her, though now I took a closer look her clothes looked scuffed. I got to my feet. A brief wave of dizziness hit me and I swayed for a moment before shaking it off.

I had the feeling I was forgetting something. “How did you get here?” I said.

Luna flicked her eyes behind me then back again. It was a very tiny gesture, but something about it sent a chill down my spine.

I turned around.

It’s always struck me as a bit unfair that despite being able to see the future, I get so many horrible surprises. You’d think being a diviner I’d be able to avoid them but it seems all that means is that when they finally do catch up with me they’re much worse. It’s happened so many times that I’ve learnt to recognise the exact feeling: a sort of hollow, sinking sensation in my gut, like I’ve just been dropped from very high up.

Belthas was standing thirty feet away, his hands clasped behind his back. He looked relaxed. Of course, he had a lot to be relaxed about.

About ten men from Belthas’s private army were standing in a loose semicircle on either side of Belthas, surrounding Luna and me. They were wearing body armour and carried submachine guns. The guns were pointed almost at the two of us so that we couldn’t quite stare down the barrels but could imagine very easily what it would be like. All of them were looking at us with flat, unreadable expressions. Seeing them up close in the light, they looked tough and competent. They did not look friendly or nice.

Garrick was in the circle too. Unlike the other men, he was standing at ease with his weapon hanging from its sling, though I had the feeling he could probably get a shot off faster than any of them. Unlike the others, he gave me a nod. A few more of Belthas’s men were scattered around the lair, including two stationed at the tunnel leading out to the Heath.

Meredith and Martin were there too, a little way behind Belthas. Meredith was sitting on one of the few remaining chairs; she didn’t meet my eyes. Martin was standing with arms folded, looking pleased with himself. All told, there were a little under twenty people facing us. None of them looked like they wanted to be our friends.

Arachne’s lair had been the site of a short, vicious battle. A few of the sofas and tables had been smashed into firewood, and many more bore the marks of spells or weapons fire. Dresses and coats had been slashed and burnt, then gathered up and piled carelessly in stacks. The centre of the room had been cleared, the clothes and furniture shunted up against the walls.

Arachne was next to the dressing rooms. She was lying motionless on the floor, her vast bulk still, watched over by two guards. Something glinted at the back of her head. At the sight of Arachne, my fear vanished in a wave of anger. I turned to Belthas. “Verus,” Belthas said.

I stared at him.

“I trust you’re feeling better?”

“You’ve tried to kill me twice in as many days,” I said. “Drop the act.”

Belthas raised his eyebrows. “You know,” I said, “there’s just one thing I’m curious about. How’d you know the monkey’s paw would pick Martin?”

Martin stiffened slightly, looking from me to Belthas. “Ah,” Belthas said. “That was merely a matter of adapting to circumstances.”

“And you just took advantage.”

Belthas inclined his head.

“So that’s why you ordered those assassination attempts,” I said. “You had Meredith and Martin to work on the two of us. But once Martin picked up that item, you didn’t need me anymore. He would have phoned you on … what, Saturday night?” I saw Martin start. “And by Sunday morning you had Garrick ready to shoot me. You don’t waste time, do you?”

“I’m impressed, Verus,” Belthas said. “But you’ve misinterpreted events slightly.”

“Why are we even talking to this guy?” Martin said.

“Shush, Martin,” I said. “Adults are talking.”

“Shut up,” Martin said with a sneer. “Me and Luna couldn’t stop laughing about you, you know that? Having something like this and being too scared to use it.”

“How can you say that?” Luna’s voice was shaking. “I thought you cared about me! How could you do this?”

Martin turned away with a shrug. “Martin, you’re stupid,” I said.

“Yeah? Then how come we’ve got a bunch of guns pointed at you?”

“Doesn’t change the fact that you’re stupid. For a start, you keep saying ‘we.’ You’re not Belthas’s partner, you’re his minion. You’re stupid enough to use the monkey’s paw after I told you the truth about it. And you’re stupid enough to keep being Belthas’s minion and keep using the monkey’s paw even after being told that it’ll kill you. In fact, you’re so stupid that I can tell you all this to your face and Belthas won’t stop me because he knows you’re too much of an idiot to know when you’re being told the truth. He can just wait for you to get yourself killed without lifting a finger.”

Belthas raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. Martin had been listening with his mouth half-open and he started to say something or other but I turned on Meredith before he could finish. “And you. Lying really is a way of life to you, isn’t it?”

Meredith stared at me. “Excuse me?”

“That was what Belthas told you to do, wasn’t it? Manipulate me.”

Meredith’s eyes narrowed. “Get over yourself.”

“I trusted you!”

“No, you didn’t. You never let me in—you don’t trust anyone. You’re the coldest man I’ve ever met.”

My face twisted in a snarl. “As if you could—” Martin started to shout something and some of the men brought their guns up.

“Quiet, please,” Belthas said, his voice cutting across the noise. He looked from side to side, eyebrows raised, until everyone had fallen silent. “I can understand you have reasons for disagreement but I think it would be best if you resolve your personal issues in your own time.”

Martin glowered. Meredith looked away.

“Now,” Belthas said once order had resumed. “Verus, I have an offer for you.”

“I can’t wait.”

“There’s no need for sarcasm,” Belthas said mildly. “As I was saying earlier, while your analysis is impressive, you’ve gone astray in one or two points. I haven’t given any instructions to kill you. In fact, I quite specifically instructed my men to make sure you were unharmed.”

“Oh,” I said. “So those were the friendly kind of assassination attempts.”

Belthas sighed. “Verus, you really should … how did Meredith put it? Get over yourself. Yes, your value was diminished once Martin reported his success. But do you really think that’s enough reason to order your death? I’m not a Dark mage. If I killed everyone who wasn’t useful to me, there wouldn’t be many people left.”

I was silent. “Besides,” Belthas continued. “You’ve been of considerable assistance. It was due to you that we were able to capture Deleo. With her and Cinder on the loose, this would have been impossible.”

“Feel free to express your gratitude.”

“I’d be happy to. As I said, I have considerable influence with the Council. However, with that influence comes obligations.” Belthas gestured to the men around him. “It would hardly have been possible to arrange all this without some assistance. Fortunately, I was able to discover a Council member willing to act as a patron of sorts.”

“Great. Who?”

Belthas smiled slightly. “Come now, Verus. I’ve already explained that I’ve no wish to kill you. Who do you know on the Council who does?”

I stared for a second—then my heart sank. “Shit.”

“Yes,” Belthas said dryly. “Did you think he forgot?”

I turned away. “Alex?” Luna said quietly.

“Levistus,” I said. Things had just gone from bad to worse. I looked at Belthas. “So what? I was the price for his help?”

“Actually, that’s quite an interesting story.” Belthas settled himself more comfortably. “I suspected from the start that it was Deleo and Cinder we were looking for, and given your past history, I immediately thought of you as the natural choice to find them. But when I suggested your name to Levistus, he was quite definite that you were not to be involved. Levistus is … less tolerant of unpredictability than I am.

“It was the one sticking point in our arrangement. But we had only managed to acquire part of the ritual, and I knew that without Cinder and Deleo I would have no more success than they had had with that barghest. I needed one of them alive to interrogate and I was certain you were our best chance.” Belthas smiled again. “You played your role admirably.”

I was silent.

“Levistus, unfortunately, did not share my faith in your reliability,” Belthas continued. “Enough so that when he discovered your involvement, he ordered your immediate removal.” Belthas glanced sideways at Garrick. “Via someone whom I had been under the impression was working for me.”

Garrick shrugged. “I was.”

“I don’t believe your contract mentioned anything about freelancing.”

“Didn’t say I wouldn’t, either.”

Belthas sighed. “Yes, well. Smoothing that over took quite some work. Levistus assigned a second agent to the same task but fortunately you proved capable of dealing with that matter on your own. At least that unpleasantness at the factory had the advantage of persuading Levistus to reconsider. After some persuasion, he reluctantly agreed to a compromise.”

I stood still. “A compromise.”

“More a matter of reparation, really. You caused him a certain amount of loss in your last encounter.”

“If he wants the fateweaver, he can get it himself.”

“Interesting you should mention that,” Belthas said. “It was my first assumption too. But it seems that retrieving the fateweaver isn’t a priority for Levistus at the moment. Oh, he’d like it some day, but it’s not his primary concern. His grudge against you concerns the loss of his agents.”

I hadn’t been the only one Levistus had sent to get the fateweaver. There had been two others: an earth mage called Griff and a bound elemental named Thirteen. Both had done their best to get rid of me and I hadn’t cooperated. “You know,” I said, “technically, I didn’t kill either of them.”

“Ah?” Belthas said politely. “Well, you could raise that point with Levistus if you feel it would help.”

I was silent.

“I’m not explaining all this to you because I like the sound of my own voice, Verus. I’m doing it as a sign of good faith. You asked me a moment ago to show my gratitude. I did. I convinced Levistus to stop the attempts on your life, and believe me when I say it took quite some persuasion. What eventually changed his mind was realising that you still had something he wanted.”

“Which is?”

Belthas brought his hand from behind his back and tossed something to me, something small that glinted in the light. I caught it reflexively and looked down.

It was a small cylindrical rod, made of glass, the same one I’d brought to the lair tonight. It was the focus I used to call Starbreeze.

“He wants,” Belthas said, “a new elemental servant.”

I looked down at the rod, then up at Belthas.

“I’m sure there’s no need to spell it out for you,” Belthas said.

“You want Starbreeze.”

“Levistus does.”

“You want me to call her,” I said, my voice flat. “So you can catch her.”

“Yes.”

“For Levistus?” I said. “You do what he tells you?”

“Do pay attention, Verus,” Belthas said. “Levistus is acting as my patron in this matter. He’s been quite generous with his assistance. In return, when he asks a favour, he expects me to uphold my end of the bargain.”

“What are you going to do with Starbreeze if you get her?”

“That’s really none of your concern,” Belthas said. “Call the elemental here, and you and your apprentice will be free to go.”

I remembered Levistus’s servant, the air elemental Thirteen. She’d been like and yet unlike Starbreeze, with all Starbreeze’s power yet none of her freedom, enslaved completely to Levistus’s will. The only expression I’d ever seen on her face had been surprise, just once, at the moment of her death. If Belthas were able to capture Starbreeze, the same would happen to her.

“What did you do to Arachne?” I said.

“The spider?” Belthas glanced back at her. “Stable, for the moment.”

I looked across the room at Arachne. She hadn’t moved during the entire conversation, her eyes opaque and still, and I knew she was unconscious. Lying in the corner, with the guards watching over her, she somehow looked much smaller and more vulnerable. Most of the clothes around the room had been ripped or destroyed. The ones that had survived had been thrown carelessly in piles with none of the care that Arachne used.

A wave of fury rose up in me. Arachne had never done any harm to anybody. All she’d ever done had been to sit here and weave her clothes. Her lair had been a peaceful place, a place where things were created. Belthas and his men had smashed their way in here and destroyed it, and now they were trying to do the same to Starbreeze too.

“I hate to rush you,” Belthas said when I didn’t say anything, “but we have a schedule to keep.”

“I’ll make you a counteroffer,” I said. “Let Arachne go. Then destroy the notes and the focuses you got from Deleo, and make sure nobody ever gets hold of it. Do that and I’ll keep working for you. Otherwise, I promise I’ll see you dead.”

Several of the men laughed. “I’ll choose to attribute that remark to your stressful situation and not hold it against you,” Belthas said. “The elemental, Verus.”

I looked him in the eye. “Go fuck yourself.”

Belthas sighed. “Garrick, shoot the girl somewhere painful but nonfatal. No permanent damage from the first bullet, please.”

Garrick nodded and raised his weapon, sighting on Luna. Luna’s eyes went wide and she scrambled to her feet. “Wait!” I shouted.

“This isn’t a game, Verus.” Belthas said calmly. “Let me explain what will happen if you refuse. First, I’ll have your apprentice shot. It won’t kill her, at least not immediately. Then I will offer you another chance. If you still refuse, I will have her shot again. Then I will repeat the process. She will die very slowly and in great pain, and she will be crippled and insane long before her eventual death. At that point we will move on to you. Given your history, I doubt the same treatment will persuade you, but I’ll do it anyway, just to be thorough. And if at the end of that you still have chosen not to cooperate, I’ll have you killed. And then I’ll get hold of the elemental anyway. You will both have died for nothing.”

The dispassionate, matter-of-fact way Belthas spoke made my blood run cold. Looking into the future, I knew he wasn’t bluffing. I looked between the other people in the room. Martin’s smile had vanished and he was looking a little pale. Meredith was still turned away and Garrick was watching me steadily. I knew I didn’t have any allies here.

Belthas didn’t say anything more, simply watching with his pale eyes. I looked down at the focus, looking into the future. I could call Starbreeze, pretend to cooperate, order her to take us away …

It wouldn’t work. Not only wouldn’t it work, it was exactly what Belthas was expecting. Meredith would have told him how we’d escaped from Cinder. As soon as Starbreeze was inside, he would seal the exits with walls of ice.

The exits …

Without turning my head, I looked for a way out. The tunnel entrance leading back onto the Heath was under guard by two of Belthas’s men and was at the far end of the room; too far. The passage leading into the storerooms was closer but it was a dead end. Even if I could make it, it would only delay the inevitable.

That just left one way to run. The tunnel at the back of Arachne’s lair, leading down into the darkness, uncharted and deep. I didn’t know what was down there and I was willing to bet Belthas didn’t either. And it was only a few seconds away.

But even a few seconds was too long. I’d be cut down before I got halfway. “Luna,” I said.

Luna looked at me. I could tell she was afraid, trying not to show it. I didn’t meet her eyes. “Look away,” I told her.

“What?”

“Look away.”

“Why?”

“Because,” I said quietly, “I don’t want you to see this.”

I felt Luna stiffen. She opened her mouth, staring at me, about to speak, then closed it again. Slowly, she turned to face the wall. Belthas nodded.

I took the glass rod in my hand and stroked it with a finger. I’d had it for a long time. Starbreeze had attuned herself to it, touching it with her magic so that she could always hear my call. Hardly any elementals are willing to give a mage so much power over them. It was a symbol of how much she trusted me.

I wove magic through it, whispering, “Starbreeze, come.” Then I tossed it forward. The rod clinked on the stone midway between us, rolling to a stop. All of the men looked down at it.

Belthas raised his eyebrows. “Is that it?”

I closed my eyes.

Focus items are limited things. The glass rod was designed for one purpose only: to carry a message on the wind. But like all focus items, the energy transfer is inefficient. Some of the energy goes into carrying the message, some bleeds off harmlessly, and some—just a little—is left in the item. Each time I’d used it, the energy reserve had increased slightly. It’s a tiny amount, so small that you’d have trouble even noticing it, but I’d been using the focus to call Starbreeze for years. Like saving pennies, it adds up.

I can’t use offensive magic, not directly. But one thing I’m very good at is manipulating items and anything containing energy can, in theory, be persuaded to release it. It’s like throwing a match into a petrol tank. It might not be what it’s designed for but you can do it.

The little glass rod disintegrated with a crack of thunder and a brilliant flash, the energy tearing the focus apart in light and sound. Men cried out, and as they did I was already sprinting. “Luna! Run!”

I had one glimpse of the room, filled with chaos as the men fell back, blinded, aiming their weapons at unseen threats. I saw a shield of blue light go up around Belthas, saw Martin collide with a guard and fall. Luna had been turned away from the flash; it hadn’t blinded her but her reactions were slower. There were two guards between us and the tunnel. One was blinded; the other, quicker or luckier, was only dazzled and brought up his gun. I saw his intention to club me with the stock, ducked under the swing, put a web-hand strike into his throat that sent him to the ground choking, and ran on without breaking stride.

It couldn’t have taken more than five seconds to make the dash to the tunnel entrance but it felt like an hour. I heard the shouts from behind me, saw the blackness of the tunnel mouth growing larger, expecting every minute to hear gunfire. Then just as I made it to the entrance, I heard Luna yell, “Alex!”

Luna had made it about halfway before one of the guards had caught up with her. Either Belthas hadn’t told them about Luna’s curse or this one was just really stupid because he was grappling with her. I could see the silver mist of Luna’s curse flowing into him and as I watched Luna snapped her head around at him. Suddenly the mist wasn’t just pouring into him, it was surging, and I swear it actually looked gleeful. At the centre of the room, Garrick had recovered. He lined up on me and fired a three-round burst.

As he did, Luna pulled at the guard, struggling to get away. The guard tripped and staggered, swinging between me and Garrick.

The guard saw the danger and tried to dodge, and Garrick was already pulling his aim away, yet somehow the two went in exactly the same direction. All three bullets hit, going through the man’s head in a spray of gore. He dragged Luna down with him, dead before he hit the ground.

For an instant everyone stopped, staring at the corpse that a second ago had been a living person. Garrick looked genuinely surprised for the first time I’d seen. Even if you know what Luna’s curse is supposed to do, it’s another thing to see it.

Then Belthas looked at me. “Kill him.”

His hand was coming up, blue light starting to glow around it, and I knew what was coming. I threw myself into the tunnel just as a wall of blue-white ice shimmered into existence, barely missing me and sealing off the tunnel entrance. A heartbeat later I heard the muffled bark of guns, and the ice wall shuddered as impacts spiderwebbed across its other side.

I could hear distant shouting: Belthas giving orders to his men. As I watched, the ice wall shuddered again as more bullets struck it. A fracture went through it from top to bottom with a crack. Luna was on the other side of that barrier, along with Belthas and his men. And in a few seconds more, the barrier would be gone.

I turned and ran, down into the darkness.

chapter 8

I run away a lot. It’s something you have to learn if you work alone and have a habit of finding trouble. Against these kind of odds—Belthas, Garrick, Meredith, Martin, and a dozen armed men on one side, and me on the other—staying to fight isn’t much different from suicide. I have absolutely no pride when it comes to combat. Running like a squirrel doesn’t bother me at all.

But leaving someone behind does. I’d been gambling that Luna and I could both make it out and now we’d been separated everything fell apart. I wanted to go back and help her, but there was nothing I could do against so many. Worse, as soon as Belthas realised I was there, he could threaten to hurt Luna unless I surrendered, and I knew he’d do it.

All I could think was to go deeper into the tunnels. Looking into the future, I could see that some came to dead ends, but others went down and down into darkness. If I was able to get deep enough, and if Belthas sent his men down after me, and if I could hide and let them go by and double back towards the entrance, and if Belthas hadn’t left enough men to guard Luna …

It was a desperate plan, the biggest flaw being that I didn’t have any equipment. I’d left my mist cloak back at my flat, and checking my pockets I found everything else had been taken. Within a few minutes the sounds behind me had died away and I came to a stop, looking into the futures ahead of me and hoping for some luck.

I didn’t get it. After only a minute I heard the sounds of movement again, this time in greater numbers. Belthas had gotten organised and he was sending every man he had down into the tunnels, sweeping each passage methodically from end to end. Looking into the future, I saw with a sinking heart that hiding wasn’t going to work. All I could do was back away deeper into the darkness.

The tunnels went down and just kept on going. It was pitch-black and sight was useless; only my divination magic kept me from tripping and falling. To begin with I kept trying to find a place to hide, but as Belthas’s men pursued me deeper and deeper I realised it would be all I could do to simply get away.

I don’t know how long that chase went on. It felt like hours, but deep beneath the earth there was no way to tell. The tunnels were solid rock, worn smooth, and they carried sounds of movement oddly. From time to time I’d hear the sound of Belthas’s men but at other times they’d fall ominously silent, and that spurred me on all the more. I didn’t let myself think of Luna or Arachne or Belthas or Meredith. All I knew was that to stop was to die.

As time passed the journey began to feel like a nightmare, one of those dreams where you run and run but never get away. Again and again I would stop and wait, hoping I’d lost them, and every time as soon as I stopped I would hear the distant echo of the men on my tail. It grew warmer as we went deeper and the air grew close. I kept staring blindly into the darkness, trying uselessly to see, until at last I shut my eyes and forced myself to rely on my magic. The only sound was my footsteps on the rock and the distant noise of Belthas’s men.

By the time I finally lost them, I was too exhausted to notice. The slipping, clambering path down the tunnels had drained my energy to the point where all I could think about was the next tunnel, and the next, and the next. I kept going, one ear open for the sounds of pursuit. Gradually I realised I couldn’t hear them anymore.

I stopped at last in a narrow, branching corridor and leant against the wall. My shirt was damp with sweat and I stripped off my jumper, tying it around my waist, before holding my breath and listening for a slow count of sixty. Nothing. I looked into the future and realised no one was coming. I was alone.

I’ve never liked being underground. Air’s more my element, even if I’m not close enough to it to use its magic; I like being high, able to see. Here beneath the earth, I felt tense, on edge. The air felt different: dry and stuffy. I could imagine the thousands of tons of earth and rock above me pressing silently down, and I forced myself to stay calm.

I think the only thing that stopped me from losing it was knowing I could find my way back. I was lost of course—there was no way I could have marked my passage in that flight, and the pitch-black tunnels would have turned me around in seconds. But as long as I have my magic, I can never stay lost. With enough time, I can always find the path.

Except in this case, the path led to about fifteen angry men with guns. I took stock of my position. No food, no water, no equipment, no friends. I had three choices: stay here, go forward, or go back.

In the end I went forward. It wasn’t so much a choice as a lack of one. I’ve been in a lot of really bad situations over the years and one of the small consolations is that you don’t have to worry much about consequences anymore.

The upper levels had had open chambers and rooms, which had narrowed down into twisting passages as I’d descended. Now, as I kept walking, I noticed that the passages were starting to open out again. They’d stopped sloping down, which was some consolation, but I knew I still had to be far beneath the surface. The tunnels would have to climb back up a very long way to reach another exit, which I was frankly starting to believe was pretty unlikely.

After a while—I couldn’t say how long—I became vaguely aware that something was different. I was making steady progress but it was getting harder to see what was coming. The corridors and passages were fuzzier, more difficult to tell apart. I felt as though I was walking down a long, straight tunnel but when I looked again I thought I saw a fork. I looked again and saw a T junction. Then I couldn’t see any tunnel at all.

I slowed and scanned around me. I was in a large chamber. No, not large—huge. I looked back, disoriented, trying to figure out where I’d left the tunnel, and realised there was no tunnel. There was nothing around me but open space. I stopped and heard my footsteps fade into the distance. They didn’t echo.

I was standing in a vast cavern. The walls were ragged and irregular but their edges were smooth. The colour of the stone ranged from grey to brown, and in places I could see the dull glint of crystal. A moment later I realised that I was able to see. There was no light, yet everything was visible.

Slowly I began to walk again, and as I did I noticed that something was wrong with the perspective in this place. Distances didn’t seem right, somehow. At first glance I’d thought the cavern was maybe a few hundred yards, but as I walked I realised it was taking far too long to reach the centre. The place was miles and miles wide, the roof so far above I couldn’t even see it. At the centre were craggy rock formations, and as I kept walking, they grew larger and larger until I realised that they were the size of hills. There was an entire mountain range at the centre of this place, curled around where I was standing, rising at the centre in a line of jagged peaks and descending on either side to form the shape of a crescent moon. To my left the mountains trailed away to a smooth point, while to my right they ended in a massive rock formation like a mesa.

The mesa rose into the air.

I stopped dead. The mesa was high off the ground, supported at an angle by a titanic pillar of rock. As I watched, it swung in my direction, crossing the miles between us with a kind of lazy grace. The mesa came to rest in front of me, towering over me like a skyscraper while I stood motionless.

Then the mesa opened its eyes.

It wasn’t a mesa. It was a head. The pillar of rock was a long, serpentine neck. And what I’d thought was a mountain range was the thing’s body. Two enormous eyes, each the size of a castle, focused on where I stood. They looked like rough-cut diamonds, with no pupils I could see.

I stood very still. Piece by piece, I slowly realised what my eyes had seen but my brain had refused to put together. The mountain range was a body, the folded hills beneath them two legs. The line of peaks was the ridge on its back and the trailing edge of mountains to my left was a long, serpentine tail. But it was the head that held my attention. It was long and wedge-shaped, the two eyes set far back before a pair of swept-back horns each the size of a tower, with two nostrils set at the front. Now that it had turned to face me, it was completely still. If I hadn’t seen it move, I would have thought it was some impossible rock formation.

The dragon watched me, silent and unblinking.

“Um,” I said. “Hi.”

It was, looking back on it, a pretty stupid way to introduce myself.

“Um, sorry to bother you,” I said. The creature before me didn’t react, and I raised my voice a little. “Didn’t mean to intrude.”

The dragon stared at me. I don’t know much about dragons. Nobody really does. Maybe it couldn’t hear me, any more than a human can hear an ant. I began to back off. “I’ll just leave you in peace—”

STAY.

The voice went through me as though I were hearing it with my whole body. It felt like an earthquake, thunder through distant caverns. I stopped.

ARACHNE.

I hesitated. “Yes?”

YOU WILL AID HER.

I hesitated again, trying to figure out what to say. It didn’t sound like an order. It was more like a statement. “I’m going to,” I said at last. “If I can.”

The dragon watched me silently. “Okay,” I said slowly. “Arachne’s above. She’s in her lair. She’s hurt.”

I waited for an answer. Nothing came.

“Can you go to her?” I said at last.

The dragon didn’t answer. I didn’t know what was going on. “If I brought Arachne here, could you help her?”

YES.

“Is there, uh … any way you could help me with that?”

The dragon reared its head back, opening its mouth like a chasm. There were teeth inside, glinting dully. One of its enormous front claws rose up out of the earth and broke off a tooth with a thunderclap. Then the claw descended towards me.

I would have fled then if I could. One brush from that claw would turn me into a bloody smear. I knew I couldn’t possibly get away but my instincts shouted at me to run anyway … and yet I couldn’t move. All I could do was watch that claw descend, bigger and bigger—

The claw was gone. The dragon was back as it had been. Its enormous diamond eyes watched me. GO.

Darkness.

I was lying on stone, face down. It was pitch-black, and the air was warm. I was back in the tunnels.

I sat up, searching around me with my divination magic, watching the futures of myself exploring. I was in a small tunnel with a smooth floor. One end sloped upwards slightly and I had the feeling it led back the way I had come. There was no cavern nearby, and looking into the futures, there was nothing like it within my range. It didn’t seem to exist.

I shook my head, disoriented. My memories of the cavern felt hazy, confused, and didn’t seem to make sense. Had it been real? Or a dream, my mind playing tricks from exhaustion?

Either way, I’d been down here for hours. The tunnels felt dead, empty. If Belthas’s men had been going to search this far, they would have caught up to me by now; they must have given up and gone back. Looking into the future, I couldn’t see any sign that the tunnels ahead were going to start sloping back up towards ground level. I turned and began retracing my steps.

It took a long time, but even so the way back was easier. Now I wasn’t in a panicked rush, I could see the tunnels weren’t as complex as I’d thought. There were only one or two main pathways, with the occasional side passage and dead end. The tunnels followed a single primary route, two or three times my height and much wider.

I kept to a steady pace, narrowing my visions down to only the next few seconds, focusing on my footing and my precognition. As I walked I thought about what I should do. Belthas had to be long gone; I couldn’t imagine him setting up camp in Arachne’s lair. If I was lucky he’d given up on me and sealed the cave, maybe with a booby trap or two. That would cause problems but I could deal with it. If I was unlucky he’d left guards, in which case … well, I’d just have to come up with something.

When the first sliver of light appeared, I almost didn’t recognise it; I’d been navigating by sound and touch so long I’d forgotten to use my eyes. As I drew closer I saw it was the reflected glow of the lights in Arachne’s lair. There were hollow caves around here, used as rooms; at a quick glance they held bales of thread and cloth. I was only two turnings away from the lair itself and I knew I had to be silent. Quietly, I moved forward to the T junction that led into the lair. My eyes weren’t yet accustomed to the light, and even the dim reflections off the rock were enough to dazzle me. I didn’t poke my head out; instead I stood with my hand on the rocky wall and looked into the future of me doing so.

It wasn’t my lucky day. It wasn’t really luck of course; it was that Belthas was so bloody thorough. But it was still hard to take. After everything I’d gone through this night I really needed a break, and I wasn’t getting one.

There was good news, bad news, and worse news. The good news, and the biggest surprise, was that Arachne was still in the lair, motionless in the corner, and as far as I could tell she didn’t seem to have been touched. I didn’t understand why Belthas would leave her here after going to so much trouble to get her but I wasn’t going to question it.

The bad news was that four of Belthas’s men were there too. They’d gathered the sofas and chairs at the centre of the room, giving themselves some cover and creating a killing ground in front of the entrances. One was watching the tunnels; a second seemed to be napping; the third was back at the mouth of the tunnel leading out onto the Heath, leaning against the wall. He was smoking and I could smell the cigarette from all the way across the room.

The worse news was that the fourth man was Garrick. He was tucked away behind the barricade, almost invisible behind one of the sofas. He looked to be settled comfortably, but even so, his weapon was propped up and levelled at exactly the space I’d need to cross to leave the tunnel. He looked half asleep but I knew he wasn’t.

I looked to see what would happen if I moved out. Hopeless. If I didn’t get shot down in the first few steps, there were explosives of some kind planted near the tunnel mouth, hidden so I wouldn’t see them before they tore me apart. And if I could get past that—which frankly, I didn’t think I could—I’d be in the middle of an open room with four men shooting at me. Even with my mist cloak I didn’t think I could have made it.

I took stock of what I had. My items were gone. About the only advantage I had was surprise—Garrick and his men couldn’t know for sure whether I was coming back, and they could have been waiting for hours. There were clothes and materials back in the caves behind me. I couldn’t think of any way in which they could help but maybe—

“Coming?” Garrick asked.

The man who’d been napping came awake with a start, and the other two raised their weapons, looking around.

I sighed. So much for surprise.

“He’s around the corner,” Garrick said.

The man who’d been on lookout peered up towards the entrance. “Wait, so—”

“Stay put,” Garrick said.

“What’s the matter, Garrick?” I said. I felt the men aim their weapons at the tunnel mouth, tracking my voice, and I got ready to run. “Losing your nerve?”

I felt Garrick smile. “What’s the rush?”

One of the men, thinking I couldn’t see him, started to creep forward, his feet soft against the floor. Garrick looked at him. The man drew back.

“So,” I said when they didn’t make a move. “Four men with guns, explosives round the door, all just for me.”

“Five,” Garrick said. “One’s posted outside.”

“Five,” I said. “I’m flattered.”

“Belthas thought it was over the top,” Garrick said. “I talked him into it.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Oh, before you get any ideas, those mines have a remote trigger this time.”

I checked and verified what he’d said. Garrick’s finger was probably on the trigger right now. “You don’t think this is a bit excessive?”

“Consider it a compliment,” Garrick said amiably. “You’ve gotten away from me before.”

“Right,” I said. It hadn’t been by much, either. “You’re quite a marksman, by the way.”

“I keep my hand in,” Garrick said. “Didn’t know diviners could dodge like that.”

“The ones who can’t tend not to live very long.”

The men had settled down again, their weapons ready and aimed, listening to the conversation. “So since you aren’t having another try,” I said, “I’m guessing shooting me isn’t your primary goal.”

“Nope.”

“So you’re doing what?” I said. “Playing rear guard?”

“Something like that.”

“You know, there’s something I’m curious about,” I said. “When I first met you, you were doing a job for Talisid. Then you were working for Belthas. Then Belthas said you were working for Levistus. Now you’re working for Belthas again?”

Garrick waited with an expression of mild inquiry. “So?” I said when he didn’t answer.

“So?”

“Who do you actually work for?”

“Depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“Who’s paying.”

“You mean three different people were paying you to do three different things?”

“I’m freelance.”

“Wait a second,” I said. “You were working with Belthas at the start. So you must have been with Belthas at the factory for that fight with Deleo and Cinder over the barghest. Then Talisid paid you again to go back to the same factory to kill the same barghest?”

“Yep.”

“And you didn’t think to mention that it was already dead?”

“Client confidentiality.”

“No wonder you were so bloody relaxed,” I muttered. “So you work for whoever pays you?”

“Hey, fuck this guy,” the man who’d wanted to go after me said.

“Shut up, Mick,” Garrick said. “Yep.”

“Okay. I’ll pay you and your men twice what Belthas is paying you to switch sides.”

I thought I felt some of the men glance at each other. “Sorry,” Garrick said. “Under contract.”

“So what? Once you’re bought, you stay bought?”

“Yep.”

“An honest mercenary,” I said under my breath. “Great.” I raised my voice. “What about the rest of you?”

“Same answer,” Garrick said before the other men could speak. “Because they’re such loyal, trustworthy people. And because they wouldn’t live to spend the money if they said yes.”

This time I definitely wasn’t imagining the glances. Okay, so that wasn’t going to work.

I sat and thought for a minute. “So what’s the idea?” I said at last. “You’re just going to sit there and wait?”

“Yep.”

“You know there are other ways out, right?” I said. I was fairly sure there weren’t, but I was also fairly sure Garrick didn’t know one way or the other.

“Could be,” Garrick agreed.

“And you’re not going to stop me finding them?”

“Nope.”

“You know, for someone with a five-to-one advantage and all the weapons,” I said, “you’re very cautious.”

“We’re not coming after you, Verus,” Garrick said. “Don’t get me wrong, I could take you. But one thing I’ve learnt about you, you’re really good at running away. Five’s not enough to find you. But it’s enough to stop you getting out.”

“This way.”

“This way. But if you’d found another one, I don’t think you’d be here chatting.”

I was hoping he wouldn’t realise that. “So how long are you going to wait?”

“Few days should do it,” Garrick said. “These are dry caves. No water. You’ll be dead from dehydration by then.”

I didn’t answer.

“Or you make a break,” Garrick said. “Be interesting to see if you can dodge a mine blast.” He bent down to check something, then returned to his position. “Or you give yourself up. Your call.”

I stayed silent. I couldn’t think of a smart answer this time. I’d been sweating and I was already thirsty. There weren’t any supplies in the storerooms. I didn’t know how long I could last without water. I was pretty sure it was a lot shorter than Garrick was willing to wait.

Divination magic lets you avoid a lot of things. But it’s no use against thirst. It doesn’t do too well against a firing range filled with land mines, either.

I withdrew back down the tunnel. I knew that Garrick and the men were still waiting, their weapons trained on the entrance. I sat down and tried to think.

I could do what I’d threatened and go back down the tunnel, looking for another way out, but I had the feeling it was a bad idea. It was just possible I’d missed a passage somewhere on the way down, but if I tried a search and failed I might be too weak to do anything else.

Or I could use the supplies in the caves and hope to get past the blockade. I tried to think of some way in which a large pile of clothes could bypass a minefield and several armed men and came up blank.

In the end I did what I usually do. I looked into the future to see what would happen. Maybe Garrick’s men would go away or they’d be called off or …

…Wait, what? What was he doing here?

…That could work.

I waited a while, then went back up to the tunnel mouth. I didn’t try to stay quiet this time and I knew before I got there that all the men were looking at the tunnel, their weapons ready. The man at the tunnel leading back out into the Heath was still smoking. “Hey, Garrick,” I said.

“Yep.”

“I want you to know I actually kind of respect you. You do a job and you’re obviously very good at it. You’re more dangerous than most mages.”

“That’s nice,” Garrick said.

“So, out of professional courtesy, I’ll give you a warning. You should leave. If you don’t, all of your men are going to be killed and you might be too.”

“I’ll pass,” Garrick said.

I shifted my position so I could see down the tunnel. The men were focused on my location; they couldn’t see me in the shadows but they could hear the movement. Even the guard at the back was squinting at me. “Okay, one last question. If I told you someone was coming up behind you, and that you ought to stop paying attention to me and aim your guns somewhere else, would you listen?”

“No.”

“Good.”

There was a red flash and a whoompf from the far end of the cavern. Garrick and the other two spun, their weapons coming around.

The guard next to the exit had been holding a lit cigarette. The cigarette was still lit, along with the rest of him: His body was a blackened corpse, blazing fiercely on the floor. He’d been incinerated so fast he hadn’t had a chance to scream. A second later, the fire extinguished itself in a hiss and a cloud of choking smoke. The smoke spread, forming an opaque bank that started swallowing up the far end of the cavern.

The two other guards opened up with their weapons. No controlled bursts this time; I could hear the chattering ratatatatat of panic fire, the bullets zipping into the smoke. One of the guards advanced towards the grey cloud, firing as he went. He was about fifteen feet from the edge when a column of flame roared out, washing over him and setting him alight. He went down screaming.

Garrick aimed for where the flame had come from and fired three quick bursts, the shots forming a spread. The guard next to him lost his cool, flicked the selector on his SMG and started blazing away on full auto. Bullets ripped through the smoke, whining and bouncing off the walls, the chatter and roar filling the cavern. He emptied his magazine in only a few seconds and started fumbling for a reload. Garrick slapped his hand down with a snarl. “Stop it! You’re giving away—”

Something came flying out of the smoke. I got only a glimpse of it; it looked like a glowing ball of dull red light. Garrick reacted instantly, diving out of the barricade and rolling. The other man stared in confusion as the sphere dropped next to him and exploded with a noise that sounded like a giant cough. Smouldering bits of furniture went flying, along with what was left of the guard.

Garrick came to his feet. He’d discarded his rifle but kept hold of something else. I couldn’t see what it was but I knew what it did and as he pushed the button I ducked back. There was a echoing boom as the mines around the tunnel entrances all went off at once. Shrapnel and projectiles flew, snapping and whining off the walls. I heard the sound of running feet, followed by the roar of fire magic. There was another explosion, this one not so loud as the mines but lower pitched, making the stone tremble beneath my feet. A moment later came a groan, followed by the rumbling crash of falling rock.

And then there was silence.

Cautiously, I walked out into the lair. The stone around the tunnel entrance was blackened where the mines had gone off, and shrapnel clinked under my feet. I could make out the shape of Arachne to my right, obscured by the smoke.

The smoke began to clear, revealing a man. Red light flickered around his hands, which faded as I watched. He was as tall as me and heavily built, and until a few minutes ago, he’d been the last person I’d expected to see. He spoke in a rumbling voice. “Debt’s paid.”

I looked at Cinder thoughtfully. “Yeah,” I said. “I guess it is.”

Cinder looked from side to side, scanning the chamber. All three guards were dead; two were still burning. Arachne’s lair looked like a bomb site, and what was left of the clothes and furniture had been thoroughly trashed. The side tunnel leading to the storerooms had collapsed in a heap of rubble. “Garrick?” I asked.

“Who?”

“The last man.”

Cinder tilted his head in the direction of the sealed tunnel. “Might have got him.”

I nodded; Garrick must have mined the side tunnels as well, as a last-ditch escape route. I didn’t know if he was under that rubble or on the other side but at least we didn’t have to deal with him for a while. “How’d you find us?”

In answer, Cinder turned towards the tunnel leading out onto the Heath. “Clear.”

We waited for a moment, then through the clearing smoke I saw a small figure emerge from the tunnel. He nearly trod on the remains of the guard, shied away, and circled the body, covering his mouth. By the time he was halfway across the room I recognised who he was.

“Um,” Sonder said once he’d reached us. “Hi.” He looked from Cinder to me. “I thought you could use some help.”

The explanations took a while.

Sonder told his story first. When I’d failed to check in, Sonder had tried calling me and then Luna. When neither of us answered, he figured something had happened and went to the Heath to find out what. Upon seeing Belthas’s guards at Arachne’s lair, he did the smart thing and went for reinforcements.

The Council, needless to say, was a washout. First they gave Sonder the runaround, and when he persisted they hinted strongly that he’d be better off minding his own business. Instead of giving up, Sonder looked at the situation logically and decided that since the Light mages weren’t being helpful, he might as well try the Dark ones. Cinder had been sort-of-allies with me before, and once again he and I seemed to have a common enemy. So Sonder rang Cinder, and as luck would have it, Cinder answered. Looking back on it, I wonder if I’m setting the kid a bad example.

Sonder skated over the exact details of the conversation, which I have to admit I was morbidly curious about. Once they’d gotten past their mutual mistrust, though, it didn’t take them long to strike a deal. Cinder wanted to find Deleo, Sonder wanted to find me and Luna, and there was only one place to start looking. Sonder led Cinder to Arachne’s lair and the rest was history.

“There was another guard outside,” I remembered.

“Yeah,” Sonder said. He looked uncomfortable, and I noticed he was carefully avoiding looking at the bodies. “Cinder … dealt with him.”

“Well.” I looked at Cinder. “I guess I’m not who you were hoping to find, but thanks anyway.”

“Where’s Del?” Cinder rumbled.

“Belthas has her.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.” I looked at Cinder. “We team up until Belthas is dealt with or either of us quits. No hostilities until twenty-four hours after that. Deal?”

Cinder nodded. “Deal. How do we find Del?”

“By finding Belthas.”

“Is Luna back there?” Sonder asked.

I sighed. “No.” I hated having to admit it: Even though there was nothing else I could have done, knowing that I’d left her behind hurt. “Belthas took her.” Sonder’s face fell.

“So where is he?” Cinder said.

It occurred to me that Cinder was going to be difficult to deal with. He was brutally straightforward and would remain steady only as long as he could see what to do. Now that Belthas’s men were dead Cinder had no obvious direction, and if things stayed that way he was going to get frustrated quickly. “They worked for Belthas,” I said, looking at the remains. “Maybe they’ll have something that’ll show us where to go.”

Cinder thought about it for a few seconds. “Fine,” he said grudgingly. “I’ll loot the bodies for you.”

Sonder looked at the smoking scorched things that had been Belthas’s men and flinched visibly. “You mean …”

“Relax, Light-boy,” Cinder said, already turning away. “Don’t have to get your hands dirty.”

“Sonder, I need you to look back at what happened,” I said. “Belthas was here, along with Luna and Martin. Find out what they talked about and see if you can track them.”

Sonder nodded and turned away, his eyes unfocusing. Reluctantly, I turned towards Arachne. I needed to figure out how to help her before Cinder’s patience ran out.

Odds are you’ve never tried to give a giant spider a medical checkup. In case you’re wondering, it’s really hard. It’s not like you can take their pulse, and dealing with the fact that they have their skeleton on the outside of their bodies is weird enough on its own. After ten minutes’ examination, I’d managed to conclude that Arachne was alive, which I’d known already.

Figuring out what Belthas had done was easier. There was a short rod embedded at the back of Arachne’s body in her … neck? Back? Thorax? Whatever it’s called. The thing was about twelve inches long and made out of some iridescent purple metal that caught the light. It was a powerful focus with an active spell working through it. As far as I could tell, it was linked to something else, probably an identical focus with a similarity effect joining them. At the moment the spell was stable. It wasn’t draining Arachne’s magic or life force but she wasn’t getting any better either.

I ran my hand along Arachne’s back, feeling the stiff hairs brush against my fingers. There was something terribly depressing about seeing her like this. Ever since I first met her, Arachne’s always been one of the few stable points in my world, wise and strong. Having her still and lifeless felt wrong, and I couldn’t help wondering if this was my fault. If I’d dealt with Luna better, figured it out earlier …

“Hey,” Cinder called. I turned to see something flying towards me and caught it one-handed. I’d been standing on a battered sofa to get a better look and had to sway to keep my balance. I took a look and saw that it was a touch-screen phone. “What’s up?”

“Password.”

The phone had a password lock. I took thirty seconds and cracked it, then skimmed through the call and message history. The phone had belonged to Mick, aka Michael, and had apparently survived the blast that had killed its owner. I put it in my pocket.

“So?” Cinder said.

“Belthas took my phone. I need a new one.”

Cinder gave me a look.

“There’s nothing there,” I said. “Any luck?”

Cinder gestured at the pile of guns at his feet. The five men had been carrying enough weapons to stock an armoury: submachine guns, pistols, grenades, clips and boxes of ammunition, knives, radios, coils of wire, and what looked like plastic explosive. It was enough to fight a small war—unfortunately, at the moment, it was also completely useless.

I looked at the iridescent metal rod. “Know what this is?”

Cinder walked forward and squinted. “Yeah,” he said after a moment.

“You and Deleo got them from that mage, didn’t you?” I said. “Jadan or whatever his name was. The guy who came up with this bloody ritual.”

“Yeah.”

“How do they work?”

“Dunno.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Got his materials. Didn’t know how to use them.”

I sighed. “It’s just like last time, isn’t it? You guys never understand what you’re messing with but you do it anyway.”

“Would have been fine if you’d let us kill that enchantress.”

“Yeah, well, maybe if you and Deleo had done a bit less collateral damage I wouldn’t have gotten involved.”

“No.”

“No what?”

“Wasn’t why you were helping her.”

I looked at him. “How would you know?”

“She acted sexy and vulnerable and made you feel good,” Cinder said. “So you trusted her. Right?”

I was silent.

Cinder shook his head contemptuously. “Idiot.”

The sound of footsteps made us look up to see Sonder emerge from the tunnel out onto the Heath. Cinder walked away. “Sorry,” Sonder said as he approached. “He made a gate but I couldn’t see through the shroud.”

I nodded. “And in here?”

“They left three hours ago,” Sonder said. “Belthas, twelve men, Martin, and that woman. They had Luna.” He didn’t look happy. “Martin was dragging her.”

I thought about Luna and how she must be feeling. She’d trusted Martin and thought him a friend, probably in the hope he’d become a lot more, and he’d betrayed her in the worst way possible. Then there was the question of what Belthas would do with her or if she was even still— I shook my head and pushed the thought away. I needed to focus.

“Can you take it out?” Sonder asked.

I looked up to see that Sonder was pointing at the rod in Arachne’s back. “Not without killing her,” I said. “And even if I could, I don’t have the first clue how to fix whatever Belthas did.”

“I think it was a paralysis spell,” Sonder said. “I only saw bits of it but …”

I nodded. Ice mages are good at that sort of thing. Sonder looked at Arachne’s motionless body. “Could we get someone to heal her?”

“Maybe,” I said doubtfully. I stuck my hands into my pockets. “We’d have to—”

I stopped. There was something in my pocket and I drew it out. It was the fang of some enormous creature, made of some kind of grey stone, heavy and warm and eight inches from base to tip. It was a magical item and a powerful one. I’d never seen it before. I’d checked my pockets just after escaping Belthas and they’d been empty. How had it … ?

“Wow,” Sonder said. He was staring wide-eyed. “What is that?”

“A gate,” I said. I realised I knew the command word. And it would take me to … “Holy crap,” I said quietly. “It was real.”

“Where does it lead?”

“To someone who could fix her.” I looked to see what would happen if I used it and saw that the fang would cut through the gate wards easily. For a one-shot item, it was incredibly powerful. “It’s designed to take two people,” I said. “User and one other … Crap.” As I looked at the consequences, my heart sank. The spell on Arachne was tied into her life force. Gating her would break the spell and sabotage Belthas’s ritual—but it would be fatal for Arachne.

Sonder looked at Arachne. “Can you—?”

I shook my head. “Moving her while that thing’s active will kill her.” As I thought about it, though, my spirits rose a little. “But now we’ve got a way to help her. Just got to figure out how.”

“Why’s it alive?” Cinder said from behind me.

I didn’t take my eyes off the fang. “She’s not an ‘it.’”

“Why’s she alive?”

“Because Belthas wants to use her for your damn ritual.”

“So why’s she alive?”

“Because—” I said, then stopped as I realised what Cinder was getting at. The ritual killed its target—I knew that already. So why had Belthas left Arachne here?

Because she couldn’t be moved. The spell stopped me from moving her but it would stop Belthas from moving her too. The obvious thing for Belthas to do would have been to have completed the ritual here, already. But he hadn’t, which must mean he wasn’t ready. Maybe Garrick hadn’t been there to stop me from escaping. Maybe Belthas had stationed him there to make sure nobody touched Arachne.

“He’s going to do the ritual somewhere else,” I said. I turned to Cinder. “Deleo knew bits of it, didn’t she?”

Cinder shrugged. “Bits.”

I nodded to myself. “That was why Belthas needed her alive. He won’t try the ritual until he’s absolutely sure it’ll work.”

Cinder looked at me sharply. “So he still needs Del.”

“Yeah. And he’ll probably keep hold of Luna too.” I saw Sonder perk up.

Cinder nodded. “Okay. We kill it.”

“What?”

“Ritual needs a live target.” Cinder gestured to Arachne. “Kill it, he has to find another. Gives us more time.”

I stepped between Arachne and Cinder, glaring at him. “No.”

“Going to be dead anyway,” Cinder pointed out.

“We are not touching her.” I stared Cinder in the eye. “You want Deleo. Fine. I’ll help. But you don’t touch any of my friends.”

Cinder met my gaze. There was a considering look in his eyes and I knew what he was thinking. I’m no match for Cinder. If he decided to kill Arachne, I wouldn’t be able to stop him.

Then Cinder shrugged. “Got a plan?”

I thought quickly. “Belthas doesn’t know what’s happened yet. We track him down and take him by surprise while he’s got his hands full with the ritual. Shut it down from the other end. We take Luna and come back here to transport Arachne. You take Deleo and go wherever you like.”

Cinder thought about it for a little while. “How long?” he said at last.

“Until what?”

Cinder gestured to Arachne. “Look and see.”

It’s easy to make the mistake of thinking Cinder’s stupid. He’s slow and deliberate but he’d seen the obvious point I’d missed: by looking into the future to see when Arachne was going to die, we could learn when Belthas was going to finish the ritual. I looked forward and saw the point at which energy would crackle over Arachne, drawing away her magic and with it her life. I looked away quickly. “Five hours.”

Cinder nodded. “You’ve got four and a half. Then I kill her before he does.”

We left Arachne’s lair so Cinder could gate us back. I felt better as soon as I was out in the fresh air, and I saw Sonder taking deep breaths, the colour returning to his face. Burnt flesh has a horrible smell, like charred beef but with a nauseating sweetness, thick and putrid and rich. It smells like nothing on earth and you never forget it. Cinder hadn’t shown any reaction. I guess he’s used to it.

Cinder gated us to the park near my home and we walked the rest of the way. It was the early hours of the morning, and Camden was as quiet as it ever got. My new phone told me it was two A.M.; it had been seven hours since I’d gotten Sonder’s call. It felt like more.

The first thing I did once I got home was take a shower. It cost precious time but I needed to think clearly and having my body caked with sweat was a distraction. As I stood under the falling water, I tried to figure out how to find Belthas and stop him from killing Arachne before Cinder did.

I came out of the shower and dressed in combat trousers, a T-shirt, a jumper, and old dark trainers. I filled my pockets with any items I thought would help, then opened my wardrobe and took out my mist cloak. I stroked it affectionately, feeling the soft cloth ripple under my touch, grateful I hadn’t worn it to Arachne’s lair—though I doubt it would have obeyed Belthas anyway. Imbued items choose their owners. I pulled it around my shoulders and walked out.

It was very weird to see Cinder in my living room. The armchair he’d picked seemed too small for his bulk, and a cup of tea sat untasted on the coffee table before him. Sonder was pacing the carpet. “Trace the rods,” Cinder suggested in his rumbling voice.

Sonder shook his head. “It’s a sympathetic link. There’s no trail to follow.”

“He’ll have wards anyway,” I said. I crossed the room to stare through the doors onto the balcony. A few lonely lights still shone in the windows of the buildings opposite, but everything else was dark. The night had clouded over, and there was no moon.

“Where would Belthas have taken them?” Sonder asked. He looked on edge, harried.

“A sanctum,” I said. I was sure of it. “He won’t do something this important except somewhere he feels absolutely safe.”

“Get your elemental to find it,” Cinder said.

“I can’t,” I said sadly. “I blew up my caller getting away from Belthas.” It hurt more than I’d thought it would. Without that focus I didn’t have any way of contacting Starbreeze, and only now she was gone did I realise how much I’d depended on her. Starbreeze had always been my ace in the hole, the one I turned to when everything else failed. Losing that safety net all of a sudden was frightening.

“Okay, look,” Sonder said. “Someone has to know where Belthas is hiding. Let’s call up everyone we know.”

I nodded, trying to look confident. It was worth a try, even if I didn’t really think it would work.

It didn’t. There were only a few mages I trusted enough to call in this situation, and at this hour many didn’t answer. Those who did were willing to help but they didn’t know anything this specific. With enough time I could dig it up … but time was something we didn’t have.

Sonder and Cinder didn’t have any more success. I saw Cinder glance at the time as he hung up from another call and I checked it as well, unobtrusively. Three hours left. I gritted my teeth. I wasn’t going to let it end this way.

“We could try his office …” Sonder said again.

I shook my head. “First place I looked. He’s not there.”

“There might be some leads.”

“And a bunch of security systems. We don’t have time to get caught up fighting them.”

Sonder turned away in frustration. “There has to be someone.”

I was about to answer when I realised what Sonder had just said. “There is,” I said slowly, my mind jumping ahead. “There’s someone who’d know. Luna.”

Sonder looked at me, puzzled. “But we can’t—”

“I can,” I said, thinking fast. “Cinder, I need you to gate back to Arachne’s lair and get those weapons. Bring as many as you can carry. Then get some of your own. I’ve got the feeling we’re going to need all the firepower we can get.”

Cinder tilted his head, shrugged, and walked out.

“Sonder, come with me.” I walked into my bedroom, Sonder following. I lowered the lights, then lay down on the my bed, carefully arranging the cloak under me. “Wake me in an hour,” I said. “If I don’t wake up … well, you’ll have to improvise.”

Sonder looked confused for a second, then his eyes went wide. “Wait, you’re going there?”

“Shh,” I said quietly. It was hard to relax but I knew I had to. Turning my head to one side, I could see the blinking lights of my alarm clock. Two hours fifty minutes. I closed my eyes, willing myself to sleep and beyond. The cloak seemed to help, soft and drowsy. I felt my mind slipping away. My last thought was to hope Cinder had shut the door behind him.

chapter 9

It’s not difficult to reach Elsewhere. It doesn’t even take magic, though most people think it does. It usually takes newcomers a few tries, but once you’ve done it, you can always go back. Travelling there the first time seems to set up some kind of bond that lets you always feel it in your thoughts, somewhere in the twilight between waking and dreams.

Leaving Elsewhere … well. That can be a little harder.

I’ve been to Elsewhere but I don’t understand it. On past journeys I’ve done things on instinct and had them work without knowing how or why. One of the few things I’m sure of is that Elsewhere changes depending on who comes to it. When I visit Elsewhere, it always takes the same form: a great, silent city, plazas and colonnades and high walkways bathed in bright white light. Empty but not dead, only sleeping.

But this time would be different. As I looked into the futures of travelling to Elsewhere, I knew Luna was there already; I’d known as soon as I’d looked into the futures of travelling there. The stories say that there’s nothing dangerous in Elsewhere except what you bring with you—but that can be more than enough. The Elsewhere I was about to see would be one shaped by Luna. I didn’t know what it would be like but I was about to find out.

I opened my eyes.

I was standing in a maze of crystal passages, all alike. The walls pressed in around me but I wasn’t underground; by craning my neck upwards, I could glimpse sky. As I looked around I realised I was in a network of canyons, crooked and twisted. The walls, rocks, and even the ground were translucent crystal. The sky above was overcast and grey, thick clouds blocking out the sun, yet somehow, even down here in the canyons, there was enough light to see clearly. Distant whispers echoed through the passages, seeming to form words just on the edge of hearing.

I turned slowly, studying the landscape around me. I didn’t sense any danger, but it wasn’t comfortable, either. Somehow I had the feeling I wasn’t welcome here. I started walking, my footsteps echoing about the ravines.

The first time I came to Elsewhere I was nearly lost forever. Geography doesn’t work as it does in our world and not even divination magic can help you if you’re led astray. Everything is different in Elsewhere, and what’s strong outside can be weak within. The same sources of strength and power we rely on in our world still function here … but somehow they never seem to work the way you want them to. I didn’t try to use my magic. I knew where I wanted to go: to Luna. The direction didn’t matter.

As I walked I noticed that the crystal of the walls and outcroppings was more varied than I’d thought. It ranged from nearly opaque to clear enough that I could see several feet in, and the colour of the crystal ranged from blue to grey to clear white. One patch caught my eye, coloured a brilliant azure. As I passed I reached out for it … and snatched my fingers away just in time. Although it radiated no cold, the crystal had the icy chill of a glacier, enough to freeze flesh. I carried on, keeping a more respectful distance.

The canyon widened as I walked, the glimpses of sky becoming more frequent, until finally the sides curved away, opening up to give me a clear view. Before me was a wide, open bowl, a vast, shallow depression in the ground. The cliffs formed a ring around it and at the centre was a palace of crystal, sharp spires pointing upwards into a brooding sky. A thick canopy of cloud cut off all trace of sun, the layer of grey drifting steadily across the sky from right to left. I altered my course for the palace and kept on going.

The palace was surrounded by acres of broken crystal. The doors were open, leading into a long entrance hall, thick pillars rising up to a vaulted ceiling. It was darker in here and the side passages were covered in shadow. Only when I was in the middle of the room did I realise the whispers had stopped.

I saw movement from the corner of my eye and turned sharply. For an instant I thought I saw a flash of something disappearing behind a pillar, then everything was still. I stood motionless, listening. The hall was silent … but something in the silence had changed. It was the silence of something holding its breath.

I thought of going after it but some instinct warned me that would be a bad idea. I waited a moment longer, then when nothing moved I carried on down the hall, slower this time. I half-expected something to jump me, but I reached the doors at the end safely. They opened at a touch.

Luna was inside. The room within was huge and circular, a ring of columns going up and up into the shadows, and Luna was at the very centre upon a wide dais. As I headed for her I noticed at the back of my mind that the whispers had started again.

Luna didn’t react as I approached. She was kneeling, staring into a tall silver mirror that reflected not her image but only a grey mist. She wore a white dress, and as I approached I saw that her lower legs were frozen in crystal. It seemed to have grown up around her, a thin layer spiderwebbing over her ankles and knees, reaching up towards her lower body. The mist in the mirror shifted at the edge of my vision, hinting at something within, inviting me to look. I hesitated, then took hold of Luna’s arms and pulled her to her feet.

The crystal shattered, splintering like glass, and Luna stumbled upright, shaking her head as if she’d just come out of a trance. She looked up at me and her eyes lit up.

I grabbed Luna in a bear hug, holding her close. She made a protesting noise, but I didn’t care. Elsewhere is the one place Luna’s curse is dormant, and as I held her I felt something tense and wound-up inside me ease. Only now did I realise how afraid I’d been for her.

Gradually I realised Luna was trying to talk. I looked down. “Hm?”

“Can’t breathe!”

“Right.” I relaxed my grip and looked down at her. “Better?”

Luna pulled back. “The caves—you got out?”

“I got out.”

Luna sighed in relief and leant her head against my chest. “Thank God.”

I stroked Luna’s hair. It felt good to hold her. “Were you looking for me?”

Luna nodded. “Like the last time,” I said. “Was that where you got the idea?”

“I couldn’t find you.”

“It’s hard to bring someone into Elsewhere if they’re awake. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Luna pulled back again and looked up at me, her smile gone. “He’s going to kill Arachne.”

“I know,” I said. “We’ve only got a few hours. Where did he take you?”

“A manor house in the mountains. Belthas brought everyone here. Me, all his guards, that woman …” Luna’s face darkened. “…and Martin.”

“Where are you?”

“In the basement. A cell. They locked me in and left me.”

“Okay.” I took a deep breath. This was the million-dollar question. “Do you know where it is?”

Luna shook her head and my heart sank. “It was too dark,” Luna said. “There weren’t any lights. It’s somewhere deserted, no towns, but …”

“But that’s not enough.” I tried to think of all the deserted, mountainous places Belthas could have set up a base. Hopeless. Even in Britain, there were thousands. Finding it would take days, weeks. “Did you see a landmark? Anything that would give us a location?”

“No. But I think I know who did.”

I looked at her in surprise. “Deleo,” Luna said. “She’s in the cell next to mine.”

“Did you talk to her?”

Luna shook her head. “I saw her.” A shadow passed across Luna’s face. “She looked bad. I think they were … getting information from her. For the ritual. She wasn’t awake. Asleep, a coma … I thought we could talk to her. I don’t know how to stop Belthas, but maybe she does.”

I thought about it for all of five seconds. I’d never tried bringing more than one person into Elsewhere, and if I had, I wouldn’t have picked Rachel … and none of that mattered since I didn’t see how we had any choice. “Why not,” I said. “I’m relying on one psychotic Dark mage, might as well make it two.”

Luna gave me an odd look. “What do you—?”

“Tell you later.” I started walking again, leading Luna towards the edge of the room. “Um,” Luna said. “Where are we going?”

“To Deleo.”

“Okay.” Luna thought for a second. “Where is she?”

“Up to you.”

Luna looked at me. After a second, she realised I was serious.

The pillars ahead turned out to be masking a tunnel into another hallway. “What did you mean about a Dark mage?” Luna said.

“Sonder brought along some muscle.”

“Sonder? Really?”

“Surprised?”

“Well, he’s a mage. I guess he can get people to do stuff for him, right?”

“Not quite how it happened.” I glanced down at Luna. “He’s tougher than you think.”

“He’s a bit nerdy.”

“He went looking into this on his own. He’s the one who found the link between Martin and Belthas.” I shrugged. “Figured it out before I did.”

As I said Martin’s name Luna’s face went blank and she looked down at her feet. We walked in silence for a little while, passing through another columned hall. There were no windows and the shadows were long and deep.

“Want to talk about it?”

“About what?”

“Martin.”

“What’s the point?”

I didn’t answer.

“I was stupid.” Luna stared ahead of her, her voice bitter. “I knew there were things he wasn’t telling me. I thought—I thought it didn’t matter. As long as he …”

Luna trailed off. “I know this isn’t much consolation,” I said at last, “but it won’t be the last time you make a fool of yourself over a guy. It happens.”

Luna kept walking, head down, arms wrapped around herself. “I used to think about it,” she said quietly. “I’d see some-one and I’d imagine it. Being with them. But I always knew it was just a dream. This time … I thought it was real. He said …” Luna’s voice wavered. “He said he loved me. That everything with the monkey’s paw was to help. He said that was why he needed to see Arachne. So we could be together.”

I stayed silent, walking by Luna’s side; I couldn’t see her face, but I knew she was crying. I felt pure hatred towards Martin. I try to give newbies to the magical world a chance, I really do. But Martin had crossed the line.

“There’s something else,” I said at last. “I know it’s not a good time but it’s got to be done.”

Luna wiped her eyes, her voice muffled. “What?”

“I’m going to get you out of there,” I said. “One way or another. But once that’s done … we’re going to have to decide if you’ll stay.”

Luna looked up, confused. “I’ve been treating you like a half apprentice,” I said. “I’ve been teaching you but without everything else that goes with it, and it’s not working. I realised that yesterday. Belthas was able to get to Arachne through you and I got captured trying to find you. By going with Martin you put all three of us in danger.”

“But—” Luna looked stricken. “I didn’t—”

I shook my head. “I’m not blaming you for what Belthas and Martin did. But you should have listened when I warned you off. I nearly got killed trying to get you out of there and I can’t keep doing that. If I do, sooner or later I’ll end up dead, and probably you will too.”

Luna and I walked for a little while in silence. “So what am I supposed to do?” Luna said at last.

“You’ve got a choice,” I said. “We can stop the training. No more work, no more late-night outings. We can still be friends. Go on as before.”

“Or?”

“Or you become my apprentice—this time for real. I’ll teach you what I know, introduce you to my contacts, bring you into mage society. The Light mages have a teaching structure. You’ll have classes and tests. You’ll meet other apprentices. But there’s a price. I’ll be your master—not your friend. If I tell you to do something, you’ll do it. And I won’t be the only one. You’ll be under the authority of every other Light mage you meet. You won’t get second chances either. Disobey me and you’re out. And you won’t be able to come back.”

Luna stared at me, then opened her mouth to speak. I held up a finger. “Don’t answer yet. Once we’re out of this, take some time and think about it. Right now, we’ve got other things to worry about.”

Luna kept her eyes on me, searching my face as if looking for something, then finally nodded. “Okay.”

“Good.” I stopped. “I think we’re here.”

We’d reached a hallway lined with doors. Shafts of light fell through from small windows high above but the shadows between them were dark and cold. The door Luna had led us to looked no different from the others, yet somehow I felt reluctant to touch it. It was made of black crystal, almost translucent enough to see through but not quite. The whispers had stopped.

As I stood looking at the door I caught the flicker of movement again and snapped my head around. This time I was sure I saw something: a flash of white vanishing back into the hall from which we’d entered. The hallway was silent. I kept my eyes on the entrance but nothing moved.

“Alex?” Luna asked.

I hesitated for a second. Luna might know what it was but this landscape was shaped by thought. Drawing her attention to our pursuer could be a very bad idea. “It’s nothing,” I said. “Do it.”

Luna reached for the door, paused for a second, then put her hand to it. It opened at a touch, the doors swinging silently back.

Beyond was swirling darkness, exactly like a cloud of smoke with every bit of light drained out of it. Tendrils of shadow drifted towards us and Luna stepped back hurriedly.

“Um,” Luna said after we’d both stared into the blackness for a few seconds. “What is that?”

“I have no idea,” I said honestly.

“I thought this was supposed to be Deleo’s dreams?”

“Maybe it is,” I said. Something about that darkness scared me. I had the creepy feeling it was just waiting for us to get within reach. I took another step back.

We stared a bit longer. “Do we go in?” Luna said eventually.

“God no.”

We stood there. “Well, we have to do something,” Luna said.

“I’m thinking,” I said. I didn’t know if it was my imagination, but it felt as though the cloud of darkness were edging towards us.

Then a voice spoke from the darkness, focused and cold. “What are you doing here?” A second later, its owner stepped into view—and she wasn’t alone.

Rachel is average height, with bright blue eyes. When I first knew her she was good-looking, even cute. She’s changed a lot since then. It’s rare now to see her with her mask off and when I do her face makes me think of sculpted ice, beautiful and cold. The darkness shrank from her, curling about her feet.

Standing on Rachel’s right was a girl with dark-red hair. She was smaller and younger than Rachel and felt far more alive, full of vitality and movement. She’d been dead for ten years, but in Elsewhere that doesn’t make as much difference as you’d think. She wasn’t looking at Rachel and Rachel wasn’t looking at her, but they seemed aware of each other somehow, as if they knew exactly where the other was without needing to see.

And on Rachel’s left was something that wasn’t human at all, faceless and eyeless, made of living shadow. Its body blended with the darkness around, making it almost impossible to pick out its shape, but I had the vague impression of something tall and slender, unnaturally still. Even twenty feet away, I could feel the cold radiating from it.

But it was the redheaded girl who held my attention. “Shireen,” I said quietly.

Shireen gave me a wave. “Hey, Alex! Long time no see.”

“Shut up,” Rachel said in irritation. “You know why he’s here.”

“We don’t know why he’s here,” Shireen pointed out reasonably.

Rachel snarled. “Belthas couldn’t get what he wanted while we were awake. Now he’s trying dreams.”

“You know that’s not how this place works. Just because he’s here doesn’t mean he’s there.”

“Um,” I said.

“You think we should give up?” Rachel said. “Tell him what we know?”

“I didn’t say that,” Shireen said mildly.

“That’s what it means!”

“Excuse me?” I said.

“You know he’s probably already got all he needs,” Shireen said. “Otherwise he would have been back by now.”

“Maybe he wouldn’t have what he needs if you didn’t—”

“HEY!” I shouted.

Shireen and Rachel turned to me in faint surprise as if they’d forgotten I was there. “Oh, right,” Shireen said. “Sorry.”

Luna was looking between Shireen and Rachel with the expression of someone who’s reconsidering whether this was a good idea. I was just as confused as she was but didn’t let myself show it. Why was Shireen in Rachel’s dreams? I mean, I knew why she could be in her dreams, but—I shook it off. This wasn’t the time. “Rachel—”

“That’s not my name.”

I sighed inwardly. “Deleo. I need to know where you are.”

Rachel looked at me. “Is that supposed to be funny?”

I looked back at her.

“You’re working for Belthas,” Rachel said coldly. “Go ask him.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not working for Belthas anymore.”

“Good.” Rachel took a step back.

“Wait!” I called. “Look, Rachel, I’m trying to help you. If I was working for Belthas, why would I need to know where you are? I’d just ask him!”

Shireen cocked her head at Rachel. She’d kept pace with Rachel, and the darkness was starting to shroud the two of them again. “He’s got a point.”

“Shut up,” Rachel said. “He led them to us! It’s a trick!”

“I hate to point this out,” Shireen said, “but we’re not really in a position to turn down help.”

Rachel hesitated, then looked to her left at the shadow and her face hardened. “No.”

I knew Rachel was about to step back into the darkness, and once she was in there, she wouldn’t come out. “Cinder’s with me.”

Luna looked at me. Rachel paused. “What?”

“We made a deal,” I said. “I’m going there for Luna, he’s going there for you, and we’ve both got a score to settle with Belthas. He’s with me back in the real world. We’re coming but we need to know where Belthas is.”

Rachel hesitated. “Look, what have you got to lose?” I said. “If I’m working for Belthas, it doesn’t make any difference to you if I know where his base is. But if I’m telling the truth, this is the best chance you’ll get of letting Cinder find you.”

I could see Rachel thinking about it. Shireen waited, silent; maybe she knew trying to push Rachel now wouldn’t help. The shadow didn’t move but I could feel it watching me.

“Scotland,” Rachel said at last. “Northern Highlands.”

“You saw it?”

“I know it. An old manor on the Black Craeg mountain.”

“Does Cinder know where it is?”

“You’ve got the name.”

“Anything else?”

“How would I know? It’s a manor. It’s got cells. Belthas is there and so are his soldiers.”

I nodded. “All right. We’ll be there soon.”

“Then if you’re telling the truth,” Rachel said, “you might want to hurry up. Belthas has started the ritual. Once it’s done he won’t need me or your precious little apprentice.”

I felt Luna flinch but didn’t look at her. “Can you help us find a way out?”

Rachel laughed. “In your dreams.”

“We die, you die.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m going with you. You found a way in. You find the way out.” She glanced from me to Luna. “Don’t come back.” Rachel stepped back; the darkness flowed over her and she was gone. Shireen had time for a quick wave before she vanished too. Silently and smoothly, the black crystal door swung closed, shutting with a click. The last wisps of darkness faded and we were alone.

“Well,” I said after a moment. “That went about as well as could be expected.”

“You’re working with Cinder?” Luna asked.

“For now … We got what we came for. Time to go.”

Luna looked around at the doorways. “So where … ?”

I looked down at her, eyebrows raised. Luna sighed. “I get it, I get it. Up to me, right?”

Luna thought for a minute, then crossed the hall, heading for one of the doors. “But word of warning,” I said. “Finding someone’s dreams in Elsewhere isn’t hard. Leaving is.”

The door Luna had picked was blue crystal. It opened at a touch to reveal a rounded corridor lit with a pale light. I waited for Luna to step in, then shut the door behind us, taking a quick look around before I did. “You know, if there’s anything else you know about this place,” Luna said as I caught her up, “now might be a good time to tell me.”

“I don’t know how Elsewhere works,” I said. “Nobody does. There are books about it but they’re not much more than guesses.”

“You’ve been here before, right?” Luna said. “How did you get out?”

I shrugged. “Instinct? Luck? I don’t know. There are a few rules that work for me but I don’t know if they’ll work for you.”

“I think I need all the help I can get.”

“All right,” I said. “Don’t stray off the path. Don’t strike the first blow. And always look before you leap.”

Luna looked at me. “That’s not really all that specific.”

“Sorry.”

We walked for a little while. The corridor was growing lighter and there were slit windows appearing in the side alcoves, bright light streaming through them. “Maybe there’s one more thing,” I said. “I read a few chapters once out of a much longer book about Elsewhere. The author spent years studying it, getting stories from people who’d been there, and he never found a constant. In the end he decided Elsewhere was shaped by the traveller: What you found there would always link back to you. He found something else as well. How much power a mage had didn’t seem to have anything to do with how well he did in Elsewhere. The ones who did best were the ones with the most … self-awareness, I guess. The ones most comfortable with who they were.”

“Oh,” Luna said. She thought about it briefly. “What happens if you … don’t do well in Elsewhere?”

“Nobody knows.”

“Why?”

“Because they never wake up.”

Luna fell silent. We kept walking.

“Who was she?” Luna asked.

I knew who she meant. “Shireen.”

“You know her?”

“Yes.”

“And … she was in Deleo’s dreams, right?”

I didn’t answer.

“Is that supposed to happen?”

“No.”

“You … knew her from before?”

“Luna, I don’t want to talk about this,” I said. “Not now. Focus on getting us out of here.”

Luna looked like she was about to argue, but she didn’t. It didn’t help me get the same thing out of my head. Why had Shireen been there and what had that shadow been?

The corridor ended in another door. Luna opened it without asking—

And we stepped into a city street. Semidetached houses, yellow brick with hedges and front gardens, formed a line in front of us with hatchbacks and sedans parked by the side of the road. Instead of the unnatural silence of Elsewhere or the whispers of before, I could hear the familiar low buzz of city traffic, though the street itself was still. The sky overhead was still cloudy but lighter, the sun glowing through the white canopy. I looked back to see more houses behind us. The door had vanished.

Looking around, I realised that the city felt like London. It’s hard to say exactly what it was—it’s not as though city houses look all that different—but I’ve lived all my life in London and something about the bricks and the trees made me think of a London suburb, though not one I’d ever been to. “Huh.”

Luna didn’t respond. I looked to see her staring at the house in front of us. It was three storeys high and had a red door with the number 17 on the front. The front yard had a privet hedge and two pot plants.

A flicker of movement made me glance up sharply. “Luna.”

Luna started and seemed to come awake. “There’s something here,” I said quietly. I couldn’t see what it was but my instincts were telling me we were being watched.

Luna shrank back against me, staring at the door as though it were going to bite her. I stood tense, trying to watch every direction. I was starting to think that the creature following me wanted us to know it was there. The glances I was getting were too deliberate, the disappearances too quick. But this time I couldn’t see a thing.

I felt Luna jump and snapped my head around. The door with the number 17 was swinging open and people were coming out.

There were two: a man and a woman. The man looked about fifty with the tanned skin and dark hair of Southern Europe. His hair was greying, but he looked strong and fit. The woman was a little younger and fairer, with Luna’s hair and eyes. As she saw Luna her eyes lit up and she ran towards her. “Luna, Luna!”

Luna froze. I tried to step in front of her but somehow they slipped by and a second later the woman was hugging Luna while the man stood by smiling. “Oh, Luna!” the woman said. “It’s been so long!”

Luna stared back at the woman and she looked terrified. She tried to pull away. “You’re … No. I don’t …”

“Tesoro,” the man said with a great smile. “It’s so good to see you.”

“I— No!” Luna pulled herself away violently. She kept backing away across the road until she came up against a car. “It’s not you. It can’t be you!”

“It is, love,” the woman said. If Luna’s reaction bothered her, she didn’t show it; her face was compassionate. “Let us help you.” She began to walk towards her.

Neither of the pair had reacted to me and they didn’t seem unfriendly, but whoever they were, they were freaking Luna out. I stepped between them and Luna, taking care this time to make sure they couldn’t get past me. The woman kept walking. “Hey,” I said. “Wait a—”

The woman walked right through me. I felt a shock of cold as her body passed through mine, then she was gone. I turned with a shiver to see her stroke Luna’s hair tenderly. “It’s all right,” she said. “Everything’s all right now.”

Luna stared at the woman, then at me, then at her, then took a deep breath. She reached up and took the woman’s hand from her hair, bringing it down in front of her. “I—I don’t understand. How are you here?”

“We came for you, of course,” the man said with a smile. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

“But you—” Luna said. “I thought—”

“It’s all right,” the woman said. She clasped Luna’s hand between hers. “It was hard to believe at first, but once we came … Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“Luna?” I said quietly. I’d stepped to one side. “Are these … who I think they are?”

Luna looked between us, then gave a tiny nod. Now I looked closer I could see the resemblance between her and the woman. She didn’t take after the man so clearly, but there was something there in how they moved. “Cara,” the man said. “Remember what we said?”

The woman nodded. “Yes. Luna, we’re sorry. For not believing you, for not listening. You were telling the truth all along and we should have known. We were too scared.”

“I—” Luna wavered.

“They’re not real,” I said quietly.

Luna’s head snapped around to look at me. “How do you know?”

I shook my head. “How could they have got here? It doesn’t make sense.”

“We’re really here, Luna,” the woman said. She didn’t show any sign of hearing me but she answered as if she had. “We found a way into this … Elsewhere, that was what it was called? It wasn’t easy, but …” She smiled and brushed Luna’s cheek. “Well. To do this again …”

Despite herself, Luna smiled. “Mum, I told you not to do that—”

“They’re not real,” I said again. “Don’t accept it.”

Luna looked at me, frustrated. “Give me a second!”

“The longer you let yourself believe they’re real, the harder it’ll be,” I said quietly. “Trust me.”

“How are you so sure?”

“Because it’s happened to me,” I said. “There are things in Elsewhere, Luna. No one knows what they are. They can wear the masks of family, friends, people from your past. Do you seriously believe your parents found a way into Elsewhere? Both together? Is that the kind of thing they’d do?”

“Luna?” her mother asked. “Who are you talking to?”

Luna drew in a harsh breath. I could see the struggle in her eyes, trying to decide whom to believe. She looked away, her movements jerky, and I knew with a sudden flash of insight that at that moment she hated me. Not for telling the truth, but for making her believe it when the lie would have been so much less painful.

“I have to go,” Luna said.

“Go?” her mother asked blankly. “But why?”

Luna didn’t meet her mother’s eyes.

“Don’t you see?” her mother said. “This was why we came. It’s safe here. We can be with you without getting hurt.” She put her arm around Luna with a smile. “Come inside. There’s so much you need to tell us. And I promise you’ll never have to run away again.”

Luna hesitated, wavering. For a long moment she stared at the house in front of her. Then, gently, she took her mother’s arm from around her. “I’m sorry,” she said. “There are things I have to do.”

I felt my shoulders relax slightly and realised I’d been holding my breath. Just for a second, I wondered if this was what happened to those people who never came back from Elsewhere. I’d always assumed they’d been attacked. But maybe it had been something as simple as this …

“Then we’re coming with you,” Luna’s father said.

“You’re—?”

“No arguments,” her mother said firmly. “After all this time, you think we’re going to leave you alone again? It’s your choice but we go where you do.” She smiled. “We’re not going to send you away this time.”

Luna looked from her to me, unsure, but I was caught off guard as well. “Okay,” Luna said at last. “I’d … like that.”

“Perfect,” the woman said with a smile. “It’s settled, then.”

“Which way?” Luna asked.

The woman turned Luna towards the end of the street and nodded. “Right there.”

Luna looked down the street. Her mother was still holding her arm. She took a step, the scenery seemed to blur and shift—

We stood in the middle of a mountain village. It was after sunset, that time between twilight and darkness where just enough light is left in the sky to see but only by straining one’s eyes. The weather was dark and brooding, thick clouds covering the sky with only a tiny sliver of grey showing in the west. A mountain peak loomed over the village, a black shadow in the gloom.

The village looked old, very old, and it wasn’t English. The architecture was different, the houses built in a square-edged style with sloped roofs. Some of the houses had walls of brick, others stone and mortar, and all were dark. No lights showed in the windows, and there was no sign of movement. The village was silent, so quiet it was unnatural; there was no sound of wind or life. As I looked around I saw a few open doors, shutters hanging loose. It felt … dead. Whoever had lived here, they weren’t here any more. As I looked around the silent square, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise and I looked unconsciously for lines of retreat.

Luna was a little in front of me, her parents clustered protectively around her. She took a slow look around and something in her eyes made me sure it wasn’t the first time she’d seen this place. “Are you all right, dear?” her mother said. “Do you want to go back?”

Luna’s gaze settled on the house at the other end of the square. It looked ancient, even older than the other houses, with a ragged roof and crumbling stonework that looked on the verge of falling down. The narrow entrance had no door; there was only a black hole in the wall. Luna raised her arm to point. “There.”

“Is that the way out?” I asked. I kept my voice down. I had the feeling something might be listening.

“Yes,” Luna said. She sounded absolutely certain.

The doorway was maybe twenty paces away. Luna didn’t move towards it and neither did her parents. “What’s wrong?” I said quietly.

Luna didn’t reply for a second. “You remember when you first brought me into Elsewhere?” Luna’s voice was distant and she gazed at the house in front of her, talking as if to herself. “You told me my curse didn’t work here.”

“Yeah.”

“I thought about that, afterwards,” Luna said. “I couldn’t figure it out. I mean, my curse is part of me. I can’t live without it, Arachne told me that. So how can I be here if my curse isn’t?”

I looked at Luna but she didn’t meet my eyes. “Well, I figured it out,” Luna said, staring towards the house. “My curse is here. Just not in me.”

The darkness behind the house moved and something stepped out of the shadows.

It was beautiful.

Looking back on it, that’s the first thing I remember. There was a kind of perfection to it, a purity. It stood taller than a man, its stance hunched with its arms hanging to its knees, but it moved with a smooth, loping grace that hinted at speed and power. It was hairless, its skin bare and pure white, and the fingers were curved in a way that made me think of claws. The head was wolflike, with a lengthened muzzle and two pure white eyes that glowed with a pale light. Despite its size, its movements were almost silent.

The four of us stood dead still. The creature kept moving at a steady pace, keeping its distance from us as it circled counterclockwise, its eyes fixed on us. The only sound was the click of its claws against the stone.

As the creature kept circling, we had to turn to keep it in view. It wasn’t making any effort to hide and its pale shape stood out clearly in the gloom. “What’s it doing?” I said at last, very quietly.

“I don’t know,” Luna whispered. She was staring back at the thing. Its eyes had no pupils so I couldn’t be sure, but I had the feeling it was looking at her.

The creature had gone a quarter of the way around us. “Cutting us off?” I said, then shook my head. “Doesn’t make sense …”

“We should go,” Luna’s mother whispered. She shook Luna gently. “Come on.”

Luna didn’t move. “It’ll get behind us,” her father murmured. “Run, cara. Quickly.”

I shook my head. Somehow I knew this thing was faster than we could ever be.

The creature was almost opposite from where it had started and we’d turned through a hundred and eighty degrees watching it. The doorway was behind us now and we were between it and the creature. We had a clear line of retreat. As if she’d been thinking the same thing, Luna took a step back.

My hand shot out to catch her. “No.”

Luna stopped, but she didn’t take her eyes off the thing. “It’s where we’re going,” she said.

It was true but my instincts were warning me of danger. This thing had started its circle from next to the door. If it had wanted to block our exit, it could have just stood there. Why had it moved? Unless it wanted us to—

A horrible suspicion hit me. I focused, narrowing my eyes, and froze. The creature was leaving a trail of silver-white mist as it walked and the mist wasn’t fading, but staying. I looked about and understood. The barrier of mist started in front of the house, blocking the way to the exit, and it was two-thirds of the way around us. The creature was drawing a circle around us. As soon as it finished, we’d be trapped. “Luna!”

I heard Luna inhale sharply as she saw it too. As she did, the mist shimmered into visibility, as though by seeing it we’d broken the spell. The mist looked silvery, harmless … just like Luna’s curse.

I don’t know if Luna’s parents knew what the mist was but they knew what it meant. “Luna!” her mother cried.

“We have to go!” her father shouted. He ran towards the quarter of the circle still open.

There was a flicker of movement, almost too fast to see. Luna’s father’s chest came apart in a gout of blood, droplets spattering onto the stone. The creature loomed above, bright red staining the white skin, and snatched the man up in its claws before fading back into the mist, gone before I could move.

“No!” Luna screamed. “Dad!”

“Artur!” Luna’s mother screamed. “ARTUR!”

Luna made as if to run into the mist but I grabbed her. “No!”

Luna struggled. “Let go—!”

Something came flying out of the mist. It made a wet thump as it hit the ground and bounced, rolling and leaving a red smear behind it. It came to rest at Luna’s mother’s feet. She looked down and screamed. Two empty eyes stared up from out of it, glazing.

Luna went rigid, staring in horror. Her mother kept screaming as I looked about wildly. The mist swirled, obscuring the square, and I couldn’t see where the thing was. The edges of the mist had almost closed the circle and only a narrow gap was left, leading towards an alley-way.

Luna’s mother saw the narrowing gap and ran towards it, still screaming. “Don’t!” I shouted.

The creature appeared out of the mist before she’d gone five steps, faster and quieter than anything so big had any right to be. Its claw ripped through the woman’s stomach to burst out of her back with a damp snapping noise, and Luna’s mother jerked as she was lifted off the ground. The creature held her weight impaled on one arm without difficulty, its empty eyes staring into hers as her mouth worked, trying to speak, then with a lightning motion it snapped its jaws around her throat and ripped it out. Spurts of blood painted red streaks on its skin as it dragged the body off its arm with a horrible scraping, cracking sound before fading back into the mist.

Luna didn’t scream this time. She was frozen, stiff and staring. I looked around to see that the mist had closed around us. I couldn’t see the exit. “Luna. Luna.”

Silence. I moved back to back with Luna, trying to look in every direction at once, my instincts still screaming at me to watch for danger even though my head knew it was useless. The thing was inhumanly fast; if it wanted to snatch me I didn’t have a hope of stopping it. “Luna!”

Luna stayed rigid against my back. I took a deep breath and stepped around to look at Luna face to face, leaving my back exposed. Her eyes flicked up to meet mine but they were horrified, blank. “It’s not real,” I said quietly, putting every bit of belief into my voice that I could. “They’re shadows, phantoms. That’s how this place works. It strikes at your fears, where you’re weak. Your real parents are still alive, out in the world, but if you want to see them again you have to get out of here!”

Luna shivered. Her eyes came back into focus and she stared at me. Then her eyes shifted to focus on a point over my shoulder and slowly, very slowly, she looked up.

A horrible empty feeling opened up inside my stomach. I turned around.

The creature was standing right behind me. The mist had closed in and now we were at the centre of a ring barely twenty feet across. The creature was almost twice my height, the empty white eyes looking down at me, and it smelt of something cold and ancient. Red blood made ghastly spatters on the white skin, but it was already fading and I knew that in only a few minutes the blood of Luna’s parents would be gone. Just as mine would be.

The creature moved. I’d like to say I did something brave but I didn’t. I shut my eyes.

Nothing happened. One heartbeat, five, ten. I opened my eyes to look.

Luna was standing in front of me, shielding me. Against the backdrop of that monster, she looked tiny, like a child. She was in range of those lethal claws and one strike would have cut her in half, but the creature stood still, its blank eyes looking down at her as Luna stepped forward to meet it. She reached up to place her hand flat against its smooth muscled chest.

There was a single blinding flash and I flinched. Spots swam before my eyes and I scrubbed at them. As my vision returned I realised I could make out the shapes of buildings around me. The mist was gone.

I looked from side to side. There was no trace of the mist, or Luna’s parents. The stones of the square were clean, with no blood. Where the creature had stood, only Luna remained … and as I looked at her, I saw the silver mist begin to seep from her skin again, strengthening until it formed its aura around her, just as it always did.

Luna didn’t look at me. She nodded to the black doorway of the house in front of us. “We can go.”

I hesitated. “You first,” Luna said. Her voice was distant. “I don’t think I’m very safe to be near anymore.”

Carefully I circled Luna. She was staring into the doorway, her face unreadable. A pace short of entering, I stopped. “Are you … ?”

“Don’t worry,” Luna said. “I’ll follow.” Her eyes met mine. “It’s not like I’ve got anything to stay for, is it?”

I looked at Luna, then nodded slowly and turned to face the doorway. It was lightless, a black void, and I stepped through. Cold froze my bones and I fell into nothingness.

chapter 10

I came awake with a gasp, my heart pounding. Sonder had pulled a chair close to my bed and as I jerked upwards he flinched and nearly went over backwards, his arms flailing before he recovered his balance. “Ah! Alex! You scared me.”

“Jesus,” I muttered. My heart was thumping against my chest and I was shivering. I could still feel the bone-freezing cold of the gateway. I pulled my cloak around myself, trying to get warm.

“Alex?” Sonder said. Behind his glasses, he looked worried. “You okay?”

“Freaking, goddamn …” I glared at Sonder. “If Luna EVER invites you into Elsewhere, say no!”

“Um. Okay?”

I stayed hugging myself a little longer, waiting for my heartbeat to slow and the deadly cold to fade. Just being back in my room helped and I felt my shivering slow as my cloak drew away the chill. “What did I miss?”

“Cinder’s back.” Sonder hesitated. “I … think he’s getting impatient.”

“Then let’s not keep him waiting.” I swung my legs off the bed and stood up. I nearly fell straight back down but managed to catch the table and kept hold of it until I’d stopped wobbling.

“Um—” Sonder said.

“She’s okay,” I said as I headed for the door. “And I know where to find her.”

Cinder was waiting in my living room, not quite pacing. Luckily, I had what he wanted. Five minutes at my computer found us a map of Black Craeg and five minutes more found the only place that fit Rachel’s description. We geared up and I led us out the back door, locking it behind me. Once we were in the back alley, Cinder opened a gate to a staging point and we stepped through.

We travelled though a desolate, broken forest, then an abandoned quarry. At the end of the quarry Cinder raised his hand to cast another gate and I held my breath. Gating to an area you’ve never seen is dangerous. If Cinder messed this up …

But he didn’t. The black oval flickered briefly, then steadied and opened, revealing a dark slope. I went first and Cinder brought up the rear, letting the gate close.

The first thing I noticed was the cold. In London the autumn weather was only cool, but we were five hundred miles north and two thousand feet up. I’ve been to Scotland a few times and I’ve grown to like the clean, fresh scent of the air up here, but it’s still bloody freezing. I pulled my cloak tighter to stop myself from shivering and looked around.

There wasn’t much to see. I could tell the view would be spectacular by day but it was a cloudy night with no cities or towns and the visibility was only one step above pitch-black. I could see we were on the side of a hill or mountain and that was it. I closed my eyes.

“Where are we?” Sonder whispered. A chill wind was blowing and I could hear his teeth chattering.

“Wait,” I whispered back. Something about the black emptiness made us keep our voices down. “Don’t show a light.”

I looked through the futures ahead of us, seeing our paths branch out in every direction as we explored outwards, making our way down, up, and across the mountainside. Most of the choices were dark; a handful led to the lights of a building. I followed them closer—

“Perfect,” I said. “You dropped us right on target, Cinder.”

I felt Sonder looking around. “Um—”

“We couldn’t land too close,” I said. “Cinder put us a little way around the mountain.” I took Sonder’s arm and pointed upslope towards the dark mass above us. “Belthas’s manor is over that shoulder.”

Cinder started walking towards it, and I followed. Sonder looked around at the darkness one last time, muttered something under his breath, and came after.

Crossing a mountain in the dark isn’t fun. I had the easiest time with my divination magic and Cinder toughed it out on brute strength. Sonder found it hardest and before long was lagging behind. But it wasn’t a long trip, and after only a little while longer Cinder came over a rise and stopped. I reached his side and we looked down the northeast face of the Black Craeg.

Belthas’s manor was most of the way up the mountain, about three hundred feet downslope from our perch. Its windows were lit, turning it into a splash of bright light against the blackness around. I could see two storeys from our angle but as I scanned with my magic I realised there was a lower level, built into the slope. Luna had said her cell was in the basement; she must be below.

Cinder looked at me. “So?”

“Let me scout it,” I said.

I’d expected an argument but Cinder only nodded. I crouched down and focused, searching through the futures of us going down into the radius of those lights. Sonder caught up a few minutes later, breathing hard. He looked at me, then down at the manor, and settled down to wait.

Eventually, I stirred. “There are two guards outside. One at the front, one at the back. At least eight or ten more in the building. There’s a gate ward over the manor; gate magic is going to be difficult from about fifty feet away and impossible inside the walls. There’s an alarm system and attack wards too. Belthas is on the top floor in a shielded room.”

Cinder looked at me silently. Sonder looked taken aback. “That’s … a lot.”

“Yeah,” I said. I checked my watch.

“How long have we got?” Sonder said.

“Until Belthas finishes the ritual and kills Arachne …” I calculated. “One hour, thirty-five minutes.”

“When do we go?” Cinder asked.

“We’ll want to hit it in about an hour,” I said. Looking around, I found a rock to sit on. “Till then, we wait.”

Sonder looked at me in surprise. “Why?”

Cinder glanced at me, then leant against a boulder. I knew he understood but didn’t want to explain. “Right now Belthas is getting ready to start his ritual,” I said. “If we attack he’ll be on top of us in two minutes flat. But if we wait until he’s started he won’t be able to come after us without abandoning the ritual, which will screw it up. The closer he is to the end of the ritual, the less he can afford to be disturbed. He’ll leave the battle to his guards and wards and hope he can finish before we can break through.”

“But the later we leave it,” Sonder pointed out, “the more likely he will finish before we break through.”

I nodded and Sonder fell silent as he realised what I was saying. Too early and we’d have to fight Belthas and his guards at once. Too late and Arachne would be dead.

“What’s the plan for getting past the guards?” Sonder asked eventually.

I sighed. “We kill however many it takes before the rest run. Somewhere between most of them and all of them.”

Sonder stared at me. “But …”

I didn’t answer. “They’re Council security,” Sonder said. “Okay, I guess some of them are with Belthas, but … they’re loyal to the Council. They’re just doing their jobs.”

“Do you know any spells that’ll knock out ten to fifteen armed men?” I said. “Or any way of getting them to surrender and let us through?”

“No, but—”

“Neither do I,” I said. “And neither does Cinder. If I was an enchanter or a mind mage I could cloud their senses. If I could use life or death magic I could disrupt their bodies and knock them out. But I’m not and I can’t. The only thing I’ve got that can drop them fast enough to be safe is this gun. If we screw around taking prisoners we’re going to get shot.” I paused. “Actually, there’s a pretty good chance we’re going to get shot anyway.”

“There’s got to be something else,” Sonder argued. “I don’t want anyone to get killed.”

Cinder made a disgusted noise. I didn’t look at him. “Belthas is down there,” I told Sonder. “Along with at least a dozen armed guards in a warded building, and that’s not counting Meredith and Martin and whatever else he’s got up his sleeve.”

“I know,” Sonder said. “That doesn’t mean we should try to kill them!”

“The point is,” I said quietly, “that the odds are against us. Really against us. Even if we don’t make any mistakes, there’s a good chance that anyone who goes into that manor is going to end up dead. The more restrictions we go under, the bigger that chance gets. When you’re playing odds this long, the only way to win is to use every edge you’ve got.”

I could feel Cinder’s eyes on me. Sonder looked desperately unhappy. I couldn’t really blame him; I knew it felt to him like an impossible situation. But the truth is, it’s not about what’s possible. It’s what you’re willing to live with.

But I might as well cut him a break. “Anyway, it’s not up to you,” I said. “We’re going down there, and when we do there’s going to be a fight no matter what.” I sat down on one of the rocks. “Take a look around but make sure you’re not seen.”

Sonder and Cinder moved away and I was left alone in the darkness, which suited me just fine. I scanned through the futures in which I went down there, skipping over the parts where the strands branched into a blur of combat. I didn’t try to see how it would go—fights are too chaotic to see more than a few seconds ahead. Instead I searched for openings, doors, alarms, building a mental map of the manor below.

While my mind looked through the futures, my hands moved over the weapon at my side. Most of Belthas’s men had been carrying submachine guns of a type I vaguely recognised as MP5s. Garrick had been carrying a model I hadn’t seen before, square and blocky with only the tip of the muzzle protruding from the gun, and it was this one I’d taken. It was less than a foot and a half long, made of some black polymer which was surprisingly light, with a retractable stock and laser sight. The bottom of the magazine stuck out from the handle. It held thirty rounds and I had three more full magazines stowed away. One of the men had been carrying a 1911 pistol like mine, with the addition of a silencer, and I’d taken that too. I’d also brought a handful of more dangerous things in my backpack, riding awkwardly under my cloak.

I’ve never been all that comfortable with guns. Partly it’s for practical reasons—they’re illegal, for a start, and they don’t usually get good reactions from mages—but it’s also that I just don’t like the things. Carrying a gun makes me uneasy in a way that carrying a knife doesn’t, and if I’m going out I’ll almost never take one. But I’ve used them before, and even if I’m not as good a shot as I am with throwing, I can hit a target pretty well. When you can’t use offensive magic, guns are a big equaliser, and sometimes you can’t afford to be fussy.

I sensed Cinder returning well in advance. Sonder was still back up the slope, struggling with his conscience. I waited for Cinder to get close before glancing up. He was looking down at me, arms folded. “Ice wards.”

I nodded.

“Plan?”

“I sneak inside,” I said. “I’ll try for Deleo and Luna, get as far as I can. When the shooting starts, I’ll open up a way in and you do what you do best. We go for the girls first, Belthas second.”

Cinder nodded. We both knew he’d follow my orders only as long as they suited him. I took a breath. “One more thing. If I don’t make it out, make sure Sonder and Luna get away safe. I’ll do the same for Deleo if anything happens to you.”

Cinder looked at me. Standing in the darkness, it was hard to make out his expression. An icy wind was blowing, but Cinder let it sweep over him as though he didn’t notice. Probably he didn’t.

“Why?” Cinder said.

“Why what?”

“Help them.”

“Who?”

Cinder just looked at me, as if refusing to answer such a stupid question. “Because I want to,” I said.

Cinder studied me for a moment, then nodded in the direction Sonder had gone. “You’re not one of them.”

I was silent. “Talk, don’t fight,” Cinder said. “Don’t get your hands dirty. How they think. You don’t.”

“I’m not exactly the fighting type.”

“Bullshit,” Cinder said. “You act it. Fool some people. Fooled me once. You’re a predator. You just hide it.”

I raised an eyebrow at Cinder. “Pretty weak for a predator.”

“Yeah?” Cinder said. “Last ten years. How many people tried to kill you? Don’t mean a skirmish. A proper try.”

I shrugged. “Haven’t kept count.”

Cinder nodded. “How many still alive?”

The question brought me up short. A few people had tried to kill me over the years. Actually, more than a few. Cinder and Rachel didn’t really count—they’d always been more interested in getting their piece—but Khazad did. So did Tobruk. Levistus had ordered my death through Griff and Thirteen, and Morden had done the same through Onyx. Then Garrick had tried to shoot me a few days ago, and there had been that bomb-maker at the Deptford factory. There were more—a lot more. As for how many were still alive, the answer was …

…not that many.

Most of them were dead.

In fact, most of them were dead quite specifically because of me.

I don’t often look back over my life. Between paying attention to the present and looking forwards into the future, I don’t have much time left to look over my past choices. Now I did and realised what picture they made, and it wasn’t all that reassuring.

And I was about to add a whole bunch of new names to the list. If everything went to plan, a lot of people down there were going to die. And as I thought it over, I realised I was going to go through with it. At the end of the day, given a choice between Belthas and his men on one side, and Luna and Arachne on the other, I was going to pick Luna and Arachne, and if it meant Belthas and his men dead then that was what I’d do. I knew exactly how ugly and vicious the battle was going to be and I was going to do it anyway.

I didn’t know what that said about me. Maybe later, I’d think about it. Right now all I cared about was getting the job done. “What do you want, Cinder?” I said. “You want me to back out?”

Cinder shook his head.

“Then what?”

“Del hates you,” Cinder said. “Thinks you’re weak. I reckon she’s wrong. You’re ruthless as her. Just hide it better.”

“Thanks. I think.”

“I’ll save your pets if you go down,” Cinder said. “But I don’t reckon you will. I think end of tonight, you’ll be around. And Belthas won’t.”

I looked back at Cinder, trying to figure out if that should make me feel better.

A sound from behind made me look up in time to see Sonder returning. He was shivering. He really should have taken me up when I offered to lend him a coat. “Belthas started his ritual.”

I nodded. “Time to go.”

Sonder hesitated. “I—”

I sighed. “For us, not for you. You’re not going, Sonder. This isn’t your kind of fight.” I reached into my backpack and pulled out a radio, a donation from one of Garrick’s men. I tossed it to Sonder and he caught it awkwardly. “I want you to stay up here and pull lookout. Tell me if anything changes. I’ll call you when I’m in position.”

Sonder looked down, then up at me. “Don’t beat yourself up over it,” I said. “There’s a time to play white knight and this isn’t it. If everything goes to hell, get out the way we came and follow the valley down. You’ll get to a village in about five miles.”

Sonder opened his mouth and I saw him thinking about what to say. “Good luck,” he said unhappily.

I grinned at him. “Luck’s for Luna. See you in an hour or two.”

The grin vanished about two seconds after I was out of sight. I put on my mist cloak, pulling down the hood so that it concealed my face. Belthas would know who I was, but there was no point giving the cameras a free show. It was time to get to work.

Up close, Belthas’s manor was solid and imposing. It had been designed to look like a traditional English country house, but there was a blocky quality to it that made me think of a castle or bunker. The lower-level windows looked accessible but I knew they were reinforced and sealed. The only ways in were the front and rear doors.

I’d put the time I’d spent waiting in the darkness above to good use and I had a pretty good idea of the building’s weak points. Any kind of security system that can keep out people you don’t want can also keep out people you do, and rather than solve the difficult problem of attuning his wards, Belthas had elected to leave two openings over the doors. After some consideration, I’d picked the front one. It was watched over by one guard and a pair of security cameras.

The cameras were easy. There was a slight gap in the coverage and I waited for them to pan away before slipping through to come up against the manor’s west wall. I could feel the presence of the defensive spells through the stone: a gate ward and some kind of nasty ice-based attack that would trigger if anyone attempted to force entry. Luckily, I wasn’t intending to.

The guard outside the front door was obviously bored and cold. Peering around the corner, I could see him shivering, his hands shoved into his armpits and his MP5 hanging from its strap. There were a few steps leading up to the door and he was standing on top of them, visible in the reflected light of the windows. I walked silently along the edge of the building towards him, pausing from time to time when I got too close to his peripheral vision. The front of the building was bare with no cover, but in my mist cloak I was just one more shadow in the night.

By the time I was up against the steps I was close enough to see the stubble on the guard’s face and smell the cigarette smoke on his clothes. Looking into the future, I saw that if I got the guard out of the way and went in now, I’d run into two more in the front hall. All I could do was wait. I stood not ten feet from the guard, listened to his teeth chattering, and checked my watch. Thirty-five minutes until Belthas completed his ritual.

Five minutes passed. I was getting cold but didn’t let myself move, tensing and relaxing muscles to stop myself from stiffening up. Ten minutes. Looking into the future, I saw that the guards inside were gone. I pulled a pebble from my pocket, waited for the guard to glance away, and threw it into the darkness.

One of the funny things about divination magic is you can know something will work without having the first clue why. The pebble clinked off the rock and the guard snapped his head around as I’d known he would. He stood motionless for ten seconds, then crept down the stairs and slunk left along the wall, trying to blend into the shadows.

Why did he go that way, along the line of the wall, rather than towards the noise? I don’t know. I just knew that had been what I needed to do to make him turn his back. I moved quickly up the stairs, opened the door, and slipped inside.

The air inside Belthas’s manor was warm, the entrance hall panelled in wood with pictures on the walls. It looked expensive but rarely used. The murmur of voices echoed through the hallway—the doorway to my left led to a front room with four of Belthas’s men inside but I knew that for the next few seconds none would be looking at the door. I walked quickly past and up the stairs.

There were cameras inside too, and this time I didn’t try to avoid them. In stillness and darkness my mist cloak makes me all but invisible, but moving in the light is another story. Speed was my best chance now. The security station was on the first floor, and as I came up to the top of the stairs I drew my silenced pistol. The door to the security room was open, light glimmering from inside, and I went in with the gun up.

The room was filled with monitors, arranged in an arc around the room’s single desk. I could see the approaches to the house, the rooms inside. Pale electronic light bathed the man sitting in the chair. He had a red baseball cap pulled down over his eyes and his arms were clasped over his stomach as he slept. He wasn’t holding a weapon.

I aimed the pistol at his head, hesitated, then lowered it again and looked at the camera feeds. I counted at least ten guards plus the one in front of me and the two outside. There were views of a set of four reinforced metal doors in the basement level that looked a lot like cells. No inside view but if Luna and Rachel were here, that was where they’d be. There was a guard down on the basement level too … along with a slimmer figure whom I recognised by his hair as Martin. I narrowed my eyes. When I met Martin, he and I were going to have words.

There was a feed showing guards on the stairs leading up but the cameras on the second floor itself were blank. I guessed Belthas didn’t want anyone else watching his ritual. I looked under the desk but saw nothing except a bunch of cabling from the monitors feeding into the right wall, and I walked quietly out, keeping my gun ready. The man in the red baseball cap didn’t wake up.

The next door to the right opened into a small room full of humming computers. Perfect. I shut the door behind me, slipped off my backpack, and pulled out a block of an off-white, funny-smelling material as well as a pair of detonators.

I really don’t know anything about explosives, but being able to see exactly what will and won’t cause something to go boom makes demolition work a lot less stressful. I stuck the detonators into the block, tucked it behind the computer banks, backed off to the door, and looked into the future to see what would happen if I pressed the button on the detonator. Ouch. Okay, it was working. Mental note: one pound of plastic explosive makes a really big bang.

The next job was to find a way for Cinder to get in. The front door was still too crowded but as I moved to the rear of the building I saw that the back door was deserted except for the solitary guard outside. I stacked my other two blocks of plastic explosive against the door frame, set the detonators, then covered the whole thing with a coat someone had left on a stand. It would take out the door, the guard, the wall, and pretty much anything else.

I could hear voices from the front of the manor; the outside guard had come in and was talking to the ones in the front room. Couldn’t go back that way. Getting dangerous now—too many people, too many variables. I couldn’t predict everything. There was a back set of stairs and I moved down it away from the explosives, fumbling out my radio as I did so. “Sonder?” I hit the Transmit key. “Sonder!”

There was silence for a moment, then a hiss and Sonder’s voice came through, scratchy but audible. “Alex?”

“I’m about to be blown. Tell Cinder to go. I’ll open the back door.”

“Okay. Are you—?”

I shoved the radio back in my pocket and looked out along a ground-floor corridor. As I did, I heard someone call out, questioning. Damn, he’d heard me. I ducked into what looked like a dining room. The chairs were pulled out but no one was there.

Footsteps in the corridor. A guard was approaching. His gun wasn’t up—he wasn’t expecting a fight yet. Looking into the future, I saw that he wasn’t going to check this room … but he wasn’t going to leave the corridor either and in less than sixty seconds a bunch more guards would come down from the first floor. If I hid here I’d be trapped.

Time to give up on stealth. I waited for the guard to walk past, then stepped out into the doorway with my weapon up and sighted on the back of his head. I looked into the future of me pulling the trigger, saw that nothing would happen, flicked the safety off, looked into the future again, saw the burst going up and left, corrected down and right, looked into the future again, saw the burst hit, pulled the trigger. My divination isn’t as quick with guns as with thrown items—not as practised, not as intuitive—but it still took barely a second.

Garrick’s submachine gun was louder than I expected, a chattering ba-ba-bang! that made me flinch, and the second and third rounds went high as the recoil kicked my shoulder, but I saw the red puff as the first bullet went through the guard’s head, and that was all she wrote. The body crumpled and as my ears adjusted I heard shouts. The stairs down to the basement were on the west side and I ran for them.

I nearly made it. Would have made it, if three guards hadn’t decided to get smart and cut me off. I was less than thirty feet away when they came round the corner.

Most people think combat’s about attacks and weapons but it’s not. It’s about movement and information. Belthas’s men were just as skilled as me and just as tough as me but I knew where we’d meet and they didn’t. I was already crouching with my gun braced against my shoulder as the first one came around the corner, and I fired before he’d even spotted me. One burst to bring him down, another to finish the job. The other two guards could have rushed me if they’d attacked together but they’d just seen their friend killed in front of them. They backpedalled and started screaming into their radios for backup.

I had an open run to the basement but I’d just be boxing myself in. I could sense more guards closing in and I knew I had about fifteen seconds before they pinned me down. I ducked into the nearest room, pulled out the detonator and braced myself against the wall before pushing the button.

I felt the wall shudder behind me and there was a deep boom and a rush of air, followed a second later by a tearing, crashing sound. The lights flickered but most came back on again and the building steadied. I kept going through the room and out the other side into the main hall. Dust and smoke were billowing down the staircase, and I could hear screams from above; some of Belthas’s men had been near the second bomb when it went off. I took the right door and headed for the corridor where the two men were hunkered down, coming around from the other side. They’d heard me coming and were waiting with their guns trained on the corner, but it didn’t do them any good. I took a grenade from my pack, pulled the pin and let the lever spring free, waited two seconds, then threw it around the corner, bouncing it off the wall to roll next to where I knew the men were crouching. The bang was a lot louder this time. I moved past the torn bodies to the stairs leading down to the basement.

I heard Sonder’s voice over the radio as I trotted down the stairs. They were concrete, and narrow. “Alex? Alex!”

I pulled the radio out, listening carefully to the sounds above. There were shouts and orders but it sounded like I’d bought myself a little more time. “Make it quick,” I said into the radio.

There was a burst of static. “—did you say?”

The stairs ended in a metal door on the left-hand side. The guard in the basement was on the other side with his weapon trained, ready to fire. I shoved the door open and stepped back as a burst of automatic fire chipped fragments from the wall. “Not the best time, Sonder.”

“Cinder’s on his way,” Sonder said, his voice tense and excited. “Getting to the manor right about … now!”

Right on cue, I heard the familiar whoompf of a fireball from above followed by an agonised shriek. The guards on the ground floor who’d been heading for me changed direction. “Perfect,” I said absently, wedging the radio between ear and shoulder so I could bring up my gun.

“He’s burning the whole back wall!” Sonder’s voice rose a few notes. “He— Holy crap! That thing just—”

Another burst of fire drilled the wall next to me. I poked the muzzle of my gun around the corner and fired a short burst, the ba-ba-bang! deafeningly loud in the corridor, then pulled back fast to avoid the return fire.

“The wards are going off! They’re firing back, they’re—”

“Sonder, this really isn’t a good time,” I said absently. “Can I call you back?” Thirty-round magazine, bullets weren’t ricocheting … too difficult to land a hit. I sent another burst blind around the corner, then shrugged off my pack and rooted through for the last grenade.

The return fire was longer this time, bullets slamming into the wall to my right and embedding themselves in the soft stone, the noise drowning out Sonder’s reply. I twisted the pin from the grenade and waited for the guard’s magazine to run dry.

Click. The guard dropped, fumbling for a reload, and I leant out. I got a brief view of an open room with an overturned desk, shadows flickering as a light swung from a cord overhead, then I lobbed the grenade to bounce off the far wall and ducked back. There was a brief scream from behind the desk before the explosion cut it off. “Great,” I said into the radio. “Keep me posted.” I dropped it into my pocket.

The grenade had made a mess of the room and I searched it quickly, trying not to look at what was left of the guard. From above I could hear the roar of fire spells, muffled through the concrete. Cinder wasn’t having it all his own way and the chattering bursts of automatic weapon fire were answering him. I couldn’t sense any ice attacks, which meant Belthas wasn’t joining the battle. If he hadn’t come by now, it meant he was close to finishing; we didn’t have much time. I spotted a ring of keys beneath a splintered piece of desk and snatched it up, hurrying forward. “Luna!” I shouted.

A faint voice echoed from down the corridor. “Alex! I’m here!”

I was already running towards it, passing a side corridor along the way. Just before the corridor bent to the left were a set of four metal doors, two on each side, solid metal with heavy reinforcement. They didn’t have any windows, but each one had a narrow metal hatch at eye level. I flipped the catch and slid the hatch open with a rattle.

Luna was inside and as I saw her I felt a wave of relief that made me weak at the knees. For all that I’d seen her in Elsewhere, for all that I’d known Belthas wouldn’t have her killed without a reason, seeing her in the flesh made me feel a hundred times better. Luna looked a little pale, her hair was untidy and her clothes scuffed and torn, but as she saw me she gave one of her rare smiles. “Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” I said, and I realised I was smiling too. “How’s things?”

“Been better,” Luna said. “Any chance you could get me out of here?”

“Just waiting for you to ask.” The room was a prison cell, crudely furnished, and the door had bolts at top and bottom. I drew them back with a scrape of metal. “Where’s Deleo?”

Luna shook her head. “They took her away a couple of hours ago.”

I was just about to start going through the keys when something flickered on my precognition. I looked at what was coming and rolled my eyes. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”

Luna sighed. She’s been with me long enough to get used to this. “I’m guessing that’s not good news.”

“Here.” I pushed the keys through the open hatch, hearing them clink on the concrete, and stepped away. “Be right back.”

Martin was about forty feet down the side corridor when I leant round the corner, my gun lining up to sight on him. “Martin,” I said. “Give me a reason not to shoot you.”

Martin was wearing a set of black combat gear, probably borrowed from Belthas’s men, along with a webbing belt that was slightly too big for him. He looked like an action movie actor trying very hard to pretend he was the real thing. He flinched as he saw the barrel of the gun, then shook it off and grinned. “Oh, hey, Alex. Thought it was you.”

The laser sight was steady on the black fabric covering Martin’s chest and my trigger finger itched. “I’ve just killed a half dozen people whom I had less reason to want dead than you,” I said quietly. “You’ve got a gun behind your back. Drop it.”

Martin’s grin widened and he lifted the gun. I fired before he got halfway.

Tendrils of shadow whipped out, thread-thin, and there was the crack of ricocheting bullets. Martin’s gun finished coming up and I fired another burst. Still nothing. I emptied the rest of the magazine into him. Black shadows flickered and I saw sparks flash but Martin stayed standing until my gun clicked empty. I stared at Martin. No wounds, no blood. What the hell?

“My turn,” Martin said and fired.

Martin was firing an automatic, a fairly powerful one from the sound. Luckily his aim sucked and none of his shots would have hit even if I hadn’t ducked behind the corner. I ejected the empty magazine, pulled out a spare, and snapped it into the handle as Martin’s shots bounced uselessly round the corridor. While my hands worked automatically, I tried to figure out what was going on. Martin didn’t have any magic of his own so how could—

Oh, God damn it.

The bang bang bang of fire from around the corner ended, and as the echoes died away I heard Martin laughing. “Figured it out yet?” he called. “You can’t touch me!”

“What is wrong with you?” I shouted. “Could you be any more annoying?”

“You have no idea what this thing can do, do you?” Martin’s voice was mocking. “Come on, take a look.”

I glanced carefully around the corner. Martin was holding the gun in his right hand and in his left was the monkey’s paw. “Second wish,” he said, grinning at me. “First one gave me protection from magic. Now I’m protected from everything else.” He shook his head at me. “Seriously, man. You had this thing all this time and never used it? How stupid are you?”

I ran through the futures of me emptying a hundred shots at him a hundred different ways. Useless. I didn’t know how the monkey’s paw was protecting Martin but I couldn’t see a way through, and I felt a chill. Drawing away magical attacks was one thing, but bullets? Was there any limit to what that thing could do?

But if bullets didn’t work, maybe getting in close would. I crouched, ready to spring. Martin could only have a few more bullets in that gun. As soon as he stopped to reload …

“Two wishes,” Martin said. His grin had gotten wider and there was something manic about it. “Time for number three. I’ve been waiting for this a long time.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “You’re wishing for your IQ to break double figures.”

Martin laughed wildly. “You think I’m a joke, don’t you? They all did! You, Belthas, everyone! Because I’m not a mage. Well, now I will be! But you won’t!”

“I—” And too late, I saw what Martin was going to do. My eyes went wide. “Oh, crap. No, you nutcase! Don’t—”

Martin lifted the monkey’s paw above his head. “I wish for all the powers of the mage Alex Verus to be mine!”

I’d been spreading out my magic, trying to watch all the possibilities. I’d been focusing on Martin, looking to see what he’d do next, looking into the futures of different ways I could attack him and the consequences of each, and finally keeping an eye on potential dangers at the back of my mind with my precognition, all at the same time. As Martin said the last word, I felt a surge of power from the monkey’s paw and just that fast, it was gone. The lines of glowing light in the darkness vanished into nothingness and the only sight I had was my eyes. For the first time in ten years, I couldn’t see the future. The shock was so great I couldn’t move. I stood frozen, staring.

Martin stood with the monkey’s paw held high. The corridor was silent but for the distant sounds of battle from above. Martin was gazing past me, that manic grin frozen on his face. As I watched, the grin slid away until he was just staring. His brow furrowed in confusion, his expression changing slowly into a mask of horror. His eyes went wider and wider until they bulged out, turning his good looks into something twisted. His gaze swept over me blindly as he looked around and began shaking his head, slowly at first, then more violently. “No,” he muttered. He covered his eyes, staggering sideways into the wall. “No, stop it. No, no. Stop it. Stop it! STOP IT! STOP IT!”

“Alex!” Luna called from behind. I could hear the rattle of keys.

I didn’t answer. There’s no way to understand what it’s like to see the future, know it, rely on it, then have it snatched away. It’s not like being blind—it’s like being deaf. You can still see, still watch things as they happen—but you don’t have the context anymore, the extra information that makes it mean something. Someone talks to you and you don’t know what they’re saying; something could be happening behind you and you wouldn’t know what. So much of my life goes into controlling this talent I have, focusing and using and directing it. Now it was gone, an emptiness where there’d been a whole world.

Martin had started screaming, wordless and breathless. He was stumbling blindly back and forth, bashing into the walls; his fingers dug into his forehead as if he were trying to claw his eyes out. I knew I should do something but I couldn’t think. Looking into the future was such a reflex that I couldn’t stop doing it, even though there was nothing to see. Luna was calling to me but I couldn’t hear her over Martin’s screams. There were too many things at once and without my magic I couldn’t keep track anymore.

The scrape of metal reached my ears over Martin’s screaming, and I looked up. The door I’d left ajar back at the entrance to the basement was open, and one of Belthas’s guards was standing there, one I’d seen before. He had a submachine gun pointed down at the floor, and he was wearing a red baseball cap. He saw me and the gun came up.

Reflex and survival instinct got me moving when my conscious mind couldn’t. I dived past Luna’s cell and around the corner as bullets raked the wall beside me. I heard the chatter of fire for another second, then the sound of running feet and silence.

I snatched a glance around the corner, trying to spot where the guard had gone. Nothing. Without my magic I felt slow, stupid. Had he gone left or right? I lifted my gun and aimed awkwardly, leaning out into the corridor.

The guard popped out on the side I wasn’t expecting and I threw myself back into cover as another burst of fire struck chips from the wall. My movements were scared, jerky; I was outclassed and I knew it. The fire stopped and I leant out to shoot back.

It was a trap. The guard was waiting with his sights trained on where I’d appear. If I’d been able to see into the future I would have seen it coming … but I couldn’t and I didn’t. Another burst of fire raked the corner and this time I wasn’t quick enough. Pain seared my left arm and I fell back with a cry.

The fire stopped. My left arm was numb, in agony, and couldn’t support my gun. I staggered back along the corridor, looking for cover. I could hear the tread of cautious footsteps; the guard knew he’d hit me and was coming to finish me off. I wrenched at the handle of the first door. Locked. The footsteps broke into a jog. Next door … locked as well. I ran for the end of the corridor.

Gunfire behind. Something plucked at my shoulder and I knew I’d been hit. I kept running, made it around the corner as another burst slammed into the concrete, trying to get as far as I could before I collapsed. My legs were still working but I didn’t know how much longer they’d last.

But I’d run as far as I could. The corridor came to a dead end ahead, and behind me I could hear running feet. I made it to the nearest door and wrenched at the handle.

The handle turned. I scrambled into the darkness, tripped over a bucket, and fell with a crash, gasping in pain as the impact jarred my arm. I tried to get up, hit something else, fell again. No more time. I twisted awkwardly, propping up my gun on my body, lining up on the rectangle of light that marked the doorway.

Silence. The guard must be outside in the corridor but I couldn’t see him. I held dead still, trying to quiet my breathing.

A footstep, quiet and stealthy. Another. The guard was advancing down the corridor. Two more steps, then the faint rattle as he tried the first door. He had to know I was in one of the rooms—there was nowhere else to go. It was just a matter of time.

Another footstep, this one closer. I couldn’t see where the guard was and I was afraid. I held my breath, trying to block out the pain and the fear, keeping my eyes glued to the light of the doorway, the gun shaking slightly as my right hand held its weight. If he looked around the edge of that doorway I would have a second—no more—in which he was silhouetted against the light. One chance to hit him.

But in that same second, he’d see me. There was a crazy irony to it. It was the same guy I’d found asleep in front of the monitors. After all the people I’d killed, I was about to die because I’d spared someone …

The footsteps stopped and I could hear the guard’s breathing just outside the door. I focused on the gun’s sight, trying to line it up on the right side of the door frame. One shot—

A flurry of footsteps. I heard the guard turn, then grunt as something hit him. The guard came into view, staggering across the doorway, caught for an instant in my gunsight with Luna’s slim body wrapped around him. Then he tripped and both of them fell with a thud out of my line of vision.

“Luna!” I shouted. I tried to roll to my feet, yelped as my arm gave way, gritted my teeth and struggled up anyway. Suddenly I wasn’t afraid for myself anymore. I could hear the scrabble of a fight, the guard swearing, boots scraping the concrete. Then there was a cracking noise and a thump, and everything went quiet.

By the time I reached the corridor it was all over. Luna had regained her feet and was dusting herself off, still holding the key ring I’d dropped through her door. The guard was lying still, the gun fallen from his hands. A trickle of blood ran down the side of his head and a heavy lump of concrete lay next to it. Looking up, I saw a jagged hole in the ceiling. One of the explosions must have weakened it.

I realised Luna was talking to me. “Alex? Alex!”

I looked up. “What?”

“Are you okay?”

“Sure. Fine.”

Luna gave me a disbelieving look and pointed at my left arm.

I looked down to see that the sleeve was wet with blood. “Oh. Right.” All of a sudden standing up felt really difficult. I slumped against the wall and slid down into a sitting position, wincing slightly.

“Alex!” Luna said.

“’M okay,” I said halfheartedly.

“You’re not okay. You’re shot!” Luna made a move towards me and checked, holding back with a noise of frustration. “It’s just the arm, right?”

“No,” I said vaguely. “Don’t think so.” Now the frenzy of combat was over, it was so much harder to think. I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to be doing.

“Then—can’t you look or see how bad it is or— I don’t know! Put a bandage on it, or something!”

“Didn’t bring one.” I laughed; somehow it seemed funny. “Used to. Had a first-aid kit. But so used to getting out of the way …”

Luna shook her head. “We can’t stay here. Let’s go.”

“Okay.”

Luna took a step back, then waited. “Come on!”

“Where?”

“What do you mean, where? You tell me where!”

I tried to remember but it was so difficult. My mind kept wanting to go back to looking into the future and every time I did I saw only darkness. But even staring into darkness felt easier than doing anything without my magic to rely on. Maybe if I sat there and kept trying it would come back. “Don’t know,” I said. “You think of something.”

Luna looked at me in disbelief. Then all of a sudden, she exploded. “What—no!” She stared down at me, her hands balled up into fists. “I cannot believe this! You’re ALWAYS lecturing me, you’re ALWAYS telling me what to do, now the ONE TIME I need it you do THIS? What about Arachne? And Belthas? You’re the only one who knows what’s going on! Now get up!”

Somehow I found myself on my feet. I still wasn’t sure what I was doing but the names struck a chord in my memory. “Arachne. Right.” I tried to remember what the plan was. Stopping Belthas, that was it. I just wasn’t sure how.

Luna shook her head. “This isn’t working. You’re no good like …” She chewed her lip. “Alex. Alex! What did Martin do?”

“He took my magic.” Even saying it hurt. “I mean … no, he couldn’t.” I tried to concentrate, to focus. “You can’t take a mage’s power without killing him. It’s still … there. Everything that lets me use it is still there. The monkey’s paw is just taking it. Giving it to him …”

Luna was silent. I looked up to see that her brow was furrowed, thinking. “Wait,” she said. “You can’t take a mage’s power without killing him? Is that right?”

“Yeah.”

Luna stared into space for a second, then her forehead cleared and she nodded. “I’ll be right back.”

I turned my head to watch as Luna walked over to the guard lying on the floor. She hesitated, then shook her head and reached down to pull something from the man’s belt. It slid from its sheath with a quiet hiss and as I saw the light glint off it I realised it was a knife. Luna rose and came back, holding the blade awkwardly. I watched as she edged around me, keeping her distance so that she wouldn’t pass too close. And I kept watching as she walked up the corridor towards where I’d last seen Martin.

Only then did I put it together. “No, Luna, wait!”

Luna looked at me, her expression a mixture of anger and something else. “What?”

“You— You don’t have to do this.”

Luna’s voice was tight, on edge. “We’ve got to do something.”

I shook my head. “No.” All of a sudden I knew what to do. “There’s another way.”

Martin had stopped screaming. He was lying curled up on his side, scratches on the floor where his shoes had scraped. His fingers were clenched, dug into his face, and blood trickled between them in a ghastly mask. He’d lost the gun but was still gripping the monkey’s paw, his knuckles white on the lacquered tube. His breath was coming in short gasps and he didn’t seem to know we were there.

Luna and I looked down at him for a second. “What happened?” Luna asked.

“He got what he wished for,” I said absently. Thousands and millions of futures, pouring into his mind. There’s a reason diviners are rare. I spent years building the mental discipline to be able to use my power without going mad. When I look into the future, it’s like seeing through a lens: sometimes narrow and focused, sometimes wide and blurred, but always sorting, ordering, picking the futures I need and blocking out the rest. Martin didn’t have a lens. He had all my power without any of my skill. He was seeing everything at once.

I knelt next to him. Deep scratches showed on Martin’s face from where he’d clawed at his eyes, but his eyes stared blindly into space. “Martin,” I said. I could keep talking and thinking as long as I stayed focused, but it was a struggle. I kept wanting to sink back into darkness and I didn’t know how long I could keep it up. “The magic’s killing you. You’ve still got the monkey’s paw. Wish it back.”

No response. Martin’s eyes didn’t flicker, and his breathing stayed the same, hoarse and ragged.

“Can he hear us?” Luna asked.

I shook my head. Martin had to be most of the way to insane. He probably couldn’t even tell the difference between future and present anymore. “So?” Luna said.

I took a breath. “Give me that knife.”

Luna set it down on the floor with a clink. I fumbled behind me and missed it twice before looking back around to pick it up, then turned back to Martin. My thoughts were starting to fray at the edges and I knew I didn’t have much time. I took a deep breath, and focused. For this to work, I would have to genuinely mean to go through with it.

I forced myself to go back through my memories, thinking of how Martin had betrayed me and Luna. How he’d lied to us from the beginning, tried to use us, taking everything he could and leaving us to our deaths. Then I brought the knife forward in my good arm. The steel blade flashed in the light as I put it to Martin’s throat for one quick, measured slash.

My magic senses danger by seeing the futures in which I’m hurt. As I see the futures in which I’m injured or killed, I change the decisions that lead to them. But it’s painful. To avoid a future in which I die, I have to experience it. I’ve learnt to shield myself from the psychic shock of those visions, taking only a hazy glance, enough to know how to avoid that future and no more.

Martin didn’t have a shield. In that instant, as I made the decision to kill him, Martin got to experience a million futures of me cutting his throat, a million visions of his own death, every one in perfect detail.

The scream from Martin’s throat was like nothing on earth. I jumped back as he spasmed, every muscle in his body flailing, and his voice hurt my ears. “Take it back!”

And just that fast, it happened. My magic snapped back into me like a rubber band, the visions flooding back into my mind, glowing lines of light branching out into the darkness. I knew where I’d see Luna if I turned around to look at her. I knew the wound on my arm was painful but not fatal; it would hurt but I’d be able to keep using the arm if I forced myself. And I knew Martin was about to collapse in front of me.

Martin collapsed. I leant against the wall, closing my eyes, feeling my thoughts piecing themselves together again bit by bit. The relief was incredible and I shivered as I remembered the feeling of darkness. I was sure I’d just gotten the material for a whole new set of nightmares.

“Alex?” Luna asked.

“I’m okay,” I said. A stray memory nagged at me: Hadn’t that guard hit me, with that last burst of fire? I checked and this time my divination magic found an answer: two small holes in my cloak. My mist cloak had saved me, its camouflage blurring my outline just enough to make the shots miss. I patted it affectionately, then checked my watch. Fifteen minutes. “We’d better go.”

Luna was staring down at Martin and when she spoke her voice was toneless. “Are those protections still working?”

Martin was unconscious, lying still on the floor, and as I looked into the futures in which Luna or I moved in to finish him, I saw that nothing would stop us. The monkey’s paw had taken back all that it had given. “They’re gone.”

Luna looked at Martin for a few seconds more and when she finally turned her eyes to me there was something cold in them. “You shouldn’t have stopped me.”

I looked back at Luna for a few seconds before speaking quietly. “I don’t think his life is yours to take.”

Luna held my gaze a moment longer, then stepped back around the corner. As I moved past, I felt the futures of her approaching Martin fade away. I headed for the stairs and Luna followed.

chapter 11

By the time we reached the ground floor, the fighting had died down. The manor was a wasteland of smoke and rubble, small fires burning amidst the smoke, but the stone and concrete had weathered the attacks and the structure was stable. I could sense two or three guards still around, but they were keeping their distance.

As we came up the steps, the radio in my pocket crackled. I pulled it out with my good arm. “Sonder.”

“Alex! Finally! Did you find Luna?”

I turned the radio’s volume up and tossed it to Luna. “It’s for you.”

Luna caught it awkwardly. “Hi, Sonder.”

I could hear the relief in Sonder’s voice. “You’re okay?”

“I’m fine. What’s happening?”

“It’s crazy out here,” Sonder sounded tense. “I saw the back door explode and Cinder fought his way in but—Alex, are you there? Cinder got driven out. He’s fighting on the west slope.”

I was analysing a route up to the second floor. “Fighting what?”

“A mantis golem. Belthas got a mantis golem!” I could hear distant sounds of battle over the radio. “It’s trying to kill Cinder, Cinder’s trying to melt it—”

“Who’s winning?”

There was a pause. “Neither, I think.”

I checked my watch. We had a little over ten minutes. “We can’t wait for Cinder,” I decided. “I’m going after Belthas. Luna, Sonder is up the mountainside from here. You can circle around and—”

“Screw that.” Luna’s eyes flashed. “I’m going with you.”

I looked back at her for a second, then smiled slightly. “Sonder,” I said loudly. “We’re going for Belthas’s sanctum on the second floor. If you can get a message to Cinder, tell him.”

Sonder sounded confused. “Wait—both of you?”

Luna switched the radio off and tossed it to me. We headed upstairs.

We passed several charred bodies on the way up. There were several guards still lurking, but they stayed out of our way. It looked like there’d been some fast natural selection amongst Belthas’s security force and the survivors had been the ones who’d figured out that attacking a mage was a very bad idea. As we climbed, burnt flesh, burnt wiring, and smoke mixed together to make a nauseating stench.

The top floor was luxurious but impersonal, like an expensive hotel. A thick carpet lined the central corridor and I could feel the presence of minor magical effects from behind the wooden doors. All was untouched; Cinder must not have gotten this far. I moved down the corridor, watching for an ambush, Luna a few steps behind.

The corridor ended in an anteroom. Two double doors were set into the far wall and I knew they led into Belthas’s sanctum. Curtains were drawn over the windows, a wardrobe stood to one side, and several tables held curios. I stopped in the doorway and waited. The room was silent. There was no sound from outside; the floor had been soundproofed. Seconds ticked past.

“You might as well come out,” I said to the room.

Silence.

I lifted my gun, letting it make a quiet metallic noise. My left arm hurt a little but it was manageable. “How about I shoot those curtains?”

The curtains moved and Meredith stepped out.

For someone in the middle of a battle, Meredith looked far better than she ought to. Somehow she’d found the opportunity to change clothes and was wearing a black figure-hugging outfit that probably would have been distracting if I’d been in any mood to care. It was her eyes I was watching and I could tell from the look in them that she was afraid. She stood, on edge, trying to watch both me and the gun.

“I know why you’re here,” I said quietly. “Belthas put you out here to slow us down. You said yes because you thought you could stay out of sight till the fighting was over.” I nodded back down the corridor. “Run. Now. If you stay, Cinder’ll kill you. If you get in my way, I will.”

Meredith hesitated, and for a moment I saw the choices branching before her. Then, slowly, she came towards me, keeping her eyes on me. I let her go by. For a moment it looked as though she was about to say something, then she walked away.

Meredith passed Luna without a glance. As she did a tendril of Luna’s curse flicked out over Meredith, soaking into her to leave a faint silvery glow. Meredith walked back the way we came and vanished. I looked at Luna and raised an eyebrow.

“What?” Luna said. She sounded a little annoyed. “It won’t kill her.” She paused. “Probably.”

I glanced down the corridor, then turned away. “What if she comes back?” Luna asked.

“She won’t.”

The double doors to Belthas’s sanctum swung open with a creak.

The room was big: the size of a small dance hall, wider than it was long, with a high ceiling. There were no windows but the roof seemed to be made of some one-way glass, giving a view of the dark sky. Tables and workbenches were scattered around the edge, filled with components and supplies, but aside from that the room was bare: If a fight started I wouldn’t have much cover. Another set of double doors in the back corner stood open, and through them I could see shelves.

In front of the doors, set into the floor at the end of the room, was the biggest ritual circle I’d ever seen. It was done in a triple ring design with the outermost ring cast in copper, the middle in silver, and the inner in gold, with runes and sigils inlaid between them. Three lecterns stood in the innermost ring in a triangle, and upon them were laid a wand, a book, and a knife.

Belthas stood at the centre. He’d changed into blue ceremonial robes of the kind used by the Council for formal occasions and he looked every inch the magus in his sanctum. “Verus,” Belthas said without looking up. He was tracing lines in the book with his right hand, while holding one of the iridescent purple rods in his left. “I hope you know I’ll be taking this damage out of your pay.”

“You can call this my two weeks’ notice,” I said. I had a clear line of sight. I looked into the future of my shooting at Belthas—

—and saw him deflect the bullets effortlessly with an ice shield. “I have to admit,” Belthas said, “you’ve caused me quite an extraordinary amount of trouble.”

“Funny. I was about to say the same thing.” I could feel the room thrumming with power; the ritual was nearly complete. As I concentrated, I saw that the focus was the rod in Belthas’s hand. It shared a sympathetic link with its twin embedded in Arachne: Once Belthas finished, it would act as the conduit to drain her energy into him. I didn’t know what it would do to Belthas, but I knew what it would do to Arachne.

“I have to ask,” Belthas said. His tone was mildly curious. “Why are you so concerned about these creatures? If you’d just given me the elemental and the spider all this could have been resolved peacefully.”

“Belthas,” I said, “trust me. You wouldn’t understand.”

“They’re not mages. They’re not even human.”

“And I still like them more than you. Though that’s not saying much.”

Luna was hanging back in the corridor, waiting for my lead. I ran through different angles of attack and saw Belthas block them in every future I tried. Most of Belthas’s power was going into the ritual but he had more than enough left to protect himself.

But in that case, why wasn’t he attacking? I spread my arms. “What’s the matter? Don’t feel like taking a shot?”

Belthas sighed. “In case it’s escaped your attention, I’m somewhat busy. If this is the best you can do, I’d appreciate it if you would come back later.”

I took a couple of steps forward. The more I looked into the future, the more certain I was that Belthas couldn’t reach me. The ritual circle must be acting as a barrier. He couldn’t get offensive spells through it.

But if I walked into the circle … I winced at the image. Ow. I wouldn’t make it two steps. Ice magic does really nasty things to flesh.

“Alex,” Luna whispered from the doorway.

I knew she was about to suggest using her magic against him. “Wouldn’t work,” I whispered back.

“I could get closer—”

“From outside that circle’s shielding him,” I whispered. “And if you got inside he’d take you apart.”

“I must say, I’m a little disappointed,” Belthas said, ignoring our conversation. “The more … questionable aspects to your background are well known but most mages had been under the impression you were trying to put being a Dark mage behind you. Now you’re switching sides? Again?”

“Should have read those reports more carefully,” I said. I signalled Luna to stay put and began moving down the length of the room. I kept a wary eye on Belthas as I approached, my precognition alert for danger. “The reason I left was to get away from people like you.”

“Which is why you’re working for Cinder?” Belthas shook his head. “Honestly, Verus. You break into my home with a Dark cabal and still think you’re on the right side? Which one of us has caused more deaths lately?”

“That might be because you keep yourself an army of minions.”

“And who made the choice to kill them?” Belthas asked. He hadn’t looked up and was still tracing through the ritual in the book. “Those men had families, you know. I do so hate writing condolence letters.”

I felt a flare of anger and bit down an answer. I was less than thirty feet from Belthas, just seconds at a run. But then, past Belthas, I caught sight of something in the room beyond. It looked like a bed with someone on it. I moved along to get a better view. It was a bed … and lying on it was Rachel, wearing what looked like a hospital gown. Her eyes were closed and an IV drip hung from a stand. There was something else next to her. I took another step—

My precognition warned me just in time. I leapt backwards as golden energy slashed the air with a hiss, passing through the spot I’d been in a second ago. I tripped and fell, turned it into a backwards roll, and scrambled away as heavy footfalls sounded from the storeroom. “Oh, didn’t I mention?” Belthas said. “Your new friend Cinder drew away that mantis golem …”

And a hulking shape appeared in the doorway. “…But what made you think I only had one?” Belthas asked, just as the golem fired.

Mantis golems are the personal guards of the Council and only the most well-connected of Light mages have them. They look like seven-foot-tall humanoid praying mantises made of silver and gold, and they’re bloody lethal. This one was carrying two blades and an energy projector that spat a rapid-fire stream of bolts. I jumped back as the line of fire walked towards me, dodged through the shots in a move I’d never have dared to try if I’d stopped to think about it, kicked one of the benches over, and dropped behind it as the stream of bolts swept back over my head again.

The stream of fire cut off as the golem lost sight of its target, and the heavy footfalls began again as it started to walk around the circle towards me. I popped up and sighted on the thing—although mantis golems are damn near invulnerable to attack magic a lucky hit can damage their joints or sensors—but I only managed to get off one burst before another volley of fire forced me to duck down. This time the golem sent a second volley of fire through the bench where I’d been and I rolled right just in time. I was focusing all my attention on the immediate future, thinking only about surviving the next couple of seconds.

Which was why I didn’t realise Luna had stepped out of cover until I caught sight of her in my peripheral vision. She was standing in the open, staring at the golem and concentrating, and I could see a steady stream of silver mist flowing from her to sink into the metal monster. She was within the golem’s field of vision but it didn’t turn towards her, its simple programming not recognising her as a threat.

But Belthas did. He said something in another language and the golem stopped and turned towards Luna with a hiss of metal. I came up with a shout and fired, knowing the shots wouldn’t do any damage but hoping they’d get its attention. The bullets glanced away and the golem locked onto its new target, oblivious.

The first volley would have killed Luna but for her curse. It’s so deadly one can easily forget that its original function was to serve as a protection, drawing luck away from everyone else to bring it to its subject. Normally Luna never trips or falls—the curse protects her from any accident, no matter how small—but as the golem fired she stumbled on the smooth floor and went sprawling, the spread of bolts hissing over her head. The second volley missed too, kicking up splinters as Luna rolled to the left and started to rise, but then the golem planted its feet squarely and I knew the third shot would hit.

It didn’t. The golem’s movements suddenly slowed, and it took a second, maybe two, to fire. When it did, the energy bolt drifted out of the barrel as if in slow motion, accelerating as it moved away. By the time it hit real speed Luna was on the other side of the room, and the energy did nothing but tear up the floor.

I looked right and saw Sonder in the doorway, his eyes narrowed, concentrating on the golem. As my mage’s sight adapted I saw the spell he was holding—it was a slow time field, warping space around the golem so that to us the construct was only a fraction as fast as it should have been. The golem tracked Luna, the barrel of its projector moving as if underwater, but between the delay and Luna’s curse there was no way it could hit her now. Stray shots exploded bottles and items on the benches until Luna vanished from sight. Before it could adjust its aim I sighted on the projector, searched through the futures until I found a weak spot, then fired, emptying my magazine. The bullets slowed as they approached the golem until I could almost see them, the impacts sparking along the projector’s barrel in slow motion until a lucky hit sent flashes of energy crackling back into the hilt as the weapon short-circuited. The golem started to advance towards Luna, its movements ponderous and slow.

I ran to where Sonder was standing. “Hey,” he said through gritted teeth, his eyes locked on the golem. “Need some help?”

I ejected the empty magazine and snapped in a new one. “Good timing.” I could see sweat beading on Sonder’s forehead; slowing time is not kid stuff. Luna and the golem were playing tag on the other side of the room, Luna still pouring her curse into the golem for all it was worth. With its ranged weapon destroyed and its movement slowed, the golem couldn’t catch her … for now.

“Can’t hold this … long,” Sonder said. His knuckles were white where he was gripping the door frame.

“You won’t have to.” I snatched a glance back at Belthas, still standing in the circle. The ambient energy had built higher and I knew we had only minutes before he finished. I looked into the future to see how long—

—and my heart lifted. “Sonder,” I said. “Thirty more seconds.”

“’Kay,” Sonder managed. He was starting to tremble and I knew how much strain he was under. But whether through how difficult it was to counter or just its sheer power, Luna’s curse was working better, and I could see the telltale silver glow building up around the golden construct. I waited, counting off the seconds, then shouted out. “Luna, this way! Run!”

Luna gave me one startled glance, then sprinted. The golem turned to follow. Trying to close with Luna, it had come nearly against the wall.

The side of the room blew in with a crack of thunder. The concussion sent me and Sonder staggering and with a groaning, snapping sound, the entire corner of the room fell in, the walls and roof coming down in a roar. The mantis golem disappeared under tons of concrete, the silver and gold of its body buried in rubble. A cloud of choking dust covered the room and a cold breeze swept through, carrying with it the scent of scorched earth. I looked up to see that an entire corner of the sanctum was gone, open to the dark sky.

Cinder landed on the pile of rubble with a crunch. He looked left to see Luna, who was crouching between the debris with wide eyes, all of the falling stone having somehow missed her, and his gaze swept the room before locking onto Belthas. Cinder’s hands came up and orange-red fire licked around them, darkening and brightening at the same time until it hurt to look at. The smell of brimstone filled the air.

Belthas looked up just in time to see what was coming, and for an instant his face registered absolute disgust. “Shit.”

The fire blast was hot enough to melt metal. If I hadn’t closed my eyes it would have blinded me, and it was so bright that even through my eyelids I saw it as a white-hot beam. The circle resisted it for maybe a hundredth of a second before collapsing, and as it did I felt the snap as the ritual broke, the accumulated energy scattering away. A triangulated ice shield flicked up around Belthas just before the beam struck, vaporising the shield in an explosion of steam.

The echoes died away, leaving only the drip of water and the hiss of something evaporating. The sanctum was filled with mist. As it cleared, I made out the forms of Cinder, standing on the rubble, eyes narrowed as he searched for Belthas, with Luna a little way behind. Sonder came to his feet, coughing. “Did he get him?”

Ice slashed out of the mist, three separate strikes of frozen air mixed with razor-edged shards. Cinder’s fire shield exploded them into steam but another volley hit a second later, sending him stumbling back as Belthas strode out of the mist. A nimbus of icy blue light glowed around him, the energy forming crystalline shapes, and his eyes glowed azure. There were scorch marks across his robes but he didn’t look injured. “Cinder.” His voice was cold and tightly controlled. “Verus. Congratulations. You have finally made me angry.”

“Sonder!” I shouted.

Sonder turned in surprise and I shoved him in the chest, sending him sprawling just as ice shards cut the air where we’d been standing. It missed me by a foot, but the cold was intense enough to leave frost on my coat and freeze the blood on my arm. I dived back just in time to avoid a second strike and scrambled for cover.

As I saw Belthas, though, I felt a chill. Belthas had nearly killed me and Sonder without even paying attention. He was facing Cinder, sending lightning-quick slashes of ice and crystalline blades at him from different directions, sparing only an occasional flick of a hand to send an attack my way. Cinder fought back with walls and columns of fire, burning away Belthas’s attacks in flashes of energy, only barely holding his own as the walls and benches ignited and shattered around them.

I caught sight of Luna, hiding behind a chunk of rubble. “Get out of here!”

Luna hesitated.

I snarled and raised my voice over the sounds of battle. “Goddamn it, I gave you an order, apprentice! This is way out of your league, now run!”

Luna stared wide-eyed for a second, then jumped up and ran, just as a strike from Belthas shattered her hiding place. I didn’t have time to make sure she got out. I sprinted down the length of the room, making myself as hard a target as possible.

Blades of ice gouged chunks from the walls and searing fire burnt the stone black. The air was filled with mist and smoke one minute, burnt to nothingness the next. I sent three-round bursts at Belthas whenever I could get a shot but they glanced harmlessly from his shields. I knew now why Belthas hadn’t been scared of Cinder and Deleo. He was holding me off while driving Cinder back and I didn’t think he was even going all-out. Cinder had stopped attacking; he was backing away down towards the circle, a silent snarl on his face, all his energies going into the shield of flame around him that was keeping Belthas’s strikes from tearing him apart. And then, all of a sudden, the sounds of battle stopped.

I peered out cautiously from a pile of debris that had been a workbench. Cinder was standing in Belthas’s circle, the lecterns melted and broken at his feet. I didn’t dare stick my head out to get a look at Belthas but I knew he was a little way back.

“You were a fool to come here.” Belthas didn’t sound out of breath. “You and Deleo couldn’t defeat me together. What did you expect to do alone?”

Cinder didn’t answer. Flame smouldered around his hands. “I can kill you through that circle,” Belthas said calmly. “It’ll just take longer.” I heard the crunch of rubble as he moved around closer to me. “But I think I’d rather finish this quickly.”

Belthas drew level with the doors to the storeroom and I saw what he was going to do. Rachel was still lying unconscious on the bed, visible through the dust and smoke. Belthas lifted a hand towards her and blue light gathered around him.

Cinder got between Belthas and Rachel just as Belthas fired. The ice snuffed out Cinder’s shield with a crack and he went spinning to the floor.

But to break Cinder’s shield Belthas had needed to draw on his full power, and just for an instant, he wasn’t focused on me. I came around the bench at a dead run, my left hand holding the gun, my right reaching into my pocket. Belthas spun, a shield coming up.

A gun’s no use against a battle-mage who knows it’s there—but it can make a good distraction. The shield was between Belthas and my left side, and as I hit the ice, feeling the deadly cold freeze my body, my right hand came out of my pocket holding the dragon’s fang. As Belthas lifted his hand for the spell that would kill me, I spun off the shield and as my fingertips brushed Belthas I shouted the command word.

It was nothing like the gate spells that mages use. A normal gate opens up a similarity between two points in space, forming a portal you can step through. It takes time. This didn’t. One minute we were in the shattered remnants of Belthas’s sanctum, dust and smoke filling the air, the next we were in an vast cavern.

And there was silence.

Belthas’s shield and the dragon’s fang had disappeared. I stood toe to toe with Belthas, my fingers still resting against his arm. For an instant we stared into each other’s eyes.

Then Belthas hit me with an ice hammer the size of a door.

I twisted to soften the impact but there was no way to dodge this one. If the blow had hit me square on it would have broken my ribs. Instead it only smashed the breath from my lungs, lifted me off my feet, and slammed me down on the rock ten feet away.

Belthas walked forward as I struggled to breathe, stopping with his hand aimed towards me. I looked up to see a deadly blue-white glow hovering on his palm. His voice could have been pleasant, if you didn’t meet his eyes. “Explain. Quickly.”

I couldn’t speak. I fought for breath, trying to make my lungs work. “Verus,” Belthas said when I didn’t answer. “I have had a long and frustrating day.” He sounded calm but I could hear the tightly controlled anger beneath the surface. “Thanks to you, I am going to have to rebuild my plans from the ground up. Now on top of that, you appear to have transported me from my sanctum. So if you do not explain exactly where we are and how you broke through my gate ward, I am going to kill you.”

I looked up at Belthas and started to laugh. I couldn’t help it. I knew Belthas wasn’t kidding, that I was literally seconds away from death. But somehow it was so funny I couldn’t stop.

Belthas just waited and I could feel cold hatred radiating from him. He wasn’t planning to let me live no matter what I told him. I tried to speak, but between laughing and the pain in my ribs, I couldn’t manage it. Only after a few deep breaths was I able to get the words out. “No one … ever believes me.”

The glow around Belthas’s hand brightened and he sighted on my head. “Last chance.”

“Doesn’t matter … how many times.” I stopped laughing and met Belthas’s eyes. “Look behind you.”

I’m pretty good at telling when someone’s lying to me. I guess Belthas was the same. Something in my face must have told him I wasn’t bluffing.

He turned around.

The dragon was staring down at Belthas. It made me think of a mountain looking down on an insect.

I’ll give Belthas credit: He didn’t freeze. I saw the blood drain from his face but his reaction was instant. His hands came up to cast a spell.

The dragon flicked Belthas with one claw.

Human bodies are tough. But they’ve got their limits. When a body is struck by something the size of a city block moving at the speed of a freight train, the results are … hard to convey. Broken, torn, or even shattered doesn’t describe it. The best word I can come up with is shred-ded.

Drops of blood splashed my face. The dragon and I watched as the bits scattered over a square mile of cavern. It took about ten seconds for the pieces to finish hitting the ground. Then the dragon turned its massive head, looking down at me with diamond eyes.

“Um,” I said once I’d caught my breath. “Any chance I could have another one of those things?”

chapter 12

It was two weeks later.

“How much longer?” I muttered out of the side of my mouth.

“Shh,” Sonder whispered.

“Did she stop to do her hair or what?”

“Shh!”

We were standing in a high, arched hall, the walls russet and gold. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling and rows of stylised lamps were mounted on the walls, filling every inch of the room with light. About twenty people were scattered around, talking quietly. The acoustics of the hall made them hard to hear, but Sonder and I were up on the stage and anything we said would be amplified.

But I’d been waiting nearly an hour and was getting restless. “Do these things always take this long?” I whispered.

“Alex, can’t you please be quiet?” Sonder pleaded. He was wearing brown-and-cream ceremonial robes. “You’re not supposed to talk till the ceremony starts.”

I thought about asking why but decided it wasn’t really fair. At least the outfit Arachne had made for me was as comfortable as ever. She’d gone for a black design with slashes of midnight blue, and while it made me feel like a giant bat, I had to admit it looked good. Off to one side, Talisid was speaking quietly with Ilmarin. Talisid had agreed to preside and find a second, and had arranged the venue too. Before I could open my mouth again, the doors at the far end swung open and two people walked in.

The girl on the right looked twenty or so, with black shoulder-length hair and odd reddish-brown eyes. We’d met only once, though I’d gotten a good feeling from her; she had a gentle manner I found appealing. Sonder had known her through some of his old classes. Her name was Anne.

Luna walked a little behind and to the side. Her robe was done to Council standards but Arachne had somehow made it look better than any apprentice robe ought to. It was pure white with green highlights that set off Luna’s pale skin, and the conversation died away as heads turned to watch the girls. Anne led Luna up the steps and the room fell silent as Talisid stepped forward. “Who comes before us?”

Anne and Luna came to a stop. “One who seeks knowledge,” Anne said in a soft voice.

“How does she approach?”

“In darkness, unknowing of the Light; in humility, knowing of her ignorance; and in faith, that she might become what she is not.”

“Then let her step forward.”

Luna did so and Anne moved to one side. “Approach and state your name,” Talisid said.

“Luna Mancuso,” Luna said. I knew she must be nervous but her voice was steady.

“Luna Mancuso,” Talisid said. “Do you swear before this Council to accept the guidance of a master? Do you swear to serve without doubt, to obey without question, and to endure without surrender? And do you swear to serve your master, and through him the Council and the Light, in all ways and in all things until such day that you may take your place among us as a journeyman mage?”

“I do so swear,” Luna said. Amazingly, she didn’t choke on the obey part.

“Then I ask of this Council,” Talisid said. “Is there one among us willing to take on this charge?”

That was my cue. “I am willing,” I said, stepping forward.

“And what do you extend?”

“To teach her in lore and magic; to protect her from others and herself; to aid and sustain her whatever may come; and to take responsibility for her deeds for good or ill.”

“The offer of Mage Verus is accepted,” Talisid said. “I stand witness.”

“I stand witness,” Ilmarin said.

“Then it is agreed,” Talisid said. “This Council is adjourned.”

With the ceremony done, the atmosphere in the hall relaxed. Luna was approached by other mages and before long she was at the centre of a loose crowd of people. “I didn’t expect this many,” I said.

“It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise,” Talisid said. We were standing a little way to the side, watching from a distance, each of us holding a glass of wine. “You’re acquiring something of a reputation.”

“Really?”

“I didn’t say it was a good reputation,” Talisid said dryly. “You’re now suspected of having a hand in the disappearance of two separate Light mages. With good reason, I might add.”

“I could say they started it.”

“Somehow I don’t think that would help very much.”

Luna was talking with Ilmarin, with Sonder hovering nearby. The silver mist of Luna’s curse was more tightly concentrated than before, surrounding Luna in a radius of one arm’s length rather than two. The practice I’d made her put in seemed to have paid off. “They seem more interested in her, anyway.”

“Verus,” Talisid said. “It’s nothing to do with interest. Belthas had a well-deserved reputation as one of the most dangerous battle-mages in the country. That you had a disagreement with him is not a secret. People are expecting him to finish what he started. When he doesn’t return …”

I watched the crowd, not answering. “Ah, I’m sorry,” Talisid said. “Let me correct myself. If he doesn’t return … then a great many people are going to become very interested in you.”

“Can’t wait.”

“I expect some will be quite impressed,” Talisid said. “Possibly not for the reasons you’d like. But either way, you’re going to be quite famous. And your apprentice as well.”

I looked at Talisid sharply. He met my gaze, eyes calm. “You should probably spend some time considering the subject. I suspect that in the next—oh, let’s say two months or so—you’ll be approached by quite a few people with propositions for you. If I were you, I’d think carefully about how to respond.”

“And what about you, Talisid?” I said. “What do you get out of all this?”

Talisid looked back at me for a second, then smiled slightly. “Perhaps some day I’ll be able to tell you. Good night, Verus.”

I watched Talisid go.

It took the best part of an hour before Luna and Sonder could disengage themselves and make their way over to me. As Luna got out of range of the other mages, I saw her slump a little. “Whew,” Luna said as she reached me. “Alex, can you back off? This is hard.”

“I saw,” I said, keeping a safe distance. As Luna relaxed her control, the silver mist of her curse spread out again to its usual range. “Good job.”

“You thought I’d get the lines wrong, didn’t you?”

“I was starting to wonder if you’d even show up.”

“You’d be slow too if you had to do your clothes and hair without anyone else touching them.”

“Was everything okay with Anne?” Sonder asked.

Luna shook her head. “It was fine. She didn’t even ask why.” She gave me a half smile. “Didn’t invite Cinder?”

I laughed. Cinder had been as good as his word back on that night. Despite his injuries he’d brought Sonder and Luna back to London after I’d gone and even dropped them off at my shop. Then he’d taken Rachel with him, still unconscious, and vanished into the darkness. “Is it going to be okay?” Sonder said seriously. “I mean, none of the others are going to be coming after us, right?”

I shook my head. “Belthas is gone. His men don’t have any reason to come for us anymore. Same goes for Meredith. She was only in it for herself.”

“What about Levistus?” Luna said quietly.

Sonder glanced around, nervous, but no one was within earshot. The gathering was starting to break up, mages strolling towards the doors. “He was the one behind Belthas, right?” Luna said. “I mean, this is twice we’ve messed up his plans. He’s not going to be happy, is he?”

I nodded. “We can’t do anything about him. Not directly.” I smiled slightly. “But look on the bright side. Every time he’s taken a shot at us, it’s turned out badly for him. Maybe he’ll think twice before trying it again.”

Sonder looked around to see that the hall was all but empty. “Should we … ?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s not keep her waiting.”

We travelled across London and onto the darkness of the Heath. A particularly stupid pair of muggers tried to squeeze some money out of us. That didn’t work out so well for them. After the brief interlude, we made our way to Arachne’s lair.

Walking back into Arachne’s cavern felt like coming home. The walls were covered with colours again, hangings and tapestries and rugs making a background of red and green and blue, while the furniture was as piled with clothes as it had ever been. The chairs and couches damaged in the attack had been replaced, and the blast marks on the floor had been cleaned away. Only in the side tunnel to the storerooms was there any sign of violence: Although the rubble had been cleared, there was a blackened gash in the roof where Garrick’s mines had brought it down.

It was the first time I’d been back inside. The dragon had given me another tooth—but one that had worked differently. When I used it on Arachne, she’d been transported, but I hadn’t. There’d been no way for me to know where she’d gone or if she was even alive. I’d had no choice but to leave, and when I next returned, the entrance to her lair had been sealed. I’d managed to talk to Arachne only once since then and I hadn’t seen her. I hoped she was all right.

The three of us moved a little way inside and then stopped. “Arachne?” Luna called. “Are you there?”

There was a moment’s silence—and then with a rustle, Arachne appeared from the tunnel, cobalt-blue highlights shining off her black body. “Luna, Alex!” Arachne called. “There you are! And who’s this?”

“Um, I’m Sonder.” Sonder gave an awkward little bow. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Of course, Alex has told me about everything you’ve done. And Luna, I hear I should be congratulating you?”

We clustered around Arachne and I reached out to stroke one of her legs. She looked as healthy and well as she’d ever been and I found myself smiling. Somehow, it felt as though everything was right again.

We stayed late that night. Arachne’s a charming host once you get over her appearance and it didn’t take her any time at all to put Sonder at his ease. It was the first time all of us had been in one place and able to relax and I’d forgotten how nice it felt. Luna was the focus of the evening, wanting to know everything she could about what being an apprentice would be like, and both Sonder and Arachne had a lot to tell her. Arachne’s seen whole generations of apprentices grow up and Sonder himself had only been a journeyman for less than a year. Oddly, I had almost as much to learn as Luna. I’d never seen much of the Light mage’s apprenticeship system—and the apprenticeship system I had seen was one that I was absolutely not going to inflict upon her. Luna wasn’t the only one who was going to need to learn some new tricks.

It was after midnight when Sonder started yawning, with Luna following a little way behind. After the third set of yawns I spoke up. “All right, kids. Time for bed.”

“Really?” Sonder said. He sounded disappointed; he’d been in the middle of quizzing Arachne about some obscure historical period I’d barely heard of.

“In a bit,” Luna said.

“No,” I said firmly. “We’re meeting Talisid to pick up your materials tomorrow morning. Off with you.”

Luna gave me a quick look, then got to her feet. “Thanks, Arachne.”

“You’re welcome, dear. Congratulations again.”

“Alex?” Sonder said. “You’re not coming?”

“I’ve got a few things to finish up. You and Luna go back together, okay?”

“Okay!”

“Good-bye,” Luna said to Arachne. “Night, Alex.”

The two of them walked away down the corridor. I leant back on the couch, listening to their footsteps as they faded away, waiting until I heard the distant rumble of the entrance opening and then closing again.

“She acts more like it now,” Arachne said.

I smiled. “Glad to hear it.”

“It’s good you worked things out.”

I glanced around the walls. “You did a good job cleaning the place up.” My eyes wandered to the jagged roof of the side tunnel. “How many bodies were there?”

“Three.” Arachne’s tone of voice suggested it was an ordinary question.

“You didn’t find a fourth?” I nodded at the tunnel. “Under the rubble down there?”

“No. Why?”

“Just wondering.” So no trace of Garrick, and if Arachne hadn’t found his body, I was pretty sure he wasn’t dead. Probably he’d set up an escape route ahead of time. He’d always struck me as the type to plan ahead. “You’re okay?”

“Perfectly fine. It took me a little while to recover but that focus didn’t do any permanent damage.” Arachne paused. “Of course, if the ritual had been completed …”

“I know.”

“Thank you.”

I looked up in surprise. Arachne was looming over me, her legs on either side of the couch. Her presence was at odds with the sound of her voice. “I know how much danger you put yourself in for me.”

“Uh … that’s okay.” I couldn’t help but feel that the whole thing had been partly my fault. After all, the way Belthas had managed to break in had been through Luna and Martin …

“No,” Arachne looked down at me with her eight eyes. “Alex, I’ve lived a long time. A very long time. I’ve seen many mages and there have been some I could trust as much as you. But not many. I’ve never known why some mages are loyal to creatures like me when other mages see us as monsters, but I’ve learnt to know it when I see it. I see it in you and I’m grateful. If you ever need my help, you’ll have it.”

I didn’t know what to say. “Thank you,” I said at last, and rested a hand on one of Arachne’s legs. I can’t really read Arachne’s expressions but I think if she could, she would have smiled.

We talked a while, about old times and new, remembering past stories and wondering about what was yet to come. Finally I looked into the future and sighed. “Well, I’d better go take care of something.”

Arachne gave me her equivalent of a nod. “I under-stand.”

I rose and stretched, then paused. “Arachne? I know you don’t like talking about yourself—but I’d like to know. Why did that dragon help us?”

Arachne was quiet for a little while before speaking. “A creator can be as a mother.”

I looked at her, puzzled.

“You would recognise her name.” Oddly, Arachne sounded as if she were smiling. “I expect you’ll work it out some day.”

I thought about it as I made the journey back up the tunnel, and as I did, something else occurred to me. When the dragon had given me the tooth, I’d assumed it was meant for Arachne. I’d thought that by using it against Belthas I was going against the dragon’s plan, and I’d wondered if the dragon might not be very happy about it.

But now I thought about it, the dragon had never actually said who I was supposed to use it on.

I stepped out into the cool night air and walked up the slope of the ravine as the entrance closed behind me with a faint rumble. There’s an old tree trunk near the ravine, one that fell many years ago. The park rangers cleaned it up and tidied away the dead branches but left the log where it was, and I sat down on it and looked up at the sky. It was a clear night, and the autumn stars shone down through the fuzz of the city lights, the Square of Pegasus high to the southwest while Orion rose in the east. It wasn’t silent—even on the Heath, London’s never really silent—but it was as quiet as it gets. The only sounds were the faint murmur of nighttime traffic and the wind in the leaves.

I waited.

I heard him before I saw him: dragging footsteps mixed with the crunch of undergrowth. He fell once on his way up the hill, lying still for a moment before pulling himself to his feet. I waited for him to get close enough, then when he was within twenty feet I switched on my torch, keeping it pointed down and away.

The figure standing before me was a wreck. The clothes were ripped, dirty, and threadbare. The once-blond hair had been rained on and dirtied until it was a brownish mess, and the eyes blinked, squinting in the light. He looked like he’d walked the whole way from Scotland. Maybe he had.

It took a good few seconds before a light of recognition came on in those eyes. “You.”

I looked back at him steadily. “Hello, Martin.”

Martin just stared at me.

“I was expecting you sooner,” I said when Martin didn’t speak. “I guess you didn’t have anyone to give you a lift.”

“You,” Martin said again. His voice shook. “You’ve got it. Why? I’ve seen it, all of them, all of it, should be killing you, you’re just there, you’re sitting there, you’re …”

“You can’t learn to be a mage in a day, Martin.”

“Couldn’t be, I saw it, I had it.” Martin shook his head, distracted. “Wrong. Shouldn’t be dark, should …” He trailed off, muttering to himself.

“You know,” I said after a moment, “I spent a long time trying to figure out what to do when you made it here. And the funny thing? I realised I didn’t actually want you dead. Kind of weird. I mean, you nearly got us all killed and it’s not like I’m all that great at being forgiving.”

Martin glanced at me, then shook his head and looked away, muttering “not that, not that” under his breath. “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I could say you can’t do us much damage anymore but that’s not really true, is it? Maybe it’s because of Luna. I think she actually loved you. God knows that was a bad enough mistake but I don’t really like the idea of her first relationship in however long ending like this.” I let out a breath. “Or maybe it’s just that I’ve seen enough people die lately.”

Martin didn’t react at Luna’s name. “So I’ll tell you the truth,” I said. “Just like that day you came into my shop. Stop using the monkey’s paw. Drop it, leave it, whatever. If you do, I promise you’ll live. I don’t know how much of your mind you’ll get back, but you’ll have a chance.”

Martin stared through me, then laughed, a high sound that made my hairs rise. “Tricking, tricking …” His eyes narrowed and he snarled. “Liar! Liar, liar, liar! You did it, it was you! Should have worked, all of it, your fault, your fault!” Martin raised his right hand. His fingers were grubby and caked with dirt but the monkey’s paw was untouched, pale in the dim light. “One more wish, you know, don’t you? Been waiting, waiting …”

“Martin,” I said. “Trust me. You don’t want to do that.”

Martin laughed again, his voice wild. “Coward liar, coward liar … I know what it does, you couldn’t, too scared! Why not, hm? All this, anyone would use it, crazy not to use it …” A fine tremor was going up his arm as he held the monkey’s paw, levelled at me like a knife. “I know. You couldn’t see.”

I sighed. “You know something, Martin? People like you—Belthas, Meredith, all of you—you make it really hard to be a good person. I just attacked a Light sanctum and killed pretty near everyone inside. I worked with one Dark mage and rescued another.” I stared into the darkness. “All those years ago, I ran away from Richard … but if he could see me now, would he really be all that upset?” I looked at Martin. “And then I look at you. And I wonder how big a deal it would really be if I went the rest of the way.”

“You’re scared, I know you are.” The glow of the torch shone back from Martin’s manic eyes. “No more. All of it, I lost it, you too.” He aimed the monkey’s paw straight at me. “I wish. I wish for you to die!”

I looked back at Martin in silence.

Martin held my gaze for a moment, then puzzlement crossed his face. He looked at the monkey’s paw, shook it. “Die. Supposed to be dead, what’s wrong, why not?”

I rose, stepped to one side, not taking my eyes off Martin. He brandished the monkey’s paw at me. “Die. Die!” He snarled in rage. “Why not? Why isn’t it working?”

“It’s working,” I said quietly. I could feel a surge of magic building from inside the item, slow but inexorable, like a rolling wave. I began backing away along the ridge. Martin didn’t seem to notice; he stood in the edge of the cone of light from the torch, shaking the monkey’s paw. “No, no, no. Not now, not now. Work! Have to work!” He stared down at it. “You promised. Do it. Come and do it.” The monkey’s paw sat silently and Martin’s voice rose to a scream. “Come out! COME OUT!”

Something came out.

I can’t remember what it looked like. It’s not that I didn’t see it; I did. But when I try to remember, all I get is a blank. I don’t think it was the light. I think my mind got one glimpse and shut out the rest, like tripping a circuit breaker. I don’t know why and I don’t want to. Even my curiosity has its limits.

I ran. Behind me I heard Martin start to shriek, a high, horrible sound with no trace of sanity. I ran down the slope as fast as I could, every trace of my attention on the two or three seconds of footsteps ahead of me as the shrieking continued. Cool air whistled around me, the grass swishing under my feet. The shrieks rose in pitch and intensity, then abruptly cut off. The echoes rolled out over the Heath, fading into silence.

I kept running and didn’t look back. I reached the edge of the Heath before collapsing against a tree, my lungs on fire and my legs shaking. Only then did I dare to look behind me. The Heath stretched out into the night, dark and empty.

I sucked in a deep breath and started running again.

It was after three A.M. when I got home. The new window gleamed orange in the streetlights as I unlocked my front door with shaking hands. Once I was inside with the door closed behind me, I felt a little better. I went upstairs, stripped off my clothes, and took a shower.

I stayed under the hot water for a long time, letting the water wash away the sweat and the cold. Once I was warm again I towelled myself dry and went to my bedroom. I got halfway across the room and stopped.

The monkey’s paw was resting on my bed. The cylinder was open just a crack, the inner tube pulled out half an inch but not quite enough to reveal what might be inside. I stood looking at it for a long time. “So you’ve come back,” I said at last.

The monkey’s paw sat quietly. Carefully I picked it up, and carefully I walked out of my bedroom, being very sure not to jar the cylinder and slide it open. I opened the door to my safe room and placed the monkey’s paw on an empty space of table, well away from everything else. I looked down at it, then walked out, switching off the light.

Behind me, in the darkness, the monkey’s paw snapped shut with a faint click.

Seeing Is Believing

I was already moving, but I wasn’t fast enough. By the time I’d gotten the little marble out of my pocket the gun had gone clack three more times. The suppressor muffled the shot so that the loudest noise was the metallic sound of the action cycling and the thud of bullets chewing through flesh. The man shot Anne a final time as I threw the marble, and the man watching their backs had only time to flinch before it shattered against the wall.

The marble was a one-shot—effectively a single spell with an activation trigger. This particular one was a condenser spell, and as the crystal shell holding the magic in stasis broke, mist rushed out to blanket the area in fog. The cloud was only about forty feet across and it wouldn’t last long, but for a minute or two anyone in that area was blind.

Except me.

taken

BENEDICT JACKA

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

TAKEN

An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Ace mass-market edition / September 2012

Copyright © 2012 by Benedict Jacka.

Cover photographs: London © Roy Bishop / Arcangel Images;

spiderweb © Uraydnikov Sergey / Shutterstock.

Cover design by Judith Lagerman.

All rights reserved.

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375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

ISBN: 978-1-937007-72-0

ACE

Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

chapter 1

chapter 2

chapter 3

chapter 4

chapter 5

chapter 6

chapter 7

chapter 8

chapter 9

chapter 10

chapter 11

chapter 12

chapter 13

chapter 14

chapter 1

The Starbucks in Angel is on the corner of the busy intersection of Pentonville Road and Upper Street, set deep into the offices around it with a glass front that lets in the light. The counter’s at ground level, but climbing to the second floor gives a view down onto the high street and the crowds streaming in and out of Angel station. Opposite the Starbucks is Angel Square, a huge, sprawling, weirdly designed building checkered in orange and yellow and topped with a clock tower. The clock tower looks down onto City Road, a long downhill highway linking Kings Cross and the City. It was eleven A.M. and the morning rush was long past, but the roads and sidewalks were still crowded, the steady growl of engines muffled through the glass.

Inside, the shop was peaceful. Two women in work clothes chatted over their lattes and muffins, while a stolid-looking man with greying hair hid behind his Times. A student sat absorbed in his laptop while three men in business suits were bent over a table full of spreadsheets, their drinks forgotten. Music played quietly over the speakers, and the clatter of cups and coffee machines drifted up from the floor below. And near the window, chair turned to watch both the street and anyone coming in, was me.

I like the Angel Starbucks for meetings. It’s easy to reach, there’s a nice view, and it’s just the right balance between public and private. Usually it’s quiet—most of the trendy people prefer the cafés north along Upper Street—but not so quiet as to give anyone ideas. I’d probably like it even more if I drank coffee. Then again, given how much people like to complain about Starbucks, maybe I wouldn’t.

I’d already checked out the surroundings and the other customers, so when the woman walked into the shop downstairs I was free to focus on her. There are two ways of getting a look at someone with divination magic: You can look into the futures of you approaching them, or you can look into the futures of them approaching you. The first is better if you want to study them; the second is better if you want advance warning of what they’re planning. I chose the first, and by the time the woman stepped onto the second floor I’d been watching her for nearly a minute.

She was good-looking—really good-looking, with gold hair and sculpted features that made me think of old English aristocracy. She wore a cream-coloured suit that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe, and everyone in the room turned to look as she passed. The three men forgot about their spreadsheets, and the two women put their chatter on hold, watching her with narrowed eyes. Her heels clicked to a stop as she looked down at me. “Alex Verus?”

“That’s me,” I said.

She sat opposite me, legs together. I felt the eyes of everyone in the room comparing the woman’s outfit with my rumpled trousers and sweater. Now that she was on the same level I could see that it wasn’t just the heels, she really was tall, almost as tall as me. She carried nothing but a small handbag. “Coffee?” I said.

She glanced at a slim gold watch. “I only have half an hour.”

“Suits me.” I leant back on the chair. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re after?”

“I need—”

I held up my hand. “I was hoping you might introduce yourself first.”

There was a brief flash of irritation in her eyes, but it vanished quickly. “I’m Crystal.”

I already knew her name. In fact, I’d gone out of my way to find out quite a bit about Crystal in the two days since she’d contacted me requesting a meeting. I knew she was a Light mage, one of the “nobility” with lots of connections. I knew she wasn’t a player in Council politics, although she had friends there. I knew the type of magic she could use, where in England she was based, and even how old she was. What I didn’t know was what she wanted me for, and that was what I’d come here to find out. “So what can I do for you?”

“I expect you know about the White Stone?”

“The tournament?”

Crystal nodded. “Isn’t it due to start soon?” I said.

“The opening ceremony will be this Friday,” Crystal said. “At Fountain Reach.”

“Okay.”

“Fountain Reach is my family home.”

My eyebrows went up at that. “Okay.”

“I want you to help manage the event,” Crystal said.

“It’s very important that everything goes smoothly.”

“Manage how?”

“Providing additional protection. A diviner would be perfect for that.”

“Right,” I said. I’ve run into this a lot lately. People hear about my background and assume I must be a battle-mage. Now it’s true that I’m a mage and it’s true that I’ve fought battles and it’s even true that I’ve fought battle-mages, but that doesn’t make me a battle-mage myself. “I’m not really a bodyguard.”

“I’m not expecting you to serve as a battle-mage,” Crystal said. “You’d be more of a . . . security consultant. Your role would be to warn me of any anticipated problems.”

“What sort of problems?”

“We’re expecting over a hundred mages for the tournament. Initiates and journeymen, including a number of Dark representatives.” Crystal clasped her hands. “There’ll be competition. It’s possible some of the participants will carry grudges off the piste.”

It sounded like a recipe for trouble. “And stopping them will be . . .”

“There’ll be Council battle-mages present. We’re well aware of the potential for trouble. There will be sufficient security. We just need to make sure the security is in the right place at the right time.”

“You haven’t received any warnings or threats?”

“Nothing like that. There’s been no suggestion of trouble so far, and we’d like your help to make sure it stays that way.”

I thought about it. I’ve usually steered clear of Light tournaments in the past; my teachers thought they were a waste of time and on the whole I agreed with them. But if initiates were there, that changed my feelings a bit. Trying to protect adult mages is a thankless task, but apprentices are another story. “What exactly would you be expecting me to do?”

“Just to keep an eye on the guests. Possibly some investigation if anything comes up. We’re particularly concerned about keeping the younger apprentices safe, so we’d been hoping you could help with that.”

I started to nod—and stopped.

Crystal looked at me. “Is something wrong?”

I kept still for a second, then smiled at her. “No. Not at all. You mentioned investigation work?”

“Obviously, some mages are more likely to make trouble than others. We don’t have anybody we’re especially suspicious of, but it’s likely things will crop up to turn our attention to someone. When they do, it would be very helpful if you could find things out for us about them. Their background, connections, that sort of thing.”

“I assume the place is staffed?”

“Oh yes, the servants will handle all that. You’d be considered one of the guests.”

“And you said the opening ceremony was on Friday. The guests will be arriving on what, the same day?”

“Exactly.” Crystal was relaxed now; the interview was going well. “We’re expecting the first guests by the morning, although of course the sooner you can arrive the better.”

“And regarding payment?” I thought about cash, as soon as possible.

“Future service, as usual. Though if you’d prefer something more tangible that’s perfectly acceptable.”

“When could you arrange payment by?”

“Immediately, of course.”

“Well.” I smiled at Crystal. “That settles that.”

“Excellent. Then you’ll be able to come?”

“No.”

The smile vanished from Crystal’s face. “I’m sorry?”

“Well, I’m afraid there are a couple of problems.” I leant forward casually. “The first issue is that I’ve had a lot of approaches like yours over the past few months. And while they all looked good on the surface, the last couple of times I’ve said yes they’ve turned out to be . . . well, let’s just say I don’t feel like a repeat performance.”

“If you have a prior engagement I’m sure we—”

“No, we couldn’t. Because the second problem is that you’ve been reading my thoughts ever since you sat down.”

Crystal went very still. “I’m afraid I don’t follow,” she said at last.

“Oh, you were very subtle,” I said. “I’d guess most mages wouldn’t even notice.”

Crystal didn’t move, and I saw the futures whirl. Flight, combat, threats. “Relax,” I said. “If I was going to start a fight I wouldn’t have told you about it.”

The futures kept shifting a moment longer, then settled. “I’m sorry,” Crystal said. She brushed back her hair, looking remorseful. “I shouldn’t, I know. I was just so worried you’d say no.” She met my eyes, entreating. “We need someone as skilled as you. Please, won’t you help?”

I looked back at Crystal for a long second. “No,” I said at last. “I won’t. Good-bye, Crystal.”

Again the smile vanished from Crystal’s face, and this time it didn’t come back. She watched me without expression for a long moment, then rose in a single motion and stalked away, heels clicking on the floor.

I’d known Crystal was a mind mage, but even so I hadn’t noticed her spell. Active mind magic like suggestion is easy to spot if you know what to look for, but a mage who’s good with passive senses, reading the thoughts that others broadcast, is much harder to catch. The only thing that had tipped me off was that Crystal had been too neat. In a real conversation no one tells you exactly what you want to hear.

That last reaction had made me wonder, too. In between her magic and her looks, it occurred to me that Crystal probably wasn’t very used to not getting her own way. I’d better be careful around her if we met again.

I noticed suddenly that everyone in the shop was watching me. For a moment I wondered why, then smiled to myself as I realised what it must have looked like. I left my drink on the table and ran the gauntlet of stares as I walked down to the ground floor and out into the London streets.

*  *  *

I never used to get offers like these. A year ago I could go weeks at a time without seeing another mage. In magical society I was an unknown, and all in all that was how I liked it.

It’s hard to say what changed. I used to think it was because of that business with the fateweaver, but looking back, I get the feeling it was more to do with me. Maybe I was just tired of being alone. Whatever it was, I got involved in the magical world again and started getting myself a reputation.

Although not necessarily a good reputation. I got the fateweaver against some stiff competition, making a couple of very powerful enemies in the process, one of which came back to bite me five months later. A Light battle-mage named Belthas was trying to get sole ownership of a very nasty ritual, and when I tried to stop him it came down to a fight. When the dust settled, Belthas was gone.

That was the point at which other mages started to take notice. Belthas had been good—really good, one of the most dangerous battle-mages in the country—and all of a sudden a lot of people were paying attention to me. After all, if I’d been able to defeat someone like Belthas, I’d be a useful tool to have on their side. And if I wasn’t on their side . . . well, they might have to consider doing something about that.

All of a sudden, I had to play politics. Take a job, and I’d be associated with whoever I worked for. Turn one down, and I’d risk causing offence. Not all the job offers were nice, either. More than one Dark mage figured that since I’d knocked off one Light mage I might be willing to do a few more, and let me tell you, those kinds of people do not take rejection well.

But I’m not completely new to politics, either. My apprenticeship was to a Dark mage named Richard Drakh, in an environment where trust was suicide and competition was quite literally a matter of life and death. It’s left me with some major issues with relationships, but as a primer on power and manipulation it’s hard to beat. Crystal hadn’t been the first to try to take advantage of me—and she hadn’t been the first to get a surprise.

But right now I didn’t feel like dealing with that. I put Crystal out of my mind and went to go find my apprentice.

*  *  *

Mages don’t have a single base of operations—there’s no central headquarters or anything like that. Instead the Council owns a selection of properties around England that they make use of on a rotating basis. This one was an old gym in Islington, a blocky building of fading red bricks tucked away down a backstreet. The man at the front desk glanced up as I walked in and gave me a nod. “Hey, Mr. Verus. Looking for the students?”

“Yep. And the guy waiting for me.”

“Oh. Uh, I’m not supposed to talk about—”

“Yeah, I know. Thanks.” I opened the door, closed it behind me, and looked at the man leaning against the corridor wall. “You know, for someone who’s not a diviner, you seem to know an awful lot about where to find me.”

Talisid is middle-aged with a receding hairline, and every time I’ve seen him he always seems to be wearing the same nondescript-looking suit. If you added a pair of glasses he’d look like a maths teacher, or maybe an accountant. He doesn’t look like much at first glance, but there’s something in his eyes that suggests he might be more than he seems.

I’ve never known exactly what to make of Talisid. He’s involved with a high-up faction of the Council, but what game they’re playing I don’t know. “Verus,” Talisid said with a nod. “Do you have a minute?”

I began walking towards the doors at the end of the hall. Talisid fell in beside me. “Since you’re here,” I said, “I’m guessing I’m either in trouble or about to get that way.”

Talisid shook his head. “Has anybody ever told you you’re a remarkably cynical person?”

“I like to think of it as learning from experience.”

“I’ve never forced you to accept a job.”

“I know.”

The doors opened into a stairwell. Narrow rays of sun were streaming down through slit windows of frosted glass, catching motes of dust floating in the air. They lit us up as we climbed, placing us in alternating light and shadow. “Okay,” I said. “Hit me.”

“The task I’d like your help with is likely to be difficult and dangerous,” Talisid said. “It’s also covered by strict Council secrecy. You may not tell anyone the details, or even that you’re working for us.”

I looked over my shoulder with a frown. “Why all the secrecy?”

“You’ll understand once you hear the details. Whether to take the assignment is up to you, but confidentiality is not.”

I thought for a second. “What about Luna?”

“The Council would prefer to limit the number of people in the know as far as possible,” Talisid said. “However, due to the . . . nature of the problem I believe your apprentice might be of some help.” Talisid paused. “She would also be in greater danger.”

We reached the top floor and stopped at the doors to the hall. “I’ll be down the corridor,” Talisid said. “Once you’ve decided, come speak to me.”

“Not coming in?”

Talisid shook his head. “The fewer people that know of my involvement, the better. I’ll see you in twenty minutes.”

I watched Talisid go with a frown. I’ve done jobs for Talisid before, and while they’d generally been successful, they hadn’t been safe. In fact, they’d been decidedly unsafe. If he was calling the job “difficult and dangerous” . . . I turned and pushed the doors open.

The top hall had once been a boxing gym. Chains hung from the ceiling, but the heavy bags had been removed and so had the ring at the centre. Mats covered the floor and light trickled in from windows high above. Two blocky ceramic constructions were set up at either end of the hall, ten feet tall and looking exactly like a pair of giant tuning forks.

Inside the room were five students and one teacher. Three of the students were against the far wall: a small round-faced Asian girl, a blond-haired boy with glasses, and an Indian boy with dark skin and the khaki turban of a Sikh who was keeping a noticeable distance from the first two. All looked about twenty or so. I didn’t know their names but had seen them around enough times to recognise them as seniors in the apprentice program.

The next girl I knew a little better. She was tall and slim, with black hair that brushed her shoulders, and her name was Anne. And standing close to her (but not too close) was Luna, my apprentice.

The last person in the room was the teacher. He was just under thirty, well dressed and affluent-looking with short dark hair and olive-tinted skin, and he stopped what he’d been saying as I walked in. Five sets of interested eyes turned in my direction, following the teacher’s gaze.

“Hi, Lyle,” I said. “Didn’t know you’d taken up teaching.”

Lyle hesitated. “Er—”

I waved a hand. “Don’t let me interrupt. Go right ahead.” I found a spot on the wall and leant against it.

“Um,” Lyle looked from me to the students. “Er. The thing—Well, as I—yes.” He floundered, obviously off his groove. Lyle’s never been good with surprises. I watched with eyebrows raised and an expression of mild enquiry. I didn’t feel like making it easy for him.

Lyle was one of the first Light mages I met when Richard Drakh introduced me into magical society. We’d both been teenagers then, but Lyle had a few years of experience on me: His talent had developed earlier than mine and he’d had time to learn the ins and outs of the social game. I’d been a Dark apprentice and there’d never been any question but that Lyle would try for the Council, but all the same we became friends. We were both the type to rely on cleverness rather than strength, and our types of magic complemented each other nicely. Unfortunately, our goals turned out to be less compatible.

At the time I was still feeling my way, unsure of what I wanted to be. Lyle on the other hand knew exactly what he wanted: status, advancement, prestige, a position in the Council bureaucracy from which he could work his way upwards. And when I lost Richard’s favour and with it any standing I might have had, Lyle had to choose between me and his ambitions. Supporting me would have cost him. So when I showed up, alone and desperate, Lyle’s response was to pretend I wasn’t there. Under mage law the master-apprentice relationship is sacred. An apprentice is their master’s responsibility, no one else’s. I’d defied Richard, fled from him, and it was Richard’s right to do with me as he pleased. The Light mages knew that Richard would come to collect his runaway and so they shut me out . . . and waited for him to finish things.

But something happened then that the Light and the Dark mages did not expect. When Richard sent Tobruk to kill me—the cruellest and most powerful of his four apprentices—it was Tobruk who died. And in the aftermath, instead of coming to take vengeance Richard vanished, along with his last two apprentices, Rachel and Shireen. I was left alive, safe . . . and alone.

Technically, under mage law, I hadn’t done anything wrong. It’s not illegal for an apprentice to successfully defend themselves against their master; it’s just so bloody rare no one’s ever bothered to pass a law against it. But I’d broken tradition older than law. An apprentice is supposed to obey their master for good or ill, and no other mage would take me on—after all, if I’d rebelled against one master, I might rebel against another. Besides, no one was quite sure what had happened to Richard. He might be gone for good—or he might suddenly reappear, in which case nobody wanted to be anywhere near me when he did. So once again, other mages distanced themselves from me and waited.

They waited and waited, and kept waiting so long they forgot all about me, by which time I was glad to let them do it. I started to make a new life for myself. I travelled, had some adventures. As a result of one of them I inherited a shop, a little business in the side streets of Camden Town. I’d been planning to run it only a few months, but as the months turned into years I realised I enjoyed what it brought me. The shop and the flat above it became my residence, then my home. I made new friends. Gradually I began to remember what it was like to be happy again.

And then one day Lyle walked into my shop and brought me back into the mage world with its politics and its alliances and its dangers. This time I was prepared. And this time, to my surprise, I found I liked it.

I snapped out of my reverie. Lyle was talking and seemed to have regained his confidence, though it was obvious that he’d prefer it if I wasn’t here. “—remember that in a duel, you’re representing both your master and the Council,” Lyle was saying. “Now, I know some of you have done this before, but it’s very important that your form is exactly right. Let’s go through the basic greetings one more time . . . Yes?”

The one who had raised her hand was Luna. “Um,” Luna said. “Could you explain how these duels work?”

Lyle blinked at her. “What do you mean?”

Luna looked around to see that everyone else was watching her. “Well . . .” She seemed to choose her words carefully. “You’ve explained about the selection process. And the rituals and the salutes, and the withdrawal at the end. What about the part in the middle?”

“What part?”

“Um . . . the actual duel.”

“Well, it depends, I suppose.” Lyle looked confused. “Styles change and all that. Personally, I find the performance is more important.”

“We’re supposed to be practising for the tournament today,” the Sikh boy said. He sounded unfriendly.

“Oh.” Lyle looked around. “Well, um . . . yes, maybe a practice match then.” Lyle glanced quickly over Luna, then pointed to the other two girls. “Natasha and, um, Anne. Why don’t you go first.”

The round-faced girl, Natasha, looked at Anne in anticipation. Anne bowed her head slightly to Lyle. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

Natasha made a rude noise and the boy with glasses rolled his eyes. “Oh God, not this again.”

“Er . . .” Lyle looked taken aback. “Is there some medical reason—”

“No, she’s fine,” Natasha chipped in. “She just won’t do it.”

“Anne?” Lyle said. “Is there a reason?”

“I’m sorry,” Anne said again. She had a soft, quiet voice. “I don’t mean to cause any trouble.”

“It’s nothing to do with trouble,” Lyle said with a frown. “Unless you or your master can give a good reason, you’re required to participate.”

Anne didn’t answer. “All right then,” Lyle said, gesturing to the centre of the hall. “Off you go.”

No response. “Anne?” Lyle said irritably. “Did you hear me?”

Anne stood silently, looking back at Lyle. “This is an order,” Lyle declared, pointing to the mats. “Get over there and participate.”

Anne still didn’t move and Lyle was left standing with one arm outstretched. He looked vaguely ridiculous and everyone else in the room was watching him. Lyle hesitated, then lowered his arm quickly. “Anne, will you do as you’re told, please?” It was probably supposed to sound authoritative, but it came out more like a pleading.

Anne shook her head mutely. “Oh, this is such crap,” Natasha said angrily. “How come she gets to do this?”

“Just do the duel already,” the other boy said.

“Yes, er . . .” Lyle said. “I need to impress upon you the seriousness of this. Refusing a direct order from an authorised teacher is—”

“Why don’t you guys ever do anything about her?” Natasha demanded. “She always does this and you always let her get away with it.”

“Leave her alone,” Luna said.

“You stay out of this.”

“What makes it your business?” Luna said. “You want a duel so badly, try me.”

“I don’t have to—” Natasha started saying angrily. The boy with glasses started to talk over her, and both Luna and the Sikh boy started talking over him, raised voices making a clamour.

“Quiet,” Lyle said. “QUIET!” Gradually, he was obeyed. The five students fell silent, glowering at each other.

“As I was saying,” Lyle began, then looked at Anne and trailed off. Anne hadn’t moved. Her stance wasn’t confrontational, but she was looking at Lyle with a sort of quietly polite expression. Lyle looked at Luna, then at Natasha.

It was easy to read Lyle’s thoughts. He wanted to force Anne to do as she was told, but he couldn’t think of any way to make her do it. The alternative was to let Luna step into her place, and he didn’t want to do that either, in case that ticked me off. In the end Lyle did what Lyle always does: pass the buck. “Er,” he said, looking up at me. “If your apprentice doesn’t mind . . .”

I nodded at Luna. “Ask her.”

“Er,” Lyle said again. “Right. Well. Natasha and, er, Luna. Take your focuses.”

Natasha was whispering something to the boy with glasses. I walked towards Luna, aiming to meet her by the table in the corner, but Anne got there first. “You didn’t have to do that,” Anne said quietly.

Anne is tall and slender, only a few inches shorter than me, with dark hair framing a face the shape of a downwards-pointed triangle. She looks about twenty-two, Luna’s age, which is on the old side for an apprentice—most graduate to journeyman by twenty-one or so. Her eyes are an odd red-brown colour, set at an angle that gives her a slightly catlike look, and there’s a stillness to her movements. She’s striking, but she has a quiet unobtrusive manner that tends to make her fade into the background.

Luna looks very different. She’s average height, with wavy brown hair worn up in bunches and a fair complexion inherited from both her Italian father and her English mother. She’d blend into a crowd, if she’d ever willingly step into one, which she wouldn’t. She used to always have a distant look, but these days she feels more animated, connected to the world. As Anne spoke, Luna gave her a quick glance and moved automatically away. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I don’t want you to get in trouble because of me.”

Luna shrugged. “She was getting on my nerves anyway.”

Anne had been standing with her back to me, but as I came up to them she turned and dipped her head slightly. “Hello, Mr. Verus.”

“He hates it when people call him that,” Luna said without looking up. “Just call him Alex.”

Anne looked between me and Luna. “Ah . . .”

A sharp voice spoke from a little distance away. “Anne.”

I looked up to see the Sikh boy frowning at us. He made a quick beckoning motion to Anne. “I’m sorry,” Anne said. “Could you excuse me a second?”

I watched Anne walk away. “Very polite, isn’t she?” I said once she was out of earshot.

“She’s always like that,” Luna said absently. “Okay, help me out here. I have no idea how to use these.”

The Sikh boy was talking to Anne under his breath, making quick hand movements. He kept his face turned away, but from his stance he looked tense. I watched a second, then shook my head and turned back to Luna. “All right. How much has Lyle taught you?”

“A lot of stuff about how to bow and curtsey.”

“Square one then.” I nodded to the giant tuning forks at either end of the hall. “Those ceramic things are azimuth duelling focuses. When they’re activated, they maintain a conversion field around the person they’re targeted on. The conversion field takes any external magical energy that tries to penetrate it and transforms it into light. Basically, it’s a wide-spectrum shield. If a magical attack hits you, there’s a flash and nothing happens. The flash is used for scoring. One flash, one point.”

Luna nodded. “Okay.”

“That covers defence. But some mages can’t do direct magical attacks.” I gestured to the table. “That’s where the focus weapons come in. They act as conductors. You channel your magic through them. Hit the other guy with one and it’ll trigger the conversion field.”

The table Luna had been looking at held what looked like training weapons. There wasn’t a great selection and they had a worn, chipped look; the kind of things I’d sell at a deep discount. Luna hesitated, then picked out a sword made out of some kind of pale wood. As she touched it the silver mist of her curse flowed around it, soaking in.

Luna’s an adept, not a mage. Adepts are the next step down on the magical pyramid from mages, and the best way to think of them is as mages who can only cast one spell. That doesn’t mean they’re weak—in fact, since adepts spend so much time practising and refining their one spell, they tend to get really good with it—but they don’t have the range and breadth of abilities that mages do. Luna’s unusual for an adept in that her magic doesn’t come from within, but from without: Her spell is actually a curse, passed down from daughter to daughter. It brings good luck to her, and bad luck to everyone else, which can range from “paper cut” to “struck by lightning,” depending on how careful she is and how close you get.

Usually a curse like that just keeps working on its subject forever, but in this case something unusual happened. The curse has grown up with Luna, woven into her so that it can’t be removed—but just as it’s a part of her, she’s a part of it, and over the last year she’s started to learn to control it. She can’t shut it off and she definitely can’t let herself touch anyone, but she’s gotten a lot better at guiding her curse away from people she doesn’t want to hurt—not to mention sending it at people she does.

It’s not actually forbidden for adepts to train as apprentices, but it’s not customary either. So far it hasn’t come up, partly because no one wants to be the first to get between a mage and their apprentice, and partly because Luna’s area of magic is so poorly understood that not many mages can tell the difference between a chance mage and a chance adept anyway. It’s probably going to cause trouble one of these days, but that’s a worry for another time.

Luna studied the sword as her curse twined lazily around it. To my mage’s sight Luna’s curse looks like a silver-grey mist, shifting and changing, constantly seeping from her skin and soaking into everything around her. To living creatures that mist is poison, invisible and utterly lethal. I’ve seen people survive brushes from Luna’s curse with nothing but a few bruises—and I’ve also seen a man die a violent death within seconds of touching her. That’s why it’s so dangerous—you can never predict what it’ll do. “What do I do?” Luna asked.

“You’re doing it,” I said. “As long as you hold it, your magic’ll keep it charged.”

Luna looked down dubiously. “It doesn’t look like . . .”

“Like anything’s happening?”

“Yeah.”

I smiled. “Focus items depend on who’s using them. Your magic’s subtle, so the effect’s subtle.”

“Is it okay to hit her with this?”

“The azimuth shield’s enough to take most of the punch out of a magical strike. Don’t go sitting on her, but a couple of hits won’t do her any harm.”

I became aware that the rest of the room had gone quiet, and looked up to see that everyone was waiting for us. Natasha was standing at one end of the azimuth piste. Unlike Luna, she wasn’t wielding a weapon. “Luna?” Lyle said. “Are you ready?”

Luna nodded. “Ready.” She walked out onto the piste. I saw Lyle concentrate, channelling his magic, and to my mage’s sight the two focuses lit up with power, energy extending from them to weave a shield around the two girls. Luna flinched and glanced back as the effect touched her, and I saw the silver mist of her curse flicker and twist, merging with the shield. Natasha just looked bored. Anne and the two boys had spaced themselves along the wall.

“Er,” Lyle said. “Let’s say first to three. Ready and . . . go!”

Luna darted forward, sword raised, and blue light welled up around Natasha’s hands.

*  *  *

The bout was to three points. The score at the end was 3–0. Natasha and Luna fought two more bouts. The score at the end of each of those was 3–0, too.

It’s not that Luna’s clumsy or anything. And she’s no stranger to fighting; there are fully qualified mages who’ve seen less combat than Luna has. But all the fights Luna and I have been through have been the nasty, lethal, anything-goes kind, where you stab the other guy in the back before he does the same to you. A duel is very different. It’s not combat, it’s a sport, with rules and regulations and a referee. Winning a duel and surviving a combat are very different things, and being good at one doesn’t necessarily make you good at the other.

Luna’s opponent, Natasha, wasn’t especially strong or quick. But like all elemental mages she had the great advantage of range. While Luna had to run all the way up to Natasha to hit her, Natasha could just smack Luna off her feet with a water blast.

Which she did. Repeatedly.

When Lyle finally called the fight I waited at the table for Luna to get back. She was moving stiffly, but I could tell she was more angry than hurt. “Good job,” I said as she reached me.

Luna gave me a look.

“I’m serious.”

“That’s your idea of a good job?”

“Everyone loses their first duel,” I said. “What matters is you put up a fight.”

“Did you know I’d lose that badly?”

“I didn’t check.”

Natasha was talking and laughing with the boy with glasses, her hands moving in animation as she relived knocking Luna down. “All right,” Lyle called. “Charles and Variam, why don’t you go next?”

I looked at Luna. She was annoyed, obviously embarrassed about losing . . . and yet she looked better than I’d ever seen her. When she’d first walked into my shop a year and a half ago, she’d been silent and detached, never showing her feelings. Apprentice training isn’t easy, but Luna was engaged now; she had a place in the world. “Come on,” I said. “We’ve got a job offer.”

I knew Lyle wouldn’t question my taking Luna out of the class, and he didn’t. As the door swung shut behind us, I got a look at the two boys, Charles and Variam, facing off against each other on the piste. From a glance into the future I knew this match was going to be a lot more eventful than the last one.

chapter 2

“Apprentices are going missing,” Talisid said.

The little room at the end of the hall had been fitted out as an office of sorts, with an old computer on a cramped desk. Faded photographs of sports teams were mounted on the walls, and a window looked out onto the London rooftops. Talisid was behind the desk while Luna sat quietly on a table in the opposite corner. She’d agreed to Talisid’s demand for secrecy and now was listening with her ears pricked up.

“Since when?” I said.

“You know there’s always been a certain washout rate in the apprentice program,” Talisid said. “Some give up. Some fail their tests. Some—not many, but more than we’d like—defect to the Dark. And some have something happen to them. That last one’s rare, thankfully. But a few weeks ago some mages noticed that there seemed to be more going missing than there should be. Well, we put someone on it, and we found a very disturbing pattern. Within the last three months we’ve had three apprentices vanish from the program. No sign that they quit or walked out or had an accident. They just disappeared.”

“Just apprentices? No adult mages?”

“We think so, but it’s hard to be sure. Journeymen and masters aren’t accountable for their movements in the way apprentices are.”

“Any pattern to the disappearances?”

“None that we can find.”

“Any suspects?”

“Well.” Talisid looked at me. “There’s the obvious, isn’t there?”

I was silent. Luna looked from Talisid to me. “Um . . . ?” she said after a moment.

“Dark mages,” I said. “They’ve been on a recruitment drive.” I looked at Talisid. “You think they’re headhunting.”

“Or Harvesting,” Talisid said.

There was a silence. “Even the Council wouldn’t stand for that,” I said at last.

“No,” Talisid said.

“It’d start another war.”

“Yes. But there’s no proof.”

We stood quietly for a moment before I shook my head. “Why the secrecy?”

Both Luna and Talisid looked at me. “It’s not enough,” I said. “Okay, this’ll cause trouble. But any mage who put in the work could learn it. In fact, it sounds like lots of them know about it already. And if they do, they can figure out the same things I just did. Why is it so important to keep this quiet?”

Talisid looked back at me for a moment. “If you wanted to find a missing apprentice,” he said at last, “how would you do it?”

“If I had the resources of the Council?” I thought about it and shrugged. “Locator spells and detective work. Then I’d get a time mage and ask him to scry back to the missing person’s last known location.”

Talisid nodded. “We’ve done all those things.”

“It didn’t work?”

“It didn’t work.”

“Shrouds?”

“Yes. And something else. In every case, the missing apprentice disappeared somewhere where they couldn’t be traced. No witnesses, no physical evidence. And once they vanished, they didn’t come back.” Talisid’s eyes were grim. “Every disappearance was neat. Too neat. If these were simple kidnappings, we should have picked up some trace by now. Another apprentice, a witness, something overheard . . . by simple law of averages there should have been something. But we haven’t found a thing. It’s as if every missing apprentice has simply vanished into thin air.” Talisid shook his head slowly. “I don’t believe it’s luck. I think they’re receiving information from an inside source. Someone with close access to the Light apprentice program is providing information on where apprentices can be found and how they can be caught alone.”

The office was quiet. Outside, a flash of white showed against the rooftops; a tortoiseshell cat. It stalked out from behind a chimney stack, stretched lazily, braced itself on the edge of the roof, and jumped down out of sight to a balcony below.

“You don’t know whom to trust,” I said at last.

Talisid nodded.

“But you trust me?”

“You aren’t directly associated with the Council,” Talisid said. “Besides, I think it . . . unlikely that you’d be responsible for something like this.” He looked steadily at me. “There is another issue. If we accuse someone without evidence, it will not only cause enormous discord but also put those responsible on their guard. We have to be sure and we have to have proof.”

I thought for a second, then shook my head. “So no leads, I can’t ask for help from other Light mages, and even if I do find out who’s responsible it’s useless unless I can prove it. You don’t ask for much, do you?”

“I warned you it was difficult.”

“No kidding. You’re at least going to give us copies of your research, right?”

“A little better than that.” Talisid handed me a thick brown folder. “I can put you in touch with the one who wrote them.” He smiled slightly. “I believe you know him?”

I opened the folder, flipped to the name at the bottom, and laughed. “Okay. So I get some help after all.”

“Let’s hope it’s enough.” Talisid’s smile was gone again as he rose to his feet. “I’m afraid everything I’ve tried so far has brought me up against a blank wall. So I hope you succeed, because if not, I don’t know when these disappearances will stop.” He nodded to us. “Verus, Luna. Good luck.”

*  *  *

By the time we got back to the hall the excitement of Charles and Variam’s duel was over. Everything set on fire had been extinguished, the furniture was only smouldering, and Lyle was reading the riot act to Charles and Variam. “—absolutely unacceptable,” he was saying. “Absolutely unacceptable! You could have killed each other, not to mention everyone else! A duel is a formal test of skill, not some crude brawl. You’re supposed to be upholding the traditions of the Council—”

“What happened?” Luna whispered.

“I get the feeling Charles and Variam don’t like each other very much,” I murmured.

“And another thing—” Lyle caught sight of us and cut off. An expression of frustration crossed his face and he threw up his hands. “Go on! Class is over! You’re dismissed!”

The apprentices dispersed, grabbing coats and packing bags. “So where do we start?” Luna said.

“We go back to the shop,” I said. “First thing is to work through the material Talisid gave us.”

The short wooden sword focus Luna had been using was still by her bag. She picked it up with a grimace and returned it to the table. “I hate that thing,” she said as she came back. “It felt wrong.”

“Wrong how?”

“Like the wrong size. Scratchy. It felt like my magic was fighting it the whole way.”

“Mm.” I looked at Luna, thinking. “Maybe it’s time we got you a focus weapon.”

“Please not that one.”

I shook my head. “Not if your magic reacted that badly. Try a few others.”

The focuses on the table were all swords or sticks, and Luna started picking each one up and taking a few practice swings. As she did I focused on her with my mage’s sight and realised that Luna was right: Her magic was fighting the weapons. Each time it was drawn immediately to the weapon and soaked in, but instead of channelling through the focus it seemed to be attacking the alien object, trying to destroy it. “Huh,” I said at last.

“They don’t feel right,” Luna said again.

“They’re not.” I tapped my fingers. “Maybe a sword’s the wrong kind of weapon for you. I’ll have a think about it.”

I was concentrating on Luna and didn’t notice that someone had approached until they were right next to me. I’d half-expected Lyle, but as I looked up I got a surprise. It was the girl Luna had been fighting, Natasha. “Hi!” Natasha said to Luna. “Are you okay?”

Luna looked up at her, then away again quickly. “I’m fine.”

“Oh good. Listen, I just wanted to warn you. You really don’t want to be hanging around her.”

“Who?”

“Her,” Natasha whispered. She tilted her head towards Anne and Variam, at the other end of the room. “Anne.”

“Why?”

“Well, you know where’s she’s from, right?”

Luna looked blankly at Natasha.

“Oh God, you don’t know!” Natasha covered her mouth with both hands, then looked at Luna with wide eyes. “You really haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?”

“You really should be more careful.” Natasha shook her head. “I can’t believe you didn’t find out.”

Luna was silent. Natasha waited a little longer and then unbent, dropping her voice and leaning closer. “She was taught by a Dark mage,” Natasha whispered. “Her and that other boy, Variam. They were both apprentices to him. And do you know what they did next?”

Luna didn’t answer. “They started working for a monster,” Natasha whispered. “A demon. That’s where they’re going now. Nobody knows what it is.”

“If nobody knows what it is, how do you know it’s a monster?”

Natasha looked at Luna in annoyance. “I’m serious. You’ve seen how she is. She’s really rude to all the tutors and she won’t do as they say. And it’s a really bad idea to hang around her.”

Luna met Natasha’s gaze in silence. “You know,” she said at last, “they say the same thing about me.”

Natasha stared back at Luna, then shrugged. “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She turned to where I’d been standing quietly, and made a good pretence of only just noticing me. “Oh, hi, Mage Verus. Bye!”

Luna watched Natasha go and shook her head. “I really hate her.”

I made a noncommittal noise. Personally, I sympathised with Luna. Natasha’s speech had sounded like pure trouble-stirring to me, and she’d carefully timed it so I’d hear it too. But it left me uneasy all the same.

Lyle and Charles had vanished while we were talking, and Natasha was on her way out. Anne and Variam were talking under their breath. The way they were standing made me think they didn’t want to be overheard and as we approached I glanced through the futures in which I sneaked up on them, trying to eavesdrop. In most I was spotted, but in one I was able to catch a few words. “—sure it’s him?” Variam was saying quietly.

“Yes,” Anne said. “He just left—”

Variam saw me and made a quick gesture to Anne, and the futures of their conversation vanished abruptly as the two of them turned to watch us leave. Anne gave Luna a smile and a wave. “See you tomorrow.”

“See you!” Luna said. Variam said nothing and his eyes tracked us as we left, suspicious and wary.

*  *  *

Luna was silent as we left the building, and stayed silent as she unlocked her bike from the railings and we started back towards my shop. The walk from Islington to Camden is a nice one, and despite the winter season the sun was shining with enough warmth to make it a pleasant journey.

We settled into a walking pace, both of us on the pavement with Luna wheeling her bike in between. “You met Anne three months ago, right?” I said. “At the acceptance ceremony.”

Luna nodded. “How much do you know about them?” I said. “Her and Variam, I mean.”

“She doesn’t talk about herself much.” Luna’s voice was doubtful, and I knew it was bothering her too. “And Variam never talks at all. I thought he just didn’t like me, but he’s the same with everyone.”

“Do they always show up together?”

“Mostly. Anne used to come on her own, but these days they’re always together. Variam never lets her out of his sight. It’s really hard to talk to her with him scowling all the time.”

“Are they going out?”

“Anne said no.” Luna frowned. “I can’t figure Variam out though. He’s always watching her but he doesn’t act like he even likes her.”

We walked a little way in silence. The air was crisp and clear, and cars buzzed past importantly. A cyclist overtook us, riding with her back straight, her front basket filled with shopping and making the bike rattle as it went past. “Do you think it’s true?” Luna said.

I knew she was talking about what Natasha had said. “Allowing for exaggeration . . .” I shook my head. “I don’t know. But there’s something odd about those two.”

“They could have started late, right?” Luna said. “Like me.”

“From what I saw of Variam he’s pretty damn good for a late starter.”

Luna walked on, brow furrowed. “Does it matter?” she said. “If they were Dark apprentices before?”

“There are Dark mages and Dark mages,” I said. “From what I hear some of them treat their apprentices okay. The others . . .” I shrugged. “One thing’s for sure—it’d matter to the Council. It would explain why they’re still apprentices. They’d have trouble finding anyone to sponsor them with a background like that.”

“That was what happened to you, wasn’t it?” Luna said. “You used to be a Dark apprentice, then got out.”

I didn’t answer. “Alex?” Luna said. “Could I ask you something?”

“I don’t really want to—”

“What’s the Council?”

I turned in surprise to see that Luna was looking straight at me, her blue eyes serious. The winter sun was shining down over the rooftops, picking out the waves in her light brown hair. “What do you mean?”

“I know there are people in charge and everything—” Luna stopped. “I mean, what are they—” She trailed off again and looked down at the pavement, frowning. “It’s—Okay. When you first told me about the Light Council and the Dark mages I thought the Light mages were the good guys and the Dark mages were the bad guys. Then there was what happened with Griff.” Luna’s hand crept unconsciously to her right arm. “And Levistus and Belthas. But now I’m training with them. And we keep working for Talisid.” Luna looked up at me. “Should I trust them or not?”

We walked in silence while I tried to figure out how to answer. “It’s easier to understand Dark mages than Light mages,” I said at last. “Dark mages are . . . honest, I guess. Bastards, but honest bastards. They say what they believe and they live it. Light mages are more complicated.” I glanced at Luna. “You know how things were in the old times? Before the Light Council got formed?”

Luna shook her head.

“Okay. First thing to understand is that there were a lot more magical creatures back then. And I mean a lot. Think monster-of-the-week TV show. Except the heroes didn’t win as much as they do on the TV shows, and when the monsters won a lot of people died. And sometimes the mages were the monsters. There were Dark mages around back then as well, and if half the stories are true they made modern Dark mages look nice.

“Well, the Light mages grew up in opposition to that. They believed they should use their powers to protect others. Not just mages, but normal people too. They wanted a world where human beings wouldn’t have to live in fear of monsters. And that was what they worked for. Identifying the most dangerous magical creatures and learning their weaknesses. Tracking down the ones that fed off humans and destroying them. Guarding towns and cities. Stopping Dark mages from setting themselves up as tyrants. They kept doing it for hundreds of years.”

“What happened?” Luna said.

“They won,” I said simply.

Luna looked at me curiously. “I’ll give you an example,” I said. “Vampires.”

“They’re real?”

I nodded. “Not all the stories are true, but they get the basics right. Vampires were supernatural predators who fed off human life force by drinking their blood. They lived forever or until something killed them, and the older they got the stronger they got. They had powers related to mind magic—they could dominate their prey, make them willingly come back to be fed upon. And they could make more of themselves. One vampire could control a whole city, and they did. For a while they ruled most of the world.

“But then the mages got organised. It was one of only three times in history where the Light and Dark factions united. Even if they couldn’t agree on anything else, they knew they didn’t want to be vampire food. They smashed the vampire-controlled armies, and then they hunted the vampires down one by one and exterminated them. Not just some of them, all of them. They spent about a hundred years searching with a fine-tooth comb to make sure they got every last one.” I shrugged. “There aren’t any more vampires.”

Luna was silent.

“The same thing happened to most of the really nasty monsters,” I said. “Manticores, ogres, nightmares. The smart ones fled into other worlds or hid themselves away. The ones who didn’t got hunted down. Mages had seen what it was like being prey and they didn’t like it. They wanted to make sure humanity was at the top of the food chain. And that was what they did. And they did it so well that most people nowadays don’t believe those creatures ever existed.”

I fell silent and we walked to the sound of our footsteps on the pavement and the click-click-click of Luna’s bike. “This is one of those stories that doesn’t have a happy ending, isn’t it?” Luna said at last.

“Well, there aren’t monsters stalking the city every night,” I said. “But the Council—well, it sounds weird, but their problem was they succeeded. They wanted mages to protect normal humans from the magical world. But with the monsters gone, the biggest threat from the magical world was . . . mages.

“The Council’s old purpose is pretty much gone these days. It’s still the biggest power in magical society but nowadays people join it because they want to be in power, not because they believe in what it does. Every now and then a monster shows up and they get rid of it, but mostly they spend their time jockeying for position.” I sighed. “I don’t think they’re actively evil. Not most of them, anyway. But they’ve made so many compromises you can’t really count on them for anything. I don’t know if there’s anything they do believe in anymore. Stability, maybe. Keeping things the same.”

Luna thought about it. “So does Talisid believe in the Council’s old mission?”

“We’ll see.”

*  *  *

My shop is in Camden, down a little side street and in the middle of a tangle of bridges and railway lines. It makes a small profit, though it’d make a lot more if I actually kept regular hours instead of hanging up the CLOSED sign every time I’ve got something else to do.

Inside the shop is quiet and cool, wide windows letting in lots of light from the street outside and a faint herbal smell in the air. Standing shelves hold just about every faux-magic item you can think of, from crystal balls to exotic powders, while a small unlabelled roped-off area to one side holds the stuff that really is magical. It’s not designed for high turnover, but all in all I prefer it that way.

I ate lunch with Luna and then she had to leave; she had another class with a different set of apprentices in Kilburn. I waved as she cycled off, then headed up to my flat to get started on the report Talisid had given me. My flat is just above my shop, with a nice view out over the Camden rooftops. I settled into my chair and started reading.

I’ve never had any formal training as an investigator but I’ve had a fair bit of practice, enough to figure out the basics of what works and what doesn’t. To be honest, I don’t actually think I’m all that good at it. Other people tend to assume I am and I don’t go out of my way to correct them, but the way I generally find things out is by cheating and using my divination magic. But divination doesn’t help with a written report, and so I wasn’t really expecting to find anything in Talisid’s folder that other people hadn’t spotted already. What I wanted was a feel for the facts.

I got one, and it wasn’t pretty. Since the beginning of autumn a total of three members of the Light apprentice program had vanished without a trace. The earliest disappearance had been three months ago; the most recent was less than a fortnight old. It looked like Talisid was right; there wasn’t any sign of this stopping. I picked up my phone and tapped one of the names in my address book. It rang five times before there was a click and a voice spoke from the other end. “Hello?”

“Hey, Sonder,” I said. “Been reading your report.”

“Alex!” Sonder said. “So Talisid did ask you to help? And you said yes?”

Sonder is a time mage, and it was him I’d been thinking of when I’d sketched out that plan to Talisid. It had been a surprise to find that Talisid had recruited him already, but thinking it over, maybe I should have expected it. Sonder may be young, but he’s talented. He helped me out during the business with the fateweaver and again in the autumn against Belthas, and both times he made a real difference. But the real reason I like Sonder doesn’t have anything to do with how good he is at seeing into the past—it’s because he can be trusted. “Better we don’t talk about it over the phone,” I said. “Listen, I’m going to be another few hours getting up to speed on this report. Let’s meet up tomorrow at nine and we’ll put our heads together.”

“Okay. Is Luna coming?”

“Yes, Luna’s coming.”

“Okay! See you then.”

I shook my head and ended the call, smiling to myself. As I did, I noticed I had a message. It had arrived earlier, but I’d been absorbed in the report and hadn’t noticed. I opened it.

What you’re looking for is in Fountain Reach.

There was nothing else. Frowning, I checked the sender. It was an e-mail address from a free provider. The prefix on the address was a random string of letters and numbers.

Who had sent it?

Fountain Reach was the place Crystal had told me about this morning, but this seemed like a pretty weird way for her to entice me to take the job. Besides, we hadn’t exactly parted on good terms.

What you’re looking for . . . What I was looking for was the source of the disappearances. And within a few hours of starting to look, I had someone sending me an anonymous tip. How convenient.

It was a hell of a lot too convenient. This was way too easy. Maybe Talisid’s right and I’m just cynical but I couldn’t honestly believe that someone would just hand me the solution like that. It had to be a trick or a trap of some kind.

More worrying was the speed. Talisid had met me only hours ago and already someone seemed to know that I was involved. Had someone been spying on our meeting? Between the two of us Talisid and I should have been able to spot someone following us . . . maybe. Mages have a lot of ways of finding out information. But if their intelligence network was so good, why were they wasting it on such a clumsy trap?

I puzzled over it for an hour but couldn’t find any answers. Outside the light faded from the sky, evening turning into a cold winter’s night. I fixed myself some dinner and tried to finish off the report, but my mind kept drifting back to the message. I caught myself wondering how long it would take to make the journey to Fountain Reach, and pushed the thought firmly away. I had enough to worry about without going looking for trouble. But the idea nagged at me all the same.

I’d been vaguely expecting Luna back and had been keeping an eye on the possible futures all evening. When I saw that the bell was going to ring I put the folder down in relief, then I checked a second time and stopped. There was a girl about to arrive at my door—but it wasn’t Luna.

I sat frowning for a moment, then locked the folder away in a drawer. I tucked a few items into my pockets and went downstairs.

My shop feels eerie after dark. The street is a quiet one, and while the background hum of the city never stops, the nearby shops empty out completely after closing hours. Inside the shelves stood silent, their contents making strange shapes in the darkness. The front of the shop was cast in a yellow glow from the streetlights, and their light passed through the windows to fall upon the wands in their display cases and glint off the metal blades in the shadows against the wall. Under the shop counter is a hidden shelf. I reached in and took out a narrow-bladed dagger, then stood alone in the darkness and waited.

Five minutes passed.

From out in the street came the throaty growl of a car engine. It grew louder and there was the crunching of tyres as it pulled in, then the engine died away to a purr and stopped. A car door opened and shut and footsteps approached, coming to a halt just outside. A moment later, from back in the hall, the bell rang.

I waited twenty seconds—about long enough for someone to stop whatever they were doing and come downstairs—then opened the door.

The girl standing outside was Anne. She’d changed clothes since the lesson and was wearing a long-sleeved pullover and thin trousers, both in shades of grey and brown that faded into the night. They looked good on her, but again I got that odd feeling that she was trying to blend into the background. “Good evening, Mr. Verus.”

“Just Alex is fine,” I said. Behind Anne was the car she’d arrived in. It was a sedan, big and sleek, and its lines gleamed silver in the streetlights with a winged B ornament at the front of the hood. There was a man behind the wheel. It was hard to make him out in the darkness, but I had an impression of a hunched figure and two unfriendly eyes. “Did you want Luna?”

“Ah . . . no. Thank you.” Anne hesitated. “I’m here to give you an invitation.”

I blinked. “To what?”

“Tiger’s Palace,” Anne said. “There’s a gathering tomorrow evening at eight o’clock.”

I’d never heard of Tiger’s Palace. “Who’s inviting me?”

“Lord Jagadev,” Anne said. “He owns the club.”

“Okay,” I was still a little puzzled. “What sort of gathering?”

“Other mages are going to be there,” Anne said. “I don’t think it’s for a special occasion.”

Neither the place nor the name rang any bells, but that wasn’t surprising. I’m pretty much an outsider to mage society, and I don’t get invited to many parties. Which raised an obvious question. “Look,” I said. “I don’t mean to be rude. But why is this ‘Lord Jagadev’ inviting me?”

“I don’t actually know,” Anne said. She sounded honest. “He gave me a list of people to invite but he didn’t tell me why.”

“Do you always do what he tells you?”

Something flickered across Anne’s face and she seemed to draw back a little. “What answer should I give him?”

I looked at Anne for a long moment. I couldn’t sense any deception from her but my instincts were telling me something strange was going on. Mage parties are dangerous at the best of times. If I showed up, there was no telling what I’d be getting into.

On the other hand mage parties are also a mine of information and I hate missing opportunities to find things out. Besides, one of the things I’ve learnt over the past year is that if trouble’s on its way it’s a lot better to go do something about it than to sit around and wait. “Tell him I’ll be there,” I said.

“I will.”

We stood in silence for a moment. “Do you want to come inside?” I said suddenly. As soon as the words were out I wanted to kick myself. It was a really inappropriate question to ask another mage’s apprentice, especially a girl three-quarters my age.

“I’m sorry,” Anne said. “There’s another invitation I have to deliver in Archway.”

“Okay,” I said. “Uh, have a safe trip.”

“See you tomorrow.” Anne gave a small smile and walked back to the car. As she did I caught a flash of movement from the front seat; the man inside was putting away something that looked like a phone. Anne climbed in, the door snicked shut, and the engine started up with a growl that made me think of a big animal. I watched the car roll smoothly down the street, signal at the T junction, and pull away out of sight.

I closed and locked the door. Thoughtfully I took the dagger from where I’d been holding it behind the door and returned it to its sheath before going back up to my study.

Inviting Anne in had been a weird thing to do and as I climbed the stairs I wondered why I’d done it. I remembered the last image, Anne climbing into the dark car while that hunched shape waited behind the wheel, and felt a stir of disquiet.

My street was dark and still again, and the shop was empty. The distant thump, thump, thump of club music drifted over the rooftops, but there was no movement outside. I stood flipping the sheathed dagger absentmindedly between my fingers, frowning at nothing. Outside my window, lights shone from the blocks of flats across the canal.

I felt uneasy. I live alone and I should be used to the quiet of my part of Camden after sunset. But tonight something about the silence had me on edge.

It wasn’t as if anything that had just happened was all that extraordinary. I do get invited to mage social events sometimes. Not often, but it happens. And sending an apprentice out to deliver invitations in person wasn’t unusual . . . okay, it was unusual, but it wasn’t unheard of. It must have just felt strange to me because I’d been off the social circuit so long.

I told myself that, but the uneasy feeling didn’t go away.

I don’t get these feelings often and when I do I’ve learnt to pay attention to them. I did a scan of the immediate futures, looking for danger, and found nothing. I spread my search further, looking for anything that might threaten or attack me.

Still nothing.

I tried half a dozen more ways of looking for danger and came up blank every time. Finally I tried something different. I looked into the future to see what would happen if I sat in my bedroom and did absolutely nothing.

One uneventful hour, two uneventful hours, four uneventful hours—then activity. In the early hours of the morning people were going to come to my door. Not ordinary people—mages. They’d want to talk to me, and they were . . .

I frowned. They were Council Keepers.

That was strange.

Keepers are the primary enforcement arm of the Council, kind of a mix between police and an internal affairs division. There are a lot of reasons for Keepers to come looking for a mage and very few of them are good. As I looked into the future the encounter didn’t look hostile, but it didn’t look friendly either. I wished I could see exactly what they were saying, but as I tried to focus on the distant strands the images blurred and shifted. It’s hard to predict something as fluid as conversation. I can do it easily if it’s only a few seconds ahead, but trying to do it a few hours ahead is almost impossible. I tried to focus on a single strand and pin it down.

The Keepers were asking me questions. They were suspicious. I tried to hear what the questions were about or why they were asking them, but couldn’t pick up any details.

I shifted my focus to the beginning of the conversation. That was better. Now the Keepers were saying the same things in each future with only minor differences, the things they’d decided to say before my answers took them in other directions. I suddenly realised what the scene reminded me of: two police officers interviewing a suspect.

I strained my mental lens to its limit, trying to get the exact words. By concentrating and piecing together bits from parallel futures, I was just able to make out fragments.

“—where were—”

“—did you do—”

“—any contact . . . after—”

I shook my head in frustration. Useless. In every one of the futures, my future self seemed to ask the same questions. I focused on the answers the Keepers gave in return.

“—enquiries—”

“—was here—”

“—last . . . see her alive—”

I stopped dead. The futures I’d traced so carefully shattered, fading into darkness.

I stood motionless for ten seconds, then ran for the door.

chapter 3

As I ran down the street I skimmed through futures and searched the traffic, then changed direction to cut left down an alley that led into Camden Road. I ran straight out between parked cars into the middle of the main road. Horns blared as cars screeched to a halt.

A man wound down his window behind me and started shouting. His accent was so thick I couldn’t actually understand what he was saying, but he didn’t sound happy. I pulled open the door of the black cab in front of me with the yellow TAXI light above its window. “Archway,” I said before the driver could open his mouth. “I’ll pay you double if you get us there in five minutes. Triple if you make it in less.”

“All right, mate,” the driver said comfortably. “Not a problem.”

The taxi pulled around the car in front of us, the angry driver still shouting from his window, and we accelerated away north.

*  *  *

No one knows the London streets better than a London cabbie. At this hour with the crowds and traffic it would have taken me at least ten minutes to make the drive from Camden to Archway. The cabbie did it in less than half that.

Archway is an odd place even by London standards. A network of concrete shops surround the Underground station, out of which rises the squat ugly brown shape of Archway Tower. Two roads fork away northwest: On one is the sprawl of the Whittington Hospital while the other passes under Suicide Bridge. “There you go, mate,” the cabbie said as we reached the station. “Which street?”

I stared out the window, concentrating. We were at the junction around the old Archway Tavern, the ancient building forming an island amidst the A-roads. I looked up the hill to see the high arch of Suicide Bridge, marking the boundary between inner and outer London. I pointed to the right of the bridge, northeast. “That way.”

As soon as we left the main road the streets narrowed and emptied. Cars were parked everywhere, making it hard for the cab to move, and minutes passed with agonising slowness as I scanned through futures, watching myself explore different directions in an expanding web.

A tangle of futures flashed; combat, danger. “Stop!” I opened the door before the taxi had stopped moving and shoved a handful of notes at the driver. “Keep the change.”

The taxi had brought me to a housing estate. A long three-storey block of flats loomed above, walkways running along the top two floors with doors at regular intervals. An old decayed children’s playground was laid out in the courtyard in front, the swings rusted and the animal figures vandalised. The base of the block of flats was shadowed, blending into a small cramped garden. High walls shut off the view to the street and only a handful of lights shone in the darkness. It wasn’t late but the place had a dead feel to it. I moved at a fast walk, heading farther in. Behind, I heard the rumble of the taxi’s engine fade away into the noise of the city.

From the shadows at the base of the flats ahead came a sharp metallic clack.

I broke into a run. The sound came again, twice, echoing around the brick walls: clack-clack. I passed under the building, reached the pillars that were blocking my view, and looked around the edge.

The housing estate was a big long construction of dark brick. There were two ways in: a pair of double doors leading into a stairwell, and a small lift. To one side was the car park; to the other was a fenced-off area of trees and grass. A single fluorescent light was mounted on the wall, casting a flickering glow over the scene in front of me.

Three men were standing near the wall. They wore dark clothes and ski masks and carried handguns fitted with the unmistakable long metal cylinders of sound suppressors. Two had their attention fixed on the person by the lift, while the third faced the other way, his gun pointed downwards in both hands as he scanned for movement. I was out of his line of sight, but not by much.

Anne was next to the lift, slumped against the wall, and as I watched she slid down to crumple onto her side. “Check her,” the man in the middle said. He had a gruff voice and sounded English.

“Gone,” the one closest to Anne said. He still had his gun pointed more or less towards her.

“Make sure.”

“Three in the body. She’s gone.”

“Make sure.”

“Fuck that,” the shooter said. “You heard the guy, I’m not getting that close.”

The red digital number above the lift had been changing from 2, to 1, to G. Now the doors grated open as a mechanical female voice recited, “Ground floor.” The two men’s guns were pointed into the lift before the doors had finished moving, but it was empty. White light shone from inside.

The man at the middle looked away from the lift to the shooter. “I said make sure.”

The other man shrugged, then levelled his gun at Anne from less than ten feet away and started pulling the trigger.

I was already moving, but I wasn’t fast enough. By the time I’d gotten the little marble out of my pocket the gun had gone clack three more times. The suppressor muffled the shot so that the loudest noise was the metallic sound of the action cycling and the thud of bullets chewing through flesh. The man shot Anne a final time as I threw the marble, and the man watching their backs had only time to flinch before it shattered against the wall.

The marble was a one-shot—effectively a single spell with an activation trigger. This particular one was a condenser spell, and as the crystal shell holding the magic in stasis broke, mist rushed out to blanket the area in fog. The cloud was only about forty feet across and it wouldn’t last long, but for a minute or two anyone in that area was blind.

Except me. As I plunged into the cloud I flicked through the futures ahead of me, and by seeing the ones in which I ran into the men I knew where they were. The one at the back was the most alert and so I bypassed him, staying outside his field of vision. The man in the middle who’d been giving the orders was turned away, his gun blindly searching for threats, and it was simple to put two punches into the spot just below his floating ribs. He staggered, turning towards me and spreading his legs into a shooting stance, and I kicked him hard in the crotch and brought my fist up into his face. He went down.

I kept moving, getting to where the shooter had been standing over Anne, but he’d moved. I could hear his voice somewhere off to my right, calling to the man at the back. For the moment the men were confused, scrambling to figure out who was attacking them, but it wouldn’t last. Anne was lying huddled and still at my feet and to my right was the glow from the lift, filtering through the mist.

Then Anne took a ragged breath.

I looked down at her for one second before my reflexes kicked in. I knelt, got my arms under her, and lifted her up. Anne cried out in pain as I did, and the men’s voices suddenly fell silent. I knew what was coming and hauled Anne into the lift.

Clack-clack-clack went the silenced guns, along with a crunch as bullets tore into the brickwork where I’d been standing. I hit the button inside the lift marked 2. With my arms holding Anne I couldn’t reach the button without jolting her as well, and she cried out again. “Doors closing,” the mechanical voice said loudly.

The men outside heard that and knew what it meant. I felt them shift their aim to track the sound and I stepped right. Clack-clack went the guns, followed by a spannng! as a bullet ricocheted around the metal interior of the lift, missing me once, twice, three times before dropping to the floor. The lift doors ground shut and I felt the shudder as it accelerated upwards.

I had a few spare seconds to look over Anne, and as I did my heart sank. There were a half dozen holes in her pullover and around them the grey wool was turning reddish black. My shirt was already wet with her blood and she was sprawled in my arms with her head back, her breath slow and rattling. I don’t know much about first aid, but she looked bad.

The lift decelerated and came to a stop. There was a wait that felt like an hour but could only have been two or three seconds, then the doors ground open. “Second floor,” the recording said clearly. “Please mind the step.”

Whoever had designed the block of flats had obviously worked to a clear set of priorities. Unfortunately, while cost, size, and low-maintenance had made it to the top of the list, aesthetics, good escape routes, and shelter from gunfire hadn’t. The lift came out at one end of a walkway with a concrete balustrade and a railing. Twenty flats were spaced evenly along the walkway, and at the far end was another lift. The walkway was a dead straight line with no place to hide and thirty feet below was the concrete of the car park. I’d never make it past all twenty flats and to the other lift before the men behind caught us. And if I went back down I’d run into them even faster. Unless I could fly, there were no other ways out.

Well, if we couldn’t get out, we’d have to get in.

I moved quickly along the walkway from door to door, scanning the futures. Flat 301—locked. Flat 302—locked. Flat 303—double locked. Flat 304—I stopped and flipped the mat to reveal a key. There’s always one.

From the stairs behind came the sound of pounding feet, and I hissed between my teeth. These guys were fast. I set Anne down as gently as I could and moved back to the stairs. The entry to the stairwell was a swing door with no handles that opened both ways. The walkway was narrow and I knew that the landing behind the door would be narrow too. I braced myself against the railing, listened to the feet pounding up the stairs towards me, and just as the man on the other side reached the top of the stairs I stamp-kicked the door as hard as I could.

My foot encountered the door from one side just as the man reached it from the other, and there was a judder and a satisfying crunch as the door was introduced to the man’s face. The door came off better in the exchange. The man staggered away, the door began to swing back towards me, and I kicked the door again.

This time the man didn’t have any momentum to keep him upright and the door smacked him off the top of the flight of stairs. I had one glimpse of him going down the stairs in a whirl of arms and legs, the second man’s face turned upwards, eyes startled as he saw what was about to hit him, then the door swung back towards me and I darted back to where I’d left Anne.

I could hear shouts from the stairwell but I knew I’d bought myself a few more seconds. The key turned in the lock and I carried Anne inside, gritting my teeth as she made an animal sound of pain. Those bullets had torn her up inside. If we kept moving I’d be killing her just as surely as those men.

The flat was scattered with dirty clothes and bits of audio equipment, but it was empty. I kicked the door shut, muffling the noises from outside, then carried Anne into the bedroom and set her down on the bed as gently as I could. Her skin had gone an ashen colour and the whole front of her body was soaked with blood.

Anne should be dead. She’d been shot in the body seven times and even if I don’t know anything about gunshot wounds I know that’s not something you’re supposed to walk away from. But she wasn’t dead yet and that gave me a bit of hope. Whatever had kept her alive this long, maybe it could last a little longer.

As I looked at Anne I realised there was some kind of magic working around her, something subtle and hard to see. But I didn’t have time to take a closer look and Anne was too far gone to hear anything I could say, so I left her there and went up the carpeted stairs.

The flat had two levels, and the bedroom on the upper storey had a window that looked down onto the walkway from which I’d entered. I pressed myself against the wall, and as I did I saw the men through the glass, coming out from the stairwell. They were moving more cautiously this time, their guns up and scanning the length of the walkway. The first one looked to be moving stiffly from where I’d hit him, and the second had a bloody nose, but it wasn’t slowing them down much. They looked at the empty walkway and conferred.

I’d known as soon as I saw the walkway that the only place to hide had been in one of the flats. Unfortunately, it looked like the men had figured that out too. As I watched they seemed to come to a decision and moved to the first flat along, 301. One covered the walkway while another worked on the lock. The door opened and they disappeared inside.

They were searching the flats.

Crap.

What should I do?

I could use a gate stone. In my left pocket I had what I call my GTFO stone, a gate-magic focus that’s keyed to a safe house in Wales. Gate stones aren’t fast, but I was pretty sure I could make it out in time.

But I couldn’t bring Anne with me. My magic can’t affect the physical world without a focus, and even with a focus I’m terribly weak. A few months ago I’d tried to take the body of a humanoid construct through a gate stone portal, and the body had ended up in three pieces. That hadn’t mattered for the construct. It would matter a lot for Anne.

As I looked through the futures I saw that the men would take no more than two minutes to search each flat. The men were three flats away. Two minutes times three meant that I had six minutes to come up with something.

So far I’d been hoping that if I put the men off balance and stung them enough they’d pull back to regroup. As I kept watching I saw that it wasn’t going to work. These guys were too tough and too committed. They were planning to kill both me and Anne and the longer this went on the better the odds that they’d manage it.

Below, the men came out of 301 and moved to 302. Again they went to work on the door, and again they slipped inside.

I was running out of time.

The man they’d left outside would spot me if I went out the front. What about the back? I moved downstairs, through the glass door at the back that read FULLY AIR CONDITIONED, and out onto the balcony.

The balconies at the back of the flats were a forest of satellite dishes and TV aerials, facing south onto the lights of London. Each balcony was identical, a rectangular hollow of brickwork sticking out into space, one for each flat. I closed the door softly behind me and ducked down behind the balustrade of the balcony of flat 304. A moment later, I heard a creak and movement as one of the gunmen opened the door to the balcony two flats down, in number 302. He glanced quickly around and withdrew back into the flat.

They were being careful. One man outside to make sure I couldn’t sneak out; two men inside covering each other as they searched room to room. I could try to hide but it would be risky. They were ready for someone ahead of them.

But they weren’t ready for someone behind them . . .

The plan flashed through my head in an instant and I spent a precious minute checking for flaws, searching through the futures in which I tried it. As I did I realised there was blood in all of them. No matter what I did, in the next five minutes someone was going to die.

Well, I’d just have to make sure that someone wasn’t me. As I made the decision I felt my mental gears shift. I stayed crouched, hidden in the shadows of the balcony of flat 304, and waited.

There was another creak, closer this time, as the door to the balcony of flat 303 opened next to me. Footsteps sounded, soft on the stone, as the man scanned left and right. He was less than ten feet away but the lip of the balcony hid me from his view. He saw nothing, turned, disappeared inside.

As soon as he was gone I stood and pulled myself up onto the balcony lip before stepping out onto the railing. A cold wind brushed my hair and I took a hold of the drainpipe between the balconies. The gap between was only a few feet. To my right I could see the glow of the night city; the white-yellow cluster of the West End and the double strobe of Canary Wharf in the far distance. I took a deep breath, then before I could think too much about the drop to the darkness below I sprang across. My foot slipped on the opposite railing and my heart lurched, then my clutching hand on the drainpipe steadied me and I dropped down into the balcony of flat 303.

It was only a small change of position. But now instead of being in an area the men hadn’t searched, I was in an area they had searched and thought was safe. The man had left the balcony door open, which made my job easy. I slipped inside into the living room and pressed myself against the wall. From above I could hear the sounds of the men going through the upper floor.

I’ve always had an aggressive side but oddly enough I’ve never been comfortable with fights. One of my martial arts instructors once told me that the strongest attitude to battle, and the only truly strong mental stance, is to face your opponent with a smile and say “Go on, hit me with your best shot! I can take it!” I’ve never been able to do that. Human opponents scare me too much. When I was a child, the bullies I faced were always bigger and stronger than me. Then I awakened to my magic and found to my dismay that nothing had changed. The weakest of elemental mages could swat me like a fly, and I could never, ever face a battle-mage in open combat and live. For the longest time I thought that made me a coward.

But gradually I learnt there were other ways to fight. I’m no good as a duellist or a warrior. But I’m very good as an ambush predator. Stealth and surprise are natural to me, and if I’m a coward I’m a dangerous one.

The men above finished their search and came back downstairs. They didn’t give the living room a second glance; they’d already searched there. As the first man passed by I drew my dagger but didn’t attack. Predators take the hindmost. The second man passed, turning down the corridor towards the front door, his back to me.

I came out behind the man, and my left arm snaked across his throat to drag him off balance as my right hand drove the dagger up into his lower back. He made a funny choking sound and I stabbed him twice more.

The man in the doorway turned back and his eyes went wide as he saw me killing his friend. He brought his gun up and sighted. The man I was holding was struggling, trying to get away, and I let him pull me a little way around to give his friend a clear shot.

The man in the doorway advanced a step, steadied himself with his gun aimed two-handed at my body, and fired twice: clack-clack.

You can’t be faster than a bullet, but you can be faster than the hands that guide it. Just as the gun fired I twisted the man I was holding to bring him between me and the gun. The bullets sank into flesh with a harsh double thud. Slowed by the suppressor, the subsonic ammunition didn’t have the power to go all the way through his body. The man I was holding jerked as the bullets hit him, and his muscles convulsed. I left the knife sticking in his back and reached over to close my right hand on his gun, then using his body as a shield I aimed at the other man and started pulling the trigger.

The gun went clack-clack-clack, the bullets making louder sounds as they tore through walls and threw out sprays of plaster. The other man dived for the kitchen and I tried to track him but the hand clutched over the gun spoiled my aim and he disappeared from sight. Before he could lean out for another shot I backed into the living room, dragging the dying man with me, feeling his struggles becoming weaker as the lifeblood pumped from his body. I clawed another condenser from my pocket and threw it into the hall; it shattered and filled the flat with a gush of grey mist. I ripped my dagger out, letting the body fall, and made it out onto the balcony before any more gunfire came. The fog hid the railing and the drop below but my magic guided me across and back into flat 304.

Anne was still lying on the bed. The sheets were smeared with drying blood, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped for the moment and as I came back into the bedroom her eyes flickered open and tried to focus on me. “Anne,” I said quietly. “Can you move?”

Anne’s eyes were hazy with pain. “There are still two of them,” I said. “I’ve slowed them down but in a few minutes they’ll be coming after us. Can you make it out of the building?”

Anne drew in a ragged breath. “Holding . . . together.” Her skin was paler than it should have been, and I had the feeling she’d lost a lot of blood. “Can’t move. Break apart . . .”

I tried to work out what Anne was saying, then I looked into the futures in which I carried her away and my heart sank as I understood. She’d managed to stabilise herself, but it was taking all she had to do it. Another journey would tear the wounds back open. I might be able to lose the men but Anne would be dead before we got anywhere safe.

I could stay and fight, make a last stand in flat 304, but the odds didn’t look good. I knew that the last two men were still coming and it wouldn’t take them long to figure out where we had to be. I might be able to take two armed men—maybe—but I couldn’t protect Anne at the same time.

For a moment I hesitated. I can make snap decisions when it comes to my own life, but risking someone else’s is harder. Then I shook my head and pulled out my GTFO stone. It had been a river rock once, worn smooth by flowing water, and I’d carved a rune into either side. “Do you know how to use gate stones?” I asked.

Anne gave a tiny nod.

“It’ll get us somewhere safe,” I said. “But I’m not strong enough to make a gate for both of us. I need your help.”

Anne’s eyes met mine, and I could see she was afraid. Activating a focus is no danger for a healthy mage. But in her condition . . .

There was a thump of movement from the flat next door, and Anne closed her eyes and nodded. As gently as I could, I slid one arm beneath her legs and the other beneath her back, then placed my gate stone in her hand, our fingers interlaced over it. Her skin felt cold. I concentrated, then spoke words in the old tongue, channelling my will through the focus.

Gate magic is easy for elemental mages and hard to impossible for everyone else. It works by creating a similarity between two points in space, briefly linking them across a two-dimensional portal. A gate stone is an item which is metaphysically tied to a specific location. You can use it to gate to a place you haven’t seen, or make a gate when you otherwise wouldn’t be able to use gate magic at all.

As I focused a flickering oval began to form in the air, waxing and waning. I concentrated, pushing with my will, and the oval solidified into a shape five feet high and two feet wide, big enough for a child to step through or a man to squeeze through. Beyond was a dark room, cold and unlit.

Then Anne’s fingers tightened over mine and I felt a surge of power run through into the focus. The edges of the gate portal shifted in colour from a translucent grey to a soft leaf green and the portal doubled in size, stretching from floor to ceiling.

From out on the balcony I heard the thud of someone landing from a jump. The gunmen were following and we were out of time. I lifted Anne off the bed and rushed for the portal.

This is the dangerous part of a gate spell: maintaining your mental concentration on holding both ends of the spell while also doing the physical work of stepping through. If you mess it up the gate closes while you’re halfway through, with results I’ll leave to your imagination. Anne cried out again as I lifted her, and the power coming from her dimmed. The portal shrank, and for one terrifying moment I was heading for the gate too fast to stop but too slow to make it through. Then Anne recovered, a final surge of power threw the gate out to full size, and we were through. My foot came down on tiles.

As soon as we’d made it the energy pouring through from Anne shut off. The green light flickered and died and the gate winked out behind us, casting the room into pitch-darkness. I couldn’t see, but with my divination magic I don’t need to. I picked out the route through the kitchen in which we’d landed, noticing the futures in which I stumbled over chairs and avoiding them, and guided us blind to the corridor and into the bedroom beyond. I set Anne down on the bed as carefully as I could, then flicked on the light switch. We’d come into a plain room with a deserted guesthouse sort of feel, and the light that made it through the window splashed upon trees and grass before fading into the vast black emptiness of an unlit valley. The only sound was the soft shhhhh of a river outside. We were in the country.

I moved through the house, switching on the heat and lights, before returning to Anne. Lying on the bed she looked very small and very still, her black hair spread out on the pillow like a fan. I looked into the future to see what would happen if I left her and with a horrible sinking sensation realised it had all been for nothing.

Maybe it had been the extra effort of the gate stone; maybe it had been the final shock of moving her that last time, tearing her wounds back open. But whatever reserve Anne had been drawing on to keep herself alive, it had been used up. She was dying. I stood over Anne, looking down at her still form, and felt helpless. With my divination magic there’s so much I can find, so much I can do—but there was nothing I could do about this.

As if she could feel my gaze, Anne’s eyes flickered open. Her breaths were shallow and she had to try twice to speak. “Need . . .”

I crouched next to her. “Need what?”

Reddish-brown eyes looked into mine. There was fear there, and desperation. “Take my . . . hand.”

Anne raised her hand off the bed. I reached for it—

And my precognition screamed a warning. Instantly I sprang back, coming to my feet in the centre of the room, tense and balanced, ready to flee.

Anne’s arm was still reaching out towards me, trembling slightly, then her strength failed and it fell to hang off the side of the bed. Her head was turned towards me and I caught a flash of something that made me stop. Pain, yes, but more than anything she looked ashamed.

“Can’t . . .” Anne’s soft voice was quick and ragged. “Nothing left. Please . . .”

I stared at Anne and saw the choice branching ahead of me. If I stayed where I was Anne’s breaths would come slower and her words would become fainter and soon, in only a few minutes, those red-brown eyes would close and she would die.

But if I took her hand . . .

If I took her hand I’d be struck down by some kind of magical attack, something I’d never seen before. It would be fast as lightning and there wouldn’t be a thing I could do to stop it. In the futures I saw myself crumpling, then blackness.

“Alex . . .” Anne said softly, and her eyes were pleading. “Please . . .”

Every instinct I had was shouting to stay away. It wasn’t as if Anne were my apprentice. I wasn’t responsible for her and it wasn’t my fault she was hurt. And she’d just tried to . . . actually I didn’t know what she’d tried to do. My divination magic can only see what my own senses would perceive, and all I could see down that path was darkness. For all I knew taking her hand would mean we’d both end up dead.

It wasn’t my problem. No one would blame me for leaving her.

I looked at Anne, seeing the slim dying body, the fear and shame and desperate hope in her eyes, and walked forward. I had to fight myself to do it; my danger sense was screaming at me with every step. I reached down and took Anne’s hand from where it hung limp.

There was a green flash and the strength in every part of my body vanished at once. My hearing cut out, my vision went black, and I couldn’t see or sense or feel. I never felt myself hit the floor.

chapter 4

I woke up very slowly.

I felt awful. My muscles were like water and my head was dizzy. I felt like I’d caught a fever, starved for two weeks, then gotten the worst hangover of my life to top it off. As soon as I realised how bad I felt my first reaction was to try to go back to sleep.

I stayed like that for a while, drifting in and out of consciousness. What finally pushed me awake was realising how hungry I was. I opened my eyes.

It was morning and bright sunlight was streaming through the window. There was something odd about the quiet, and it took me a moment to realise what was missing: the background hum of the city. I wasn’t in London anymore.

I was in a guest room with plain white walls and I was lying in a bed. I was still wearing my clothes but my shoes had been taken off, and looking to one side I could see that the contents of my pockets had been neatly stacked on a bedside table. The room was familiar, as was the sound of the river outside, and a moment later I realised where I was: my safe house in Wales. I just wasn’t sure how I’d got here.

Then I remembered. Anne; the taxi; the battle and the gate. I tried to pull myself up and failed. My muscles were ridiculously weak; I couldn’t even sit upright. My body felt different too, lighter.

Footsteps sounded from the corridor and I looked up to see Anne’s head poking around the door. She vanished and reappeared a second later holding a tray.

Anything I’d been planning to say went right out of my head as soon as I smelt the food. My stomach growled and I realised I wasn’t just hungry, I was ravenous. “Um,” Anne said. “I think you should eat—”

I didn’t quite grab it out of her hands but I came close. The food was oatmeal and fairly bland, not that I cared. Anne went back to the kitchen and got a second bowl, which lasted about as long as the first.

As I was starting on the third bowl I felt the stirrings of a spell and glanced up to see Anne reaching out towards me. As I looked at her she stopped. “May I?”

“As long as it’s not whatever you hit me with last night.”

Anne flinched as if I’d slapped her. I shook my head. “Sorry, didn’t mean it like that. Go ahead.”

Anne placed her hand against my shoulder. A faint green glow, the colour of new leaves in spring, welled up around her hand to soak into me. I could feel it spreading through my body but I couldn’t tell what it was doing.

As I ate I studied Anne out of the corner of my eye. She was wearing a white T-shirt that left her long arms bare, and her skin was a healthy colour again. The bloodstains and bullet holes in the T-shirt were very obvious but she moved without any trace of pain or stiffness. In fact she looked a hell of a lot better than I felt.

I finished up the third bowl. Now that I’d taken the edge off my hunger, it was a little easier to think. Anne was still working her spell through the touch of her hand, and I could feel a faint tingle within my body. “What are you doing?”

“Ah . . .” Anne said in her soft voice. “I’m rebuilding your reserves.”

“How?”

“Your body converts food into energy,” Anne said. “I’m . . . speeding that up. You’ll feel better soon.”

“Okay,” I said. “Look, don’t take this the wrong way, but unless my memory’s going you stopped seven bullets with your chest last night while I only got a few bruises. So could you explain why you’re looking the picture of health when I can’t even get out of bed?”

Anne made as if to speak, then went out of the room, coming back with another two bowls. She put them on the table and sat on a chair, not meeting my eyes.

I started on the next bowl. “You’re not very used to talking about this stuff, are you?”

“Sorry.”

“Well, if you want to eat too and don’t fancy oatmeal, there should be something in the kitchen.”

“I don’t think it’s there.”

“It’s in the cupboard under the sink.”

“I know.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I . . . already ate it.”

“You can’t have eaten all of it. There was three days’ worth.”

Anne looked embarrassed.

“Wait, seriously?”

“Sorry,” Anne said again.

I looked at Anne’s slim figure in disbelief. “Where do you put it all?”

“I used too much last night.” Anne brushed her hair back, looking down at the floor. “I burnt all my reserves. Muscle and fat. It took . . . quite a lot to rebuild them.”

I looked at Anne a moment longer. “You’re a life mage.”

Anne nodded.

“That was how you survived those injuries,” I said. “You were repairing the damage from the bullets.”

“But it’s hard,” Anne said. “When I heal someone else, some of the energy comes from me and some comes from them. When I heal myself I can’t . . .” She trailed off.

I stared at her for a second, and then it clicked. “Was that what you did to me? You took energy from my body and used it to keep yourself alive?”

Anne nodded again. She didn’t meet my eyes.

Well, that explained why I felt so terrible. I’d never been life-drained before and I shivered a little as I remembered the feeling. Having the strength drained out of every part of your body at once is a uniquely nasty experience.

Anne still had her eyes downcast, and I realised suddenly that she felt ashamed. “Ah, relax,” I said. “Don’t beat yourself up over it.”

Anne looked up in surprise. “You’re not . . . ?”

“Well, I feel like crap,” I said. “But all in all, I’d rather feel like crap than have you dead. Be a bit of a waste after I went to all that effort. Just try and take a bit less next time, okay?”

“I’m sorry,” Anne said again. “I was—”

“I’m kidding,” I said. “And you can stop worrying, I’m not going to report you to the Council.”

I saw Anne relax a bit. Life-draining is outlawed by the Council—it’s too close to the forbidden technique of Harvesting—and in her position she’d be in serious trouble if accused. “Thank you.”

“So I’m guessing this is why I’m so hungry?”

Anne nodded. “Your body stores short-term and long-term energy. I . . . took most of it. You’ve been burning body fat all night.” Anne hesitated. “You, um, might find you’re a bit lighter.”

I lifted the covers and looked down at myself. “Huh. You know, you could make a lot of money in the weight-loss business.”

“Everyone says that.” Anne sounded faintly exasperated. “You’re supposed to have some fat.”

I noticed with mild surprise that I’d eaten the last two bowls of oatmeal without realising it. “You can read bodies, right?”

Anne nodded.

“How am I doing?”

“You’re fine,” Anne said at once. “You’ll need to eat about three times as much as normal for a while but your body will tell you that. Just be careful for a day or two while your energy reserves build up again. But you could get up now if you wanted.”

I suited the action to the word. My legs felt a little wobbly and there was a lingering weakness in my limbs, but I was feeling better and managed to stay on my feet. My phone was on the table, and looking at it I saw that it was past ten. “Ah hell,” I said as I remembered my appointment with Sonder. “I’m supposed to be somewhere.”

“Wait!” Anne said in alarm. “You can’t use a gate stone already. You need to—”

“I’m all right,” I said. “I just need to make a call.”

*  *  *

Once I was in the corridor and out of sight I took out my phone and saw that I had four missed calls. As I did, I saw that my hand was shaking. I leant against the wall and closed my eyes. It wasn’t the physical drain that was getting to me, not really. I’ve been hurt before and I’m used to it. It was the memory of last night.

Killing with a knife is much more personal than with a gun. A gun is detached, clinical. Aim, squeeze the trigger, see the puff of red. Even looking down at the body afterwards it doesn’t really feel like you did it. A knife is different. You feel the impact as the blade goes in, the warmth of the blood on your hands, the struggles of the man you’re holding. It’s harder to shut out.

I didn’t try. Instead I ran through the events of last night, deliberately replaying the battle in the flat step by step. One after another I thought about the choices I could have taken and the other ways the battle could have ended. I thought about the men killing Anne or killing me and compared that to my memory of stabbing the man in the back. If I had to do it all over again, would I make the same choice?

Yes. I would. As I decided that, the memory loosened a little. It wasn’t any easier, but facing it, understanding it, made it bearable. I stayed there for another few minutes, then once I was calm again I tapped a stored number on my phone.

The phone rang once and was picked up on the second ring. “Alex?”

It was Luna’s voice, anxious and hopeful, and hearing it pulled me the rest of the way back to the world of the living. Suddenly I was awake again. “It’s me.”

“You’re okay?”

“I’m fine.”

I heard Luna sigh in relief. “It’s him, he’s okay,” she called to someone else, then came back to the receiver. “Where have you been?”

“Long story.”

“I called last night and I thought you were just asleep. Then I met Sonder this morning and he hadn’t heard anything either! We’ve been worried sick.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I got held up.”

“Don’t scare me like that. I was afraid you’d been kidnapped again or something.”

“No, I—Wait, what do you mean ‘again’?”

“You know, like with Morden.”

“That happened once.”

“And the time with Belthas.”

“I got caught that time because I was going after you.”

“No you weren’t. Anyway, what about—”

There was the sound of someone else clearing their throat. “Oh, right,” Luna said. “Where are you?”

“Wales.”

“Wales?”

“Wales.”

“Why are you in Wales?”

“Three men tried to kill Anne last night. There was a fight and we evac’d to the safe house. Has anyone come after you or Sonder?”

“Tried to kill—? No, no one’s come after us. Alex, what have you been doing?”

“Good.” The weariness in my limbs wasn’t going away and I realised Anne had been right. I didn’t have the strength to use a gate stone yet. “Listen, I’m going to be laid up for a few hours. I want you to work with Sonder on those reports. Get as familiar with the information as you can.”

“Are you going to be here?”

“No, I’m going to be following up on something else. Have you got any classes today?”

“Just one. It finishes at five.”

“Good. When you’re done go to Arachne’s and ask her to fit you a dress. Ask her to find me something too while you’re at it. I’ll meet you there, but I might be late.”

“You’re finally getting a better wardrobe?”

“No, we’re going to a party.”

“Oh,” Luna said. “Something really dangerous.”

“As long as I don’t have to arm-wrestle you to make you go this time. Now put Sonder on, I need to ask him something.”

“Say please.”

“Just do it.”

“Sonder!” Luna called. “Alex wants to talk to you. He says he’s got a date tonight and wants some advice on what to wear.”

I rolled my eyes. When Luna took the formal oath of apprenticeship, she swore to obey me “without question.” Luna’s way of getting around this has been to follow orders to the letter but add some creative misinterpretation. I heard the clunking of the phone being put down and picked up, then Sonder’s voice. “Um, hello?”

“Ignore Luna,” I said. “Listen, I need you to do me a favour.”

“Oh,” Sonder said. “Okay. Sure.”

“Three assassins tried to kill me and Anne last night in Archway. I’ll send you the address. I need you to look around and find out whatever you can about those men. One’s dead but two got away and I need to find them. There’ll be police lines so it might be difficult to get in, but do what you can.”

There was a moment’s silence. “Do you think there’s a connection?” Sonder said at last. “I mean . . . right after you were asked to do the—the other job. It’s a bit of a coincidence.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It is.”

“Do you think it’s the same person?”

I frowned. “I don’t know. What I really want to know is what linked them to me.”

“That’s why you want me to find out about those men?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, I’ll try. And I’ll take Luna through the files.”

“Thanks. See you tonight.”

*  *  *

I found Anne in the kitchen washing up. There was a stack of plates on the dish rack, and I could see from the empty cupboard that she hadn’t been exaggerating about how much she’d eaten. I guess every kind of magic has its quirks. I sat at the table, not letting myself show how much of a relief it was to get off my feet—I could feel my strength returning but slower than I was used to. “Okay,” I said. “So who do you know who wants you dead?”

Anne turned to me, face troubled. She was drying her hands with a towel and it would have been a peaceful domestic scene but for the bloodstains on her clothes. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve tried to think of anyone but I can’t.”

“Offended any Dark mages lately? Made any new enemies?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What about that girl from duelling class?”

Anne looked surprised. “Natasha? She’s just a bit nervous about me and Vari.”

I thought it had seemed a bit more serious than that but kept my feelings to myself. Besides, I couldn’t really see an apprentice sending gunmen. “Well, someone wants to get rid of you,” I said. “And they weren’t kidding around. Those men were no joke.”

“I know,” Anne said. She looked at me. “Thank you. Not just for coming to help. For afterwards.”

I nodded.

“But . . .” Anne hesitated. “How did you know?”

“I’m a diviner,” I said. “It’s what I do.”

As I said it, though, something nagged at my memory. When I’d told Sonder about the attack, he’d leapt to the conclusion that it had been aimed at me. It hadn’t been, not directly: Anne had been the gunmen’s target and they hadn’t attacked me until I’d intervened. But maybe Sonder had been on to something. “You know,” I said slowly, “you might not have been the only target last night.”

“What do you mean?”

“You were meant to be the victim.” I looked at Anne. “I was meant to be the suspect.”

Anne looked puzzled, but it fit. If her assassination had gone as planned, I would have been the last mage to see her alive. The Council Keepers would have come asking questions. Everyone knew I’d been responsible for the deaths of two Light mages already. Having yet another vanish so soon after meeting me . . .

It probably wouldn’t have been enough to get me arrested, not on its own. But I’ve got enemies on the Council, enemies who’d be more than willing to overlook the holes in the case and maybe fiddle a bit of evidence to help things along. Even if the charge didn’t stick, it would have made it a lot harder for me to go snooping around.

I tried to explain that to Anne in my halting way but didn’t do a good job. “They wouldn’t have blamed you, though, would they?” she asked.

“Maybe,” I said. “It’d be less effort than sending those gunmen.”

“But you didn’t do anything wrong.”

I looked at Anne, watching me seriously out of those odd reddish eyes, and couldn’t help but laugh. But it gave me an idea. “Have you called anyone yet to tell them you’re okay?”

A shadow passed over Anne’s face. “No.”

Now why not? I thought curiously. You obviously thought about it. But you didn’t call Variam and you didn’t call this Lord Jagadev, whoever he is.

What was the story with Anne? There was no way she should still be an apprentice with the amount of power she’d displayed last night. And her lack of fear or panic was telling. She was used to danger, even if she didn’t look it. She was a weird mixture altogether—grave and wary and oddly naive underneath it all.

I wanted to keep asking questions but held back. Some instinct told me that pressing Anne for information now would make her shy away. So instead I helped her with the dishes and wondered if there was anything edible left in the house. As it turned out, there was.

*  *  *

The building was an old farmhouse at the very end of a Welsh valley. I’d rented it a few months back during one of my more paranoid moments, as a getaway in case someone attacked my London home. As a place to live it’s a joke—it’s fifteen miles from the nearest village, there aren’t any phone lines, and it floods every spring. But if all you want is somewhere to hide, it’s a good deal.

On Anne’s advice I rested for several hours before trying to travel, and I spent the time talking to her. I sensed she was uncomfortable with talking about herself and her powers, so I didn’t ask. Instead I settled for getting the details of how she’d been attacked last night.

It had been done very simply. While on her way to Archway Anne had received a text message, supposedly from Jagadev, directing her to go to a different address and send the car away once she arrived. Anne had obeyed. She’d noticed the men but hadn’t spotted the guns, and as she pressed the button to call the lift they’d shot her in the back.

Anne hadn’t recognised any of the men, and neither had I. They hadn’t been carrying magic, which along with the guns suggested they were normals. But they hadn’t been fazed by my mist effect either, and from the few words they’d exchanged over Anne’s body they’d known getting too close to her could be dangerous, and that made me think they were at least clued in to the magical world. Maybe ex–Council security, or some Dark mage’s private army. Either way, I’d know more once Sonder had had a chance to investigate.

It was two o’clock when we left the house. I locked it behind us, then slid the key under the door—I didn’t need it to get back in. “Are you sure you don’t want to catch a train or something?” Anne asked.

“There are some things I need to get done,” I said, and gave Anne a glance. “Besides, I think you might attract a bit of attention.”

Anne looked embarrassed. She’d gotten the blood off her skin and out of her hair and had even had a try at washing her clothes, but they still looked exactly as you’d expect clothes to look if their wearer had been shot repeatedly in the chest. “I couldn’t find anything else to wear.”

“Yeah, I didn’t stock the place very well.” I started walking towards the river, picking my way through patches of grass. “Let’s get going.”

The end of the valley was cold and had a desolate look. Thistles sprouted between the rocks and grass, patches of nettles grew around the outbuildings, and there were bramble thickets under the bare trees. But the air was clear and the hills rose green around us and the place had its own kind of quiet beauty, even if few would come to see it.

The gate stone I’d used to bring us here had been made out of a rock from the bank of the river I was standing beside now. Gate stones have a lot of drawbacks, but the biggest is that they’re always one-way. They can only take you to a single location, set when you create the stone. So if you want to travel around using gate stones you have to take a selection with you—which means you risk losing them if anything goes wrong.

The gate stone I’d used was keyed to the kitchen of the farmhouse behind us. I’ve also got gate stones for the ravine outside Arachne’s lair, the Great Court of the British Museum, a mountaintop in Scotland, and a fairly random selection of other places, none of which I’d brought with me today. I’d brought the gate stone to my shop, though, and it was this one I took out now. “Ready?” I asked Anne.

Anne nodded and stepped up next to me. She seemed to be watching me closely for some reason but I couldn’t see why, so I shrugged it off and spoke the activation words. Again the air shimmered and formed into a translucent oval, and again it shifted colour to a leaf green as Anne’s fingers closed over mine and she channelled her power into my spell. Anne’s magic worked much more easily with gate stones than mine did, but that wasn’t surprising—even if it can affect only living things, life magic can still change the physical world.

We came down into the little back room of my shop and the air went from winter in Wales to room temperature in London. “Will you be okay making it home on your own?” I asked as I led Anne to the back door.

Anne nodded. “There’s somewhere safe I can go.”

“Good.” I looked at Anne. “Can you do me a favour? Could you stay hidden until tonight?”

“I . . . suppose,” Anne said hesitantly. “Why?”

“If I’m right, someone was trying to get rid of both of us,” I said. “If I show up at the party without you, they may think you’re dead after all. Maybe I can get them to tip their hand.”

Anne thought about it, then nodded. “All right.”

We both stood in the doorway, and I realised with a feeling of surprise that I liked this strange girl. “Be careful,” I said.

“I will.” Anne smiled. “See you tonight.”

I watched Anne go, then went inside.

*  *  *

I had a few hours before I needed to get ready for the party, and I’d already decided what to do with them. I was going to Fountain Reach.

Given that I’d been sure only the previous day that the message pointing me to Fountain Reach had been a trap, you’re probably wondering why I’d changed my mind. It’s a fair question, and to be honest I wasn’t quite sure myself. I just had the vague feeling that I needed to do something, keep searching and looking around. With hindsight, I think the attack on Anne and me had made me suspect someone was moving against us, and I wanted to try to turn something up before they made their next move.

I made my preparations, choosing my equipment more carefully than I had for my hurried departure last night. I kept the gate stone for my shop; it would be useless for getting there but would speed up the journey back. A second gate stone keyed to Fountain Reach would have allowed me to travel back and forth at will, but I didn’t have one. I took another pair of condensers as well as a handful of extra items picked with an eye towards trickery and concealment. Finally I took my mist cloak from my wardrobe. When it comes to stealth my mist cloak is far and away the best item I own, and I’d already decided that stealth was exactly what was needed.

As well as my mist cloak, there’s something else I always used to bring with me on these sort of trips: a thin glass rod, designed to call an air elemental named Starbreeze. Starbreeze is scatterbrained and ridiculously unreliable, and she forgets anything you tell her almost before you’ve said it, but she can turn a person to air and carry them faster than a bullet. If I’d been able to call her, she could have whisked me across the length of England and dropped me next to Fountain Reach in the time it takes most people to check their e-mail.

Unfortunately I don’t have the caller anymore. I blew it up in the autumn getting away from a bunch of enemies, and I haven’t managed to contact Starbreeze since. I worry sometimes that I never will: Starbreeze might wonder eventually why I’m not talking to her and come looking for me to find out, but Starbreeze is immortal. It might take her ten or twenty years to even notice.

So in the absence of gates or elementals, I took the train.

*  *  *

The directions I’d found placed Crystal’s family home in the Cotswolds, between Oxford and Gloucester. I got off at the nearest station and took a taxi most of the way before walking the final stretch on foot. I crested a rise and found myself looking across a small valley at Fountain Reach.

My first thought was that it was the weirdest-looking house I’d ever seen. Mages like unusual homes and I’ve seen some strange ones in my time, but this was the strangest. It looked as if it had been grown rather than built, extra wings and storeys added on one at a time, each in a different architectural style. The windows were irregular and didn’t match, changing in height and design, and there were too many chimneys and too many gables. The mansion was blockier and more cubical than it should have been, rather than the extended oblong common to most country houses. The inner rooms must have had no natural light at all.

The mansion was isolated, but not terribly so. The hillside cut off the view of the nearby town and rail line but the sounds of activity drifted up through the trees. The slopes were forested and I left the access road to angle upwards through the woods and look down on Fountain Reach from above. The gardens were extensive and looked carefully tended, beautiful flowerbeds mixing with copses of exotic trees. Birds pecked on the lawn, their calls echoing through the leaves, and the winter sun was dipping in the western sky, casting a yellowish light over the scene and giving a perfect view across the countryside below.

It looked about as unsinister a place as could be imagined, enough to make me feel a bit foolish. I half-expected a coach to show up and a bunch of European tourists to go wandering across the lawn with their cameras or something.

But I was here and I might as well do the job I’d come for. I found a good vantage point beneath an ash tree and crouched down, concentrating on the futures of me exploring the mansion below.

The technique is called path-walking, and it was the same one I’d used the night before. Basically, instead of looking forward into your various futures, you isolate just one future and follow it through the choices ahead. I’d tried it during the train journey in an attempt to speed up any search of Fountain Reach but hadn’t had much luck. Hopefully it’d be easier now that I was closer.

To my surprise it wasn’t. I could trace out the futures down to the mansion but as soon as I entered the images became narrowed, fuzzy. I kept trying for ten minutes before giving up with a frown.

I’d seen this effect before. You got it when attempting to use divination magic within an area that had been warded against scrying—heavily warded against scrying. As I focused on the mansion with my mage’s sight I realised that the walls were layered with overlapping shields of magical protection, so thick that from my position I couldn’t see through them at all. They were messy, uneven, but extremely powerful.

Now why would a private residence in the middle of nowhere have such heavy defences?

The obvious answer: because they had something to hide.

I waited for sunset. English winter days are short and it wasn’t even four o’clock before the sun began dipping behind the hills. As soon as the sun vanished the temperature dropped like a rock, but my cloak kept me from more than the odd shiver. I know from experience that it’s actually harder to spot someone in twilight than nighttime—the eye has trouble adjusting from the light sky to the dark ground—so once the sky had faded to blue-grey I set off downhill.

The dark woods were filled with roots and traps for unwary feet but my divination magic guided me safely through. My breath was visible in the cold air and the stars shone down from above, Orion and Sirius glowing brightly in a clear sky. I vaulted the garden wall and stole across the lawn, just one more shadow in the evening gloom.

Fountain Reach was occupied—that had been obvious from the cars and vans—but having watched the place for an hour I was fairly sure that there wasn’t much security and I didn’t pick up any danger as I approached. I reached the back of the mansion and studied the wards.

The more I looked at them, the more puzzled I got. Like the house, the wards had an organic look, as if they’d been grown rather than constructed. The design was massively inefficient but the sheer volume of energy made them formidable all the same. There was a gate ward, of course, and shields against spatial and temporal scrying, but search as I might I couldn’t discover any barrier to physical entry. Which was very strange—why would anyone expend so much energy on making a place impossible to view or gate into but do nothing to stop anyone from just walking in?

The divination ward worried me, though. It’s almost impossible to shut down a diviner’s magic completely but the wards were powerful enough to damp it, and as I looked into the futures of my entering I found that I could see much less further than normal. Futures thirty seconds away were fuzzy, and beyond that they degraded quickly into uselessness. My ability to see into the future is the only major edge I have. Having it even partially suppressed makes me very nervous.

But if I was careful thirty seconds ought to be enough. There were windows all along the ground floor and it took me no time at all to find one that had been left unlatched. I pushed it up and climbed inside, and into Fountain Reach.

chapter 5

The inside of Fountain Reach was quiet, distant voices muffled by the intervening walls. I’d come into some kind of sitting room and I moved to the door and listened. I could hear movement, but not close by.

From a legal point of view, what I was doing here was kind of a grey area. The Council comes down hard on anyone trespassing on Council property, but entering another mage’s residence isn’t specifically forbidden—what the Concord prohibits against other mages is “hostile action.” On the other hand, hostile is a pretty vague word. Mages tend to be trigger-happy about home defence and if Crystal found me sneaking around her mansion she’d quite likely shoot on sight. She’d have to justify it to the Council afterwards, but if she claimed I’d been there to attack her she’d probably get away with it—especially if I was too dead to say otherwise.

That last possibility didn’t appeal much, which was why I’d brought my mist cloak. My mist cloak doesn’t look very impressive—it’s just a length of soft cloth, coloured a sort of neutral grey, well cut but nothing worth taking note of. But when worn it has a camouflaging effect, its colours shifting to match the background behind, making its wearer fade into the scenery like a chameleon. If you stay in the shadows and don’t move, a mist cloak makes you damn near invisible.

More important, mist cloaks function against magical senses too. Mind mages like Crystal can sense the presence of other creatures by detecting their consciousness, “seeing” thoughts in the same way that you or I can see light. Without the mist cloak she’d spot me the instant I got close. With it I had a chance of staying hidden.

I stole into the corridor, senses alert. My ears and my magic told me that there were people to the left and right along the edge of the building. I went forward, deeper into the mansion.

Fountain Reach was a bizarre house, with corridors that twisted and changed in size and design. There was no logic to the layout: Staircases led into dead ends and windows looked into other rooms. There were people here—lots of people—but as I moved through the mansion I realised most were servants or caterers. The opening ceremony for the tournament was tomorrow and the staff were busy with preparations. The stealth probably hadn’t been necessary; with all the activity I could have just walked in the front door. As I moved deeper into the mansion the sounds of activity became fainter and fainter until they were silent. I’d known the place was big but the winding corridors made it seem bigger; with no direct routes it took a long time to get anywhere.

I’d been aiming for the bedrooms but found myself walking into what was obviously the duelling hall. It looked as though it had been a ballroom once, with a wide parquet floor and a high ceiling, but azimuth focuses had been erected at either end of the room and tables and chairs had been set up for refreshments. Despite the lights scattered around the hall, the place had a gloomy feel. I searched the room quickly and found focus weapons, protective gear, and scattered papers. In fact, exactly what you’d expect to find.

I went through the documents and found what looked like a schedule. The opening ceremony would be tomorrow evening and the elimination rounds would take place during the two days after that, with the finals the day after. The focus of the tournament seemed to be on the apprentice competition. The journeyman division had only a few mages competing while dozens of apprentices were scheduled to duel, with places still open.

Which told me . . .

. . . nothing useful at all. I straightened up from the papers, suddenly annoyed with myself. What was I doing here? I was taking risks sneaking into a place I really shouldn’t be in, and for what? To find out information that wasn’t a secret in the first place.

I could stick around and keep searching. But the mansion was huge, and with my ability to search through futures degraded I could look for days and not find anything. I turned and walked out.

I followed the corridors back, twisting and turning, until I came to a T junction. Had I come from the left or the right? I tried the left and it led me to a four-way intersection. I followed it down a flight of stairs that I thought was familiar, but it led into a hall lined with paintings that I was sure I hadn’t seen before. I retraced my steps to the intersection but all the corridors looked identical. I picked one and it led me to a T junction, but the passages onwards didn’t look familiar either.

I stopped, irritated. This was ridiculous. How could I be getting lost inside a house?

Usually, as long as my magic is working, I can always find my way home. All I have to do is search through the futures and look for the one in which I make it out. But with my divination range cut down, I couldn’t see far enough—and since I’m so used to never getting lost I hadn’t thought to memorise the route on the way in. It was a rookie mistake and it was embarrassing. I started down the corridor, trying to find my way to a window or some sort of landmark.

As I did I realised it had been a long time since I’d heard any movement. The house was quiet—really quiet. I stopped and listened but couldn’t hear any activity at all.

The corridor I’d reached felt much older than the outer parts of the house. The furniture was dark and shabby, there were cracks in the plaster, and a fine layer of dust covered the tables.

And suddenly my precognition flared.

My divination magic might have been dulled, but my reactions weren’t. In a flash I was hidden in a doorway, the hood of my mist cloak concealing my face, fading into the background against the shadows of the dimly lit corridor.

The house was silent. I held myself perfectly still. Only my eyes moved, flicking up and down the length of the corridor. I couldn’t see or sense anything. But my magic was telling me that something very, very bad was going to happen if I moved even an inch from where I was standing now. One minute passed, two minutes, five. My feet itched but I didn’t let myself move. I scanned for enemies using every trick I knew and came up blank.

And all of a sudden the threat was gone. I checked and rechecked the futures and found nothing. I held still another five minutes, then moved quickly and quietly away down the corridor, holding my breath until I was safely out of sight.

Although I kept a tight grip on it, I was shaken. I hadn’t been able to make out what the danger was but I was absolutely sure that something would have happened to me if I’d moved. Usually my magic shows me the outcome of bad choices in gruesome detail. I’ve always thought it’s one of the nastiest bits of being a diviner but now I was finding that knowing something was after you without knowing what was actually worse.

As I moved I tried to figure out just what the hell had happened there. I’d sensed danger in the short-term future but the immediate future had shown nothing but an empty corridor. If something had been about to attack me, why hadn’t I seen any trace of it?

I didn’t know, but I wasn’t staying around to find out. I reached an intersection and scanned ahead. I still didn’t know which was the way out but I wasn’t looking for that anymore: All I was focused on was evading the invisible threat behind me. One of the routes gave me a stirring of unease and I took the other, moving as fast as I could. I was concentrating on scanning for the whatever-it-was rather than looking for rooms or people, and so I didn’t notice that I’d made my way back to the duelling hall until I came through the doorway.

The hall wasn’t empty this time. There was a young man standing by one of the tables, going through the papers. He was tall and thin, dressed in black with a whiplike quickness to his movements. It had been eight months since I’d seen him but I remembered him very well. His name was Onyx, and the last time we’d met he’d been trying to kill me.

As I stopped in the doorway Onyx’s head snapped up towards me. For a second we stared at each other.

Onyx cast a spell and I leapt back as blades of force slashed in an X pattern through the space I’d been in a second ago. Another blade hissed over my head as I rolled left into the corridor, coming to my feet in a run.

There was a wall between Onyx and me now, and I sprinted down the corridor before he could regain a line of sight. Looking ahead I saw that he wasn’t chasing me, he was going to—

Crap! I threw myself flat, skidding on the carpet, and as I did splinters and plaster exploded all around me as Onyx sent a lethal spray of force blades tearing through the building. They were at waist height and he’d fired them straight from the duelling hall, cutting across the corridor and through the wall on both sides.

As he did, a bolt of agony went through my head, a mental shriek of pain and fury. It was so powerful it blanked my thoughts for an instant, making my vision grey out.

When I came to I was curled on the floor, my hands over my ears. I staggered to my feet and kept moving, trying to shake off the fuzziness inside my head. My hearing was still working and I could hear distant shouts from ahead of me, and I knew that we’d stirred up trouble, but the noise was enough to orient me and suddenly I knew more or less where I was going. I couldn’t sense Onyx or the other presence anymore, and I kept moving. As I reached the corridor leading to the outer rooms, a group of people went hurrying past. I waited in the shadows for them to get out of sight, then slipped into the room from which I’d entered and dropped out the window.

As I left the walls of the mansion my vision of the futures ahead of me cleared, and my heart lifted as I could see properly again. I ran out across the garden under the starlight, my feet quiet on the grass. Looking back through the cold night air I could see the windows of Fountain Reach lit up. Distant shouts echoed through the walls, but I couldn’t hear any sounds of battle.

I made it out of the garden and started back up the forested slope in the darkness. I could have activated my gate stone, but I wanted to put a safe distance between me and any pursuers before I did anything to reveal my presence. As I scanned ahead through the futures, though, I saw that I wasn’t alone in the woods. Someone was ahead of me in the same vantage point I’d used earlier. Maybe they’d had the same idea as me.

I was tempted to just bug out, but I’d had time to recover from my scare. Now that my magic was working properly again I had my confidence back. I altered course towards the person above, and as I did I thought about Onyx.

Onyx is the Chosen of a powerful Dark mage named Morden. Morden was one of the two major players competing for the fateweaver back in April; he coerced me and a small cabal of Dark mages to go get it for him and sent Onyx along to ensure our cooperation. It turned out that Onyx’s idea of cooperation involved him leaving with the fateweaver and everyone else not leaving at all. I got hold of the fateweaver before Onyx did and we had a frank exchange of views.

It ended up with Onyx on the floor and bleeding, barely escaping with his life. Unfortunately I’d only won because of the fateweaver, and the price tag on those powers turned out to be a hell of a lot higher than I was willing to pay. The fateweaver was gone but Onyx was still around, and that was bad news because Onyx was one of the deadliest battle-mages I’d ever had the misfortune to run up against. I wondered if he held a grudge against me for humiliating him like that. I had the feeling the answer was a definite yes.

The person waiting at the viewpoint near the top of the hill was a girl, nineteen or so. She was just a shadow in the darkness, but by looking into the futures in which I switched on my light I recognised her as one of Morden’s slaves. I had to think for a minute before I remembered her name: Lisa. I hadn’t really expected to see her again. Slaves to Dark mages have a high turnover rate. I let myself fade into the shadows and waited.

Onyx arrived five minutes later. He was obviously trying to be quiet but I had the impression he didn’t spend much time in the woods and it wasn’t hard to hear him coming. Unlike me his magic didn’t give him any way to see in the dark and he’d resorted to some kind of black-light spell that cast a murky glow. I felt Lisa go tense as she saw him.

“Who did you see?” Onyx said as he walked up into the clearing.

“N-nobody.”

“Verus was in there.” Onyx was young, but his voice was flat and cold and sent a chill down my spine. “When did he go in?”

“I don’t know—”

The blow didn’t look powerful but it was augmented with force and took Lisa off her feet. Onyx had already turned away and was staring down at Fountain Reach. There was a sort of casual indifference to the whole thing. Onyx had been annoyed and Lisa had been in front of him, so he’d hit her. He didn’t care whether it had been her fault and in fact he seemed already to have forgotten that she was there. Lisa stayed on the ground for a while, cringing, then pulled herself upright.

Onyx shook his head and turned away. The darkness shrouded his face but his body language looked frustrated. Magic flared around him as he opened a black gateway; he stepped through and Lisa hurried through after him without needing to be told. The gateway closed and I was left alone on the hillside.

I watched thoughtfully for a moment, then turned to make my way home.

*  *  *

“But what was Onyx doing there?” Sonder asked an hour and a half later.

Arachne’s cave is wide and oval-shaped, hidden under Hampstead Heath and hollowed out of stone that’s been worn smooth by the passage of hundreds of years. Clothes cover the furniture and every inch of the walls, turning the cave into a riot of green and blue and yellow and red. There are small changing rooms to one side and at the far end a tunnel leads down into darkness.

Sonder was sitting on the edge of one of the chairs, his clothes rumpled from a day spent indoors. He has messy black hair, a pair of glasses, and a way of peering at whatever he’s reading that makes it look like he’s completely oblivious to everything else, which is usually true. He’s twenty-one but looks like a first-year university student. He still had his arms full of papers, and the reports he’d been reading were spread out over a pile of coats on the table in front of him. He pushed his glasses up automatically as he waited for my answer.

“I don’t know,” I said from my sofa. I was more tired than I should have been; the escape from Fountain Reach had taken a lot out of me and I obviously hadn’t fully recovered from Anne’s spell yet. “But I’m pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to be there either.”

“Do you think it’s him?” Luna called. She was hidden behind the curtain of one of the changing rooms. “Him and Morden, I mean.”

“They’re vicious enough,” I said. “But it seems like an odd thing for him to do.”

“Onyx?” I could feel Luna shudder. “He’d do anything.”

“Anything Morden tells him to. Don’t forget that.”

“We know they take slaves,” Luna said. “Like that girl Lisa. Maybe that’s where the apprentices are going.”

“There’s no way Morden would take that kind of risk,” I said. “The reason he got involved in the hunt for the fateweaver was because he wanted to become Council representative of the Dark mages. If he kept them as slaves it’d get out sooner or later, and as soon as that happened he’d lose any chance he ever had of getting that position.”

“But what if—Oh, Arachne, could you have a look?”

“Of course, dear,” Arachne said from her perch in the corner. She was working on something in vivid green. “Come right out.”

Arachne is a weaver, the best I know, and everything in her lair is her own work. She’s been making clothes since before I was born—probably since before my great-great-grandparents were born. She trades the clothes to mages and adepts in return for services and information, but honestly, I think she’d be just as happy to give them away. Arachne’s a maker, and for her creating is its own reward.

She’s also a giant spider, which bothers most people, although these days I hardly notice. Arachne had been working on the cloth in front of her with her four front legs, but now she turned her eight opaque eyes upwards as Luna stepped out from behind the curtain wearing a rose-coloured dress with a square neckline and ruffles. “What do you think?” Luna said doubtfully.

Sonder looked up as soon as Luna started to come out, and now he stared. “Um,” he said at last. “It’s, uh, good. Really good.”

“Definitely not,” Arachne said firmly, clicking her mandibles. “Not for where you’re going. We’ll save that one for the summer.”

Luna disappeared behind the curtain. “What did you and Luna turn up?” I asked Sonder.

Sonder was still staring after Luna. “Sonder!” I said more loudly.

Sonder jumped. “What?”

“The disappearances,” I said. “You know, what you and Luna were looking at all day?”

“Right,” Sonder said. “Okay.” He pushed his glasses up and started going through his papers again. “Where did you want to start?”

“With the victims,” I said. From the changing room came the rustle of clothes, and from the corner the quick flick-flick-flick of Arachne’s needle. “Who were they?”

“Well, um,” Sonder said. “The first is Caroline Montroyd. She was apprenticed to an air mage in London but she lived with her parents in Watford. She left her master’s sanctum one night and never came home. Her parents called the police, but they didn’t find anything and the police think she ran away. She’d been having arguments with her father and mother and talking about leaving, and at first everyone thought that was what had happened, but . . .”

“But it’s a bit of a coincidence,” I said with a nod. “Go on.”

“The second one’s name is Chaven,” Sonder said. He was beginning to focus again now. “Force mage, supposed to be a really good duellist, was actually one of the favourites for the White Stone. He’d mostly dropped out of university but he was still staying in the halls of residence for London Metropolitan. We don’t know for sure when he disappeared. The doorman said he saw him go in one night, and he didn’t show up for classes the next day. No one saw him leave.

“Then there’s Ness,” Sonder said, and he looked suddenly uncomfortable. “Vanessa, I mean. I . . . actually know her. She used to come to one of the classes I was teaching. Well, not really teaching, but the mage who was supposed to be doing it wasn’t there, and . . . um. Anyway. She lived alone in a flat. She made it home one night and no one ever saw her again.”

“Then how the hell did she vanish?” I said in annoyance. “Did someone kick the door down or what?”

“Nothing like that,” Sonder said. “The door was locked. Nothing was broken. Although . . . Well, I was talking to the neighbours and the woman from the flat next door said she thought Ness had had a visitor after midnight. She heard a bell and voices.”

“What kind of voices?”

“She didn’t remember.”

“Okay. So what did you see?”

Sonder is a time mage. It’s got a few similarities to my own style of magic, but the things he can do with it are very different. For one thing, he can actually affect space and time directly, although it’s not what he specialises in. What Sonder is really good at is history: looking back and seeing what happened. You’d think that would make solving mysteries pretty easy and it does, at least when you’re dealing with normals. But in the magical world the abilities of time mages are well known and other mages take precautions against them.

“I couldn’t find Caroline,” Sonder said. “I traced her into the Underground but then there were the crowds and the interference, and . . . Anyway. Chaven was a bit easier. I got a look at the halls, and he was definitely there in his room with some friends. Then he went to bed, and . . . nothing. Greyed out. Someone used a shroud effect over that temporal area. The same with Ness. I traced it and the whole route back to the entrance was concealed.”

Shrouds are magical items that block scrying, especially the temporal kind that Sonder does. They’re not cheap and they’re generally only used by people who are very serious about keeping their activities a secret. I thought for a minute. “What about cameras?”

“Which ones?”

“Halls of residence have security cameras,” I said. “So do most blocks of flats. And they store the records. If you saw the shroud effect, then you can narrow down what time you need to be looking at.”

“Yes, but they wouldn’t have let me look at them.” Sonder looked uncomfortable. “I wasn’t even supposed to be there.”

“But Talisid will know people who could look at them.”

“Wouldn’t they have tried them already?”

“Mages tend to assume magic’s the solution to everything,” I said with a smile. I’d fallen into that trap this afternoon. “It’s worth a try.”

Sonder thought about it, then nodded. “Okay.” He paused. “Alex? What’s going on here? I mean . . . apprentices going missing like this? And someone trying to kill Anne? Why would anyone want to do all this?”

“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “And that’s the problem. I think if we understood why all this is happening, we’d be most of the way there. People don’t do things just because. Someone has a damn good reason for disappearing all these apprentices and shooting Anne and blaming me. If we can figure out the reason, we’ll know how to stop it.”

“Oh,” Sonder said. “What do you think’s happened to them? Ness and the others.”

I looked at Sonder for a moment. “Best guess?”

Sonder nodded.

“They’re all dead.”

Sonder flinched. “But—”

“You know what’s going to happen to anyone caught doing this,” I said quietly. “So if I were doing it, I’d do everything I could to make sure that didn’t happen. Like tying off loose ends.”

There was the rustle of a curtain and Sonder and I looked up as Luna stepped out again. She’d changed into a yellow-and-white dress with a vertical design that made me think of a flower. She looked more confident this time and as we watched she gave a little twirl. “What do you think?”

“It looks amazing,” Sonder said. He was staring again.

“No,” Arachne said.

“But I like this one,” Luna said.

“Of course you do,” Arachne said. “But it’s all wrong for where you’re going. Here.” She shook out the outfit she’d been working on, making it shimmer in the light, and held it out to Luna with two of her legs. “Try this.”

Luna looked disappointed but disappeared behind the curtain again. “Now,” Arachne said. She’d been listening quietly as Sonder and I spoke, working on the dress, and now that it was finished she turned her full attention to me. “I think Sonder—Alex, have you lost weight?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Arachne gave me a quick up-and-down glance, did the spider equivalent of rolling her eyes, and pulled out a pile of dark cloth. “I think Sonder asked the right question,” she said as she started modifying it. “Why was Onyx there?”

“Because he’s involved, I guess,” I said. “Though I can’t figure out how Fountain Reach fits into it.”

“It seems to me there’s a simple explanation for both,” Arachne said. “What if Onyx was there for exactly the same reason as you?”

I started to answer, then stopped. “That . . . would explain a lot. He looked like he was searching around.”

“And obviously wasn’t expecting the meeting any more than you were.”

“And if Morden or Onyx got the same tip-off I did, Onyx is the guy Morden would send . . .”

“Which suggests he wants to find out what’s happening,” Arachne finished. “You should be able to take advantage of that.”

Sonder had been looking back and forth between us. “Umm . . .”

“Oh, something I wanted to ask.” I pulled a folded paper from my pocket. “Arachne, could you do me a favour?”

“Of course.”

“Could you make me something?”

Arachne took the paper with two of her legs and she unfolded it delicately, reading with half of her eyes and working with the others. “Hmm. Interesting.”

I glanced at Luna’s changing room. “I know it’s not easy—”

“Oh, I’d be happy to. I’ve been turning over some ideas along those lines myself. Drop by tomorrow and I’ll see what I have ready. Well then.” She held out the black clothes to me with two of her legs. “Try it on.”

“Oh, right.”

“You didn’t even think about it, did you?” Arachne said. “Honestly, if I weren’t here I think you’d show up in shorts and a T-shirt.”

“I don’t wear shorts,” I said over my shoulder as I headed to the changing room, pulling the curtain shut behind me. “By the way, do you know this guy who’s hosting the party tonight?”

“Yes, and he’s not a ‘guy.’ He’s a rakshasa.”

I’d been holding up the outfit to get its shape, but at that I looked up with a frown. “Really?” Sonder said from outside, sounding interested. “I thought since the treaty they all stayed in India?”

“Jagadev is older than the treaty,” Arachne said. “Very old and very powerful. Why he came to these shores I do not know, but I first heard of his presence in this city back in the days of your empire. He sides neither with the Council nor with any of the Dark factions. The Tiger’s Palace is his domain and within it his word is law.”

“Have you ever met him?” Sonder asked.

“Once.”

Sonder fell silent, which was a surprise. I’d expected him to keep asking questions but something in Arachne’s manner must have made him think twice. “Alex?” Luna said from the next room over. “Why was Anne delivering invitations for him?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, putting the shirt on.

“Isn’t that the kind of thing apprentices do for their masters?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Arachne? Do you know if Jagadev takes human apprentices?”

“There are rumours,” Arachne said. “But I always had the impression that Jagadev’s feelings towards humans were . . . not warm. Especially mages.”

I had a sudden flashback to Natasha’s words at the gym. I shook it off—just because a creature looks like a monster doesn’t mean it is one—but it left me with an uneasy feeling. “Come on, Alex,” Arachne said, interrupting my thoughts. “You’ve had more than enough time to try them on.”

I wanted to tell Arachne she hadn’t complained about Luna taking three times as long but held my tongue. I came out at exactly the same time Luna did.

The outfit Arachne had made for me was plainer than usual: coal-coloured trousers and a top, with a long jet-black coat. On the whole I liked it. It was light and flexible, and if I got into trouble it would allow me to move fast.

If my clothes were understated, Luna’s were the opposite. She wore a narrow dress cut in such a way that she seemed to be wearing nothing else, the cloth following the lines of her body and emphasising her shape. The dress was a vivid emerald green, shimmering in the light. It was beautiful and eye-catching but there was something disturbing about the colour. It made me think of poison, like a venomous snake.

“Wow,” Sonder said. He was staring again. “You look . . .”

“Perfect,” Arachne said.

Luna looked uncomfortable. “I feel like the evil queen in Snow White.”

“Where you’re going that’s exactly how you want to look.” Arachne scuttled forward and peered down at me nearsightedly with her eight eyes, then settled back. “You’ll do too.”

Luna gave me a glance, then a curious look. “Hey, did you lose weight all of a sudden?”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it. Arachne, you keep talking about ‘where we’re going.’ What are we getting into?”

“Tiger’s Palace?” Sonder said in surprise. “Haven’t you ever been?”

“I’m not exactly high up on the social circuit, Sonder.”

“Um,” Sonder said, hesitantly. “But it’s not—I mean—”

“What Sonder is trying to say,” Arachne said, “is that given the reputation of Tiger’s Palace, most people would expect you to fit right in.”

“What reputation?”

Arachne made a clicking noise, her equivalent of a sigh. “You really should get out more. Tiger’s Palace is a . . . meeting point, a place of exchange. There are no entry requirements but it’s not a place for the vulnerable or the careless.” Arachne glanced at Luna. “Apprentices don’t typically go. If you do, make very sure not to look like prey.”

Luna and I looked at each other for a second, then I turned back. “Sonder—”

“I know,” Sonder said resignedly. “You want me to go research. I can do other things too, you know.”

“You haven’t got anything to prove,” I said with a smile. “But if someone’s targeting me—and it looks as if they are—then going there together will make you a target as well.”

“You’re still taking—” Sonder began, then stopped. “All right. Be careful.”

“Good luck, both of you,” Arachne said. “And Sonder is right. The information you’re looking for may be there or it may not, but either way I suspect the people there won’t react favourably to nosing around.”

*  *  *

“No ribbon this time?” I asked Luna as we walked up the polished stone of the exit tunnel.

Luna shook her head. The last time we’d gone together to a party like this Arachne had made her a one-shot that absorbed and neutralised Luna’s curse, making her able to touch people without fear of hurting them, just for a little while.

“She’d do it if you asked,” I said.

“I know,” Luna said. “But . . . I know it’s hard for her to make those.”

“Is that the only reason?”

Luna walked in silence for a little while. “I don’t want to get too used to it,” she said at last.

I nodded. “I think that’s the right choice.”

Luna looked sharply at me. “Items can be taken away,” I said. “You don’t want to get too dependent on them. The only things that are really yours are your magic and your mind and your body.”

We reached the entrance and Luna hung back as I activated the trigger to make the earth ahead of us part with a rumbling sound. Arachne’s lair is on Hampstead Heath, hidden beneath a ravine in the deep woods where few people go. It had turned into a clear, cold night, bright stars shining down out of a winter sky, and both of us shivered as we came out into the open. The entrance to the lair closed behind us and we turned our feet towards the Tiger’s Palace.

chapter 6

The Soho street was noisy, music from a dozen bars blending together into a confusing racket. Neon lights flashed through the shadows, making the dark stone and brickwork flicker red-blue-green. People appeared and disappeared in groups, emerging from doorways and vanishing into the gloom. Buildings went up and up into the darkness, fading into an orange sky, but the lights and crowds couldn’t hide the chill of the winter air.

Luna and I were sheltering in a doorway, looking at the building opposite. It was blacked out, dark except for a neon sign blinking on the roof, and I looked at it for a moment before glancing sideways at Luna. Her face was lit up by the sign above, flickering from red to blue. “Think this is the place?”

“It’s the right number,” Luna said.

I looked into the future, searching for the consequences of us entering that building. “So Anne’s . . .” Luna said. “I mean, the guy we’re meeting. He’s a rakshasa?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s a rakshasa?”

“Creatures from India,” I said. “Or maybe they were before India and the Indians just gave them the name. In their true form they’re supposed to look like a cross between a human and a tiger.” I paused. “Oh, and their hands are supposed to be backwards.”

“Backwards?”

“Reversed. The palms are where the backs should be.”

Luna thought about that for a second, then grimaced. “Creepy.” She held up a hand before I could speak. “I know. Don’t judge by appearances, right?”

“Well . . . maybe just this once it wouldn’t be a bad idea.” I leant against the cold stone, studying the building opposite. “I don’t know much about rakshasas, but none of what I’ve heard is good. They were supposed to be . . . I guess the word would be malevolent. They loved power, especially over thinking creatures. They ruled India once, if the stories are true. They lived in palaces built by their slaves, lords of everything they could see.”

“But that might not be true,” Luna said. “I mean, the apprentices say stuff like that about all magical creatures. Even Arachne. I’ve heard them. And he’s looking after Anne, right?”

“I admit I’m very curious as to what two apprentices like Anne and Variam would be doing with a rakshasa.”

“Maybe there are things he can teach them.”

“Oh, there would be,” I said. “Rakshasas are powerful. The old stories say they were partly divine, not fully bound by the laws of the physical world. I don’t know if it’s true but everyone agrees they’re master shapeshifters. They can change their appearance and form, give themselves abilities that shouldn’t be possible.”

Luna stood quietly for a second. “So . . . how well do they usually get on with mages?”

“Have a guess.”

Luna sighed. “Badly.”

I nodded. “For a long time there was a secret war across the Indian subcontinent. The rakshasas won most of the battles but there were never enough of them. Mages could replace their losses; rakshasas couldn’t. In the end there was a treaty and both sides agreed to leave each other alone. But rakshasas are supposed to hold grudges like you wouldn’t believe. This one, Jagadev, was probably alive for that war. Maybe alive for all the others before it. I doubt he’s forgotten.”

“Oh,” Luna said. She paused. “And this is the guy whose home we’re visiting.”

“Yes.”

“This is going to be one of those eventful nights, isn’t it?”

I finished my search and pulled my attention back to the immediate future. “We’re in the right place. Let’s go.”

*  *  *

Two drunks slumped in a doorway watched us blearily as we passed. I walked past without a glance as Luna skirted them more carefully. Concrete stairs and a railing led down to a basement level and an open door.

Inside was an anteroom with three security men. Heavy-duty pieces of work, layers of fat covering rubbery muscle, their faces all broken noses and scowls. I came to a stop in front of them. “I’m looking for Jagadev.”

The one at the centre looked at me with shark’s eyes, flat and cold. “Name?”

“Alex Verus.”

He studied me a moment, then jerked his head towards a doorway.

The corridor beyond was old concrete, stained and ugly. “Alex—” Luna whispered.

“Cameras,” I said under my breath.

Luna glanced up. Electric eyes were watching us from both ends of the hall. The door at the end was padded and looked soundproofed to me, but I could feel a vibration through my feet. I opened the door.

Noise washed over us, deafening, the pounding beat of music. We were looking down over a club floor crowded with hundreds of people dancing and moving. The room was huge and dimly lit, red and blue and green lights flickering and clashing, painting some of the room in primary colours and leaving other parts in shadow. There was a wide semicircular balcony above, but it was darkened and anything within was invisible against the flashing lights below. Everything was noise and motion.

Luna said something. “What?” I shouted over the music.

“This is supposed to be a palace?” Luna shouted.

I looked around, scanning the floor. It was too chaotic for divination to be much use, but as I focused I could sense something else. “It’s the right place,” I shouted back.

Luna looked at the crowd. “How do we get through?”

“Follow me.”

We descended into the swirling crowd. Noise pounded around us, the harsh beat of industrial music, a singer chanting words that were lost in the throbbing of the bass. I could have pushed through but Luna couldn’t, not without getting too close. “Hey!” I shouted over the music. “Move!” People turned and I got a lot of angry looks, but enough of a path opened for Luna to follow after. With my mage’s sight I could see the silver mist of her curse swirling tightly around her, held in check by her willpower. The people around us fell back, and Luna and I became the centre of a small empty circle on the dance floor. The clubgoers were young, teens and twenties, wearing clothes that ranged from ragged T-shirts and jeans to goth outfits. Luna and I didn’t exactly fit in but we didn’t look out of place either. Arachne’s good at what she does.

Thin beams of green light danced over us as we made it to the bar. I managed to catch the eye of the barman, a bad-tempered looking guy with greasy hair and a leather jacket. “I’m looking for Jagadev,” I called. The music was a little quieter here—still enough to give you a headache, but it was more or less possible to talk.

The barman flicked a glance at me. “Never heard of him.”

I studied the barman for a moment. “Bullshit.”

The barman shrugged and turned to another customer. I looked around to see that the crowd was looking at us. Not everyone, not even most of them, but a good couple of dozen of the guys and girls had stopped dancing and turned to watch. “You know,” I said to Luna, “I’m getting the feeling we’re not all that welcome here.”

“What . . .” Luna said, frowning as she looked at the crowd. “Who are they? There’s something . . .”

“Adepts,” I said. “You’re feeling their magic.”

“All of them?”

“Could be.”

“Hey you,” a voice with a Liverpool accent said from the side.

I turned. The man—boy, really—was twenty or so, with brown-tinted skin and rasta plaits. His hands were stuffed into the pockets of a leather jacket and he was scowling. I looked back at him. “What’s up?”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m looking for someone,” I said. “Maybe you can help us out.”

“Think you took a wrong turn, mate,” the boy said. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

I glanced around. “No, I’m pretty sure this is the place.”

The boy’s face darkened and he took a step forward, his fists coming out to hang by his sides. Without looking I could sense that a half circle had formed around us. The barman had made himself scarce. “Fook off, mage. Go back to your fancy restaurants.”

I looked at him, then deliberately turned away to look at Luna. “There are two more of them in the crowd,” I said quietly. “Short-haired brunette in white over my shoulder and the skinny shaven-headed kid with the hoodie to your left.”

Luna’s eyes flickered, and she nodded. “What are they going to do?”

“They’ll come at our backs as soon as this guy kicks off. Watch yourself.”

“Oi!” the boy with rasta plaits said angrily. “I’m talking to you!”

Luna’s eyes went over my shoulder. “Um, Alex?”

“I know,” I said absently. “Just trying to figure out what these guys can do.”

Rasta Plaits grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. “I said—”

I moved with the spin and kicked him in the balls. Rasta Plaits’s eyes bugged out and he staggered back; I hit him again in the gut and as he doubled over I hammered a fist down onto the back of his head, sending him sprawling.

“Alex!” Luna shouted.

I jumped left and something exploded into the bar, throwing out splinters. I looked up to see the shaven-headed kid. He was wearing a dark hoodie that looked too big for him and he was holding two metal balls, one in each hand, each one about midway in size between a marble and a pool ball. I felt a surge of force magic as he flicked one at me.

It should have been a weak throw but the ball shot through the air as though it had been fired from a gun. No reflexes could have dodged it, but my precognition had told me where to go and I was already sliding aside as the ball flew over the bar and exploded a vodka bottle into a spray of liquid and broken glass. The kid jerked his wrist and another ball dropped from his sleeve into his hand, and then he twisted and threw two more, one after the other.

This time the second shot was aimed to catch me dodging the first and I had to drop and roll left. The balls whistled over my head and smashed splinters out of the bar. I came up, about to rush him, but he was already backpedalling out of range and as he did I caught a flash of danger on my precognition. “Luna, move!”

Luna obeyed instantly, jumping to one side, and the girl who’d been sneaking up behind her stumbled past as she missed. Before she could turn on Luna I was on her, pushing her back. I moved in for a grab—and pulled myself back just in time, skidding to a stop as I saw what would happen. One touch and I’d be writhing on the floor.

The girl saw me and gave me a catlike smile. She was dressed all in white, with a PVC jacket and leggings. She came at me, hands swinging with fingers curved into claws, and I jumped out of the way. I could feel the spell she was using, a malign form of life magic designed to wrack a body with pain. But just like Anne’s magic, it needed her to touch me to work. As the girl advanced on me I looked into the future, gauging her reach, then as she came in with fingers extended I put a side kick into her body.

It connected with a solid thud. My legs were longer than her arms and she went flying back, but her fingers brushed my leg as she fell. Agony shot through me, my muscles cramping and spasming. I lost my breath in a gasp and fell awkwardly, but it was over in a second. I pulled myself to my feet, shaking my head muzzily. “Alex!” Luna called, moving towards me. “Are you—?”

Rasta Plaits came up behind Luna and hit her in the back. Luna’s head jerked back as she went flying to hit the floor hard. All of a sudden I forgot about the pain in my leg. I was on the guy in two strides.

He swung and went over my head. I came up, let him miss with another punch so I could get into position, then hammered a blow into his side just below his rib cage. The floating ribs are one of the vulnerable points on the torso and I hit with enough force to break them.

It felt like hitting a wall. Pain shot up my arm and Rasta Plaits didn’t even flinch. He just grinned at me, then grabbed me and threw me into a table.

People scattered as the table and I went over with a crash. I hit the floor hard but ingrained reflexes turned the fall into a roll and I was up on my feet in an instant. A wide space on the floor had cleared and as I looked around I saw that both Rasta Plaits and the girl were coming around the overturned table towards me. The thrower was back too, manoeuvring around for a clear shot. Behind them I could see Luna pulling herself to her feet. For an instant there was a pause.

I looked slowly across the three of them. “You have no idea who you are fucking with.”

Rasta Plaits and the girl laughed and jeered. I didn’t listen to the words; I couldn’t get both myself and Luna out and that meant they had to go down. I tuned out the voices and the music, focusing only on my opponents.

Rasta Plaits attacked, his swings powerful but clumsy, and I moved away and let the attacks breeze past. As I studied him I realised he was using earth magic to harden his body, toughening skin and flesh to the consistency of rock. Hitting him would just bruise my hands.

Rasta Plaits kept punching and I kept dodging. My movements were quick, economical, and I gave only minor glances to his blows to make sure they would miss. For all his power he didn’t have much skill and he was tiring fast. The girl danced around, trying to get behind me. The skinny kid was looking for a throw but with the three of us so close he couldn’t get a shot. I considered manoeuvring Rasta Plaits so that he would eat one of the skinny kid’s projectiles and saw that it wouldn’t work—his skin was so toughened he’d just shrug it off. But it gave me another idea.

A silver mist was clinging to Rasta Plaits, the residue of Luna’s curse. I let him push me back towards the bar. The girl had disappeared from my view and I could sense her at my back. As Rasta Plaits bullied forward she came up behind me, aiming for my neck.

I caught Rasta Plaits’s rush and spun him around just as the girl struck, and as I did I felt the flare of magic as Luna’s curse took, bending chance. The girl’s hand missed me by an inch and got Rasta Plaits in the chest, and with my mage’s sight I saw the green-black ooze of the girl’s spell leap into his body.

Rasta Plaits screamed, convulsing as he crashed to the floor, and the girl fell back, staring in shock. I was already moving away, striding towards the thrower. The skinny kid hesitated, then seeing me coming straight for him he threw at my chest. I sidestepped and the metal ball flew all the way into the wall fifty feet behind. I broke into a run. He flexed his wrists and two more balls dropped into his hands; he threw once, twice, and I dodged both without breaking stride. He had just enough time to get out another set before I caught him by the wrist and pulled him off balance as my right hand slid my knife from its sheath. I dragged the kid up with his arm twisted behind his back and my knife under his chin.

The kid froze. I was standing behind him, holding him by one arm. He couldn’t see the knife but could feel the cold metal against his neck, the point digging in under his jaw. The music cut off and the club was suddenly silent except for the rustle and chatter.

Rasta Plaits was whimpering on the floor. The girl was standing dead still, eyes flicking from me to the knife to the people around. I saw her glance at Luna, who’d gotten to her feet and was a little way to her side. “Don’t,” I told her. I forced the kid forward, feeling him trembling against me. All around, the crowd was silent. “Let’s try this again. We’re looking for Jagadev.”

The girl looked from me to Luna, then pointed at a staircase beyond the crowd, leading up.

“Are we going to have any more trouble?”

The girl shook her head.

“How about you, kid?” I pushed the knife a little bit farther up into his jaw.

“No,” the kid said in a strangled voice.

I looked between the two of them, then dropped the kid and walked away, resheathing my knife as I did. A path cleared for us in the crowd, this time without my having to do anything. Behind us I felt the girl rush to where Rasta Plaits had fallen. The kid slumped over a table, rubbing his neck, and I sensed him think about aiming another shot at my back . . . then decide against it. As we reached the stairs, the music started up again.

“You okay?” I asked Luna once we were out of sight.

“Bruises,” Luna said, rubbing her back with a wince. “I’ll be fine.”

I smiled slightly. “I remember when you’d almost forgotten what it was like to be hurt.”

“Yeah, that changed all right. Seriously, Alex, can’t I ever get dressed up to go out with you without this happening?”

“It doesn’t happen every time we have a night out.”

“Name one time it hasn’t.”

“Um . . . your apprenticeship ceremony.”

“Somebody tried to mug us on the way back across the Heath.”

“Oh yeah.”

“Who were those guys?”

“Adepts,” I said. “Like you, I guess, but dumber.” I shook my head. “This sort of crap is why adepts end up on the bottom of the food chain. They’ve got just enough power to make them feel tough, but not enough to stop themselves getting flattened when they pick a fight with the wrong guy.”

Adepts are a lot more common than mages, ten times more common according to some estimates. Adepts and mages tend not to get on all that well, and to be honest that’s mostly the mages’ fault. Mage society is based on a hierarchy of magical power and adepts are second-class citizens at best. In most cases adepts choose to stay out of mage business completely and mages generally let them as long as they don’t break any rules. “Do you think that’s what this club is?” Luna asked. “A place for adepts?”

“Maybe,” I said. “But that’s not what’s bothering me.”

Luna looked at me, questioning. “What bothers me,” I said, “is that none of the bouncers did anything to break up the fight.”

The balcony at the top of the stairs was big, more like a mezzanine floor, and it was shaped in a wide semicircle that followed the lines of the room. It was better furnished than the lower level, with sofas and low tables, and something about the acoustics made the music a little quieter. It had the feeling of a place to sit and talk and watch the view rather than the frenzy of the dance floor below. A couple of hard-looking security men watched us as we entered, not speaking, and glancing around I could see that they would have had a perfect view of our fight below. Where were you, I wonder?

I knew we needed to go right, but Luna slowed by the railing. “Alex,” she said, nodding down at the crowd.

“Where?”

“The two by the bar,” Luna said. “I recognise them.”

I looked down and saw two men talking with the bartender. They seemed to be asking him questions, and as I watched he pointed towards the staircase we’d used. There was something familiar about them, and I felt as though I’d seen them before. They made me think of police for some reason . . . and that made me remember. “Great.”

“They were asking about Anne,” Luna said. “Do you know them?”

“Never met them,” I said. “Not yet, anyway.” They were the pair of Keepers who would have come to interrogate me had Anne been killed last night. I headed along the balcony. “Come on.”

“Wait,” Luna said as she hurried after me. “Why are they still asking about Anne? Didn’t she come back to London with you?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I . . . might have asked her not to show herself to anyone.”

“Why not?”

“Figured I might learn something.”

“What, by getting arrested?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time, all right?”

The balcony was less crowded than the dance floor, and the people were better dressed—fewer T-shirts and jeans, more evening wear. We skirted a table where a group of girls were chatting and drinking. To one side was a darkened booth with two shapes. I was about to pass by, then something caught my eye. “Lyle?”

Lyle started and looked up. He was dressed in a dark coat and looked like he’d been trying to be inconspicuous. “Alex. Um—”

“What are you doing here?” I said in genuine surprise. It was about the last place I’d expect to find someone like Lyle.

“I, er—” Lyle drew himself up. “I’m afraid I can’t discuss the matter.”

I looked at Lyle’s companion. She was hanging back in the shadows but something about her height and the carriage of her head jogged my memory. “Oh, I get it,” I said. “Hey, Crystal.” I looked at Lyle. “So she’s looking for help for the tournament.”

Lyle stiffened. “I’ve asked you before not to use your abilities for—”

“I don’t need divination magic to guess what you’re up to.”

Crystal looked at me pointedly. “I’m sorry, but this is a private conversation.”

“Really? What’s it about?”

Crystal didn’t react but I felt a flash of anger behind her eyes. “Alex,” Lyle said uneasily. “Keepers are looking for you. Given your position, I’m not sure you should be—”

“Oh, I’m sure it’ll work out,” I said cheerfully. “See you later. Crystal.”

We walked away. “You really like annoying him, don’t you?” Luna said under her breath.

“Old history,” I murmured. “I’ll tell you about it some day.” The crowd up here was scattered, thinner. I searched through it, looking ahead for danger, and my heart jumped. “Oh shit.”

Luna sighed. “Now what?”

“Behind that pillar. Out of sight now!”

Luna didn’t hesitate, and neither did I. As we ducked out of sight a tall, slim figure appeared through the crowd, stalking towards us. Onyx.

I stood behind the pillar. A couple of people gave us curious glances but nothing more. We were fewer than twenty feet from Onyx, but I’d dealt with him enough times to get a fairly good grasp of what he could and couldn’t do. Onyx was a force mage and all his powers revolved around the direct use of momentum. He was fast as a cobra and utterly lethal in a fight, but not much good at being subtle. When it came to detecting and identifying people, he wasn’t any better than a normal man.

Onyx passed us without a glance. I waited ten seconds, then led Luna out and headed in the direction he’d come from, keeping an eye out. I knew Onyx would be back. “Is there anyone here who likes us?” Luna said.

“Apparently not.” Ahead, the balcony ended in a square doorway. “Tell you what, let’s ask the guy who invited me.”

“Why are all these people here?” Luna asked quietly.

“No idea.” Through the doorway I could see a big open room. As we walked in I had the feeling we were getting into something we didn’t understand.

chapter 7

The room at the end of the balcony was tall with dark walls and pillars, and it was set into the building in such a way that despite its size it didn’t extend out over the dance floor. To the left was a view down into the club, but a layer of tinted glass had been installed that I knew would block line of sight from below. Guards were standing on either side of the entrance and more were spaced around the room, each looking about as friendly as the ones we’d seen on the way in. A square of four black leather sofas sat to one side of the room, giving a direct view over the crowd, and on the other side was a corridor leading deeper into the building, halfhidden behind a bead curtain. Girls and men in flashy clothes were scattered around, laughing and chattering.

At the centre, reclining on one of the sofas, was Jagadev. The rakshasa was big and powerfully built, with thick arms and legs. He had the head and the striped orange-black fur of a tiger but was humanoid enough to wear clothes—a black suit with a red silk shirt and tie. He held a wineglass in one clawed paw. He didn’t move, yet somehow he dominated the room, as though everybody there were oriented towards him and waiting to take their cue.

I walked straight towards Jagadev. Faces turned to watch as we approached, and I had the sudden strange feeling that I was at a court, the inhabitants watching us draw closer to the king on his throne. An Asian guy in sunglasses stepped in front of us, blocking our way.

I stopped and met his gaze. “Alex Verus.”

The man glanced back towards Jagadev. Jagadev made no movement that I could see, but the man stepped away. I walked up and stood before him. The girls to either side eyed me appraisingly. The room was silent but for the pounding beat of the music below.

Jagadev made a small gesture with his free paw towards the sofa behind me.

“Hi,” I said. “Sorry, was that an invitation to sit down? I’m not that familiar with the code.”

“Sit,” Jagadev said. His voice was a rumble, midway between a purr and a growl.

“Thanks.” I sat and glanced around. “Interesting place you’ve got here.” Without turning I could sense Luna’s presence behind me; she’d taken up a position a safe distance from the other people in the room, not too far from the exit. Although I kept myself relaxed, I was very aware of how many people were surrounding us. There were thirteen other people in the room apart from us and Jagadev, of whom four or five were between us and the exit. If things went wrong this could get ugly fast.

Some things are much easier to predict than others. Machines and other inanimate objects are simple. When you flick a light switch, the light comes on. You can flick the switch a hundred times, and the light will go on the same way every time. Sure, there’s a tiny chance something will go wrong—the bulb might blow out, there could be a power cut—but even those can be predicted fairly reliably if you know what you’re doing.

Forecasting what a living creature will do is much harder. Free will is one of the points at which divination breaks down; if someone genuinely hasn’t made a choice then no divination magic can see beyond it. You can see the branching futures, see the consequences of each, but the final decision is always theirs.

But while everyone has free will, one of the odd things you learn as a diviner is that not everyone actually uses it. A surprising number of people don’t make choices, not most of the time anyway—they just react on predefined patterns until something happens to shake them out of it. A thoughtful person, though, someone who makes decisions based on what they hear and think and see—to a diviner’s eyes they look totally different. By looking at the shape of someone’s futures, I can actually make a pretty good guess at what kind of person they are. So as I spoke to Jagadev, only a part of my mind was in the present. Most of my attention was on what he was going to do.

The shape of Jagadev’s actions was . . . odd. Normally I see a swirl of futures, changing and adapting to my own actions. Jagadev’s futures weren’t like that at all—they were impassive, still. In all the futures of all my words and actions, Jagadev sat like a statue, controlled and steady. I could sense a powerful intelligence behind that mask, but what and how much he would reveal I didn’t know.

It all took only an instant, and as Jagadev spoke I snapped back to the present. “I have always been here.”

“You’ve gone for a different setup than mages usually do.”

Jagadev’s eyes drifted past me, looking over my shoulder. “And yet,” he murmured, “mages come.”

I looked back, following Jagadev’s gaze across the balcony towards the stairs up from the floor below. The two Keepers I’d seen earlier were visible across the gap, their outlines dim through the glass. They looked around, then moved towards where Lyle and Crystal had been sitting. “So,” I said, turning back to Jagadev, “not that I’m not grateful for the invitation, but why did you ask me here?”

“Why did you assist my ward?”

“You mean Anne?” I shrugged. “I’m a diviner.”

“That is the how,” Jagadev said. “I wish to know why.”

Behind me, across the balcony, I could feel the two mages talking to Lyle and Crystal. Without turning to look, I sensed Lyle point them in our direction. The men started towards us. “Would you prefer I hadn’t?”

“Answer the question.”

“Let’s just say I don’t like seeing apprentices getting killed.” I tilted my head. “Not intending to interfere in your business, of course.”

Jagadev held my gaze for a few moments. “You have my gratitude,” he said at last.

He didn’t sound grateful. But then I was getting the definite impression that Jagadev didn’t show much of anything. “Quite a well-planned attack,” I said. “Somebody wanted to make sure she didn’t get back.”

“Those responsible will be dealt with,” Jagadev said. His voice was calm, but there was an undercurrent that gave me a chill.

“So I’m curious,” I said. “What exactly is your relationship with Anne and Variam? You called Anne your ward?”

“That is not your concern.”

“Fair enough.” The two mages were heading towards us. “But seeing as I was able to provide some help, is there any chance you could tell me something about a related matter?”

Jagadev gave a single nod. “This wasn’t the first attack on an apprentice,” I said. “Others have been going missing. Know anything about it?”

From behind came the sound of voices. The other people in the room turned to look; I didn’t. Instead I looked into the futures in which I did, seeing behind me without having to turn my head. The Council Keepers were right outside and the Asian guy in sunglasses was in the doorway blocking their way. One of the mages said something. I couldn’t make out Sunglasses’s reply, but I got the gist: Lord Jagadev is busy. The mage’s answer was short and threatening, and it wasn’t a request. Sunglasses folded his arms.

I felt the snap of a spell: air magic. Sunglasses hit the wall to my right with a whump, crumpling to the floor. I turned my head to look over the back of the sofa as the mages walked in.

There was a rustle of movement from around the room. I recognised the sound of metal against leather and saw the glint of a gun from under one man’s coat. Everyone was focused on the two men, but if they were worried about being outnumbered and surrounded they didn’t show it. “Mage Verus,” the one on the left said. He was tall and lean, with a hard face, and he was the one who’d cast the spell. “We’d like to have a word.”

“You were told to wait outside,” Jagadev said softly.

“We have business with Verus,” the tall mage said. “It’s not your concern.”

“You would force your way into my domain?” Jagadev said. He didn’t raise his voice, but there was something dangerous there and I could feel everyone in the room tense.

“It’s not your domain, rakshasa,” the mage said. “You stay here because we let you. Now tell your servants to stand down or come morning this place will be a slag heap.”

The music from below had stopped and the room was quiet. A dozen pairs of eyes were locked on the mages and I could sense weapons readied. The two mages didn’t seem to notice but I could feel the tension of spells poised to trigger. Jagadev was sitting absolutely still and showed no expression, but somehow I was sure that he was furiously angry. The seconds stretched out, ticking away.

Then Jagadev made a small gesture and the men around us drew back, fingers coming off triggers and muscles relaxing. I let out a soft breath, and I wasn’t the only one. I gave Luna a quick glance; she’d withdrawn to a safe corner and I gave her a nod to stay there.

“Mage Verus,” the Keeper said.

“That’s me,” I said.

“Come with us, please.”

“I’m kind of in the middle of something,” I said. “Could I come sort this out with you later?”

“No.”

“Could I at least know what the problem is?”

“All right, Verus, if that’s the way you want to play it,” the Keeper said. “An apprentice named Anne Walker has been reported attacked and missing and you’re on record as the last one to have seen her. Under Council authority, you’re required to answer our questions as to why.”

As the mage spoke I felt a stir of movement from across the room. Behind where Jagadev was sitting was a doorway leading into the club, covered by a bead curtain. “So Anne Walker’s been reported missing?” I asked, raising my voice.

“That’s what I said.”

I pointed past Jagadev to the doorway. “Then who exactly is that?”

The timing was perfect. Anne had been listening from the shadows, and as every eye in the room turned towards her she took her cue and stepped out from behind the curtain. She hesitated a second under the weight of the stares, then walked forward to stand behind Jagadev, heels clicking on the floor.

Anne looked . . . different. In place of the clothes I’d seen her in before she was wearing an outfit of tight black leather, reflections from the lights of the club gleaming from it as she moved. It left her arms bare and showed off the tops of her breasts, and as she walked her hair brushed the skin of her shoulders. She still looked as if she wanted to avoid attention but it really wasn’t working and if anything it actually made people stare more. The only one who didn’t turn to look was Jagadev. He sat unmoving, his eyes fixed on the two mages.

“Anne Walker?” the first mage said at last. Anne nodded.

“I think you’ve got some explaining to do,” the mage said. “This way, please.”

Anne glanced at Jagadev, waiting for his nod, before going to them. The two mages turned and walked out, flanking her as the rest of the room watched them go.

*  *  *

The Keepers were questioning Anne. I could just see them across the room on the far side of the balcony, through the tinted glass. In Jagadev’s room—what I’d taken to thinking of as his court—the atmosphere had eased. The weapons had been put away, though none of the men carrying them had left.

“You have done me a favour, so I will return it,” Jagadev said, and I turned back to him. He had his furred hands clasped over his chest and I checked idly to see if they were backwards. They weren’t. I guess not all rumours are true. “I do not know who is responsible for the disappearances amongst your kind but I know where they will be. You will find them at the White Stone tournament at Fountain Reach.”

I don’t think I showed anything on my face but it was a near thing. “How do you know they’ll be there?”

“That is my concern,” Jagadev said. “Anne and Variam will be attending the tournament. I will have them assist you.”

“Uh . . . thanks.”

Jagadev nodded. “You may go.”

I hesitated an instant, thinking of asking Jagadev more questions, but as I looked into the future I saw he wouldn’t answer them. I rose, gave Jagadev a nod, and withdrew. Luna fell in by my side. The guy who’d been thrown into the wall had picked himself back up and watched stone-faced as we left. As we passed through the door I heard chatter start up from behind us.

I did a quick scan of the area as we emerged back onto the balcony and saw that we didn’t have anyone hunting us down right at the moment. “Well,” I said. “I guess that could have gone worse.”

Luna was craning her neck to try to look at the other end of the balcony. “Do you think Anne’s okay?”

“She’s not a suspect,” I said. I leant against the railing and frowned. “That’s the third time in two days I’ve been pointed towards Fountain Reach.”

“Are you going to go?”

I thought for a second and nodded. “Yeah. I don’t know what’s going on but I know something is.” I paused. “Of course, it’d help if I had a reason for being there.”

“You do,” Luna said, and then caught herself. “Oh, right. You can’t tell anyone you’re there to watch the apprentices, can you?”

“Nope. Of course, if my apprentice had a reason for attending . . .”

Luna looked back at me for a second. “You want me to enter the tournament, don’t you?”

“It would make things simpler.”

“After how well I did last time?”

“Good practice.”

Luna sighed. “Oh, fine. I suppose it won’t kill me.”

“That’s the spirit. So what did you think of our friend Jagadev?”

“He was . . .” Luna frowned. “Different. From what I was expecting, I mean. I guess I thought he’d be like Arachne.”

“Do you think he was being honest with us?”

Luna thought for a second. “I’m not sure.”

“Neither am I. He was very hard to read.”

“He said Anne was his ward,” Luna said. “Does that mean he’s like Anne and Variam’s master?”

“Magical creatures do sort of adopt apprentices sometimes.”

“Then he’s supposed to look after them, right?” Luna said. “So why’s he sending them to the tournament if he thinks the thing that’s making apprentices vanish is there? Shouldn’t he be keeping them away?”

I nodded. “And there’s something else. Back there Jagadev was acting as though the only reason he was seeing me was because I’d helped Anne. But he sent me that invitation before I helped Anne.”

“So why did he invite you?”

“Good question.” I glanced into the future. “Looks like Variam’s here too.”

“Where?”

“Far corner over your right shoulder. Don’t turn and look.”

Luna had already taken a glance. “Why’s he scowling at us?”

“I’ve got the feeling Variam doesn’t like us very much,” I said. Like Anne Variam had dressed up, but his outfit was much less eye-catching: a dark shirt and pants, a black denim jacket, and a black turban instead of the khaki one. By looking into the future in which I met his gaze I could watch him without seeming to watch him, and just as Luna had said he was staring at us with a scowl.

“What’s his problem?” Luna said.

“Maybe he’s pissed off that I didn’t let Anne get killed.”

Luna gave me a look. “I’m kidding,” I said. “Probably.” I glanced along the balcony. “Those mages are about to finish with Anne. Why don’t you go talk to her?”

“Okay,” Luna said, and started to turn, then stopped with a suspicious look. “Wait, are you just trying to get me out of the way?”

“Yes.”

Luna rolled her eyes and left. I watched her go, seeing her move unconsciously to keep a safe distance from the people in her path. Luna’s control over her curse is much better now and to my sight it looks like a tight, dense layer of silver mist over her skin, but through force of habit she still won’t get any closer to another person than she has to.

Someone cleared his throat from behind me. “Hi, Lyle,” I said without turning around.

“Ah,” Lyle said. “So, er . . .”

“No, I haven’t been arrested.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear it.”

I thought about saying Are you? but held myself back. I turned to see Lyle looking awkward. He was wearing his usual suit and really didn’t fit into a place like this. I wondered why he’d agreed to meet Crystal here. “You want to know the story, don’t you?”

“Well—”

I sighed. “Oh, fine. That apprentice Anne was reported missing. I was the last to have seen her so those two came looking for me. Luckily Anne wasn’t missing after all.”

“Ah. What happened?”

“If you want to know the details, you’ll have to ask her.” Which was technically true: Lyle would have to ask her because I wasn’t going to tell him.

“I see. Well, it’s good everything turned out well.”

“Just a sec,” I said. “While you’re here there’s something I wanted to ask. What’s the deal with Anne and Variam?”

“How do you mean?”

“They’re a bit too good to be in the apprentice program. Why haven’t they taken their journeyman tests?”

“Oh, I see.” Lyle relaxed a little. “Well, mostly because they don’t have a sponsor. Do you know their background?”

I shook my head and Lyle settled down on the railing next to me, comfortable now. Gossip is Lyle’s element. “Well, both of them are in the apprentice program, but they didn’t start that way. Originally they were apprentices to a Dark mage named Sagash.”

She was taught by a Dark mage. Her and that other boy, Variam . . . They started working for a monster! I remembered Natasha’s words from the gym yesterday. Maybe she had been telling the truth, even if it hadn’t been for the right reasons.

“Anyway, there was trouble of some kind,” Lyle continued. “I don’t know the details but it ended with the two of them leaving Sagash’s service on bad terms. After it was clear that they weren’t going back, we got in touch with them via a Light mage named Ebber. He’d had some previous contact with them while they were staying at Sagash’s residence.”

“And?”

“And they turned him down flat. According to Ebber they were quite hostile. He would have been more than willing to put them in touch with a master, but they were totally uncooperative.”

“Huh,” I said. “So instead they ended up with Jagadev.”

Lyle shrugged. “Apparently no one else would have them.” He glanced around. “On the subject, Alex . . . what exactly are you doing here?”

“Got an invitation.”

Lyle frowned. “I’d avoid associating yourself too closely with Jagadev if I were you. He may have some influence amongst the Council, but he’s still a nonhuman.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. So how did your chat with Crystal go?”

“I, er . . .” Lyle looked flustered. “I ought to be going.”

I watched Lyle hurry off. I hadn’t expected that last comment to be the one to chase him away. Maybe I’d hit a nerve.

Down below the night was in full swing, hundreds of people dancing to the thumping beat of the music. Looking down over the crowd and concentrating, I could sense flickers of magic. None were powerful but there were a lot of them. Was that what Jagadev had created here—a sort of haven for adepts? It made sense. Mages wouldn’t let a creature like Jagadev move into their own territory, but adepts aren’t something they concern themselves with.

Up here on the balcony the crowd was thinner. I didn’t recognise most of the guests, but there were a few that I did, and they were generally people I didn’t want to talk to. Crystal and Lyle were leaving but Onyx wasn’t, and he was heading back towards me. I stepped out of his line of sight again, waited until he was past, then walked away in the opposite direction.

As I did, I saw Anne. She was leaning on the balcony railing and looking out over the crowd, and everybody else was giving her a wide berth. I couldn’t see Luna. I considered it for maybe half a second before coming to lean on the railing next to Anne. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” I said, “but I think your normal clothes suit you better.”

Anne gave me a glance and a half smile. She didn’t seem surprised, as if she’d known I was there. “Lord Jagadev likes me to wear it for gatherings.”

“And you do what Lord Jagadev tells you.” I put the tiniest stress on the title.

Anne looked out over the crowd. “It’s . . . difficult.” She was silent for a moment. “I don’t like everything he asks us to do. But there are worse things than having to dress up.”

“Trust me, I understand that part.” I paused. “Thanks for showing up when you did back there.”

“It’s no problem.” Anne turned back to me. “Did you find out anything?”

I shook my head. “Looks like I’ll be around to give you updates though.”

Anne gave me an enquiring look.

“So what’s Jagadev’s end of the deal?” I said. “He uses his connections to keep the two of you in the apprentice program?”

Anne looked away again. “That’s part of it,” she said at last.

“And the other part?”

Anne hesitated, seemed about to speak.

“Anne,” a voice said from behind us.

I turned to see Variam. “He wants you,” Variam said, ignoring me.

Anne sighed. “All right.” She looked at me. “I’m sorry, I have to go. I’ll see you soon?”

I nodded. “Till then.”

Anne left. Variam gave me a flat unfriendly look which I returned blandly, then he escorted her away, glancing over his shoulder to keep tabs on me.

I waited until they were out of sight, then followed. I was curious about why “Lord” Jagadev suddenly wanted to talk to Anne. Anne and Variam entered Jagadev’s court a little way ahead of me. I wouldn’t be able to follow them in without being noticed . . . but then, I didn’t need to.

The technique is the same one I use for watching people, slightly modified. First you need to be close enough that you can reach them in only a few seconds. Then you look into the immediate future in which you approach. As I concentrated, in every future I was stopped before getting all the way up to where Anne and Jagadev were talking, sometimes at the door and sometimes a little farther in. But in some of those futures I’d catch a snatch of conversation, and by putting those futures together I could get the gist of what they were saying. It’s a pretty crude method of eavesdropping—an air mage could just carry the words right to his ears—but it does have the advantage of being almost completely undetectable.

“. . . and what has been happening there?” Jagadev was saying.

“Just duelling classes,” Anne said.

“Which mages were present?”

“Today? I wasn’t there, so I couldn’t see, but . . . Lyle, I think, and an air mage I don’t know. And there was—”

Some people passed through the door, breaking my link and disrupting the futures in which I was watching them. I turned away and waited for them to pass. When they were gone, Anne was speaking again. “. . . nothing serious, really.”

“I did not ask if it was serious.”

“Well . . . there’s Natasha and her friend Yasmin. But it’s just talk.”

“What kind of talk?”

Anne sounded uncomfortable. “Little stuff. Talking about us to the mages, that kind of thing. It’s nothing important . . .”

“What else do your classes discuss?”

I frowned. Jagadev wanted to know about Anne’s classes? I kept listening and Jagadev kept asking Anne questions—the other apprentices, the teachers, everything. I pulled my vision back and looked at the rest of the room. This time, instead of looking to see how the people of Jagadev’s court acted towards him, I looked at how they acted towards Anne.

And to my surprise I got the very definite impression they were scared of her. It was subtle; they didn’t look at her directly or come too close. But the more I watched, the more sure I became that the people in that room were almost as afraid of Anne as they were of Jagadev. Maybe that outfit wasn’t for decoration, but to make sure she was noticed.

All the same, it was odd. I’d always heard that life mages were supposed to be dangerous, but it was hard to think of Anne as a threat. She seemed too—

“Alex? Alex!”

I jerked back to the present to realise that Luna was talking to me. She’d come up next to me while I was distracted, and she looked tense. “We’ve got trouble. Onyx just met someone and he’s coming this way.”

I looked into the future to see how far Onyx was . . . and saw the person he was with. “Oh shit. Luna, get out of here.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere these guys don’t see you! Move!”

Luna moved. I scanned quickly through the futures, looking for a way to avoid the men heading towards me, and realised it wouldn’t work. Giving Onyx the slip was one thing but the man with him had already spotted me. If I ran he wouldn’t pursue . . . but it would let him know I was afraid of him. I hesitated for an instant, then walked forward to meet them just as they turned the corner to come face to face with me.

Onyx was on the left and his face darkened as he saw me, but it was the man half a step ahead of him that I was watching. He was average height with jet-black hair and the good looks and confidence of a man in his prime. Physically he looked thirty, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t. “Ah, Verus,” Morden said. “I was hoping we’d have the chance to chat.”

Onyx didn’t move but I could sense that he was coiled to strike and I tensed, watching the futures. If he attacked this close I would have to move very fast. Morden glanced sideways. “Onyx, I’m afraid I’ll be late to our meeting with Jagadev. Why don’t you go ahead and give him my apologies?”

Onyx looked at Morden with narrowed eyes. “Today, please,” Morden said. Onyx gave me a last glare and obeyed. I moved slightly to keep him in sight as he stalked off.

“Well, then,” Morden said. “Why don’t we discuss how we can help each other?”

Everyone else who’d been standing nearby had scattered, which reinforced just how dangerous Morden was, not that I needed the reminder. The first time I met Morden he scared off three veteran Dark mages just by looking at them. The second time he subdued those same three Dark mages without breaking a sweat. He’s very powerful and very ambitious, and quite frankly he scares the hell out of me.

But if I’ve learnt one thing about dealing with Dark mages it’s that you don’t show fear. “Sounds great,” I said. “You can help by keeping yourself and your psychopathic Chosen as far away from me as you can.”

Morden sighed. “Yes, I rather expected we’d have to work through this.” He gestured along the balcony. “Shall we?”

“Shall we what?”

“Walk. Unless you’d prefer to include your apprentice in the conversation?”

I didn’t let myself glance towards where Luna was hidden. I began walking in the direction Morden had pointed. The Dark mage fell in beside me. “So let’s get this out of the way,” Morden said.

“You kidnapped me, lied to me, and tried to kill me.”

“I don’t remember you describing it as a kidnapping. In fact as I recall, you thanked me.”

“That was before you tried to press-gang me into a plan that was supposed to get me killed.”

“The next point,” Morden continued as if he hadn’t heard. “Perhaps you could explain how I lied to you?”

“You said you wanted me as intelligence officer,” I said. “You didn’t mention the part where Onyx was planning to kill me as soon as we got inside.”

“And?”

“What do you mean, ‘and’?”

“Which part did you think I was lying about?”

“Oh, I don’t know. How about the part where we were meant to survive?”

“I simply made you a job offer.”

“And you forgot to mention that you’d told Onyx to take my head off?” I said. “What, did it slip your mind?”

“Actually, I didn’t give Onyx specific instructions as to what to do with any of you,” Morden said. “That was left to his discretion.”

I gave Morden a look. “I’m disappointed, Verus,” Morden said. “Don’t you recall our last conversation?”

“Enlighten me.”

“Dealing with Onyx was your responsibility,” Morden said. “If you were unable to manage such a situation, you would have proved yourself unsuited for the role.”

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “You knew Onyx was going to try to kill me and you still seriously believed I’d be willing to work for you afterwards?”

“Hopefully.”

I shook my head. “You Dark mages have such a screwed-up way of looking at the world, you know that? I was stupid enough to work for you once. I’m never doing it again.”

“Never is a long time.” Morden didn’t seem troubled. “You may have reason to approach me sooner than you think.”

“Whatever,” I said. We were approaching the end of the balcony. “Are we done here?”

“Are you really doing so well investigating these disappearances alone that you can afford to pass up help?”

I stopped and turned to face Morden. “And what do you know about that?”

“Let me guess,” Morden said. “You received an anonymous piece of information pointing you towards Fountain Reach. Am I correct?”

“And you’re expecting me to believe that was why Onyx was there? Another tip-off?”

“Why did you think he was there?”

“Maybe because the two of you are the ones causing the disappearances.”

“And what would I gain from that?”

“Fewer Light mages, more Dark ones?”

Morden sighed. “Light mages always think it’s all about them. Tell me, Verus, what made you so certain it was only Light apprentices who were disappearing?”

I started to answer and then stopped.

“Onyx was in Fountain Reach for precisely the reason you were,” Morden said. “The difference is that unlike you, we know the informant’s identity.”

“Who?”

“I believe you just implied you considered me a suspect,” Morden said dryly. “Now you want information?”

I was silent.

“Onyx will be at the White Stone,” Morden said. “Again, for much the same reasons as you. I believe the two of you could profit from cooperation but I won’t force you.”

I turned and started walking back towards Jagadev’s room. “Sure you’re not doing all this just to get back at me for stopping you from getting the fateweaver?”

“If that were my objective I would have killed you already,” Morden said. “I would have thought you would have firsthand knowledge of why the fateweaver is of little value to me.”

“Fine. So if you expect me and Onyx to help each other, are you at least going to tell him not to try and kill me again?”

“Honestly, Verus,” Morden said. “Haven’t you been listening at all? Your issues with Onyx are your own problem. I certainly won’t do anything to protect you from the consequences of your own actions. Not without something in return.”

We’d nearly returned to the point at which we’d started. “Well, interesting as this has been, I have business to attend to,” Morden said. “I hope you and Onyx can work out your differences.”

“Don’t take this personally,” I said, “but I hope I don’t see you again.”

“Are you going to stop involving yourself in matters of importance?” Morden asked. He paused a second, waiting for a reply, then smiled slightly. “I thought not. Good night.”

Morden left without a backward glance. I stepped out of sight and stood thinking.

Luna peeked her head out from a doorway. “Alex?”

“It’s safe,” I said, and shook myself. “I think we’ve outstayed our welcome.”

Luna followed without argument. Once she would have complained, but she’s learnt a lot since then. “What did he want to talk about?”

“I’ll tell you on the way home,” I said. “Let’s get out of here. Morden won’t take a shot at us if he sees us again, but Onyx will.”

chapter 8

I caught Luna up on what she’d missed, and we separated at Camden Town. She had classes the next day and we wouldn’t see each other until we met at the White Stone opening in the evening. I headed home and crashed.

I woke up the next morning starving and light-headed. Obviously the effects of Anne’s spell hadn’t worn off. I had to eat everything in my flat and make a trip to the supermarket for a second breakfast before I was feeling human again.

Sonder rang just as I was finishing up. “Hey,” I said into my phone, carrying the plates to the sink.

“Alex?” Sonder said. “Those men who were after you and Anne? I found them.”

*  *  *

The block of flats was in Stoke Newington, not close to where the attack had happened but not all that far either. It was a border area between a run-down council estate and a nicer street of semidetached houses; the sort of area you’d find students, immigrants, and anyone who wanted a place with more-or-less affordable rent and not too high a crime rate. The flats were dark brick, spread wide, and three storeys high, and they were quiet. It was late morning and most of the people living here would be at work or school.

The weather had clouded over and a chill wind was gusting down the street. I ducked into a doorway next to Sonder, taking what meagre shelter we could from the cold. “Which flat?”

“Second floor, number three twenty-nine,” Sonder said. He was shivering.

I concentrated and path-walked, watching my future self cross the street, make my way into the flats, and navigate to the door. I kicked the door down . . . and the future dissolved into a chaos of combat and gunfire. I pulled back, the future fading away instantly. “It’s them.”

“I told you.”

“How did you find them?”

“How do you think? I followed the route here.”

“Were they in a car?”

“Yes.”

“And you traced them on foot—”

“Yes.”

“I’m guessing it took a long time.”

“Yes.”

“All right,” I said. “Thanks. I know it wasn’t an easy job.”

“I’m freezing,” Sonder said. He was still shivering. “What are you going to do?”

I studied the block of flats. “I’m going to go in and have a chat.”

“Then I’m coming too.”

“Sonder—”

“You always try to leave me behind,” Sonder said. “I’ve been doing this for five hours. I’m not turning around and going home.”

I hesitated. It’s not that Sonder’s incompetent. Several times he’s managed to accomplish things on his own that I think are pretty impressive. Just because he doesn’t specialise in combat doesn’t mean that he can’t look after himself; he can react surprisingly fast and he knows some uses of time magic that are very useful in a tight spot. I’d rather have him at my side than most mages twice his age.

The problem is that Sonder is basically nice. He doesn’t fight except in self-defence and he avoids hurting people whenever he can. I on the other hand am not nice. The reason there were two people in the flat ahead of us rather than three was because I’d stabbed the third one to death. And if necessary I was quite willing to do the same to the other two. Sonder would never think of doing something like that. I’ve never been sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I knew the difference in approach was likely to cause trouble.

But Sonder had earned the right to come along, and I could use the backup. “You don’t come into the flat until I tell you it’s clear,” I said. “Got it?”

“Got it.”

We crossed the street, cold wind whipping our clothes. A fine drizzle had started to fall, chilling my skin and damping my hair. The entrance to the flats was sealed with a security door; I studied the panel for a second and pressed the button for a first-floor flat. We waited for a second and the speaker buzzed. “Hello?” a female voice asked.

“Delivery for flat seventeen?” I said.

“Delivery?” the voice said doubtfully. “I thought they said tomorrow . . . Just a second . . .” The door beeped as the unlock light came on and we ducked inside.

“Why didn’t she ask why you weren’t using the tradesman’s bell?” Sonder asked as we started up the stairs.

“No idea.”

The stairwell was concrete, and cold. We were on the first-floor landing when something pinged on my precognition. I stopped, Sonder doing the same, and in the silence I heard footsteps descending above us.

I moved quickly to the doors, pulling Sonder through them and letting them swing closed behind me. Sonder started to ask a question and I raised a hand for silence. The door had a small wired-glass window and I watched through it.

The echoing footsteps kept coming, muffled through the wood and concrete, and then through the window I saw a man descend into view wearing the uniform of a London policeman. Black vest, webbing belt, conical hat. He crossed the landing, his hand twisted oddly on the banister and his back to us, and disappeared from view without showing us his face. His footsteps faded away.

I waited a minute, then pushed the door open an inch. There was no sound from below. “What was he doing here?” Sonder asked uneasily.

“I’m not sure.”

“Do you think he was here to see those guys?”

“Maybe,” I said. Something about what we’d just seen was nagging at me. One lone policeman . . . “Sonder? Don’t police usually go in pairs?”

Sonder sounded doubtful. “I’m not sure.”

If it was just a routine enquiry . . . but if it was a murder investigation . . . “Come on,” I said, going up the stairs two at a time. Sonder hurried after me.

I gave the second floor a quick visual check as we emerged from the stairwell. No security cameras. I walked quickly and quietly to number 329 and looked into the immediate future of going through the door. No movement. I pulled out my tools. “Cover me,” I said, going down on one knee. Sonder stood above me, looking nervously from side to side.

Being able to see the future helps with a lot of physical skills and lockpicking is one of them. You still need to know how to use the tools, but with my divination magic I can see at a glance if a lock’s beatable and if so how. Conscious of how exposed we were, I worked fast.

After twenty seconds there was a click and the door swung open to reveal a plain corridor, open doorways leading into rooms ahead of me. I signalled to Sonder to stay back and slipped inside. I was already scanning the futures, looking for the flurry of combat I’d seen before. Nothing on the ground floor, nothing on the first floor—that didn’t make sense, I should be seeing a fight. I checked again. Living room, bathroom, bedrooms—no combat. I wasn’t in any danger at all.

“Alex?” Sonder whispered from behind me. I waved to him to stay back. There was something odd about the air in here, a strange smell. Coppery.

I switched from a focused scan to a wide one. Instead of looking only for combat, I looked into the futures of entering the rooms ahead of me just to see what would happen . . . and suddenly I knew what that smell was.

“I—” Sonder started to say.

“Stay there,” I said harshly and walked forward.

The men who’d tried to kill Anne two nights ago were in the living room. One was sprawled across the sofa on his back, eyes staring sightlessly up at the ceiling. His throat had been torn open with such force that it had almost severed his head, and blood glistened over his fingers and in a gory spray around his body. The second man was sprawled against the wall, greyish intestines strewn around his shredded stomach. The rich scent of blood filled the air.

I stood quite still, not going any farther into the room. My eyes took in the details. Furniture overturned where the men had fallen, but nowhere else. Coffee mugs on the table with a TV remote. A thread of steam was rising from the coffee and the blood was still fresh.

Sonder was trying to get my attention from outside, but I wasn’t listening. My heart was pounding from the adrenaline and I looked into the future of searching the bodies, being very careful not to move. Wallets, phones, keys—and weapons. Both had been carrying guns, but they hadn’t taken them out. Their hands were empty.

I thought back over my movements. I hadn’t stepped in the blood. Had I touched anything that could have left fingerprints? No, I’d been careful. But any second now someone could show up. We had to get out of here.

All the same, I hesitated. These two had been alive when I’d checked five minutes ago. Someone had been here between now and then—

The policeman. The one who’d been alone. I turned and walked out, brushing past Sonder. “Move.”

“Wait, what—”

“We’re leaving.” I hurried downstairs, searching through the futures for signs of movement. There were people about in the flats, and I altered our course to make sure we wouldn’t meet them. I did not want any witnesses placing us at the scene when this got reported to the police.

Once we’d made it back down to the entry area I breathed a little easier. I looked into the future for any sign of the policeman, searching for what we would find if we opened the door. Nothing but falling rain. “Alex?” Sonder asked. “What’s going on?”

I turned to Sonder, about to ask him to help me find where the man had gone. Then suddenly I stopped as I realised what I was doing. Whoever or whatever this guy was, he’d just ripped apart two trained gunmen. Did I really want to chase after him?

A door opened in the stairwell above and that decided me. “Come on,” I said, opening the door into the cold drizzle. “I’ll explain once we’re out of here.”

*  *  *

“Did you manage to identify the man?” Talisid asked.

It was two hours later, and Talisid and I were sitting in a French restaurant in Holborn. The tables were widely spaced and Talisid had chosen one at the back where pillars made us hard to see from the street. The room had a high ceiling and was light and airy. The lunchtime crowd wasn’t too heavy, and the buzz of conversation around us was low.

“No,” I said.

“Didn’t you say Sonder was with you?” Talisid said.

“And I could have asked him to look back to see what happened and maybe follow the guy. Yeah, I know. I didn’t.”

A waiter appeared next to us. “May I take your order, sirs?”

“Moules à la marinière followed by poulet à la moutard et au miel.” Talisid handed him the menu. “And a glass of the house red, please.”

I pointed at Talisid. “What he said.”

The waiter bowed and vanished as quietly as he had come. “I assume you had a reason,” Talisid said once the waiter was out of earshot.

“Three reasons. First, it was too dangerous. Sonder needs time to scan a location and every second we stayed made it more likely we’d be reported at the scene. And if we did manage to find where that guy had gone and chase him, there’s a good chance he would have tried to kill us. Second, it wouldn’t have told us anything useful. I already know what happened. That guy came to the flat and killed everyone inside.”

“And the third?”

“The third is they aren’t the guys we’re looking for,” I said. “Those three men and the guy who hired them aren’t the ones who’ve been disappearing those apprentices.”

“How do you know?”

“Because Sonder was able to trace them.”

Talisid thought for a second, then nodded. “No shroud.”

“No shroud. And something else—that attack on Anne was messy. It would have left her body, bloodstains, witnesses, you name it. The disappearances you set me to investigate are the exact opposite. Neat and clean, no sign of a struggle.” I shook my head. “Completely different MO.”

“So where does that leave us?”

“Not very far,” I said. “We still haven’t found any trace of whoever’s snatching these apprentices, but I wasn’t expecting to get quick results anyway. They haven’t lasted this long by being careless. I’m hoping we’ll find out more in Fountain Reach.”

“You think it’s there?”

“I think an awful lot of people seem to want me to think it’s there. If nothing else it’s the biggest gathering of apprentices in the British Isles. Seems like a good place to keep an eye on.”

Talisid nodded and handed me a sealed envelope. “Registration papers. Luna’s been entered as a competitor.”

“Thanks.” I tucked the envelope away just as the food arrived.

Lunch occupied us both for a while. It was good. I tend to be pretty casual with the food I eat and it’s rare for me to go out somewhere nice like this. “I had someone take a look at those halls of residence,” Talisid said eventually. “There were security cameras but unfortunately they didn’t show anything. The relevant sections of recording on all the cameras were blank.”

I looked up at that. “Huh.”

“It was a good idea,” Talisid said. “Pity it didn’t come to anything.”

“Yes it did. It tells us a lot.”

“How do you mean?”

“If those security cameras were wiped, that means there was something on them they didn’t want us to see,” I said. “If they’d just gated into their room or something they wouldn’t have needed to mess with the recordings.” An image was starting to form in my mind: a shadowy figure walking in the front door, heading up to the room, knocking . . .

“A mage, then?” Talisid said, breaking into my thoughts.

“I’m thinking that way,” I said. “And something else. I saw Morden last night at Tiger’s Palace and he told me Dark apprentices have been disappearing too.”

Talisid frowned. “Really?”

“Do you know if it’s true?”

“I’d heard some rumours, but I hadn’t known how accurate they were. Unfortunately the Dark mages don’t have a centralised organisation as we do. There’s no one representative we could approach to ask questions.”

“Who’s the closest?”

Talisid raised his eyebrows. “Probably Morden.”

“Do you think he’s really trying to stop these attacks? To boost his reputation amongst Dark mages?”

Talisid thought for a second, fork in hand. “It matches his past goals,” he said at last. “But I’m not sure it’s the whole story.”

“What else, then?”

“Well, I was surprised at Morden being at the Tiger’s Palace.” Talisid finished his meal and set down his cutlery with a clink, interlacing his fingers. “Morden and Jagadev are . . . rivals, of sorts. The people you go to see if you want something that Light mages can’t do or won’t. They’ve been competing for years and I’ve always been under the impression there’s bad feeling between them.”

“So what?” I said. “You think the other reason Morden’s doing this is because he thinks it’ll hurt Jagadev?”

“That would be my guess.” The waiter approached, about to ask if we’d like any dessert, but Talisid waved him off.

I thought about it for a second then shook my head in frustration. “But both Jagadev and Morden were pointing me towards Fountain Reach. If they want opposite things, how come they’re sending me to the same place?”

“Good question,” Talisid said. “Any idea where to start?”

I tapped a finger on the tablecloth, staring off into the distance with a frown. “I’m going to stick around Anne and Variam,” I said at last. “I don’t know what’s going on with those two but I’ve got the feeling they’re tied into this somehow. Especially Anne. If someone takes another shot at her I’m going to be around for it.”

Talisid nodded and motioned the waiter over, taking out his wallet. “Good luck.”

*  *  *

I spent a few hours settling affairs in London. First I packed. My flat has a huge selection of equipment, tools, focuses, one-shots, gear, weapons, and miscellaneous stuff I’ve picked up over the years, most of which I never use. It looks like junk, and to be fair it usually is, but it’s worth keeping around for when I need something obscure, fast. That wouldn’t be an option in Fountain Reach—I’d have what I brought with me and nothing more. In the end I left the specialist stuff behind and took a selection of the general-purpose items I use the most—condensers, forcewalls, and a couple of weapons. I hesitated over my mist cloak. I don’t like to carry it unless I really need it—a lot of its effectiveness comes from the fact that most people don’t know that I have it or what it can do—but in the end it was just too useful to leave at home.

Next I wrote a sign saying that the Arcana Emporium would be closed for renovations and hung it in the window. It felt like I’d been doing that a lot lately. Now that I thought about it, between jobs, trouble, and Luna’s training, it’d been months since I’d put in a full week at the shop.

And after that I went to explain to Sonder that he wasn’t coming.

“But I can help,” Sonder said.

“I know,” I said. “That’s why I want you somewhere else.”

We were standing in the daylight outside the station. “You’re taking Luna,” Sonder objected.

“Luna’s protected. That’s the whole point of her curse.”

“I can take care of myself too,” Sonder said. He had a wounded look, like a dog that had been told it wasn’t going to be taken for a walk.

“Come on, Sonder,” I said. “You think I don’t know that? But every person we bring is an extra risk.”

“What if you need to find out what happened in the mansion?”

“You won’t be able to look into the past inside the walls anyway. Look, this job is investigation, not combat. What we need you for is research, and you can do that more effectively and with less risk from London. There’s a good chance I’ll need your help up there later, but not right now.”

Sonder sighed, though he still didn’t look happy. “What do you need?”

And finally I went to see Arachne.

*  *  *

Arachne’s home is one of the very few places I feel safe, and as I walked down the tunnel to her cave I turned off my mental radar and let myself relax. I wanted to take the chance to rest: Once I left for Fountain Reach I had the feeling safety was going to be in short supply.

I found Arachne perched over a table, working on something with her four front legs. I dropped down on a sofa with a sigh. “Hey.”

“Hello, Alex,” Arachne said. She didn’t stop working; Arachne never seems to have any trouble making something and carrying on a conversation at the same time. Either she’s had so much practice that it’s automatic, or she’s just really good at multitasking. “How was last night?”

“Well, it wasn’t boring. At least I got a good look at Jagadev’s place.”

“What did you think?”

I was silent for a moment. “Confusing,” I said. “I’ve been to mage balls, but this was different. I’m not sure what was going on.”

“Confusion is Jagadev’s way,” Arachne said. “Shadows and misdirection. Always he keeps his true aims concealed.”

“Do you know why he’d gather so many adepts?” I asked. “Or what he’d be doing with two apprentices like Anne and Variam?”

“No,” Arachne said.

I thought for a second. “Jagadev’s powerful,” I said. “And he’s a magical creature who lives in London.”

“Yes.”

“He must have dealt with the same problems you’ve had.”

“Yes.”

I looked at Arachne. “But you’ve never allied with him.”

Arachne didn’t answer. I wanted to know more, but I didn’t push. The only sound was the click and rustle of Arachne’s tools.

“He offered exactly that,” Arachne said at last. “A long time ago in your years, a short time in mine. He came here to propose an alliance, of information and assistance.” She paused. “I refused.”

I looked at her curiously. “Why?”

“Jagadev is a destroyer,” Arachne said simply. “He holds a grudge against humans. What he seeks is not creation but revenge.”

Arachne fell silent and I sat on the sofa frowning. If that was true, then what was going on between him and Anne and Variam?

“There,” Arachne said, her voice becoming cheerful. “All done!”

I looked over in interest. Arachne had set her tools down and was holding something out to me. I honestly couldn’t tell you how the tools work or what she’d been doing. By mage standards I’m an expert on magic items, but Arachne’s on a completely different level and I don’t understand even the most basic principles of how she can do what she does.

The item looked like a wand, fifteen inches long and slightly tapered so that one end was narrower than the other. A handle was built into the wider end and a small sphere was set at the base of the handle. It had the colour of alabaster or ivory but as I took it from Arachne its texture felt more like silk. “Huh,” I said, turning it over curiously.

“Now be careful when you test it,” Arachne said. “In fact, if I were you I’d make sure to be all the way out of line of sight.”

“I will.” I looked up. “Thanks, Arachne.”

Arachne waved a leg. “Don’t mention it. Just come back safely.”

*  *  *

Fountain Reach looked very different in the daylight. It was still cold but the sun had come out, taking off the worst of the chill. Puffy clouds floated in a blue sky, with the green hills as a backdrop.

The driveway was crowded with expensive-looking cars and two more pulled past us as we walked in, tyres crunching on the gravel. In the centre of the front courtyard was an elaborate fountain. Statues of young women poured a steady stream of water from a stone urn, while two phoenixes looked on. “What’s that?” Luna asked curiously.

“Fountain of Youth,” I said. “Old mage legend.”

We followed other people into the entry hall, handed Luna’s papers to one of the administrators, and set off into the mansion, up a flight of stairs and then down again. I checked my watch; the opening ceremony was supposed to be starting now. As we reached an intersection I could hear the buzz of activity from ahead of us but couldn’t tell exactly where it was coming from. “Which way?” Luna asked.

“Good question.” Fountain Reach’s wards were doing their work and I couldn’t effectively map out a route. I looked around for someone to ask directions from, but all of a sudden the corridors were empty. There was something weirdly deserted about the mansion. The ambient noise made it feel as though there were people all around you, but when you stopped to look you always seemed to be alone.

I picked a direction that I hoped was right and Luna followed. “What’s up with this place?” Luna asked, echoing my own thoughts.

“Not a clue,” I said. “It must have been built for something but I have no idea what.”

We turned a corner and the distant murmurs grew louder. To the right I could see a set of double doors and make out a voice speaking from behind it. More by luck than judgement I’d led Luna back to the same duelling hall in which I’d run into Onyx.

The hall was packed. Close to two hundred men, women, and teenagers were scattered around and I recognised dozens of mages in the crowd. Most were Light, some were unaligned, and a handful were Dark, but for every mage I knew there were two more I didn’t. Some wore ceremonial robes but most of the Light mages, especially those connected with the Council, wore formal business suits. The ones in robes and the ones in suits mixed freely, forming comfortable groups. Other mages . . . didn’t. The ones wearing smart-casual streetwear or anything else unusual were scattered more to the edges of the crowd, away from the “power” groups, as did the ones who by their dress or manner obviously weren’t mages.

The apprentices looked much like their masters. There was a little more variety in how they dressed but not much, and it was surprisingly easy to match the apprentice to the mage. I picked out Charles, the apprentice Variam had been matched against two days ago, as well as Luna’s opponent, Natasha. Charles was wearing a blazer and standing next to a white-haired mage who looked exactly like an older copy of him, while Natasha was with another Asian girl. They looked as if they’d been talking but now were turned towards the stage at the end of the room. Following their gaze I saw Crystal on the stage, wearing an elegant-looking two-piece suit. She seemed to have just finished a speech, and now she was reading from a clipboard. “The first elimination round will begin at nine o’clock tomorrow morning,” she said, her voice raised to carry over the sounds of the hall. “The draw is as follows. Michael Aran and Charles de Beaumont; Vaya Merrin and Traysia Lacann; Dominica Soria and Fay Wilder; Stephen Jasper and Victor Kraft . . .”

Luna was craning her neck looking around at everyone. “Do you think Anne and Variam are here?”

“Probably. Try and find them.”

“Gunther Elkins and Henry Smith; Desmond Yates and Variam Singh . . .”

“There’s his matchup,” I said.

“There!” Luna said.

I looked where Luna was pointing and saw Anne and Variam behind the rows of chairs. Anne was talking to a younger girl and smiling, while Variam watched them both with a surly look and his arms folded. “Variam doesn’t look happy,” I said.

“Variam’s never happy.”

“Mikhail Baich and Zander Rhys; Natasha Babel and Samantha Vash . . .”

I hadn’t stopped searching, and as I recognised one of the figures my heart sank. “Ah, crap.”

“What’s wrong?”

“We’ve got trouble. Wait two seconds, then look over your left shoulder. Under those paintings.”

Luna obeyed and saw what I’d saw: a thin figure dressed in black leaning alone against the wall. She sighed. “So we get to deal with him too.”

“. . . and that concludes the pairings,” Crystal finished. “All apprentices not named in those pairings will go through to the second round.” She looked around. “Thank you all and good luck.”

“Wait, did she say my name?” Luna said.

“No,” I said. “Let’s see if we can get out of here before Onyx starts something.”

We started towards one of the exits, moving through the crowd. I recognised the odd mage, but not many; I don’t go to these kind of events often. “Aren’t I on the list?” Luna asked.

“It’s single elimination. There are more than thirty-two entries but fewer than sixty-four, so not everyone is fighting in the first round. The others get—” I stopped with a sigh.

“Going somewhere?” Onyx asked, stepping out in front of us.

I watched Onyx carefully, keeping a close eye on the futures ahead. We were surrounded by the buzz and chatter of conversation and at least twenty people had a clear line of sight to us. I didn’t seriously think Onyx would start something with this many witnesses but got myself ready anyway. “Onyx,” I said. I glanced over at the wall he’d shredded yesterday, then back again. “Seems they’ve made repairs from your last visit.”

“Going to tell them why you were here?” Onyx said. He was wearing a black coat and trousers, not modern but not in line with traditional mage gear either. He was smiling and might even have looked friendly if you weren’t paying attention.

“Not just yet,” I said. “Well, it’s great Morden’s sent you here to help but we’re kind of busy. See you around and—”

“Not so fast,” Onyx said, stepping closer. His eyes glittered as he watched me. “You haven’t entered.”

“The tournament? Not my thing.”

“Scared?” Onyx asked softly.

“Are you going somewhere with this?”

Onyx stared at me for a second, then raised his voice. “Bear witness!” he shouted. “The mage Alex Verus has caused me loss and harm, and under the ancient code”—he locked eyes with me—“I demand satisfaction.”

Conversation around us fell silent as everyone turned to watch. Looking into Onyx’s eyes, I felt a nasty sinking feeling. “You’re challenging me to an azimuth duel?”

Onyx gave a cold smile. “No. Old style. Three days from now, Verus. I’ll be waiting.” He turned and walked out.

Slowly the buzz of conversation started up again. Everyone on this side of the room was watching us and I could see people whispering. “Let’s get out of here,” I said to Luna.

I ran the gauntlet of stares out of the hall and into one of the corridors. Luna hurried after me. “What just happened?”

“Pretty much what it sounded like,” I said, thinking hard. How the hell was I supposed to win a duel against someone like Onyx?

“What’s an ‘old style’ duel?”

“Like an azimuth duel, but no shields.”

“Wait, no shields? So if you get hit—?”

“They’re done to first blood or to submission.”

“He’s not going to be doing it to first blood, is he?”

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” I said. We came to a four-way junction and I shook my head, putting Onyx out of my mind. The duel wasn’t for three days and I’d cross that bridge when I came to it. “We need to find Anne and Variam.”

“He didn’t even accuse you of anything,” Luna said. “He just said ‘loss and harm.’”

“Probably he’ll send that part in a formal letter.” Anne and Variam had left the hall while we’d been dealing with Onyx, but I hadn’t seen where they’d gone. I took a guess and headed down a corridor that I hoped would lead us into the bedroom wing, Luna following.

“And he can just do that?” Luna said. “Fight you in a duel and try to kill you without anyone stopping him?”

“Pretty much.”

“This is such bullshit!” Luna said. “How can he just walk in here? What about what he did in the spring at the British Museum? He should be the one getting accused of stuff and having to defend himself!”

“There were never any formal charges made about that, remember?”

“He tried to kill us! Everyone knows he did it. We saw him!”

“And it’s covered by Council secrecy.”

“He tried to kill you yesterday!”

“Which I can’t accuse him of without admitting that I was here when I wasn’t supposed to be.”

“And all those men he killed at the British Museum?”

“None of them were mages.” I led Luna down a flight of stairs and through a sitting room. A pair of mages were standing talking; they glanced at us, and both Luna and I fell silent as we walked by. “Onyx is Morden’s Chosen,” I said quietly once we were out of earshot again. “Accusing Onyx would be the same as picking a fight with Morden. No one on the Council wants to do that.”

“I can’t believe this,” Luna said. “How can the mage world be so screwed up? I go to classes and everything seems fine, but—Mages like Levistus and Griff and Belthas and Morden and Onyx, they do all this and everyone just pretends like nothing’s happening!”

“Remember how I kept telling you it was dangerous to get involved in my world?” I said. “And how you never listened?”

Luna glowered down at the floor. We walked a little way in silence. “What are you going to do?” Luna asked.

“Wait for his formal challenge,” I said. We’d come into a long corridor with no doors leading off it. It didn’t look anything like bedrooms. “By the way, I think we’re lost.”

*  *  *

Getting unlost and finding our way to the bedroom wing took us twenty minutes and by the time we got there Anne and Variam were somewhere else. It took us the best part of an hour to find them and when we finally did someone else had gotten there first.

Variam and Anne were in the dining hall, along with the girl who’d been talking to Anne earlier. Standing opposite them were three apprentices. Two I recognised as the ones I’d seen back in the duelling class: the blond-haired boy with glasses, Charles, and the round-faced girl, Natasha. There was another girl with them too; like Natasha she looked Pakistani or Bangladeshi. To a casual glance they seemed to be just talking, but there was something about the way they were standing that didn’t look all that friendly. “. . . let you in here?” Natasha was saying.

“They let you in, didn’t they?” Variam said.

“We’re not Dark apprentices working for a monster,” Natasha’s friend said sweetly.

The younger girl I’d seen talking to Anne made a slight movement, trying to get behind Anne, but it only drew attention. “Why are you with them?” Natasha’s friend said. “Do you want us to report you to the Keepers? Go on, get lost.”

The girl gave a frightened glance back at Anne and scurried away. I watched her vanish down a corridor.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Anne said quietly. She was looking steadily at Natasha’s friend, and for the first time I got the impression she might be angry.

“Oh, what are you going to do about it?” Natasha’s friend said. “It’s not like you even entered—”

“Hi, kids,” I said, walking up to them.

Charles, Natasha, and Natasha’s friend stopped abruptly and turned to me. “Hello, Mage Verus,” Natasha said.

“Hi,” I said. “Anne, Variam, could you come with me please?”

The other three looked satisfied. Variam’s face darkened, but Anne stepped forward with a nod.

I led Anne and Variam back around the corner to where Luna was waiting. As soon as we were out of sight of Natasha and the others I shook my head. What was it about the apprentice program that made so many of the people in it act like they were still in high school?

“We didn’t need your help,” Variam said.

“I was under the impression,” I said, “that Jagadev asked you to help me.”

Variam scowled and looked away. “Hey, Anne,” Luna said with a wave.

“Hi. Thanks for coming in, Alex.”

“I said we didn’t need it,” Variam said. “Why are—?”

“Anne, did you enter?” Luna interrupted. “The tournament, I mean.”

Anne shook her head. “No.”

“You know, maybe if you’d actually fight once in a while I wouldn’t have to keep chasing those idiots off,” Variam said.

Luna looked from Variam to Anne. “You know why I don’t fight duels,” Anne said patiently.

“Maybe it’s about time you started.”

Luna glared at Variam. “Maybe you—”

“All right,” I said, cutting off the argument before it could start. “I assume you two know why Luna and I are really here?”

“Yes,” Anne said, just as Variam said “No.”

I looked between the two of them.

“You’re trying to find out what’s happened to the apprentices who’ve been disappearing,” Anne said.

“That’s what Jagadev thinks they’re doing,” Variam said sharply. Anne looked at him in surprise.

“Well, Jagadev’s right,” I said.

“What’s the plan?” Luna asked.

We’d gotten away from the noise and the chatter into a quiet corridor. Luna and Anne were already waiting for my answer and even Variam turned to watch me suspiciously.

“For now I want you to protect yourselves,” I said. “Keep your eyes open and follow up on anything you see, but your priority is to stay alive. Onyx is here, and he’s not the only one—something tried to attack me last time I was here and I don’t know what it was but I don’t want any of you running into it. And finally there’s whoever or whatever’s going after apprentices.” I looked from Luna to Anne to Variam. “And all three of you qualify. So while you’re here in this mansion, I don’t want any of you going anywhere alone.”

All three of them looked back at me, puzzled. “All of the disappearances that have happened so far had something in common,” I said. “The apprentice was always on their own when they vanished. Anne, are you sharing a room with anyone?”

“Ah . . .” Anne said. “I was supposed to be, but—”

“You are now. Luna, you’re moving in with her.”

“I think we were supposed to be assigned rooms,” Anne began.

“Just find one that no one’s using and take it. If anyone gives you any trouble, tell them it’s on my orders and for them to come to me, but odds are they won’t.”

“Wait a minute,” Variam said. “We don’t need—”

“You aren’t going to be keeping an eye on her all the time, Variam,” I said. “Not unless you’re going to follow her into the bathroom.”

Variam scowled. “What about you?” I asked him.

“What?”

“Are you sharing a room?”

“Why do you care?”

“If you’re not,” I said mildly, “then I think you should start.”

Variam looked me up and down. “Are you in charge of us?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not our master,” Variam said. “Is there some Council rule that we have to do what you say?”

I hesitated. “No, but—”

“Okay, then we’re going,” Variam said. He glanced at Anne. “Come on.” He turned and walked away. Anne gave us both an apologetic look and followed.

I watched the two of them disappear down the corridor. “You know, that guy is beginning to get on my nerves.”

“You think he gets on your nerves?” Luna said. “I have to take classes with him.”

“I’m starting to sympathise.” I shook my head. “Who was that apprentice Anne was talking to?”

“In the dining hall?” Luna shrugged. “I don’t know her name. The younger apprentices really like Anne. They tell her everything.” Luna looked at me. “You aren’t sure what to do, are you?”

I always have trouble hiding things from Luna. “I think we’re in the right place,” I said. “But we still don’t know what to look for.”

“Are you sure there’s anything here?”

“No, but it’s my best guess. Everyone’s been pointing me to Fountain Reach. I don’t know what’s going on but I know there’s something.” I gave Luna a glance. “I want you to keep an eye on Anne. Stay with her if you can and if you can’t then make sure she’s not alone. Someone tried to kill her only a couple of days ago and I don’t want to give them an easy shot.”

“I will. You think she’s in danger here? In the middle of everyone?”

I looked around at the walls of the mansion for a moment before answering. “Yeah, I think she is.”

*  *  *

I was sick of getting lost and so I spent the time until dinner exploring the mansion, keeping to the populated parts and trying to build up a mental map. The more I explored the weirder the layout seemed and I made a note to find out what the story was behind this place. It felt as though it had been designed to be hard to navigate. There were plenty of mages around, some of whom I knew, but I avoided them.

After dinner I went looking for Luna and Anne’s new room. I found it quickly and turning in to the corridor I saw the door open with their voices coming from inside. Luna was laughing—not something she used to do, but a sound I hear from her more often these days. I slowed, and as I did I saw that Variam was about to arrive from the other end of the corridor. I stepped back behind a corner and watching with my divination I saw Variam turn in to Luna and Anne’s room. Luna and Anne’s voices fell silent. Variam said something, his tone harsh and accusing; Luna answered. Variam gave her an angry reply; Luna gave him one back. Anne tried to intervene and Variam told her to be quiet.

I kept my distance. Footsteps sounded and Luna emerged from the room, turning towards me. She was walking fast and sounded angry. “Problems?” I said as she walked past.

Luna jumped and whirled. When she saw it was me she sighed. “Don’t scare me like that.”

“I told you not to go off alone,” I said.

Luna covered her eyes. “Crap. Sorry, sorry. Variam just pissed me off . . .”

With my mage’s sight I could see the silver mist of Luna’s curse writhing around her, tendrils curling outward like angry snakes. Luna’s curse is tied to her emotions; she can control it fairly well when she’s calm but it’s a really bad idea to be around when she’s upset. “Well, might as well take advantage of it,” I said. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?” Luna asked as she fell into step a few paces to my side.

“When I get annoyed I find a workout helps,” I said. “Let’s see if it’s the same with you.”

*  *  *

The hall was much smaller than the one in which Crystal had read out the matchups, but it was just barely big enough for a set of azimuth duelling focuses, and it was empty except for us. “What’s this place?” Luna asked.

“Practice room,” I said. “Tomorrow you’re going to be fighting in the tournament and you’re going to need a weapon.” As I spoke I reached into my coat and took out the wand Arachne had given me that afternoon. “I talked to Arachne and she came up with a design that she thought would fit.” I held it out to Luna. “This is for you.”

Luna looked at the wand curiously as I held it out to her by the tip. With its pearly colour and tapered design, it looked more like a decoration than a weapon. “Really?” Luna said. Hesitantly she reached out and took it by the handle. “Thanks.”

As soon as Luna took it I stepped back. To my sight Luna’s curse had been curling lazily around her, the silver mist pulsing softly. She’d pulled it back to take the wand from my hand, keeping the lethal stuff away from my skin, but she couldn’t stop it from soaking into the item as soon as she touched it.

Luna’s curse works on objects as well as people, although nowhere near as strongly. Usually I can tell if something belongs to Luna by looking for the silver aura. As her curse touched the focus, though, something different happened. Instead of sticking to it the mist was drawn in, being absorbed. “It’s attuned to you,” I said. “It draws in your curse and uses it.”

“Okay,” Luna said. She was holding the thing by the handle but still looked a little puzzled. “What does it, um, do?”

I was about to tell Luna to try it and see when I remembered Arachne’s warning. “Wait a sec.” I walked out of the room and into the corridor, then put my back to the wall and leant into the doorway so that the only part of me visible from inside the room was my head. “Try it now.”

“Uh,” Luna said. “Okay. So I’m supposed to—”

Luna’s curse poured into the focus and it activated. A thin tendril of mist snaked from the tip, extending to ten or twenty feet long. All of a sudden Luna wasn’t holding a wand but a whip, the thong made from the silver mist of her curse. To anyone who couldn’t see Luna’s curse it wouldn’t have looked like anything at all, but I could see the whip curling around her. “Hey,” Luna said curiously. “It’s doing something, isn’t it?” She lifted the handle to look at it, turning it back and forth.

The whip slashed outward, zigzagging across the room, its length amplifying the small movements of the handle. I ducked behind the door frame as the end of the tendril lashed into the corridor. “Okay, it’s working!” I shouted through the doorway. “Turn it off!”

I felt the effect shut down and peeked my head cautiously around the corner. Luna was standing at the centre of what looked like a spiderweb of silvery lines. Glowing trails of invisible silver mist traced lines along the floor, walls, and ceiling. Luna was looking at the handle with new interest. “Invisible whip,” she said. “Cool.”

“Arachne based the design off an Australian stock whip,” I said, walking back out. “The long handle’s for balance, but since the whip’s weightless it doesn’t take any strength to use.” I glanced around at the glowing lines on the walls. “On the downside, the whip’s weightless and doesn’t take any strength to use. We’re going to have to work on your aim.”

“It feels . . .” Luna said, frowning down at the focus. “Strange. Not in a bad way. Natural, I guess. Like it fits.”

“Arachne designed it for you,” I said. “The thong of the whip is formed from your curse. If you hit someone with this whip it’s as if you’d touched them. It’s just as subtle and just as lethal.” I locked my eyes on Luna. “This is a weapon, not a toy. You can use it on an azimuth piste safely. But never use it anywhere else unless you’re intending to kill whoever you point it at. I’m trusting you with this. Don’t make me regret it.”

Luna nodded. “I understand.”

“Good.” I walked to the end of the azimuth piste and activated the shield. “Let’s give you some practice.”

I worked with Luna late into the night, and she picked up the basics of attack and defence very fast. Both the whip and her curse seemed eager to do their job, striking out at targets and protecting her in return. The problem was control—the whip didn’t want to hit just one target, it wanted to hit everything, and only the azimuth shields kept me safe. By midnight we were both exhausted. I dropped Luna off at her room and checked that Anne was there before saying good night. I wanted to sleep, but this was a good chance to get a look at the deeper parts of Fountain Reach.

*  *  *

The outer rooms of the mansion were busy despite the late hour. Apprentices were still up and chatting in each other’s rooms, excited about their first night at the tournament, while their masters talked over drinks in the lounges. I prowled the corridors, a silent shadow in my mist cloak. My cloak doesn’t make me invisible—good light or movement makes it possible for a watcher to spot me, and both together make it almost certain. But when I combine it with my divination magic, watching for the areas where people will look and avoiding them, there’s not much that can find me if I don’t want to be found.

As I went deeper, the background noise died away. It seemed most of the guests had been housed around the edges of the building, and as I walked the halls I could see why. There was something oppressive about the inner mansion—the ceilings felt too low, the architecture too alien. Most houses are designed as places to live and they’re meant to be comfortable for the people who use them. Fountain Reach didn’t feel like that. It was as though it had grown for its own reasons; the people inside were just trespassers. All around I could sense the thrum of the wards, limiting my vision, and it felt as though the mansion were looking for me.

Turning in to a corridor I heard a muffled voice from ahead of me. The corridor was old and crooked, the floor age-darkened wood. Animal heads were mounted on the wall, gazing down with dead eyes: deer, leopard, buffalo. I stood still and listened. The voice came again: a woman. It was coming from a door a little farther down. I moved forward, placing my feet softly on the bare planks.

As I drew closer I recognised the voice as Crystal’s. She was arguing with someone, but for some reason I couldn’t hear the other half of the conversation. “. . . take some time,” Crystal was saying.

A pause, then Crystal spoke again. “The end of the tournament, obviously.” Another pause. “That’s impossible. You’ll just have to wait.”

It sounded like she was on the phone with someone. I sized up the corridor and decided to take the risk of getting in close. A stag’s head was mounted above the door, antlers reaching almost to the ceiling, glass eyes staring at the opposite wall. I put my ear to the door and listened.

“No,” Crystal said sharply. The door looked like it had been well crafted, but it was warped from long neglect and there were gaps between the planks that let sound through. “Absolutely not.”

Silence, then Crystal again. “I don’t care. It’s too risky.”

Something was odd: I could make out Crystal’s voice clearly but I couldn’t hear anything else. If she was on a phone or speaking into a headset I should be able to hear something, even just a buzz. I looked into the future in which I opened the door to peek inside.

The room within was a bedroom that looked like it had been abandoned for years. A four-poster bed was piled with dust, the hangings moth-eaten. Old and darkened pictures hung on the wall and Crystal was standing in front of one of them. The angle caught her in profile, showing off the beauty of her features and making her gold hair shine against the murky background. She was frowning, though, and she wasn’t talking into a phone or headset. She seemed to be talking to the wall.

“The whole point of this plan was so we didn’t have to keep picking at random,” Crystal said. “There’s virtually no chance we’d get someone who’d meet—”

Crystal cut off. Looking again into the immediate future, I saw she was staring at one of the pictures. “Then wait,” she said abruptly. “We’ve been preparing for months and you’d risk it all for this?”

There was no answer but Crystal threw up her hands. She was acting as if there were someone right there talking to her. “I don’t care! It’s too dangerous.”

I tried to figure out what was going on. Mind mages can communicate by telepathy but that didn’t explain why Crystal was saying her half of the conversation out loud. She was speaking as though to someone in the same room. I tried looking into the future and focusing with my mage’s sight, searching for someone cloaked or invisible, but all I could make out was the background noise of the wards.

Crystal had gone still all of a sudden. When she spoke, her voice was quiet. “Are you threatening me?”

Silence. I couldn’t hear any movement; we were alone in this part of the mansion. “Remember our agreement,” Crystal said. A pause, then she let out a long breath. “All right. But this is going to be the only one. Understand?” Whatever answer she got seemed to satisfy her. Footsteps sounded from the room, heading for the door.

Even forewarned, it was a near thing. I made it to the next door and slipped inside just as Crystal stepped out into the corridor. Holding the door shut, using my divination magic to watch Crystal, I saw her turn away and head down the corridor without a backward glance. The clack of her heels on the wooden floor grew quieter and quieter until there was silence.

I gave it three minutes just to be safe, then stepped out, looking after where Crystal had gone. I hadn’t checked to see what her exact reaction would have been if she’d discovered me there but I was pretty sure it wouldn’t have been positive. She’d been careless, letting me eavesdrop like that. Probably she’d assumed that no one would be able to sneak up on her without her sensing their thoughts, and to be fair, most of the time she’d be right. But it’s never a good idea to rely too much on your magic, no matter how powerful it is. My mist cloak had kept me hidden and given me some interesting little snippets into the bargain. It seemed like Crystal had been making a deal with someone. But who?

I entered the room in which Crystal had been talking and gave it a quick once-over. Like all the inner rooms of Fountain Reach it was windowless: The only illumination was the glow of the electric lights. I couldn’t sense any signs of life, in either the present or the future. It looked as though the room had been dead for years.

Crystal seemed to have been talking to one of the pictures, and I took a closer look. It was an old portrait done in oils, its gilt frame dusty. It showed a man in his late middle years, thin and stooped with sunken, commanding eyes. I studied the picture but found no magical aura, no special devices. The painting had no name or signature either. The man looked out of the portrait with a fixed stare, his gaze following me.

I searched a little longer but found nothing. Tired and weary, I finally retraced my steps to my room. I hung up my mist cloak, set a few basic safety measures, and was asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.

chapter 9

It was cold, and the roof was made of bones. The carpet was soft under my bare feet but the ceiling above was ragged and gleamed pale in the shadows. The corridors were hushed, and the halls were silent as a tomb.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Anne said from next to me.

I looked at Anne. Her face was pale and her eyes haunted. “What are you afraid of?”

Anne shook her head. “He knows you’ve come.”

A sound made me turn. A brown-skinned girl was standing there; she looked familiar, and wore a look of terrible grief. Slowly she turned and began walking away. “Wait!” I shouted. “Don’t!”

She vanished into the darkness. I ran after her and found myself alone. A door stood before me; it looked smaller and older than the others. I pulled it open.

My feet came down with a squish in mud. Inside I saw tall hedges, only a few feet away, with gaps between them that led into darkness. There should have been a night sky above but there wasn’t. I could feel the walls around me. Ahead, the entrances stood alone and empty.

Looking into the darkness, I felt a wave of terror. There was something inside, something horrible, and if I went inside I would meet it face to face. I backed away, but the door and walls were the same. Everything was hidden. I was already inside and something was watching.

I spun, fighting back panic, trying to see where to go. The wall shook with a banging noise. “Alex!” it shouted at me. “Alex!”

“Leave me alone!” I shouted back.

“Alex! Alex!”

*  *  *

I came awake with a gasp. My precognition was screaming at me—danger danger danger!—and I rolled out of bed while still half asleep, grabbing for a weapon. I came down onto the floor on one knee, bleary-eyed, knife in my hand, looking left to right.

The knocking on my door came again. “Alex?”

I should know who it was, but my sleep-fogged mind couldn’t process it. I looked around the room. The flash of danger on my precognition had gone. The room was safe. I looked at the alarms I’d set before going to bed: the chair under the door handle with glasses balanced on it and the ward stone that would have triggered if something hostile had appeared in the room. Nothing had changed. I was alone.

Knock-knock-knock went the door. “Alex? Are you there?”

“Coming,” I said vaguely, looking around. Something had woken . . . no, it had set off my . . . what had it been? The dream was fading and I couldn’t remember. I shook my head and reached for my clothes.

I opened the door to see Anne standing in the hallway, dressed in a long-sleeved blouse and a purple skirt. Her hair was styled neatly around her shoulders, and she looked as though she’d gotten up early—or at least a lot earlier than me. “Hey,” I said. I looked from left to right. “Where’s everyone else?”

“Ah . . .” Anne said. “Luna’s practising with Gabriel in one of the azimuth rooms, Variam’s getting ready for his first match, and everyone else is in the hall waiting for the first round to start.”

“You’re on your own?” I glanced up and down the hall again. Somehow that bothered me.

“There’s something wrong,” Anne said. As I looked at her I realised that she looked worried. “Yasmin’s gone missing.”

“Yasmin?” I frowned. “Who—?”

Suddenly I remembered. The girl from yesterday, Natasha’s friend, who’d been trying to bully Variam and Anne. An image flashed through my head of her face turning away, mud, and tall hedges. I put a hand to my head, feeling a sudden chill. “Alex?” Anne asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m fine.” Suddenly the walls of the mansion felt oppressive. We were alone and I couldn’t sense anyone in the present or the future but I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. “Walk with me. We’re going outside.”

*  *  *

As soon as I was out in the sunlight I felt better. It had turned into a clear, crisp winter’s morning, a low sun shining from a cold sky. The gardens of Fountain Reach were all around us, well kept and beautiful. Away from the wards my divination magic was back to full strength and the creeping unease had gone. A few other people were out and about, elderly gardeners tending the plants and apprentices walking in the sun.

“She was supposed to have been back last night,” Anne said. We were walking along one of the gravel paths, curving slowly around towards the back of the house. “Natasha woke up this morning and found she never got in.”

“She was outside the mansion when she vanished?”

“I think the last anyone saw her was at the station.”

“And no one’s been able to get in touch with her since?”

“I don’t think so.”

It sounded familiar—too familiar. I knew the Keepers would be searching but my gut told me they’d have no more luck than with the previous ones. “The tournament’s still going ahead?”

“I don’t actually think most of the apprentices know that she’s missing.”

I gave Anne a look. “So how come you do?”

“Um . . .” Anne said. “I guess people just mentioned it?”

I had a feeling there was more to it than that but let it slide. I took a glance around. The fountain in the central driveway was visible over the hedges and people were in sight in the gardens. From outside, the mansion and everything around it looked normal, peaceful . . . but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was very wrong here.

“Jagadev sent you and Variam here,” I said. “What did he tell you?”

“He told us to help you.”

“But why here? What does he know about Fountain Reach that made him send us to it?”

Anne frowned. “Variam asked, but . . . I got the feeling it was something about the place, not the tournament.”

“What about the place?”

“He wouldn’t say.”

I thought for a second, then nodded. “Okay, I need to do something dangerous. Can you give me a hand?”

Anne hesitated for a second. “. . . All right.”

*  *  *

The corridors of the mansion were empty as we headed back. I could hear the buzz of voices from the direction of the central hall, followed by a roar. The first round of the tournament had begun. “He’s this way,” Anne said. “Um . . . there’s something you should probably know. Morden and Jagadev don’t get on very well.”

“So I gathered,” I said as we started down one of the corridors. “What’s up with that?”

“I’m not sure. But Morden once asked me if I’d leave and be his apprentice.”

I glanced sharply at Anne. “What did you say?”

“I said no,” Anne said. She sounded very definite.

We walked a little way in silence. Through the walls I heard a muffled cheer from the duelling hall, along with someone shouting something. “You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to,” I said. “But what exactly is the deal you and Variam have with Jagadev?”

Anne sighed. “Everyone thinks it’s something really crazy. They think we’re being trained as his apprentices or we’re bonded to him or we go out and murder people on his orders or something. No one ever believes me when I tell them the truth.”

“What is it?”

“He gives us a place to stay,” Anne said. “That’s all, really.”

We reached an intersection and turned left down a long hallway. We were moving deeper into the mansion, and the sounds of the crowd were fading behind us. “But if you’re staying with him, you’re part of his household,” I said. “You might not be his apprentices but every mage is going to treat you as though you are.”

Anne was silent. “That’s it, isn’t it?” I said. “It’s for protection.”

“Jagadev . . .” Anne hesitated. “Mages . . . know about him. As long as we’re with him they won’t want to cause us any trouble.”

“Variam told you that, right?”

Anne glanced up at me, then back down at the floor.

“Was Variam the one who made the deal?”

Anne shook her head. “Jagadev came to us. It was when we were in London, after . . . He said he could make sure nobody else came after us.”

“And what does he get?” I asked. “What do you do for him?”

“Little things. Deliver messages, be around for gatherings. He’ll ask me for information but he won’t ask us to do anything dangerous.”

“Until now,” I said dryly.

Anne was quiet for a moment. “Jagadev didn’t make me come here,” she said at last. “I . . .” She stopped and looked in the direction of the wall. “He’s there.”

I glanced into the immediate future and confirmed it. “Okay,” I said and took a breath. “Let’s do this.” I walked through the doorway and into the next room. “Onyx,” I said, raising my voice. “Hi.”

Onyx moved like lightning. One moment he was standing facing the wall, the next he was turned towards me, slightly crouched, one hand extended towards my chest. A very faint hum sounded from his hand, and with my mage’s sight I could see the outline of the blade of force ready to be thrown. Looking into the future, I could see it streaking from his fingers and tearing through my chest in a spray of gore. I held quite still.

Then Anne stepped out next to me. Onyx’s eyes flicked to her but his hand didn’t shift. “Not going to say hello?” I said. My heart was racing and it took an effort to keep my voice casual.

Onyx’s eyes shifted between us but he didn’t answer. Dressed in black, he stood out against the old, musty room. Bookshelves made it look as though it had once been a library, but most were empty and the carpet smelt of dust. “Relax,” I said. I deliberately turned away from Onyx and walked to one of the shelves, taking Anne out of the line of fire. “I’m just here to talk.”

Onyx’s hand moved to track me, but he didn’t turn away from Anne. “Brought some protection?” he said.

“Protection?”

Onyx tilted his head towards Anne and gave me a thin smile. “I’ll kill her before she makes it three steps.”

I sighed. “Would you please quit the bullshit?”

Onyx held my gaze for a second longer, then lowered his hand, the force blade dissipating. “Okay, I’ll play. What do you want?”

“I figure you might be able to help me,” I said.

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Here’s how it is. What Morden sent you here to do is the same thing I’m trying to do right now. Now I don’t like you and you don’t like me, but for today at least we’re on the same side and this’ll go a lot faster if we work together.”

Onyx curled his lip. “And what are you going to do?”

“I find things out,” I said. “It’s what I do. You, on the other hand, break things and kill people. I can do things you can’t. This is why mages cooperate.”

“If I want something from you,” Onyx said, “I’ll take it.”

“And that worked out so well for you last time, didn’t it?”

Onyx stared at me. “Let’s start small,” I said. “You’re thinking of cutting through that wall, right?”

Onyx’s eyes flicked to the wall to his right before he could catch himself. “What’s it to you?”

“It’ll set off the same alarm you triggered the last time you trashed this place. The tournament might be keeping the other mages busy, but not that busy.”

Onyx didn’t answer but I saw the future of him carving through the wall with his force magic waver and vanish. I hadn’t been able to see many details, but I’d seen enough to know that the reaction would have been instant: that same psychic scream that had come before. “My turn,” I said. “If you’re thinking of going digging, you’re looking for something. What is it?”

Onyx stared at me a moment longer, then gave a tiny shrug. “Bodies.”

I relaxed very slightly, though I didn’t let myself show it. To my left I could feel Anne watching, keeping silent. “So Morden thinks the missing apprentices are here in Fountain Reach,” I said. “Why?”

“You don’t need to know.”

“He didn’t tell you, huh?”

Onyx stared at me again. He had a flat unblinking way of fixing his eyes on someone that was really creepy, like a predator picking out a target. “Why here?” I said.

“Sealed room.”

“Then let me find a way in.” I moved to the bookcases, studying them.

The wards over Fountain Reach damped all kinds of scrying magic, reducing the range at which I could use my divination. To a new diviner, they’d probably be crippling. But I’m not a new diviner and I hadn’t wasted the free time I’d had since getting here. Since I couldn’t see as far into the future, I put the energy I would have spent into searching a larger range of short-term futures instead, and as I looked at the bookshelves a thousand future copies of myself studied them in a thousand different ways. I stepped back. “That one.”

Onyx gave me a look. “There’s a way in behind it,” I said, giving it a nod. “The bookcase isn’t fixed to the floor. Move it sideways.”

Onyx didn’t react. “I know you can do it,” I said. “I’ve seen force mages lift ten times that weight.”

“You don’t tell me what to do.”

“Fine. Please could you help move that bookcase so we can see what’s on the other side?”

Onyx looked as though he was trying to think of a reason to say no, but after a moment he grudgingly twitched a hand. With a creaking, scraping noise the ten-foot bookcase rose and pivoted in midair. Dust bloomed around us and books toppled and fell to the carpet with thumps but the bookcase didn’t wobble, held by bands of force. As it twisted away, a door was revealed in the wall. It was faded and looked ancient. “It’s locked,” I said. “Give me a second and I’ll—”

Onyx made a flicking motion and the door burst inwards with a crunch of splintering wood, leaving the lock still attached to the door frame. Beyond were stairs descending into darkness and a clattering sound echoed up to us as the bits of door went bouncing down the stairs to hit the bottom with a double thud. “Or you could just do that,” I said.

Onyx walked forward and down, disappearing into the gloom.

I waited for Onyx’s footsteps to fade away, then looked at Anne. “Might be safer if you stayed out here.”

Anne thought for a second and shook her head. “I’d rather go with you.”

*  *  *

The basement at the bottom of the stairs was pitch-dark and silent. The air was dead and foul-smelling; there was obviously no ventilation. I clicked on my torch and its bright white beam revealed benches, shelves, strange equipment. Beakers and boxes were piled around the room and an open doorway led farther in. There was no sign of Onyx.

“What is this place?” Anne whispered.

“Looks like an old lab,” I whispered back. Something about the basement made me keep my voice down. I moved to one of the tables and studied the contents, then angled my torch downwards.

“Do you think anyone’s here?” Anne whispered.

I moved the splash of light from my torch across the floor. The stone foundations were covered by a thick layer of dust, broken only by the two halves of the door. Onyx’s footprints were clearly visible leading through the doorway and there were no others. “We’re the first ones to set foot in this place for years.”

“So this isn’t where the apprentices have gone . . .” Anne said, half to herself. She moved to one of the pieces of equipment resting against the wall. It looked like a giant angled casket made in black iron with odd-shaped pieces protruding. “What are these things?”

“Research equipment,” I said. The table held nothing but long-corroded items, and I moved to the shelves. “For magical experiments.”

Anne was studying the casket. “I’ve never seen any that look like this.”

“You would have sixty years ago.” I focused on the immediate futures of myself searching the shelves and saw a cluster of futures around the right corner where I found something. I moved closer and narrowed it down to a cardboard box on the bottom shelf. “Standard doctrine in the first half of the twentieth century was to use wrought iron for lab gear.”

Anne started towards me, then paused, looking towards the archway. “Onyx is coming back.”

I opened the box to reveal a stack of dusty papers and notebooks. I lifted them out and gave them to Anne. “Here. Take these and wait upstairs.”

“But—”

“I’ll catch you up. Quickly.”

Anne hesitated, then obeyed. I replaced the lid on the box and gave the room a final quick scan to see if I’d missed anything. A moment later I felt the presence behind me.

Onyx was standing in the doorway. His dark clothes faded into the blackness beyond and the only parts of him that caught the light were his hands and face, pale and still. The torchlight cast his face in shadow and I could see the glint of his eyes as he watched me, waiting.

“Find anything?” I asked.

Onyx said nothing, and something about his eyes and stance sent a chill through me. I was suddenly aware of how alone we were. Nobody else knew we were down here and all the mages were at the tournament. There was Anne and that was why I’d sent her upstairs, but . . .

“Why’d you leave it behind?” Onyx said.

“Leave what?”

“The fateweaver,” Onyx said.

I looked at Onyx, deciding how to answer. He looked relaxed and still but I wasn’t fooled; I could sense violence lurking in the futures ahead. “You think it should have been you, don’t you?” I said.

Onyx stared at me. “You should know better,” I said. “What you have is what you can take.”

“And right now,” Onyx said softly, “I can take anything from you I want.”

“Tell me something, Onyx.” I met the Dark mage’s gaze. “If you had something as powerful as the fateweaver, would you give it up? Or would you make sure you could still use it?”

“You think I’m stupid?”

I just looked at him. I had given up the fateweaver. But I know how Dark mages think. Someone like Onyx would never give up that sort of power. And he’d never believe anyone else would do it either.

Onyx started to say something, then stopped. I felt the futures shift and swirl. “So?” I said. “What’s it going to be?”

For a long moment Onyx was still, then the futures settled. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

I turned and climbed the stairs away from Onyx. My back itched all the way up.

*  *  *

“Okay,” I said into the phone. “No, it isn’t . . . Yeah . . . Yeah . . . About ten . . . We’re fine . . . I said we’re fine . . . Look, just be there, okay? . . . Okay. See you then.” I hung up.

“That was Sonder, right?” Luna asked.

It was afternoon and the sun was already setting, the short winter’s day drawing to a close. Through the window, yellow-gold light painted the lawns and cast long shadows over the trees. Though I still wasn’t comfortable in the mansion I was finding that staying in the edge rooms near windows made it easier—the connection to the outside made it feel less oppressive somehow. Anne was sitting cross-legged on the bed while Luna was a safe distance away at the table, the silver mist of her curse moving in lazy arcs around her.

“He’s with a team of mages trying to find Yasmin,” I said. “They traced her from here to the station and all the way to London, but they lost her in Kings Cross. There was a shroud. Sonder says he’s sure it’s the same one as before.”

“Do they know where she is?” Anne asked. She looked worried.

“Still searching. How’s it going?”

“Well, I have no idea what most of this stuff means,” Luna said, dropping the folder she’d been holding. The table and bed were covered with the dusty papers we’d taken from the basement. Luna nodded to the bed. “Anne does though.”

“Sorry?” Anne seemed to wake up. “Oh. Um . . . I think most of this is life magic research. He doesn’t use the same words, but . . .”

“Research into what?”

“Longevity,” Anne said. “Life extension.”

I frowned. “Why would—?”

I stopped and looked at the door. Footsteps sounded from outside, followed by a knock. I motioned to Luna and Anne to stay where they were and went to open it.

Crystal was standing out in the corridor. She was wearing yet another expensive-looking business suit, this one a dark blue. Her eyes measured me up and down. “Verus.”

“Hey there.”

“I’ve received a formal challenge request against you from the Dark mage Onyx.” Crystal handed me a slim folder. “Here are the particulars.”

I raised an eyebrow, flipped the folder open, and skimmed the contents. “Details of offence . . .” I read aloud. “Damage of property . . . attempted theft of property . . . actual theft of property . . . assault upon his person . . . attempted murder . . . trespass . . .” I glanced up. “Don’t remember doing the last one.”

“He doesn’t seem to like you,” Crystal said.

“So I gather.” I closed the folder. “You’re overseeing the challenge?”

“This is my property,” Crystal said coolly. “Do you have a formal reply?”

“I don’t have to give one for twenty-four hours, do I?”

“No.”

“Okay, it can wait till then.”

Crystal frowned slightly. “You don’t seem to be taking this very seriously.”

“Oh, I am. How long have you lived here, by the way?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“Just wondering how you came to move in.” I leant against the door, folding my arms.

Crystal studied me for a moment. “Perhaps I might be able to help you.”

“That’s always nice. How?”

“Onyx’s challenge requires my approval to be recognised,” Crystal said. She tapped her long nails on the sleeve of her coat. “It would be possible to . . . delay that approval.”

“And what were you thinking of in exchange?”

“I would rather the two of you didn’t use my house as a battlefield,” Crystal said. “You and Onyx seem to get on poorly. It seems to me the best resolution would be for you to leave.”

“Sorry. Don’t want to miss the tournament.”

“There are other tournaments.” Crystal studied me. “I would suggest you think it over carefully. Fountain Reach can be . . . inhospitable to those not welcome here.”

I returned Crystal’s gaze, keeping my mind and expression blank. Crystal turned and walked away without looking back. I watched her go, not relaxing. Only when she was out of sight did I step back into my room and close the door behind me. I leant against the door and folded my arms, staring down at the floor with a frown.

“Alex?” Luna asked. “What’s up?”

“Change of plan,” I said. “Luna, Anne, I want you to go find out everything you can about Fountain Reach. Who lives here, its past history, what Crystal does here. Try to avoid drawing attention to yourselves if you can but you’re apprentices; you can ask a lot of questions before anyone gets really suspicious.”

“What about all this?” Luna asked, gesturing to the papers.

“I’ll look through them.”

“Aren’t we going to look for Yasmin?” Anne asked.

“I’m going to be honest,” I said. “I don’t have any idea how to find Yasmin, not directly. We could go where she was last seen and help Sonder and the mages there try and find her. But I don’t think we’d help much. Sonder’s better at that kind of thing than I am. Also . . .” I frowned. “Maybe it’s just me but I’ve got the feeling that’s exactly what whoever took these apprentices is expecting us to do and that’s exactly what they’re prepared for. And so far they’ve done a really thorough job of cleaning up the evidence. But in the meantime a hell of a lot of people have been pointing us towards Fountain Reach and now Crystal’s just shown that she wants me out of here. I’m going to start taking them seriously.”

Luna and Anne shared a look. “All right,” Luna said. “I think I’m supposed to have my first match this evening.”

“I’ll be there. Go ahead and practice but make sure neither of you goes off alone.”

*  *  *

Once Luna and Anne were gone, I turned my attention to the papers. I’ve never gone in for magical research, but I’ve been around mages who have. As Anne had said it was longevity research, which actually made it easier for me to follow—it’s not the first time I’ve seen it.

Life extension tends to be popular amongst mages. Like all people with power, they want to stick around so they can continue using it. At the lower levels, it’s not difficult, either—between modern health care and life magic, mages can expect a natural life span well into their nineties. Of course, the actual practical life expectancy of mages is a hell of a lot lower than that, due to other mages taking proactive measures to bring down the average, but that’s the theory.

Once you get beyond a certain age though, longevity starts getting harder to pull off. The problem is that at a fundamental level humans just aren’t designed to live forever. As you get older it becomes more and more difficult to keep a body and mind in working order, until every part is breaking down faster than you can repair it. But this doesn’t stop mages from trying, and over the centuries they’ve tried a lot of ways.

From the notes it looked like the author had tried most of them. Some of the avenues were described in detail, others referred to only obliquely, but reading them I got the definite impression that they hadn’t been a success. Most longevity spells are based on life magic and it didn’t seem as though the mage who’d conducted the research had been able to use life magic at all. Instead he’d tried workarounds that had nearly all turned out to be failures. The more I read, the more I also got the impression that the notes were incomplete. There were references to experiments that didn’t seem to have been recorded . . . maybe because they were the kind you don’t want written down.

I finished the last stack of papers, thought a bit, then pulled out my phone and called Talisid. He answered after only a few rings. “Verus.”

“Hey, Talisid. Who used to live in Fountain Reach before Crystal? Say about sixty years ago?”

“Sixty years?” I could picture Talisid frowning in thought. “The Aubuchons, I would have thought.”

“Who were the Aubuchons?”

“An old mage dynasty. Fountain Reach was their family home. Although as I understand it, they tore it down and rebuilt it practically from the ground up.”

“When did they move out?”

“Died out, not moved out. The last living member of the family disappeared back in the eighties.”

“Huh.” I thought for a second. “How did Crystal get it?”

“Oh, that was a couple of years ago. She claimed to be the closest surviving descendant of the Aubuchon family, not that anyone really cared. The place was on the market at the time and she just bought it and moved in.”

“How did the White Stone end up being held here this year?”

“Crystal pushed for it. What are you getting at?”

“I’d just like to know a bit more about the place.”

“There’s absolutely no evidence that Fountain Reach is connected to the disappearances.” Talisid’s voice was firm. “I know you’re not fond of the Council but we’re not idiots. You think we’d agree to let Crystal house more than fifty apprentices in a place we weren’t confident in?”

“You’ve checked it?”

“Every one of the disappearances was cross-checked against Fountain Reach before the decision was made to host the tournament there. In every case we found absolutely no connection. In fact, the conclusion reached was that the gate wards would make Fountain Reach one of the safest possible locations in England. It was the principal reason that it was chosen.”

“What about Yasmin?”

“We’ve narrowed Yasmin’s disappearance to Kings Cross in London. She might have been at Fountain Reach earlier that night but she wasn’t there when she vanished.”

“Unless she was taken back.”

“Do you have any evidence that she was?”

I was silent for a moment. “No.”

“Verus, are you sure you’re in the right place?” Talisid sounded sceptical. “I didn’t question your plan to go to Fountain Reach but the majority of the disappearances have been in London and they aren’t stopping. We could use you here.”

“You got me for this job because you trusted my judgement,” I said. “No, I’m not sure. But it’s my best guess.”

Talisid sighed. “All right. If you want to keep following this lead, I’ll dig up what I can find about the last people to live in Fountain Reach and pass it on. I hope it leads you somewhere.”

So do I. “Thanks.”

*  *  *

Hours passed. I searched, but found nothing. There was an urgency to it now; I had the sense that I was running out of time. As seven o’clock drew near I went to the duelling hall.

The hall was packed with mages and apprentices: dozens of competitors and five times that number there to watch. To one side two apprentices were sparring with focus swords, the inactive weapons striking each other with a clack-clack-clack. An older mage was giving some sort of demonstration to a group of apprentices, an illusory duel painted in blue-white light playing out in the air between them, while the mages placed in charge strolled around importantly calling out names. The hall was filled with noise and energy and at the far end a board showed the list of matchups. The two duelling pistes had been cleared, and spectators had already started to gather around them.

Lyle appeared from the crowd as I crossed the hall, looking from side to side. I’d known he was at the tournament but it was the first time I’d seen him here. “Oh, Verus,” he said. He seemed distracted. “Have you seen Crystal?”

“Not recently.”

Lyle walked past. I gave him a curious glance and kept going.

Luna was standing alone in a corner. She was fiddling with her focus weapon, flipping the whip handle between her fingers without seeming aware of it, and she gave me a grateful look as she caught sight of me. “Who are you up against?” I asked.

Luna nodded past me. I followed her gaze to see a tall, strongly built, good-looking girl with blond hair tied up in a bun. She was carrying a slim staff about three feet long and she was listening and nodding to an unsmiling older woman who seemed to be giving her instructions. “Her name’s Ekaterina.”

I looked at Luna, saw the way she was standing. “Relax.”

“What if I mess up?”

“It’s just a match.”

“They don’t think it’s just a match,” Luna said. “Everyone takes this really seriously. And . . . That girl’s going to be a mage, right? I’m just an adept. How am I supposed to fight something like that?”

“Mages are still human.”

Luna gave a short laugh. “Easy for you to say.”

“You’ve stood up to mages before.”

“And every time I do it I get kicked around like a football.”

“Hm.” I studied Luna. “Might be time to change that. Back in a sec.”

I crossed the floor towards Ekaterina and the woman. As soon as I got close they stopped their conversation and turned to watch me. “Hey there,” I said.

“You are Verus,” the woman said with a slight accent. She was maybe fifty, with a hard unsmiling face.

“Good to meet you.” I picked up a focus weapon from a nearby table, a dagger, and spun it in my hand. “Looking forward to the match?”

The woman’s eyes narrowed slightly, and Ekaterina stepped into a defensive stance. To my mage’s sight light brown energy flared around her, and I saw the staff pulse slightly. I looked into the futures in which I attacked Ekaterina, seeing the outcomes.

“What do you want?” the woman asked. She was standing at the ready, watching me suspiciously.

“Just saying hello.” I put the dagger back on the table and gave them a smile. “Nice to meet you.”

I walked back to Luna. “Okay,” I said once I was close enough. “Ekaterina’s an earth mage. Remember that guy we ran into in Tiger’s Palace?”

“Yes . . .”

“Same sort of thing. Augmentation to physical strength, defensive reinforcement of her body. If she lands a hit she’ll probably knock you out so don’t let her. You have two advantages. First, your whip gives you range—she can use ranged earth magic but she obviously isn’t comfortable with it or she wouldn’t be relying on that focus weapon. Second, all her defences are designed to counter physical attacks. She doesn’t have an answer to your curse.”

Luna had been staring at me. “Okay, so . . . I keep my distance and try and hit her?”

“You’re going to have to get used to facing mages sooner or later,” I said. “This is good practice. And I think you’ve got a good chance.”

A stir of movement from the end of the room made me look around. People were gathering around one of the pistes. “What number are you?” I asked.

“Fifth,” Luna said. “Variam’s second.”

I caught a glimpse of Variam through the crowd; he was alone, holding an oddly shaped sword, and seemed to be searching for someone. I slowed and Luna moved ahead of me, her attention on the match. I frowned; something was nagging at me.

I looked around the hall. It was crowded with people, and everyone was drifting in the direction of the second piste. All the attention was on the duel. Variam was about to start his match. Luna was busy with hers. And I should be busy with Luna’s. All of us were busy, our attention somewhere . . .

. . . where was Anne?

I hesitated for only an instant. Luna was my apprentice and I wanted to be there to watch, but this might be important. I looked through the crowd, searching for Anne, but she wasn’t there. I moved towards the edge of the room, catching a glimpse of her through the futures—

And suddenly Anne was right in front of me. While I’d been looking for her, she’d been looking for me. “Alex?” Anne said in her soft voice. “Can you help me with something?”

“What’s happened?”

“There’s someone who says he knows about the people who used to live here in Fountain Reach,” Anne said. “He agreed to meet me but only if we do it right now.”

I glanced back at the duelling hall. I could hear someone announcing the names for the first match but the crowds blocked my view of Luna. To one side I caught a glimpse of Crystal standing on a podium with arms folded, watching. “Let’s go.”

*  *  *

“His name’s Hobson,” Anne explained as we threaded our way through the maze of Fountain Reach, searching for the way out. From behind I could hear the murmur of sound from the duelling hall, but the corridors were deserted. Everyone in the mansion was at the match. “He said he used to work here.”

“How’d you find him?” I said.

“I didn’t,” Anne said simply. “Sonder did.”

“Oh,” I said. It made sense. Luna and I got to know Anne because Sonder asked her to second for Luna’s apprenticeship ceremony. I was starting to figure out how Anne was so well informed—she just talked to everyone. “How?”

“I rang Sonder and asked if there was anyone I could talk to who knew about Fountain Reach,” Anne said. “He called me with Hobson’s number and I called Hobson.” Anne hesitated. “He was . . . I think Hobson was nervous. He didn’t want to talk at first, but at the end he said he’d come meet me at the motorway services.”

“How are you getting there, by car?”

Anne nodded.

I remembered Jagadev’s silver Bentley and the hunched figure I’d glimpsed behind the wheel. “Is that same guy driving you?”

Anne nodded again. “He’s out there now.”

We came into the entry hall. It was filled with long tables and side doors led off into reception areas and a coatroom. I thought about what to do. I could catch a lift in Jagadev’s car but some instinct warned me against that. Besides, if Hobson was nervous he’d be more likely to talk to Anne if she was alone. “Wait five minutes, then have him go,” I said. “I’ll follow you to the meeting. Hopefully nothing’ll happen, but I’ll stay close in case it does.”

Anne nodded and left. As soon as she was gone I headed into the coatroom. Most of the guests at the mansion had moved into their rooms but there were still a few dozen coats, bags, and jackets lying around. I scanned them quickly, then walked to one of the coats and pulled a set of keys out of one of the pockets before turning to leave.

Variam was standing in the doorway. He was carrying his focus sword in his right hand down by his side, and he was staring at me. “What are you doing?”

“Getting my car keys,” I said. I walked towards the door. “Haven’t you got a match?”

Variam moved to block my path. “Where’s Anne?”

“Go ask her.”

Variam narrowed his eyes and I felt magic stir around him. The sword in his right hand was broad and heavy-looking and I could sense he was ready to use it. “I don’t have time for this,” I said flatly. “Anne’s going to talk to someone and I’m going to make sure she gets there safe. If you’re not going to help, get out of my way.” I brushed past Variam and headed for the door.

Futures of Variam attacking flickered ahead of me and I tensed, ready to dodge . . . and then he hurried after me. “I’m coming with you.”

I really didn’t want Variam along but I didn’t have time to argue and having him start a fight now would cause a delay I couldn’t afford. “Then follow me and shut up.”

The front drive of Fountain Reach was dark, only the lights of the windows illuminating the rows of cars. The sun had long set, the sky was overcast and shadowed, and the countryside around us was pitch-black. To anyone else it would have felt like stepping from light into darkness but for me it was the opposite; as I crossed the threshold of Fountain Reach the oppressive blanket of the wards fell away and I could see clearly again.

It took me only a second to pick out Jagadev’s Bentley, its engine off but the driver sitting in his seat, parked in a spot out of sight of the front door. I turned away and started down the rows of cars, letting my feet down quietly on the gravel. Variam followed behind. I could feel his gaze on me, close and suspicious, but he didn’t speak. I held the keys in my hand and concentrated and the futures of me trying them in every car in the driveway unfolded before me. In one of them the key turned and I headed towards it, the other futures fading away.

Anne reappeared just as we reached the car, carrying a coat over one arm. She walked past us in the darkness and to the Bentley. The window rolled down and I saw her bend down to speak with the driver. The inside of the car lit up as Anne got into the backseat and the engine started with a growl, loud in the empty night. It pulled out of the driveway with a crunch of gravel, lights disappearing behind the hedge.

The instant it was out of sight I hit the button on the set of keys and pulled open the door of the car next to us. Lights illuminated a set of angled leather seats and a sleek-looking dashboard. As I slotted in the key the car’s onboard electronics started up and the instruments and wheel lit up in pale blue. A gearshift dial rose up out of the centre console and the engine started with a muted purr.

Variam slid into the seat next to me, looking around incredulously. “This is your car?”

“I’m in it, aren’t I?” I looked quickly through the futures and typed in a code to deactivate the alarm system, then took off the hand brake and turned the dial to first gear. The Jaguar rolled out smoothly in the direction the other car had gone.

“Jeez.” Variam sat back in disgust. “You mages love to flash your money, don’t you?”

“Put on your seatbelt.”

chapter 10

I’m only a mediocre driver. I never learnt to do it until I was past twenty, and what with relying on Starbreeze and gate magic so much for travel I haven’t had much practice since then. Luckily my divination magic lets me cheat—when you know exactly what will and won’t make you crash it’s easy not to hit anything. It didn’t make the ride any smoother, though.

We followed Anne through the winding country lanes, rushing through the darkness. I didn’t turn on my lights, relying on my magic to keep to the lines of the road as well as to keep track of the smudge of light up ahead that was the Bentley. As we headed south, back roads turned into B-roads and then A-roads until we came out onto the great winding length of the M4.

Once we were on the motorway, tailing Anne’s car became easier. Despite the darkness of the winter evening it wasn’t late, and there were plenty of cars to give us cover. Under the harsh orange glow of the motorway lights I pulled in one car behind the Bentley and held distance. After only a few minutes a green sign flashed by that read Services 1 mile. The Bentley pulled into the left lane and began signalling, and I followed. A red-and-white Little Chef sign flashed by and was gone.

The services were contained in a single large building surrounded by banks of grass, a petrol station, and a huge car park. Light shone from the windows, the surrounding trees muting the glow and noise from the motorway. By the time I’d parked and turned off the engine, Anne had already left the Bentley and was walking towards the building. I scanned for danger, found nothing, and followed her, Variam trailing behind.

The inside of the building had the vaguely soulless feel that motorway service stations always seem to have. The floor was linoleum, the lights were too bright, and the shops sold snacks and drinks and travel gear at about three times their actual value. Everything smelt of plastic and disinfectant. “Where is she?” Variam asked.

I turned left into the cafeteria. It wasn’t packed but it wasn’t empty either, and there were just enough people to give us some cover. Mothers kept a watchful eye over children while truckers drank from mugs of tea. “Hey,” Variam said. “I said—”

“To your right,” I said, then blocked Variam as he turned to look. “Don’t stare. Buy something and sit down.”

Variam glowered but didn’t argue. He’d at least had the sense to wrap his sword up in his jacket. I bought something at the counter without paying attention to what it was and found a corner seat shielded by a big plastic children’s area. Only then did I look over.

Anne was sitting at a table on the far side of the cafeteria. The edge of the services was a huge plate-glass window looking out onto the car park, and Anne’s table was right next to it, bright against the darkness. Sitting opposite Anne was a man with grey-white hair wearing a thick coat with the collar turned up to shield his face. I couldn’t get a good look at him but he was talking to Anne.

“Who’s she talking to?” Variam said.

“Apparently his name’s Hobson.” I scanned through the futures but couldn’t see any danger. In every sequence of events the services was filled with nothing but the bustle of travellers.

“Why are you following Anne?” Variam said.

“I already told you.”

“What are you getting out of it?”

I didn’t bother answering. Anne and Hobson weren’t far away and I could have used my magic to eavesdrop if I focused on it, but I didn’t. Instead I kept my attention on a short-to-medium-range scan, watching for danger. If anything moved to threaten Anne I wanted to know about it.

We sat for a little while in silence. Around us, people came and went. “Why’d you help her?” Variam asked.

I didn’t take my eyes off Anne. “When?”

“Three nights ago. With those men.”

“What’s your problem with me, Variam?”

“You’re a mage.”

“So are you.”

Variam scowled. “You know what?” I said. “Fine. It’s not like they’re going to be finished any time soon. I’ll tell you why I helped Anne if you tell me how the two of you ended up with Jagadev.”

Variam was silent. “Fine,” he said at last. “Why’d you help her?”

“Because she needed it.”

Variam waited. “And?” he said when I didn’t go on.

“That’s it.”

“Bullshit—”

“What were you expecting me to say?” I said. “Mages can look after themselves; apprentices can’t.”

Variam looked at me narrowly. “I don’t believe you.”

At the other side of the cafeteria Anne was still talking to Hobson. She was sitting opposite him, leaning slightly forward with hands clasped, listening attentively. As I watched she took out a pad of paper and started writing, pausing every few seconds to glance up. Hobson seemed to be doing most of the talking, but his hand movements were jerky and at intervals he’d look back over his shoulder. Watching his body language I could tell he was nervous, afraid of something, but there was no danger . . . yet. “Your turn,” I said to Variam. I didn’t take my attention off Anne and Hobson. “You and Anne used to be apprenticed to a Dark mage named Sagash, right?”

Variam stared at me. “Apprenticed?”

“Is that true?”

“Is that—?! I’d rip out my own liver before being apprentice to that bastard. You mages talk so much shit. If you knew—!”

“Knew what?”

“You know how we met Sagash?” Variam demanded. “He kidnapped Anne right out of school. Used gate magic to take her away to some huge freaky castle in the middle of nowhere. He wanted her as his apprentice and when she said no he tried to make her.”

I looked at Variam, keeping quiet. “There was someone who said he could help,” Variam said. “A ‘Light’ mage, or that was what he called himself, guy called Ebber. Know what that little weasel did? He went and talked things over with Sagash and decided it was all just fine. He said we were better off like that!” Variam stared past me. “She was in that place for months.”

“Did you break her out?” I asked.

“No,” Variam said reluctantly. He sounded as if he didn’t like to admit it. “She did. But I helped her get away. And we gave that bastard Sagash something to think about before we left.”

I looked over at Anne. She was writing on the pad, listening carefully to what Hobson said. “What did Ebber do?”

Variam gave a snort. “Oh, he was pissed. More upset about us running away than he was about Sagash kidnapping her. Would have taken us back if he could.”

“And that was when Jagadev came to you,” I said. “He offered you protection, told you that as long as you stayed with him mages like Sagash and Ebber wouldn’t bother you. And you convinced Anne.”

“Yeah, so?” Variam looked at me, challenging. “That’s how it works in your world, right? If you’re not with someone, some mage like you can just pick you off. Well, we’re with him.”

I met Variam’s gaze. He looked angry and I was pretty sure he wasn’t lying. He might be exaggerating . . . but unfortunately nothing in his story was even the slightest bit hard to believe. Dark mages do press-gang apprentices. They won’t usually touch one under the protection of another mage, but a teenager new to their powers and alone and ignorant of the magical world is easy prey. And once you’re in, leaving is not an option.

Under Council law, a Light apprentice can’t be forced to take the oaths. But Dark mages have no such laws. And once a Dark mage has got their claws into someone, precious few Light mages are willing to take the risks involved in rescuing them. Much easier to turn a blind eye and smooth things over—it’s not worth risking the peace treaty for one apprentice, is it? And once you’ve gone that far, it’s really not that big an extra step to give the Dark mages a little bit of quiet assistance. After all, contacts on the other side are very useful and if you don’t help them get an apprentice back they’re just going to go to someone else . . .

It’s easy to hate all Light mages for the actions of a few, and I’ve fallen into that trap myself in the past. But the world’s more complicated than that. “You know,” I said, “just because some mages act like that doesn’t mean they all do.”

“Right,” Variam said with a sneer. “All the others are bad but you’re the good guy.”

“Not exactly.”

Variam shook his head. “You don’t have a clue what it’s like. None of you do.”

“You might be surprised,” I said mildly.

“Bullshit. You get invitations to parties, you get guys like Talisid showing up to offer you jobs. You’re part of the club; you don’t know how hard it is for us.”

I started to answer, then paused. So you know it was Talisid who gave me the job? Interesting. “So why do you think I took the job?”

“You want the apprentices for yourselves, right? You don’t care what happens to them. You only help them if they’re yours.”

“You and Anne aren’t mine,” I said.

“So?”

“If I only care about apprentices who are mine, what am I doing here?”

“How should I know?”

“I’m just trying to make you see the logic here,” I said. “By your reasoning, if I treat you cruelly like Sagash, then that means I’m self-serving and don’t care about you. But if I’m nice and try to help you, then that means I must have some evil hidden purpose which also means I’m self-serving and don’t care about you. Is that about right?”

Variam just glowered. “Whatever.”

“They’re going,” I said, looking up.

Hobson had left the table and was hurrying away. I watched him curiously. Up until I’d arrived at the services I’d been more than half-expecting a trap, if for no other reason than that I remembered very clearly what had happened the last time Anne had been driven somewhere alone in that Bentley. But Hobson’s behaviour didn’t fit with that. Acting scared and nervous, okay—but he’d asked Anne to come to a public place, somewhere that would be crowded even at this late hour. That was the kind of thing you’d do if you were worried about a trap.

But if Hobson wasn’t involved himself, that meant . . .

Anne had risen and was just leaving via the services’ front doors. “Come on,” I said to Variam, and walked quickly after her.

I was halfway there when I felt something shift in the futures ahead. I took one glance at them and broke into a run. The automatic doors slid open in front of me as I ran out into the night.

Anne was halfway across the car park, a slim shadow against the dark lines of cars, just about to turn down one of the rows. “Anne!” I shouted from behind her.

Anne stopped, turned. I kept running towards her. I couldn’t see her face, but I knew she was looking at me in surprise. “Alex?”

“Behind you!” I shouted.

Anne turned back just as the figure flicked into view behind her. Her eyes went wide and she jumped out of reach as the shape reached out, grasping.

A second later I slammed into it. The darkness hid the creature’s features; it had the silhouette of a human but was heavier. We both went down and hit the tarmac and I rolled away fast, staying out of reach.

A second figure stepped out of the darkness right next to Anne, reaching for her neck. I’d seen it coming and aimed a kick from the ground that took out its knee. The second one hit the ground next to the first and I scrambled to my feet, backing away with Anne. “Variam!” I shouted. “They’re constructs, destroy them!”

Both constructs were rising to their feet and in the futures ahead of us I could see the paths they would take, solid lines of light changing to match our actions but without choice or initiative of their own. One was still locked onto Anne; the other was heading for me. But it took them a few seconds to reach us and Variam got there first.

Mages of Variam’s type are called fire mages, but that’s not really what they do. Their real power is over heat: generating it, controlling it, moving it. It’s true that most fire mages do use fire in their spells, but that’s as much psychological as anything; fire is what they think of, so that’s what they create. Variam’s approach was a little different. Instead of creating bolts of fire or some kind of flamethrower, he just poured a ton of heat into the area right between the two constructs.

Fire magic’s not subtle and it’s not great at defence, but for sheer destructive power there’s not much that can beat it. There was a hissing sound and a thump of superheated air, a backwash of heat making me cover my eyes. When I opened them again the constructs were gone. A five-foot circle of tarmac where they’d been standing was steaming, and the corners of two car fenders that had been in the blast were glowing a faint yellow and starting to droop.

“Where’d they go?” Variam said in surprise.

“I don’t know.” I looked around. I could see figures in the darkness of the car park but they were too far away, and as I concentrated I saw that they had the branching futures of humans. “I—Anne, move!”

Anne started and tried to jump away, but this time she wasn’t quick enough. One of the constructs seized her from behind, and a second later the other did the same to me.

Constructs move, but they aren’t alive—they’re dead things animated by magic, created to fulfil a certain purpose. All constructs are built with a guidance program, and once a construct’s been given a command it’ll keep going until the task’s completed. They’re strong—stronger than any human—but that’s not what makes them so dangerous. A construct can’t feel pain or fear or boredom. They don’t get hurt, they don’t get tired, and most of all they don’t stop. If you get away from one, it’ll just keep coming. The only way to stop a construct is to completely destroy it, either by breaking the spell that animates it or by doing such massive damage to its body that it can’t physically hold together anymore.

But for all their power, constructs have limits. They can’t draw conclusions, they can’t take initiative, and they can’t use tactics or prediction or deception. You can’t program a construct to outsmart an opponent; you can only make it stronger or tougher or faster.

The construct that had grabbed me from behind was trying to break my neck, and if I’d given it even the smallest chance it would have succeeded. But it wasn’t the first time I’d had a construct try to kill me and I’ve learnt from painful experience what works and doesn’t. As the construct reached for my neck I twisted to one side, pulling it off balance and levering its hand away. Someone who knew how to fight would have recognised the move and countered it, but the construct didn’t understand the concept of leverage and just kept trying to pull me in and crush me. I went with the movement and turned it into a throw, slamming the construct to the tarmac. The twisting motion pulled the thing’s grip loose and I jumped back again out of range.

I felt a surge of magic and looked back at Variam and Anne. The other construct was gone and Variam was standing against Anne with his sword out, staring into the darkness. “Variam!” I snapped.

Variam looked at me, confused. “I don’t get it. I hit him but—”

The second construct pulled itself up and went for us again. Variam narrowed his eyes and stepped forward, orange-red light flickering about his upraised hand. A pulse of heat exploded with a hissing thump from the centre of the construct’s chest, hot enough to ignite the air in a flash.

An instant before the spell hit, the construct vanished and we were alone in the darkness. “What the hell?” Variam said. “I hit him!”

Anne was looking around, and as she did her eyes widened. “Vari, Alex! It’s over—!”

I threw one of my condensers to shatter against the tarmac and grabbed Variam and Anne. As the cloud of fog rushed out around us I dragged both of them to one side.

An instant later the two constructs reappeared in the fog cloud. I couldn’t see them but with my divination I knew where they were. Their futures were static lines of light—without any sign of where we were they were just going to stand there until—

“Let go!” Variam said angrily.

“Shh!”

The lines of light changed direction as both constructs moved, converging on the sound. Their heavy footfalls were audible and Variam tensed and shut up as I pulled him to one side. Anne stayed quiet, trusting me to lead her. The constructs reached the point where the noise had come from, only five feet away—and stopped.

I kept leading Variam and Anne away and this time Variam thankfully kept his mouth shut. The constructs didn’t move; without sensory input their simple programming couldn’t predict our movements. We came out of the fog cloud into the night, and now that Anne and Variam could see me I put a finger to my lips, ushering them towards the car.

“What’s—?” Variam said once we were fifty feet away.

“Gate magic,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Short-range teleport.” Looking back I could see the patch of mist, weirdly out of place in the car park. The constructs were still standing motionless inside it—then as I watched they vanished. “Crap.” I broke into a run. “Come on!”

We piled into the car. I started the engine and the gearshift dial rose up with a whirr. “Where are they?” Variam asked Anne.

“I don’t know! They’re not alive, I can’t—”

One of the constructs blinked into view just in front of the car. I’d had a second’s warning and as it appeared I stomped on the accelerator. With a roar the Jaguar leapt forward, ramming the construct with a hollow thump and sending it flying. I braked instantly, throwing Variam and Anne into the back of the seats, and pulled out into the car park. The second construct appeared an instant later, grabbing for the door, but I swung the car away and it caught only air. A green EXIT sign flashed up in the headlights and I turned towards it, accelerating and putting a row of cars between us and the constructs.

The exit road was dark and led around the side of the services, past the petrol station and back towards the M4. Anne reached to touch my shoulder from the backseat and a soft green glow sprang up as I felt the energy of a spell flow through me. The adrenaline racing through my body levelled off, and my fatigue vanished as my reflexes sharpened. Suddenly I could see the road more clearly and correcting the car seemed easier. “Thanks.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket one-handed and handed it over my shoulder to her. “Anne, find Sonder and call him. Variam, keep watch out the back. We haven’t lost those things.”

“They’ve got a car?” Variam asked. He was peering out the back window.

“They don’t need one—”

Variam said something in an angry voice. I didn’t know the language, but the meaning came across loud and clear and I glanced up at the mirror to see that two figures had appeared in the shadows behind, running after us. As I watched they vanished and reappeared closer, still running. “Hang on,” I said, and put my foot down. The Jaguar’s engine roared eagerly and carried us out onto the M4.

The motorway was flat and slightly curved, hills and trees visible to either side in the darkness. Lights shone down from above, casting everything in orange-yellow except for the pinpoint reflections of the cat’s-eyes marking the lanes. It was late but the M4 is the major artery linking England and Wales and all three lanes were dotted with cars. I pulled from the left lane into the centre and then into the right. A few seconds later I saw the constructs burst out onto the motorway behind us, running along the hard shoulder before teleporting a few hundred feet forward, still running.

“Hello?” Anne said from behind me. “Sonder? Alex, I’ve got him!”

“Hold it here!” I swerved between the cars. The Jaguar was doing more than eighty miles per hour but in the mirror I could see that the constructs were still closing on us. They’d sprint for a couple of seconds, then blink forward, hit the ground running, and keep going. For all our speed, they were catching up fast.

Anne scrambled over the gearshift into the passenger seat and held the phone to my ear. “Sonder,” I said, keeping one eye on the side mirror. “We’re being chased by two teleporting constructs trying to kill us. Need some suggestions.”

“Teleporting—Wait, you mean—?”

“Yes.”

“Are they—?”

“Just vanishing and reappearing.”

“Um.” I could imagine Sonder pushing his glasses up. “You know, I think—”

I leapfrogged an Escort that was blocking the fast lane, pulled the Jaguar around a station wagon ahead of us, and slid back in again, ignoring the angry blare of horns. “Fast would be good.”

“Screw this,” Variam said. “Open the roof!”

I hit a button on the dashboard and the sunroof whirred back, filling the car with a rush of cold air. Variam pulled himself up, standing on the backseat, and turned towards where the constructs were running. Fire magic surged and I felt the pulse of a heat burst behind and to my left.

“Um,” Sonder said over the phone. “Okay. Well, there was a fashion back in the early twentieth century for making constructs with an imbued spell. The idea was they’d be able to use their one spell in the same sort of way as an adept, but it eventually fell out of favour because—”

“Sonder. How do we kill them?”

Again I felt the pulse of Variam’s heat spells and again I heard him swear. I risked a quick glance away from the road to the left but I couldn’t see the constructs. We’d entered a band of heavier traffic that was forcing me to keep my speed down. “Well, theoretically—” Sonder began.

The two constructs blinked in on top of us, one after another. With my second’s warning I was able to swerve away from the first. It appeared to our left at road level and grabbed for the car but missed.

The second appeared an instant later while I was still recovering from the swerve. It landed on the Jaguar’s hood with a thump, blocking my view, and turned to face us.

Anne drew in her breath in a gasp. For the first time I got a clear look at the construct; it had the form of an adult man in cast-off clothing with a blank face and dead eyes. Ignoring Variam, it locked its eyes on Anne and raised a fist to punch through the windscreen.

I stomped on the brakes and the Jaguar slowed in a sudden screech of tyres. The construct clutched at the smooth hood, but there was nothing to grab and it went flying head over heels. It slammed into the motorway ahead of us, rolling over and over. From behind I heard another screech of brakes and I hit the accelerator again. The construct finished rolling, looked up to see the Jaguar about to run it down . . . and vanished in a blink as we shot through the space he’d been in.

“Did you get him?” Variam called.

“No. Did you?”

“No! Every time I’m close they just—”

Horns were blaring from behind. I’d lost sight of the constructs but I could see a traffic jam in the mirrors; it looked like cars were slowing down to avoid something. Anne put the phone back to my ear and I heard Sonder’s voice. “—lex? Alex, are you there?”

“Sonder, we need some ideas,” I said. “Every time we’re about to hit these things they just gate out and I don’t know how long we can keep dodging them.”

“Um,” Sonder said. “Well, theoretically it should take a lot of energy to keep running that spell. They shouldn’t be as tough as normal constructs.”

“That’s great; how are we supposed to hit them?”

I caught a flash of movement in my right mirror. A figure was running along the right side of the motorway by the divider; as I watched it vanished and reappeared much closer. “Variam!” I called and pointed.

Variam pulled himself back up and I felt him aiming another fire spell. “Can you tell what their primary sensory input is?” Sonder asked.

“What?”

“Well, there has to be something that triggers their evasion routine. When they teleport away, is it based on visual data, auditory data, tactile—?”

“How in the name of all that is holy am I supposed to know that?”

“Um . . . You could try attacking them with methods that can only be detected by one type of sense. Then based on which ones they dodge you could—”

“Are you serious?”

Bursts of heat erupted in the path of the construct chasing us but it blinked away, getting closer each time. As it pulled level with our car I cut left into the middle lane, using the stream of traffic as a shield. I had to slow down to do it and for an instant the construct was roughly level with us, its head turned to look into the car as it ran. Variam focused his energy for another spell, aiming to blanket its area, and Sonder started saying something else over the phone.

The construct teleported into the car.

There was a chorus of screams, one of which might have been mine. Variam’s spell went off, the car swerved, and there was one frantic moment in which the car was on course to smash right into the side of a container truck. I pulled it back as the construct’s long arms came reaching around the passenger seat, grasping for Anne’s throat. Anne ducked and the fingers latched onto her hair instead; she yelped as the construct started dragging her back.

Variam was still standing on the backseat, half out of the sunroof. He turned and stomped on the construct’s arms. The first kick made it bend at an impossible angle; the second broke its grip. I tried to turn to help and nearly crashed the car; I couldn’t fight and drive the Jaguar at the same time. As Variam kept kicking at the construct and it turned its attention to him I hit the speed control setting, grabbed Anne’s hand, and put it on the wheel. “You’re driving!” Anne’s eyes were wide, but she pulled herself up, trying to watch the road ahead and the construct behind at the same time.

The construct got a grip on Variam’s leg and broke it with a snap. Variam screamed as the construct started to pull him in. I twisted to reach over into the backseat and jammed both thumbs into the construct’s eyes, trying to gouge them out. The construct couldn’t feel pain, but it reacted to the loss of sight, letting go of Variam and grabbing me. Its grip was like steel and I was yanked over the gearshift. “Variam!” I shouted as the construct forced my hands away and its dead eyes turned to focus on me. One of its hands went for my throat and I tried desperately to force it away. “Use the sword!”

Variam was crumpled in the corner of the car, his leg bent at a horrible angle, but as the construct started to drag me in he fumbled out the flat-bladed sword and channelled his magic through it. The inside of the car flashed orange-yellow, and I felt a surge of heat as the blade lit up with fire and Variam drove it straight for the construct’s body.

The construct vanished as the tip touched it. I fell onto the blade, felt it scorch through my clothes and into my arm, and pulled back with a gasp of pain. An instant later the heat cut off and Variam fell back against the edge of the car. My left arm was burnt but I gritted my teeth and scrambled back into the driver’s seat, taking the wheel back from Anne. “Help Variam!”

Anne climbed back into the rear seat as I checked the futures. As I did my heart jumped—the other construct was about to do the exact same thing. In a few seconds it would appear ahead of us and in one more it would blink in right on top of Anne and Variam. I held my left hand back without taking my eyes off the road. “Sword!”

There was an instant’s pause, then I felt the handle land in my palm. The blade was heavy and awkward to lift with only one hand. I kept my feet on the pedals and my right hand on the wheel and as the construct came into view ahead of us, I thrust the sword into the space the construct was going to teleport into.

The construct blinked in and out—somewhere else. I felt the gate magic redirect and instead of dropping into the passenger seat and onto the waiting sword the construct appeared five feet up, right on the Jaguar’s roof. The rushing air snatched it instantly off its feet and it went flying over the sunroof to hit the motorway behind. In my mirror I caught a glimpse of it rolling over and over behind us, and then the Toyota that had been following us hit it square on with a soggy thud. The construct’s head snapped back and it vanished under the wheels and was gone. From behind came the screech of brakes.

“Variam!” I called. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Variam said through gritted teeth. I could feel Anne’s healing magic working behind me but didn’t turn to look.

“Anne, where’s the phone?”

Anne sounded distracted. “I dropped it. Alex, I need to concentrate.”

I dropped the sword and bent down to grab the phone instead, driving blind for a second. “Sonder?” I said, straightening up.

“Alex!” Sonder sounded relieved. “You’re okay?”

“Not for long. These things are tearing us up.” Wind roared through the sunroof and I could see a traffic jam developing behind us. The constructs hadn’t reappeared but I knew they hadn’t given up and I didn’t think we’d survive another attack like the last one. “Ideas?”

“I don’t know! Um . . . Have you managed to damage them?”

“Well, we hit them with a car a few times but it doesn’t seem to have slowed them down much.” A sign went by overhead indicating a turnoff, and I pulled into the left lane, driving right-handed.

“Okay, so they’re not programmed to avoid physical impact?”

“No, they—Wait. When I was about to run that one over a minute ago, it did avoid it.”

“So they do—Alex?”

I thought fast. I’d managed to hit one with the Jaguar back in the car park. But when one had gated onto the hood, it had gated away again when I tried to run it down afterwards. But then that last one hadn’t gated away before being run over by the Toyota behind me . . .

Time. The one that had landed on the hood had had longer. “Sonder. How much energy would it take to do one of these teleports?”

“Um, a lot. That was why they stopped building—”

“Could it teleport and then teleport again half a second later?”

“Um . . . I’m not sure. I don’t think so. The construct’s internal energy reserves should need at least a couple of seconds to recharge between—”

“Perfect.”

“What? Alex? Hello?”

I dropped the phone onto the seat and pulled the car into the turnoff. It was a motorway layover, just a small enclave on the side of the road with a public bathroom, surrounded by woods. Nobody else was there. I brought the Jaguar to a stop and the engine died away with a fading growl. Outside on the M4 the cars swept past with a rush of air, the swooshing sound muffled through the car. “Anne,” I said. “Can Variam walk?”

“I need more time.” Turning around, I saw that Anne was bent over Variam, green light glowing around her hands as she held his broken leg. She was concentrating and didn’t turn to look. “Give me a few minutes.”

“Can’t.” I got out and pulled the passenger door open. Variam looked up distractedly and I held out a hand. “Grab on,” I told him. “I’m carrying you.”

“Wait!” Anne said. “He’s—”

“We’ve got sixty seconds until those constructs catch up.”

Variam’s face was pale from shock but he gave me one look and nodded. I reached down and picked Variam up with a heave; his fingers tightened on my arms and I knew it must have hurt, but he didn’t make a sound. “Bring the sword,” I told Anne as I hurried into the woods.

There was a small clearing just twenty feet into the trees. Bits of garbage were scattered around from previous visitors, and the glow of the motorway lights was muted. I set Variam down against an ash tree. “Your weapon,” I told Variam. “Can you channel through it when you’re not touching it?”

“I—yeah. Why?”

“When I call, do it.” Anne made as if to go to Variam, but I turned and blocked her. “No.”

Anne looked at me in frustration. “At least let me—”

“If you want to help him, keep your distance,” I said quietly. “I need you to do something dangerous.”

“What?”

“Bait.” I looked steadily at her. “These things are after you. They only attack us when we get in their way, and their targeting resets every time they lose sight of us. I need you to stand next to me and not move until I tell you.”

Anne looked from me to Variam, and I felt the two of them share a glance. Then Variam gave a small nod. I took the sword from Anne and walked to the centre of the clearing. The sword was oddly shaped and didn’t look like any weapon I’d seen; the blade was wide and heavy, broadening slightly from the hilt to the tip before narrowing abruptly to a blunt point. I walked to the centre of the clearing and moved the sword from side to side, feeling the weight of the blade. “Designed for cutting, right?” I asked Variam absently.

“Yeah.” I could hear the tension in Variam’s voice.

Anne moved beside me. “Do you trust me?” I asked her quietly.

In the shadows it was hard to make out Anne’s expression, but I could sense she was watching me. “. . . Yes.”

“Don’t move,” I said. “When I press down on your shoulder, get out of the way as fast as you can.”

Anne nodded. I took a stance in the middle of the clearing, most of my weight on my back leg with Variam’s sword held down by my side, and rested my left hand on Anne’s shoulder. She didn’t tremble but held still. Ten feet away against the tree Variam watched, tense. The only light in the woods was the orange-yellow glow of the motorway lights, broken up with the shadows of the trees. There was no sound but the steady swoosh of the cars. The air was cold and smelt of exhaust smoke and dried leaves.

I closed my eyes.

The flicker of gate magic came right when it was supposed to. I pushed on Anne’s shoulder but she was already moving, ducking down and away. As the construct blinked in, reaching out for where Anne had been a second ago, I called “Variam!” and thrust.

My plan back in the car had been to try to set up the constructs to teleport onto the sword. It hadn’t worked; the gate spell the constructs were using had a fail-safe preventing them from teleporting directly onto something. But after they teleported there was a brief window in which they couldn’t teleport again.

Variam channelled and the edges of the sword lit up with licks of orange flame just as I rammed the blade through the construct’s torso. It jerked and staggered but I was already turning and as the second construct blinked into view next to us I got it with a kick to the body that knocked it over. Turning back to the first construct I forced it back, pushing it with the blade. I could feel the heat radiating as Variam poured fire magic through the sword and into the construct. Its clothes were smouldering around the wound and as I watched they caught fire. The construct tried to teleport away but couldn’t and I kept pushing it back, feeling the sword go loose as the construct began to melt from the inside. The construct fell over backwards and I followed it down, took a two-handed grip on the sword, and dragged the blade out sideways. The construct kept trying to grab me, empty eyes locked onto mine, and I stabbed it again and again until heat melted its body and the scrubby grass and dirt it was lying on ignited.

I turned to see Variam with his hand raised towards Anne and the second construct gone. Anne was standing at the centre of the clearing again, looking around. “Get down!” I shouted and ran towards her, bringing the sword back for a swing.

Anne dropped instantly and the second construct blinked in behind her. I’d already started my slash and as I did I felt Variam’s fire magic flare to an inferno. The sword flashed white-hot, the heat scorching my arm and hand, and it cut through the construct’s neck like butter. The head and body ignited, falling in different directions, and the sword spun away and went into the earth with a hiss.

And suddenly the clearing was quiet. The light of Variam’s fire magic blinked out and the only light was the glowing remnants of the two constructs. I shook my burnt right hand and gave Variam a look. “Ow.”

“It’s dead, isn’t it?” Variam was still propped up against the tree and he looked very tired. “Anne, you okay?”

Anne nodded. “Let me have a look at you.”

“After we get out of here,” I said. “You can patch us up later.” I couldn’t hear any sirens yet, but after the mess we’d caused on the motorway I knew they wouldn’t be far away.

Neither Anne nor Variam argued. We limped back to the Jaguar, put Variam in, and drove away. As I did I realised my phone was ringing, and I took it out. “Hey, Luna,” I said wearily. The aftereffects of the fight were starting to kick in and it was suddenly hard to talk.

“Hey!” Luna sounded excited. “I’ve been trying to call you!”

“Sorry. Something came up.”

“I won the duel!”

“Good job.” A sign passed by overhead and I began signalling to take the turn that would lead us off the motorway, northwards back towards Fountain Reach. “Meet us outside the mansion in half an hour. We’ve got some news too.”

chapter 11

It was one hour later.

Anne, Variam, Luna, Sonder, and I were in the woods behind Fountain Reach, in a small clearing on the other side of the hill from the mansion itself. The winter night was only a few degrees above freezing but a small fire burned at the centre of the clearing, its heat forming a bubble of warm air that kept away the cold. The five of us were spaced around the fire, Luna a little farther away. Around us the forest was dark and quiet, the only sound the rustle of wind in the trees.

We’d assembled on the grounds of Fountain Reach before heading into the woods. Sonder had been the last to arrive, having had to make the journey up from London, and as soon as he’d shown up we’d gotten out of sight. The burns on my arm and hand were gone; Anne had healed them along with Variam’s broken leg to the point where I couldn’t even tell where I’d been hurt. Now everyone was looking at me. I’d led them out here and they were waiting for me to tell them what to do.

“Anne,” I said. “Before we start—are we alone?”

Anne nodded. She was sitting on the thin grass with knees up and hands clasped on top of them. “Yes.”

Luna looked at her curiously. “How do you know?”

“I can feel them.”

“Who?”

“Anyone,” Anne said in her soft voice. “Their body, their shape, whether they’re hurt . . .”

“How much can you see?” Luna asked.

Anne looked at Luna. “You’ve got a bruise on the side of your left knee from where you fell a couple of hours ago fighting Ekaterina. And you pulled two of the muscles in your thigh a little.”

Luna’s eyes widened slightly and her hand went to her leg. “We don’t have to worry about anyone sneaking up on us,” I said.

“Who are you worried about?” Sonder asked. He’d taken off the parka that he’d worn here and was sitting on it.

“Before we get to that,” I said, and I nodded to Anne. “Tell us what you found out from Hobson.”

As Anne took out the pad she’d been writing on and began to look through it, reminding herself of the notes she’d written during her conversation, I studied her. The firelight flickered off Anne’s dark hair and the lines of her face, leaving most of her body in shadow.

She didn’t look like the sort of person who should be getting assassination attempts. But someone had just tried to have her killed for the second time in four days and I didn’t know why. Usually when a mage is attacked it’s because they’re a threat, but Anne seemed like about the most unthreatening apprentice I could imagine. I had to be missing something.

“Okay,” Anne began in her soft voice. “Hobson told me that he used to work for the family who lived there, the Aubuchons. He didn’t . . . Well, he didn’t say they were mages, but he knew some of it. Enough not to ask questions.

“The master of the house when Hobson started working there was Vitus Aubuchon. He was in his seventies and he was really concerned with his health. He’d always been sickly and he had a lot of doctors on call making house visits. When he wasn’t with them he’d shut himself away in his private rooms. His wife had died a long time ago and the only other member of his family was his son. Hobson had the idea Vitus was an inventor, but”—Anne glanced at me—“I’m pretty sure it was magical research. Anyway, a few years went by. The research didn’t seem to be going well and Vitus stopped seeing anyone.

“Then all of a sudden things changed. Vitus came out one day and ordered the house torn down. He kept the central rooms and the basements but the two wings got demolished. Then he started rebuilding. He had a set of plans he was working from and he’d come out every day to check that it was being done right, and he’d fire builders who didn’t do it the way he told them. No one could figure out what he was doing. Fountain Reach used to have a little summerhouse that Vitus used with a hedgemaze around it, and he built right over it.”

I stirred, something catching at my memory. “The reconstruction took two years,” Anne continued. “On the day it was finished Vitus took a walk around Fountain Reach to do his final checks, then he went inside and Hobson says from that day on he never left the house again. But he started to act differently. Before he’d always kept Fountain Reach private, but from then on he started inviting groups to come and tour the mansion. He wrote to local councils and tourist agencies and made Fountain Reach open to the public.

“Things kept on that way for a long time, but then there were problems. Hobson and the other servants started overhearing arguments between Vitus and his son. They’d never gotten on all that well, but things got worse and worse as Vitus got older. And people stopped coming to Fountain Reach.”

“Why?” I said.

“No one seems to know,” Anne said. “But Hobson said there was a police investigation, although it was hushed up. Apparently a travel group had been to Fountain Reach and someone went missing.”

Sonder frowned. “Wait. You mean—?”

“Keep going,” I said.

“After that Vitus Aubuchon wouldn’t see anyone at all, not even the servants,” Anne said. “His son left the mansion, then one night when most of the servants were away he came back. Hobson was there and he said Vitus’s son was drunk. He told Hobson and all of the others to get out of the house and never come back, then he went looking for his father.

“That was the last anyone saw of either of them. Hobson and the other servants woke up the next day and couldn’t find Vitus or his son. When they searched the house they found fire damage in one of the inner rooms—it looked like somebody had tried to burn the house down during the night. The police were called in and searched the house from top to bottom. Months went by and the house was closed and they kept on searching but they never found either Vitus or his son. And Hobson never went back.”

Anne fell silent. “Someone went missing in Fountain Reach?” Luna asked. “How long ago?”

“Thirty years ago,” Anne said. “She was our age.”

“Why was this Hobson guy telling you this stuff?” Variam asked.

“I’m not sure. He was . . . odd. He seemed really jumpy the whole time. And he never asked why I wanted to know.”

“That’s weird,” Luna said curiously.

“No, it’s not,” Variam said. “He was bait for a trap.”

Anne frowned. “I know it looks that way but I didn’t get that feeling from him. He was nervous about something, but he didn’t seem like he knew what was going on.”

“But why would anyone want to kill you in the first place?” Sonder asked, echoing my thoughts from earlier.

“So she couldn’t tell anyone what she knew,” Variam said.

“Doesn’t make sense,” I said. “The constructs were after Anne, not Hobson. And whoever sent them had to know it would draw more attention to Hobson.” The more I thought about it, the odder it seemed. Between the tip-offs and the attacks, it was as though someone wanted to point me towards Fountain Reach. But why?

I came out of my thoughts to realise Variam was arguing about something with Luna. “Sonder,” I said, cutting them off. “Did you get anywhere in London?”

“What? Oh, the investigation. No. It’s just like all the others. We can trace them up to the point where they disappear, but the shroud stops us from getting anything useful.”

“What about the information I asked for?”

“What information?” Luna asked.

“About the Aubuchon dynasty,” Sonder explained. “Well . . .” He pushed up his glasses and leant forward. “It matches with what Anne said, really. The Aubuchons were a hereditary magical line. They used to be very famous but they dwindled over the years like a lot of mage families. Vitus Aubuchon was the last.”

“What about his son?” Luna asked.

“He was a normal. No magical talent. Apparently Vitus wasn’t happy about that.”

“The rebuilding of Fountain Reach,” I said. “That was when those wards were put up, wasn’t it?”

Sonder nodded. “That’s something I was able to find out. The reason he was doing that rebuilding was to build the wards in with the house from the ground up. Basically all of Fountain Reach is one giant focus. Lots of people were curious because it seemed like such overkill. I mean, everyone has wards, but those ones are about five times as strong as they should be.”

“Did they figure it out?”

“Not really. The best guess was that the wards were acting as the skeleton for an envelopment focus.”

“What’s that?” Luna asked.

“It’s a large-scale focus that acts as a magnifying effect,” Sonder said. “As long as you’re within the area you can use the energy to power spells that are much more powerful than normal, or ones from a different type of magic than you should be able to use.”

“If they’re so good, why doesn’t everyone use them?” Variam said.

“Well, an envelopment focus only works within the physical area it covers. And the spells that run it are unstable, so they need a lot of maintenance. Basically it makes you more powerful, but only as long as you stay in one place.”

“Why didn’t any other mage take Fountain Reach for himself after Vitus disappeared?” I said.

“They couldn’t get the wards to work,” Sonder said. “Vitus had attuned them to himself.”

I nodded. “And if it had been built in with the physical design of the place, it would have been more trouble than it was worth to change it.”

“If those mages couldn’t get Fountain Reach to work for them, how did Crystal do it?” Luna asked.

“Guess she figured it out,” Variam said.

Sonder frowned. “But the mages who investigated the wards after Vitus’s disappearances were . . . Well, I actually know two of them and they know more about focus magic than almost anyone else in the country. If they couldn’t reattune the wards I don’t see how she could have.”

“Who cares?” Variam said. “Maybe she just didn’t bother.”

“But that would have problems too. Even if they aren’t directly designed to defend the location, living in a place where you don’t have any control over the ward layout is—”

“Okay, look,” Luna said. “What about that missing girl? It has to be the same thing, right?”

Anne and Sonder looked at each other. “I’m not sure,” Sonder said. He looked troubled.

“I am,” Luna said. “Alex, do you think if we went looking we’d find a bunch of other people going missing there?”

I thought about it for a second, then nodded. “Maybe not obviously . . . but yes.”

“I don’t know how they missed this,” Sonder said. “Fountain Reach was investigated—”

“Fountain Reach was investigated for disappearances involving mages,” I said. “But I’ll bet you the Council never looked into what happened to normal people who went there.”

“But it still doesn’t make sense,” Sonder objected. “It’s the apprentice disappearances we’re trying to solve, and there’s still no connection—”

“About that.” I got to my feet. “Come with me for a second. There’s something I’d like you to check.”

*  *  *

Fountain Reach was a cluster of light against the winter darkness. Stars twinkled down from above, and from the mansion dozens of windows glowed. We were at the edge of the woods bordering the gardens and even across the lawn we could hear the chatter of voices through the thick walls. Everything else was black.

“What are we doing here?” Sonder asked, shivering. Away from the warmth of Variam’s fire spells, his breath was a pale shadow in the cold air.

“What you just told us was useful,” I said, “but it wasn’t why I asked you to come down. When’s your best guess on when Yasmin went missing?”

“About one o’clock this morning.”

“I want you to look back into the past over the period immediately after that. Let’s say a three-hour window.”

“Look, even if it was here, you know the wards would stop any—”

“The wards prevent scrying inside the house,” I said. “I want you to search the grounds around the house.”

“For what?”

“Nothing,” I said truthfully. “See what you find.”

Sonder sighed and closed his eyes. Behind him Anne, Variam, and Luna were half hidden by the trees, though only Luna was shivering. “Do you want me to look around the front?” Sonder asked.

“No,” I said. “The farther out of view the better.”

Sonder fell silent. The only noise was the murmur of voices drifting across the gardens. I kept my arms folded against the chill, trying not to show how tense I was. Minutes passed and I forced myself to stay patient. I went over the reasoning in my mind, checking it for holes. It all hung together. Sonder ought to find . . .

“Huh,” Sonder said, interrupting my thoughts. “That’s funny.”

“What?”

“There’s an empty patch.”

“A shroud?”

“Yeah. One-fifteen to one-eighteen.”

“Okay,” I said, making sure to keep my voice calm. “Is it the same shroud? The same as when—?”

“Yes,” Sonder said. He was looking at me. “The same one that was used at Kings Cross and all the others.”

“Now check the time the last apprentice disappeared,” I said. “Vanessa. Same deal, the period immediately after she went missing.”

It only took Sonder a minute this time. “It’s the same,” he said. I couldn’t make out his expression, but he was looking at me. “Alex, this means—”

“Check them all.”

*  *  *

It was the same with all of them. The disappearances of all the missing apprentices matched up with a period of shrouded time in the back of Fountain Reach. By tracing the exact activation of the shroud, Sonder was able to figure out that the person using it had come from the woods to a little-used side door set into the mansion, half hidden by the bushes. Backtracking, we found that all of the routes led back to one of a pair of clearings a few minutes into the trees, where they stopped.

“But where did they come from?” Luna asked once we’d withdrawn back to the campsite and had warmed up again.

“A gate spell,” Sonder said. “It has to be.”

“Why didn’t they just gate into the mansion?” Variam said.

“They couldn’t,” I said. “The wards over Fountain Reach stop you from gating inside. But they don’t stop you from gating nearby and walking in. It’s how half the guests have been getting here.”

We sat around the fire in silence for a minute. “This means it’s Crystal, doesn’t it?” Luna said at last.

“We don’t have any proof of that,” Sonder said.

“It’s her house.”

“Yes, but all we know is that someone used a shroud,” Sonder argued. “I know it’s suspicious but it’s not enough to bring to the Council. Anyway, we don’t have a motive.”

“Harvesting,” Variam said instantly.

I shook my head. “It was one of the first things I thought too, but it doesn’t fit. Harvesting is incredibly dangerous. Even doing it once is likely to kill you. To do it over and over again you’d have to be suicidal, and Crystal isn’t.”

“But how could it be Crystal?” Anne asked.

“Why can’t it be?” Luna said.

“That missing girl,” Anne said. “She disappeared back when the house still belonged to Vitus Aubuchon, thirty years ago. Crystal is . . . thirty-four?”

“Thirty-five,” I said.

“So Crystal couldn’t have done it,” Anne said. “She would have been five years old.”

“So maybe that was some other mage,” Variam said.

“Come on,” Luna said. “Two different mages just happen to kidnap a victim of the same age at the same place?”

“What do you think?” Sonder asked me.

“It can’t be a coincidence,” I said. “But if I had to guess, I’d go with Luna. I think it’s Crystal who’s been doing this.” I looked around the four of them. “Something that’s been bothering me from the start is how neat all these disappearances have been. The victims never seem to fight back—it’s as if they just walk out the door. Well, maybe that’s exactly what has been happening. A mind mage like Crystal can overwhelm someone fast, especially someone young and inexperienced. And it would explain why we’ve never had any witnesses. Wiping memories is well within her range.”

“But what about the girl from thirty years ago?” Anne asked.

“Before I met Crystal I did some digging,” I said. “She’s never taken an apprentice or taught any classes. In fact, until this tournament she’s never shown any interest in apprentices at all. I think it stems from when she came to Fountain Reach.”

“Isn’t it supposed to be her family home?” Sonder asked.

“Yeah, and I’m pretty sure she was lying. You heard Anne’s story. If Crystal was really the heir to the Aubuchons, why didn’t the house go to her when the last two members of the family died?” I shook my head. “I think Crystal found something here, something hidden. And whatever she found was the reason she bought the house and arranged this tournament.”

“But why the tournament?” Sonder said.

“That’s the bit I can’t figure out,” I said. “Because until now the kidnapper has gone to a whole lot of trouble to keep these disappearances away from here. Yasmin was right here on the grounds, but they waited to grab her until she was all the way away in London.”

“Why?” Variam said.

“To draw attention away from Fountain Reach,” I said. “But if that’s the case, why hold the tournament?” I shook my head again. “There must be something they think is worth the risk . . .”

“What do you think’s happened to the apprentices?” Anne asked.

“Nothing good.”

We talked for another hour. Although everyone agreed Crystal was the most likely suspect, it was clear we didn’t have enough to go before the Council. Sonder thought we should go to Talisid and report what we’d found. Variam didn’t trust Talisid or anyone else from the Council and wanted to keep it a secret. Luna wanted to investigate more, and Anne stayed quiet and didn’t volunteer an opinion either way.

“All right,” I said once the conversation had started going in circles. “Here’s what we’re going to do. Sonder, I want you to go back to London and buy some video cameras. Tomorrow night we’re going to set up surveillance on those two clearings that are being used to bring apprentices in here. It won’t do anything to help the ones already gone, but it should give us some proof if they get used again. There’re some other things I want you to check up on too; I’ll tell you those later.

“Luna, Anne, Variam, I want you to stay around the tournament. Keep on listening, keep on digging. There’s got to be some reason the White Stone is being held here and we need to know what it is. And while you’re there, see if you can figure out where in the house those missing apprentices might have been taken. They came into Fountain Reach and they sure as hell didn’t leave, so where are they?”

Luna nodded. “What about you?”

“I’m going to follow Crystal,” I said. “I still think she’s the one responsible for this and I’m going to shadow her. If I’m lucky she’ll lead us to something that can let us know what’s going on. While I’m doing that, I want the rest of you to stay away from her. Crystal’s really good at reading surface thoughts and the last thing we want is for her to know we suspect her. Before we go I’ll teach you a couple of mental exercises to help with that.” I looked around. “One last thing. I know I’ve told you this before, but don’t go anywhere alone as long as you’re inside Fountain Reach.”

“You just said all the disappearances were happening outside Fountain Reach,” Luna pointed out.

I sighed. “Look, I don’t have any good answers. I just know that the longer I stay in that place, the more it creeps me out. It feels like there’s something in Fountain Reach and it’s watching me. And I really don’t like that we’ve got so many apprentices staying there.” I straightened up. “All right, that’s it. Any questions?”

There were plenty, and by the time everyone was satisfied it was long past midnight. Variam doused the fire and we made our way back to Fountain Reach. The mansion was going dark as the people inside withdrew for the night, the lights in the windows vanishing one by one. I dropped Anne and Luna at their room and Variam at his before going to bed.

*  *  *

The dream came again that night. I was walking the corridors of Fountain Reach, and I was alone. The mansion felt different, dead; the halls were darker, the rooms older. Fountain Reach had always felt alien, an unwelcome place to live, but this Fountain Reach was different: It was hard to imagine anything living here. An old crooked door appeared before me and I stepped through.

Mud squished under my shoes as I entered the hedges. The branches and leaves were shrivelled and dead from lack of light. As I turned the corners I started to hear whispers around me, lost voices at the edge of hearing. The hedges parted before me to reveal a small ancient building with a metal door.

The room inside was lined floor to ceiling with cold grey tiles. They might have been white once but now were cracked and darkened with age. A metal table stood in the centre of the room with straps down its length, battered and stained. There were pipes along the walls, and in one corner was an old metal bathtub. The room was silent but for a slow dripping sound from the corner: plink . . . plink . . . plink.

A wave of fear rose up inside me, but I forced myself to go closer. Dust and debris crunched under my feet as I moved. As I drew closer I saw that the bathtub was filled with some sort of liquid, dark and still. The scent was horrible, something ancient and sickening, and I stopped, afraid to go closer, listening to the drops falling: plink . . . plink.

Then I heard a soft sighing sound and felt breath on the back of my neck.

*  *  *

I came awake with a gasp, heart pounding in my chest. The weapon under my pillow was out and in my hand and I was scanning for danger before I knew I was doing it. Futures leapt out at me, lines of light in the darkness that represented threat, a sudden change—but as I looked closer I couldn’t see anything happening. I came fully awake, searching for what it was—

—And it was gone. All of a sudden, the futures were blank and uneventful. I sat on my bed, checking and rechecking, and found nothing.

My room was dark, but looking through the window I could see that the eastern sky was starting to brighten. A thick bank of cloud had come in overnight and its underside was beginning to light up with streaks of red: Once the sun rose it would block out the rays entirely. I stared out the window, letting my breathing slow and my heartbeat steady. Only once I was calm again did I turn back to my room.

The clock beside my bed read seven thirty-five—I’d been asleep only a few hours. From the rooms around I could hear the sound of the mansion’s inhabitants waking up for the second day of the tournament. My room was quiet and undisturbed, the alarms hadn’t been tripped, and everything was where I’d left it. Yet though I couldn’t put my finger on what it was something about it felt off, like the feeling you get when you walk into your house at the end of the day and know someone else is there.

I dressed, threw on my mist cloak, and went out to find the others. The halls of Fountain Reach were cold but stirring with activity as more people woke, lights coming on one by one. Variam was still asleep but Luna and Anne’s room was empty and I went looking for them.

I found them in one of the practice halls, and they weren’t alone. A raised voice was echoing through the open doorway; it was a girl, not quite shouting but close to it. Moving into the shadow of the doorway I saw Anne and Luna on one of the duelling pistes. They looked like they’d been in the middle of practice when they’d been interrupted by the two apprentices opposite them.

“What have you done with her?” the girl said. It was Natasha, the round-faced girl who’d been sniping at Anne and Luna before. Back then she’d had a smile on her face, but she wasn’t smiling now.

“I haven’t done anything,” Anne said. She looked troubled.

Natasha clenched her fists. “You’re lying!” Her voice was high-pitched, on the edge of breaking. “You were fighting with her before!”

“I wasn’t fighting with her—” Anne began.

“We don’t know where Yasmin is,” Luna said at the same time. “The last we saw her she was with you.”

“You’re lying!”

“Tash, come on,” the boy next to Natasha said. It was Charles, the same boy I’d seen with her before, and he looked uneasy.

“I know it was you,” Natasha said. She stared straight at Anne, ignoring Charles. “I know what you’ve been doing. Give her back or I’ll make sure everyone else knows too.”

Anne looked unhappy but didn’t answer. “You’ve got it all wrong,” Luna said. “Look, we’re trying to find the guys doing this, okay? We don’t—”

“You too!” Natasha whirled on Luna. “You think you can help her? I’ll get you as well!”

“Listen, you stupid—” Luna began.

“Okay,” Charles said loudly. “We’ve got to go.” He pulled Natasha away towards the door. Natasha didn’t resist, but as Charles led her out of the hall she shot Luna and Anne a glare and there was hate in her eyes. Then she was gone and Anne and Luna were left alone.

I stayed silent in the doorway, scanning through the futures to see if anything was coming to threaten them. “Well, this is just great,” Luna said. “Now she thinks we did it. What do you think she meant about what you’ve been doing?”

“I’m not sure,” Anne said. But there had been a moment’s hesitation there.

Luna didn’t seem to notice. With a sigh she sat on a bench, the whip handle dangling from her hand. “This is impossible. Onyx wants to get Alex, someone wants to get you, Natasha wants to get both of us, and in two hours I’m supposed to win a duel against some apprentice who’ll be way better than I am.”

“You don’t have to win,” Anne said.

“Mm,” Luna said. “I want to.”

Anne looked at her curiously. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Luna said. “I guess it’s just . . . I keep feeling useless, you know? Like I’m always leaning on Alex. I mean, it’s taken me this long just to get to where I probably won’t hurt whoever I’m with.”

“Alex and Sonder don’t seem to think you’re useless.”

“I always wonder if they’re just pretending.” Luna rested her chin in her hands, the whip sticking out to one side. “Don’t you ever feel like you need to do something?”

“No,” Anne said simply.

Luna twisted to look at her. “Really?”

Anne shook her head.

“Why didn’t you enter the tournament?” Luna asked. “Does your magic not work that way?”

“It’s not that. I can . . .”

“Why don’t you want to, then?”

“I don’t like hurting people.”

“I can think of a few I’d like to,” Luna muttered. “Like Natasha.”

“She did just lose her best friend.”

“I’m not sure mages have friends.”

“I’m a mage,” Anne reminded her gently.

Luna sighed and straightened. “Sorry. Can we have one more try with the stance thing? I think I was getting it by the end.”

No sign of danger was showing through the futures I could see, and it looked as though Natasha had gone. As Anne and Luna went back to the duelling piste I withdrew silently—I didn’t want to disturb either of them and I knew Luna would be focused on her coming match.

Overhearing these sorts of conversations always gives me a strange feeling, like looking through a window onto a view I don’t usually see. My “adventures” with Luna tend to be so dangerous that I’ve got my work cut out just to keep us both alive, so it had never really occurred to me to wonder how she felt about it. It’s been a long time since I was an apprentice, but I can still remember just how scary it can be to go up against an experienced mage—hell, it still scares me, which is why I do it as little as possible. But I had the feeling that trying to make her feel better was the wrong way to handle things. Luna might have come to the wrong conclusion—she’d never been useless—but she was right about needing to stand on her own feet. The best thing for her to do would be to learn to face up to mages herself.

Outside the sun had risen, and the mansion was coming fully awake. I didn’t think Luna or Anne would be in any danger and so I went searching for Crystal. She wasn’t in or near the main hall, so acting on a hunch I headed for the place where I’d eavesdropped on her the last time—that empty corridor towards the top of Fountain Reach where I’d heard Crystal talking to what had seemed like thin air.

She was right where I’d expected, but someone else had gotten there first. I heard the murmur of voices from all the way down the hall and quietly moved closer.

As I got within earshot I realised the man with Crystal was Lyle. “I’m just not sure it’s possible,” he was saying, and he sounded troubled. “I mean, it was a worry before, but now . . .”

“Fountain Reach is the safest place these apprentices can possibly be.” Crystal’s voice was cool. “You tested the wards yourself.”

“Yes, but with this girl disappearing, what was her name—”

“Yasmin didn’t disappear in Fountain Reach. Wasn’t that what you told me?”

“Yes, but—”

“You reminded everyone to ensure that their apprentices didn’t leave the mansion. It’s hardly your fault if they chose to ignore you.”

“But Sarissa had told her.” Lyle sounded uneasy. “She kept saying Yasmin wouldn’t have left the grounds—”

“Lyle,” Crystal said. She moved closer, and through the futures I could see that she was resting a hand on his shoulder. “You worry too much.”

“I supported the nomination of Fountain Reach to the Council. If it turns out . . .” Lyle hesitated. “The Council wouldn’t be pleased.”

Crystal sighed and I heard her move away. “Is the Council all you think about?”

Lyle was silent. I was one door down from Lyle and Crystal’s room, my hand on the handle, ready to slip inside should they come out. They’d actually left the door to their room open, which seemed odd but made sense in a way. Between Lyle and Crystal, nothing thinking or feeling could get into the corridor without them noticing . . . unless that someone was wearing a mist cloak.

“Have you thought about that offer?” Lyle asked.

“Working for Levistus?”

“It’s an important position.”

“I’m sure it is.” There was faint distaste in Crystal’s voice.

“I could . . . make some recommendations. We could—”

“We could do what? Run the Council’s errands for them? Do all the work and take all the risk for a few crumbs of reward?” Crystal shook her head slightly. “I never understood your focus on the Council.”

“They’re the most powerful mages in the country.”

“I can think of a few Dark mages who might disagree.”

“Dark mages aren’t an institution. They’re just anarchy.”

“At least they provide some opportunity.” Crystal walked to the window and glanced back at Lyle. “Oh, stop thinking that. I haven’t turned to their side. But I’m not going to serve the Council either.”

“You could rise—”

“To the top of that old boys’ club?” Crystal’s voice was cool and precise. “After decades of bowing and scraping and cutting deals and begging for favours? Then once I’m old and grey, I could rise? I think not.”

Lyle was silent. “I know what you want to ask,” Crystal said.

“Could we—?”

“No,” Crystal said. “Not as long as your first loyalty is to the Council.” She turned to Lyle. “But there are alternatives. You made me an offer, now let me make you one. What if I could offer you something better?”

Lyle sounded taken aback. “What do you mean?”

“A way to have what we want without depending on the Council.”

“How—”

Crystal shook her head. “Not now.” She walked past Lyle, towards the door. “I have a tournament to oversee. Think about it.”

I’d seen Crystal coming and was inside the room with the door drawn to by the time she stepped out into the corridor. She turned and left, heels clicking on the wooden floor. Lyle followed a minute later.

Once they were gone I stepped out again, looking after them quizzically. Lyle and Crystal . . . Well, it was interesting, but I couldn’t see how it was much use. Crystal’s words were much more suspicious though. Whatever Crystal’s “something better” was, I had a feeling it wasn’t anything good.

*  *  *

I’m always reluctant to take off my mist cloak. Invisibility is such a safe feeling and it’s so tempting to stay there rather than make yourself vulnerable again. But it doesn’t make your problems go away—all it does is delay them. I hid the cloak and sat down.

There was something I’d been putting off and I couldn’t ignore it much longer. My formal reply to Onyx’s challenge was due in a few hours; I’d been avoiding thinking about it in the hope that it’d go away. It hadn’t, and I needed to figure out what to do.

My odds of winning a duel against someone like Onyx were basically zero. Duels are designed to be fair fights, and I’m very bad at fair fights. With no cover it would come down to strength against strength, and even the weakest elemental mage outclasses me several times over in terms of raw power. I might give Onyx a surprise or two but there was only one way it could end.

What if I went in expecting to lose? I couldn’t beat Onyx, but losing a duel wouldn’t kill me. It’d be humiliating and I wouldn’t enjoy it, but I’ve had worse.

But while losing a duel wouldn’t kill me, losing a duel to Onyx might. Traditional duels aren’t supposed to be fatal but more than a few mages have died from “accidents” in the ring. Onyx would never get away with it, not in front of so many witnesses, but that wouldn’t be much consolation to me. And I really didn’t feel like trusting my life to Onyx’s self-control.

I leant back with a sigh, staring at the ceiling. I hate dealing with this stuff. So much of mage politics involves these no-win situations. I’m much happier hanging out with Luna and Arachne or minding my shop.

How would I deal with this if I were in my shop? If some random guy walked in off the street and challenged me to a duel, what would I do?

I’d tell him to get lost. Then if he tried to start a fight anyway, I’d make sure it wasn’t a fair one.

Was there anything stopping me from just saying no? Now that I thought about it I didn’t think there was. By custom a mage is supposed to answer a challenge, but there aren’t any actual penalties for refusing. Traditional Light mages would see it as dishonourable, but the traditional Light mages don’t like me anyway.

The real danger was that I’d appear weak. But elemental mages already think diviners are weak, and it works to my advantage as often as not. Besides, I couldn’t see how declining the duel could do any more harm to my image than having Onyx publicly kick my ass.

I noticed that I was about to get a call. I took out my phone and hit the green button midway through the first ring. “Hey, Talisid.”

“Glad I caught you,” Talisid said. “There’s been a development.”

“What’s up?”

“Two Keepers have been sent to Fountain Reach. Avenor and Travis.”

I frowned. “What are they doing here?”

“They’re assigned to the apprentice investigation, so if they’re coming to you it’s a safe bet they’re following some lead.” Talisid paused. “It seems you’re starting to convince people that Fountain Reach may be the right place.”

“Well, I don’t know who convinced them but it wasn’t me.”

“You haven’t spoken to them?”

“No. When did they leave?”

“An hour or two ago. I’d expect them to be at Fountain Reach by now.”

“Um.” It bothered me for some reason. It sounded as though someone had tipped them off. But who?

“Have you made any progress?”

“Yes, but not over the phone. Talk to Sonder; he’s working on something from his end.”

“I will. Oh, and next time you go for a drive, make a little less mess, will you?”

“Yes, Talisid, the next time I have a bunch of unkillable construct assassins after me I’ll make it my number one priority to make sure you don’t have too much mess to clean up afterwards.”

“Glad to hear it.” Talisid sounded amused. “I’ll be in touch.”

I hung up and went to the duelling hall.

chapter 12

Heads turned as I walked into the hall. Onyx was there and I didn’t see any point in waiting for him to find me first. I walked towards the end of the hall, past the groups of apprentices and the mages turning to look at me.

Onyx watched me as I approached, arms folded. “You challenged me,” I told him once I was close enough. I didn’t keep my voice down and I could feel the mages around me listening. “Here’s my answer. No.”

Onyx’s lip curled. “Not fighting?”

“I’m not fighting.”

“The charges?”

“There are no charges,” I said. “You have a problem, take it to the Council.”

I’d been expecting Onyx to rage or threaten. He didn’t do either. Instead he stared at me for a long moment before giving a very slight smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Then he walked out.

Luna was waiting on the other side of the crowd. “You’re okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine.”

“Was that it? You just had to say no?”

It wasn’t it. That smile worried me. If Onyx had been counting on my accepting the duel he should have reacted more. But that was my problem, not Luna’s, and I didn’t want to put anything else on her mind just now. “Pretty much,” I said. “When’s your match?”

“They’re going to announce it,” Luna said. She’d dressed in a black form-fitting outfit I’d never seen her wear before and she was spinning the whip handle between her fingers. To my mage’s sight her curse spun about her, agitated.

I looked around. “Where’s Variam?”

“What do you mean?”

“Isn’t he a bit late?”

Luna looked at me in surprise. “He’s not in the tournament.”

“He got knocked out?”

“He forfeited. He didn’t show up to last night’s match; I guess he was with you and Anne. I thought you knew?”

I remembered how Variam had appeared suddenly last night. As soon as he’d seen that Anne was missing he must have come after us, abandoning his match without hesitation. I was getting the feeling that I was starting to understand what Variam really cared about. “Did you tell Variam we were working for Talisid?” I asked Luna.

“What? No.”

“What about Anne?”

“No. Why?”

“I was wondering how he found out.”

“Well, it wasn’t from me. You said not to tell anyone.”

I nodded. I could only think of four people who knew that it was Talisid who’d come to talk to me that day at the duelling class: me, Luna, Sonder, and Talisid himself. And I was pretty sure none of them had told Variam.

But there was someone at that duelling class who could have found out that Talisid was there without being told. And now that I thought about it, that might explain the message too . . .

A chime sounded from the podium and conversation across the hall fell silent. More than half of the apprentices competing in the White Stone had been knocked out by now, but the number of spectators had gone up if anything. There’s a lot of prestige to these tournaments.

Crystal was standing on the podium. She’d tied up her gold hair in a professional-looking style and was dressed in yet another cream-coloured suit of a slightly different cut. I wondered if she had a rack of them somewhere. She was looking confident and as everyone turned to watch she gave them all a smile. “Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the second day of the White Stone. The third round will now begin. The first match is between”—Crystal’s eyes travelled up—“Gunther Elkins and Michael Antigua.”

Gunther was a tall, serious-looking boy with Germanic features and a blond ponytail, and he strode onto the piste to face Michael, who was a head shorter than him with light brown skin and dark hair and eyes. Two mages were standing at opposite ends of the hall behind the tuning-fork focuses, and as I watched they activated them. Thin walls of energy sprang to life along the edges of the piste and shield bubbles appeared around Gunther and Michael. Both were invisible to normal eyes and even to my mage’s sight they were faint and translucent. These were the conversion fields of an azimuth duel; they radiated no energy, but under the monitoring of a skilled operator they could react instantly to any attack that struck them. There was no ceremony; the formalities had been done yesterday. The arbitrator, a white-haired mage in ceremonial robes, glanced at Gunther. “Ready?”

Gunther nodded.

“Ready?” he said to Michael.

Michael nodded.

“Fight.”

Michael attacked, strikes of water magic hammering at Gunther’s shield. Gunther parried the first strike, and the second. As Michael began another attack, Gunther slammed a blade of air through Michael’s defences, so fast that Michael had no time to raise a shield of his own. I had just a glimpse of the razor-edged shard before it vanished in a flash of light, the conversion field disintegrating it an instant before it cut into Michael’s flesh. It wouldn’t have been fatal, but it would have hurt.

“Point, right,” the arbitrator announced. “One-zero. Places.”

Gunther and Michael returned to the starting lines. The first round had taken less than three seconds.

“Fight.”

The duel continued and it quickly became obvious that Gunther was both swifter and more skilled than his opponent. By the end the score was 3–0 and Gunther shook hands with a surly-looking Michael. I glanced down to see that Luna looked nervous.

“Victor Kraft and Oscar Poulson,” Crystal announced.

Both apprentices were using focus weapons this time. Victor wielded a longsword, which was sharp and dangerous-looking even without the trail of frost it left in his wake. Oscar held something more like a fencing épée. The épée was fast and so was Oscar, but not fast enough.

“Fay Wilder and Barbara Cartwright.”

Barbara was a plain-faced stocky girl. She carried no weapon but relied instead on touch spells. Fay had curly hair and a ready smile, and she was an illusionist. Barbara’s touch spells hit only phantoms of light and shadow, while Fay’s small dagger found its mark reliably.

“Anne and Variam are here,” I commented as Fay walked off the piste to be congratulated by a smiling man in expensive-looking clothes.

“How am I supposed to beat these guys?” Luna asked. She was biting her lip. “Did you see what she just did?”

“Relax.”

“I couldn’t even see where she was. How can—?”

“Relax,” I said. “Focus on the one you will be fighting.”

Crystal was still on the podium and her gaze was resting on Fay Wilder, just as she’d watched every other apprentice who’d stepped onto the piste. I narrowed my eyes. Why are you watching them so closely?

Crystal turned away and raised her voice. “Natasha Babel . . .” Her eyes came to rest on us. “And Luna Mancuso.”

I felt Luna go stiff. “Go for it,” I said.

“It’s—”

“I know who it is. Kick her ass.”

Natasha was already walking onto the piste. Luna stepped out a moment later. She’d tied her hair back in a ponytail instead of her usual bunches, and as she took her place to the right end she looked quick and agile, standing balanced on the balls of her feet. The conversion field flared up around the piste and bubble shields appeared around Luna and Natasha. “Ready?” the arbitrator asked Luna.

Luna nodded. She was keeping the handle of her whip hidden and I nodded approvingly to myself. As I watched, the silver mist of her curse spread and unfurled around her, tendrils snaking out to a distance of two or three yards and causing faint flickers as they brushed the edge of the piste. Luna’s learnt over the past year to hold her curse in, but it’s more powerful when she doesn’t.

“Ready?” the arbitrator asked Natasha.

Natasha said something under her breath, not quite loud enough for me to hear. Luna frowned and Natasha gave her a thin smile. Just as in their first duel, Natasha carried no weapon. With her water magic she didn’t need one.

“Are you ready?” the arbitrator repeated to Natasha, more loudly.

“Ready,” Natasha said without taking her eyes off Luna.

“Fi—”

Natasha struck before the arbitrator had finished speaking, a lance of blue light stabbing at Luna’s chest. Water mages can’t manipulate the water in a human body—that’s the domain of life magic—and they can’t create water out of nowhere. But they can use the water vapour in the air to do pretty much anything water can do in much larger amounts, including hitting someone with the impact of a fire hose.

But Luna had started moving at the same time, and whether through foresight or the luck of her curse her sidestep took her far enough out of the way for the water lance to streak past. As she dodged, her right arm came up in an underarm swing and the whip came to life, its silvery length slashing upwards and straight into Natasha. The strand dissipated as it struck the bubble of Natasha’s conversion field, becoming a flash of brilliant light that made me shut my eyes.

“Point, right,” the arbitrator said. He was frowning, but neither Natasha nor Luna had quite jumped the gun.

“What was that?” Natasha demanded. “That’s not fair!”

“Point, right,” the arbitrator repeated more loudly. “One-zero.” Luna brought the whip back, the strand of silver mist curling around her feet. I’d expected it to go for the spectators, but it didn’t; it was pointed towards Natasha, coiled and ready. For Natasha’s part, she looked taken aback. This obviously wasn’t going the way she’d expected.

“Ready?” the arbitrator asked once everything was settled. I could hear murmurs from the crowd, people whispering in undertones. Luna’s curse is very difficult to see; my mage’s sight is better than most and even I can only spot it because I know exactly what to look for. To most of the mages here, it would have looked like Luna hit Natasha without doing anything.

“Fight!”

A spherical shield of flickering blue light sprang up around Natasha, the water magic combining magical energy and pressure to repel attacks. Luna’s whip sprang out eagerly and the silver mist bit into the sphere, but the shield held. Luna pulled back and struck again, stepping forward as Natasha stepped back. Light sparked from Natasha’s shield at the points of impact, silver-blue instead of the white flash of the conversion field. The whip was fast and responsive and it gathered itself for a new strike more quickly than any normal whip could do, but there was still a slight delay between each attack. Natasha timed it carefully, then as Luna was pulling back for another stroke she dropped her shield and sent a full-strength blast of water magic streaming down the piste. Luna was off-balance and didn’t manage to dodge. The azimuth shield took the brunt of the attack with a brilliant flash, but it couldn’t stop all the kinetic energy of the impact. Luna flew five feet before hitting the floor and slid and rolled for another ten.

“Point, left,” the arbitrator said as another murmur went up around the hall. “One-all. Is right able to continue?”

Luna got to one knee, steadying herself and locking gazes with Natasha. There was a small cut on her lip. “Oh, I didn’t hurt you, did I?” Natasha said, her eyes wide.

“You wish,” Luna said.

“Places,” the arbitrator said loudly.

Luna rose and walked to the starting lines. Her curse lashed and twisted around her, and it looked pissed off. Over the crowd I caught a glimpse of Anne and Variam watching closely. Anne looked worried. Variam just looked like he was enjoying the show.

“Ready?” the arbitrator said. “Fight!”

Both Luna and Natasha started more cautiously this time, neither wanting to risk an attack that might leave them open. Luna attacked first, her whip flicking out to glance off Natasha’s shield. Natasha struck back but this time Luna’s whip met the attack head on, slashing into the lance of water and erasing it in a flash of light before it could reach her. Natasha pulled away.

Luna began to advance. This time instead of big slow swings she kept the whip in front of her, slashing at Natasha with quick strikes that didn’t leave her vulnerable. Natasha backed off as the whip cut into her shield, the impacts landing left and right and left again. Luna kept advancing, eyes narrowed in concentration, and it became obvious that Natasha didn’t have an answer for the steady beat of attacks. Experienced battle-mages can shield and strike at the same time but Natasha didn’t have the skill. Natasha kept backing away, flinching. Left, right, left—and then Luna changed the pattern. Instead of going back to the right she flipped the whip handle through a complex move and the whip reared up behind Natasha like a striking scorpion, stabbing through the back of her shield where it was weaker in a flash of brilliant white.

“Point, right. Two-one. Places.”

Luna backed off. She was breathing hard but she looked satisfied. Natasha didn’t.

“Match point,” the arbitrator said. “Ready?”

Luna nodded.

“Ready?”

Natasha gave a tiny nod.

“Fi—”

Natasha struck with overwhelming force, sending a pillar of blue light at Luna with bone-crushing power. But Luna’s curse saved her again, her sidestep taking her just far enough away. The whip licked out without Luna even swinging it and the silver strand hit Natasha squarely in the face. The conversion field couldn’t stop it all this time and through the brilliant flash I saw a tendril of mist stroke Natasha’s cheek, soaking into her.

“Point, right,” the arbitrator said. “Match. Luna Mancuso wins three-one.”

The crowd started to applaud. Natasha just stood there, staring at Luna. Luna’s curse can’t be felt when it hits. To Natasha it would have seemed as though Luna had won without even touching her. The mages at the back of the piste released their spell on the azimuth focuses and the shields winked out. Luna turned her back on Natasha and marched down the piste, holding the handle of her whip high in triumph. She looked for me in the crowd, grinning. “Alex!” she shouted over the applause. “Did you—?”

Behind, Natasha’s face twisted in sudden rage.

“Luna!” I shouted.

Dark blue-green light streamed from Natasha’s hand and this time there was no azimuth shield to stop it. Luna had started to turn and the movement took her partly out of the line of the spell but not quite far enough. It splashed across her side and lower back.

Luna hit the floor with a shriek. A second later the arbitrator grabbed Natasha, dragging her off the piste. I was running for Luna but as I reached the piste I checked myself. Luna was writhing on the floor in pain and her curse was active and uncontrolled, twisting and striking blindly. If I came any closer—

Then Anne was there and she didn’t hesitate. She dropped to her knees beside Luna, pulling Luna over onto her front. Luna screamed again and as I saw her back I drew a breath in horror. Natasha’s spell had eaten through Luna’s clothes and skin, revealing red muscle and white bone. And as Anne touched her, Luna’s curse jumped into her, tendrils wrapping around Anne and soaking through her skin. If Anne was aware of what Luna’s curse was doing she didn’t show it. She placed her hands on Luna’s back at the edge of the horrible injury and concentrated.

Soft green light flared up, linking the two girls together. Luna arched her spine, but she wasn’t screaming anymore. The blood soaking from the wound stopped flowing, and as I watched the ruined muscles began to regrow, interlacing and rebuilding themselves before my eyes. White bone disappeared beneath flesh and the flesh disappeared beneath a new layer of pale white skin. It was over in seconds. Where Luna’s back had been a ruined mess, now it was bare and flawless. The only sign of the wound was the ragged hole in her clothes.

Anne tried to get to her feet, staggered, and nearly fell. Luna’s curse was still streaming into her and I jumped in and drew her away out of range. Luna sat up on the floor, but she was obviously dazed and didn’t know what was going on. The hall was filled with shouts and noise. I held Anne up and an instant later Variam was there, supporting her as well. I could see the silver mist of Luna’s curse glowing around Anne—

—And with a snap it was gone. I whirled, going tense. I’ve seen Luna’s curse triggering enough times to recognise it. Something was coming for Anne and I tried to watch in every direction at once, expecting danger any moment.

Seconds ticked by and nothing happened. Luna was trying to get to her feet. “Luna,” I called. “Luna! We’re getting out of here.”

Luna wasn’t in any state to argue. I was vaguely aware of people trying to talk to us but I didn’t care; I needed to get Anne and Luna somewhere safe. Somehow we got out of the duelling hall and into the corridor, me leading while Variam brought up the rear. My shoulders itched as we hurried down the hall. I didn’t know what was coming, but it was going to be bad.

Nothing came. We made it back to Anne and Luna’s room without anything happening.

I shut the door and locked it as Luna collapsed on the bed. Anne was sitting leaning against the wall, eyes closed, and she actually looked more drained than Luna. “Variam,” I said. “Will they be okay?”

“They’ll be fine.” But Variam was frowning. “Isn’t it dangerous getting close to—”

“Yes,” I said. I was still trying to make sense of it. Luna and her bed and her clothes glowed with silver mist, but Anne had nothing. The only way that could make sense was if the curse had already activated . . . but if it had, why wasn’t anything happening?

“Be okay,” Anne said drowsily. “Just a little while.”

Now that Anne and Luna were out of danger I was torn between wanting to stay with them to make sure they were safe, and wanting to find Natasha and kill her. Wanting to keep them safe won. “What about Luna?” I asked Anne.

“It’s weird,” Anne said. She still sounded half-asleep. “What you said last night? Now I feel like someone’s watching me . . .”

Something about the words gave me a chill, but it was hard to concentrate with Luna like this. “Is Luna going to be okay?”

“What? Oh.” Anne shook herself and seemed to come awake. “Yes. She just needs a rest.”

I looked over at Luna. She was sprawled on her bed with one hand resting on the pillow and she seemed to have fallen asleep. As I looked into the short-term future I began to calm down a little. It was hard to see far but I couldn’t see anything catastrophic happening to anyone just yet.

“Um,” Anne said. She sounded a little embarrassed. “I’m going to need something to eat.”

“I’ll get you something,” I said. “Don’t leave this room.” I glanced at Variam. “Stay with them.”

Variam nodded.

*  *  *

It took a little while to find the kitchens and talk the staff into getting me something. I kept getting distracted by thoughts of what Natasha had done, and every time I did I felt a wave of white-hot rage. I wanted to go after her but knew that in my current state it would be a really bad idea. From the noise and the lack of crowds I could tell that the tournament was still going on, and that pissed me off even more.

I got back to Anne and Luna’s room and had just set down the tray to knock on the door when I stopped. The door was open.

I pushed the door open with my left hand, my right slipping inside my coat. Luna was alone in the room, sprawled on the bed right where I’d left her, the silver mist of her curse twining lazily around her body as she slept. Anne and Variam were gone.

What the hell?

I scanned the immediate futures but couldn’t find anything. With the mansion’s wards I couldn’t see far enough to find out where they were. I leant back out into the corridor and saw a girl peeking out of a room two doors down. “Hey,” I said. “Where did the apprentices in this room go?”

“I don’t know . . .”

As I looked at the girl I recognised her. She was the same one I’d seen Anne talking to two days ago. “What’s your name?”

“Celia.” The girl came hesitantly out of her room, drawing a little closer. She was small, with blond hair and glasses. “Is Anne okay?”

“Where did she go?”

“They took her away.”

“Who?”

“Two mages. They said they were from the Council?”

“Where did they take her?”

“I don’t know. Variam went with her, he was shouting . . .”

My phone rang. I took one glance at who it was, then pointed to Luna and Anne’s room. “I need you to help my apprentice. Stay in that room and keep an eye on her. Don’t go near her, just make sure she’s not left alone. Okay?”

Celia hesitated. “Okay.”

As Celia disappeared into the room I took out my phone, hit the Talk button, and started walking. “Talisid, can you explain to me why two mages who sound a hell of a lot like Council Keepers just took Anne away for questioning?”

“You’ve heard, then.” Talisid sounded troubled.

“No, I just like making lucky guesses. Of course I’ve heard.” I reached an intersection and stopped to think. The Keepers would have taken over a room for interrogation. It wouldn’t be in the bedroom wing, it would be somewhere quieter . . . I picked a direction and started walking again. “What the hell are they thinking?”

“I’ve been on the phone to the department. Apparently they’ve received some new information linking Anne Walker to the disappearances.”

“That’s ridiculous. Anne’s one of the ones helping me. What information?”

“There was a tip-off from an apprentice—”

“Natasha. Jesus.” I covered my eyes. “She doesn’t have a clue what she’s talking about. They’re arresting her over apprentice gossip!”

“That wasn’t all. How much do you know about this girl?”

“Why does it matter?” I took a glance down an empty corridor, searching through the immediate futures of opening the doors. Nothing was there and I kept going, navigating by the distant murmur of sound from the duelling hall.

“After they received the tip-off they did some investigation. And they found that Anne Walker knew or was in contact with all four missing apprentices.”

“Every apprentice knows every other apprentice. It’s not that big a community.”

“There’s more.” Talisid didn’t sound happy. “They found that in each case Anne had been in a position to learn where that apprentice would be just a day or two before their disappearance. And with the first victim, Caroline Montroyd, Anne seems to have been the only one who was told.”

I stopped. “How?”

“We always knew there was someone feeding information from the inside. We may have found that someone.”

I started walking again and quickened my pace. “It’s circumstantial.”

“Maybe it is. But I’m looking over the report right now and I assure you it’s very suspicious. Especially concerning a subject who was a Dark apprentice.”

“She wasn’t a Dark apprentice,” I said in frustration. “Her or Variam. They got kidnapped into it.”

“How do you know?” Talisid asked.

“They told me.”

“Has anyone else confirmed that story?”

“No . . .”

“I see.”

“This doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Someone’s been trying to kill Anne. She’s the target.”

“Didn’t you say you thought there were two groups doing this?” Talisid said. I started to answer but he carried on, cutting me off. “Look, it’s not yet established that she’s a willing accomplice. She could be being used as an information source without her knowledge.”

I thought of how Anne always seemed to know what was going on amongst the apprentices. Luna’s words: The younger apprentices really like Anne. They tell her everything. Something uneasy twisted inside me.

I heard the sound of raised voices ahead. One of the voices was Variam’s, and as I heard it something fell into place. “I’ve found them,” I said. “I’ll call you back.”

Talisid sighed. “Please try not to do anything stupid.”

“When have I ever done that?”

“I’ll let you fill in the response to that yourself,” Talisid said. “Good luck.”

I switched off the phone and looked down the corridor. A mage was standing in front of a closed door, arms folded, and Variam was shouting at him. One or two heads were peeking out of doors to see what the noise was about, but the tournament was still running and most of the mansion’s population was in the duelling hall.

I walked out around the corner. “You can’t do this!” Variam was shouting. “You have to—”

“Variam,” I said. “We need to talk.”

Variam and the mage both turned to me. The mage was lean and tough-looking, his eyes impassive. “This one yours?” he asked me.

“Variam,” I said again.

Variam shot the mage a glare, then stalked down the corridor towards me. “They’ve got Anne in that room,” he said as we turned the corner. “They won’t let me in—”

I opened a door to the left. It led into a small boxroom. Variam walked in and I closed the door behind us as Variam kept talking. “Look, you’ve got to do something. They think she—”

“Shut up,” I said.

Variam stopped, turning to stare in surprise.

“I just got off the phone with Talisid,” I said. “Remember Talisid? The guy who got me to investigate these disappearances?”

“Yeah.” Variam still looked taken aback. “So wh—”

“How did you know that?”

“What?”

“How did you know I was working for Talisid?”

“Uh—you were talking about it, last—”

“Last night in the woods, yeah. But you knew before. You told me at the motorway services while Anne was having that chat with Hobson.”

Variam hesitated. “You must have—”

“After I got home from that duelling class four days ago I got a message pointing me towards Fountain Reach,” I said. “You know what really bothered me about that message? How fast it was. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I started to think that the one who’d sent it must have been at the duelling class too. But even then there was a problem. Talisid hadn’t shown himself to you or Lyle or Charles or Natasha or anyone else. All you guys saw was me and Luna leaving the room and then coming back. But that doesn’t matter to Anne, does it? She can pick out a living person through a wall with no trouble at all. She would have known we were talking to Talisid. And she trusts you. She would have told you.”

Variam didn’t move. “So you sent me that message,” I said. “And I think I know why. Talisid just told me that all four missing apprentices had a connection to Anne. I think you’ve known that for a long time and you’ve been terrified someone else will find out. That was why you sent me to Fountain Reach. You were trying to get me looking there instead of at her.”

“I—” Variam stopped. “No, I didn’t.”

“You probably sent the same message to Onyx too,” I said. “And nearly got me killed as a result, not that you seem to care. For all I know you spammed a dozen mages and we’re just the ones who happened to pay attention. What I want to know is why. You didn’t pick Fountain Reach out of a hat. What did you know about this place that made you send us here?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what?”

Variam hesitated. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bullshit! Tell me what you know, now.”

“Screw you,” Variam said. He was starting to get angry again. “Why should I trust you?”

I stared at Variam for a second, then turned on my heel. “You’re on your own.”

“Hey!” Variam shouted.

I looked back at him. “Hey, what?”

“You’re supposed to be helping Anne!”

“Helping Anne?” I let go of the doorknob and stalked towards Variam, looming over him to stare into his eyes. Variam drew back, startled. “You ungrateful little shit. Since we met I have done everything I possibly can to protect you and Anne and you have given me nothing but grief for it. It’s because of me those assassins didn’t kill Anne four days ago and it’s because of me those constructs didn’t kill both of you last night. I’ve risked my life to help you and I haven’t asked for a thing in return except your cooperation. Now I find you’ve been trying to manipulate me from the start and you have the nerve to ask why you should trust me? You can’t even do something as simple as watch over Luna while she’s asleep and helpless. You’ve been right on the fence between asset and liability for a while now and you just took a dive down the liability side.” I shook my head and turned back towards the door. “I’m done wasting time on you.”

Variam caught my shoulder. “Wait!”

“For what? For you to spin me more bullshit?”

“I need your help,” Variam said. It sounded like it was difficult for him to get the words out, but he managed. “To help Anne.”

“I’ve been doing nothing but helping Anne.”

“All right,” Variam said. He looked nervous. “I’ll tell you.”

“The truth this time?”

Variam nodded.

“Fine,” I said. “But listen closely, because I’m only going to say this once. If I catch you lying to me one more time I’m going to cut you loose for good. And Variam?” I leant in close. “I’m very good at knowing when people are lying to me.”

Variam flinched slightly and I pulled back. “Why Fountain Reach?”

“Look, I wanted to tell you,” Variam began. “I just couldn’t see how it was any use.”

“Where did you get the name?”

“Jagadev,” Variam said. “I went to him, after Vanessa. He told me the disappearances were connected to Fountain Reach but he wouldn’t say why.”

“Did he say anything about how or who?”

Variam shook his head.

“How long have you known that it was something to do with Anne?”

“It’s not! She’s not doing anything, none of us are! It’s just . . . I thought it was just a coincidence. I mean, there aren’t that many apprentices. But when every one of them seemed to . . . I knew what they’d think. Everyone always thinks we’re some kind of monsters. I knew they wouldn’t listen to us.”

“So you tried to push everyone away.” I shook my head. “If you’d told me earlier I could have gone looking for an explanation. Now she’s already been arrested and we’re up against the clock. You’ve made this a hell of a lot more difficult.”

“I’m sorry,” Variam said. “I didn’t know what to do.”

I sighed and put a hand to my head, tapping my fingers against my forehead. “All right,” I said. “All right. The Council can be assholes, but they’re not incompetent. If those Keepers have arrested Anne it probably means there’s real evidence against her. Do you think Anne’s been helping kidnap these apprentices?”

“Of course not!”

“Neither do I. That means someone must be using Anne as an information source. We need to talk to her and find out all the people she’s been speaking to. Then we can narrow down who it might be.”

Variam perked up. “Yeah. Okay.”

I started for the door and paused. “Oh, and it’s about time you dropped the rebellious teenager act. We’re about to talk to Keepers. Be polite.”

Variam looked indignant. “But they—”

“I know what they did and I know how you feel about it. But all it’ll do is make them more likely to say no. You’re an adult; time to start acting like it.”

Variam gave a reluctant nod.

*  *  *

I was rehearsing speeches in my head as we came back around the corner, but as we came out into the corridor I frowned. The door that had been blocked by the Keeper was hanging open. Variam and I exchanged glances and walked in.

The guest room was small, with a single faded bed, and had no windows or doors except for the one we’d just come through. One of the Council Keepers was standing in a corner with his back to us talking into his mobile phone: “. . . hair black, eyes red-brown, early twenties, wearing a green skirt and jumper. Last seen fifteen minutes ago and . . .”

The other Keeper, the hard-looking one who’d been blocking the door, turned towards us with a frown. “Where’s Anne?” I asked before he could get a word out.

“What are you doing here?”

“Looking for Anne. Where is she?”

“This is a restricted area,” the Keeper began.

“I’m looking for the apprentice you were holding here,” I said, keeping my voice even. “Given that she was in your custody, that makes you responsible for her under Council law. I am making a formal request to speak with her. Please.”

The Keeper looked from me to Variam and hesitated. “You’re going to have to come back—”

The second Keeper snapped his phone shut and turned towards us. “Verus,” he said. He was older than his partner, with greying hair and sharp eyes. “What do you know about this?”

“At the moment, nothing,” I said. I had to force myself to stay calm. “Would you happen to know where Anne Walker is?”

The Keeper studied me. “She appears to have fled.”

I looked at him, then around at the bare room with its complete absence of other exits. Then I looked back at him. “You left her alone?”

“She used a gate spell,” the older Keeper said.

“That’s impossible.”

“Apparently not.”

“Anne can’t use gate magic!” Variam burst out.

“What about the wards?” I said.

The Keeper looked at me with raised eyebrows. “That is an extremely good question.”

“This doesn’t make sense,” I said. It took all I had to keep my voice level. “I couldn’t get through these gate wards, and neither could you. Are you seriously telling me that you believe an apprentice found a way through a gate ward when two Council Keepers couldn’t?”

“I know what a gate spell feels like, all right?” the younger Keeper said irritably. “And that’s what I felt through that door. Crystal and her ‘impenetrable’ wards, my—”

“Look, Verus,” the older Keeper said. “We’re a little busy. Can you tell us where Anne Walker is?”

I was silent. “I don’t know,” I said at last.

“Then I’m sorry but we’ve got work to do.” The Keeper walked past, taking out his phone again as he vanished into the corridor. The other followed, shooting me a suspicious look.

“Where is she?” Variam demanded. He was looking around the room as if he expected Anne to pop out of hiding.

“Give me a second,” I said quietly. My head was whirling.

“She couldn’t have gated out of here,” Variam said. “She can’t even use gate magic!”

“I know,” I said. I felt as though I were on the verge of getting it. I just needed one more piece . . .

“Those Keepers must have taken her,” Variam said.

“They didn’t,” I said absently.

“There couldn’t have been a gate spell.”

“That Keeper said there was.”

“Then he was lying!”

“Maybe—” I began, and stopped.

“You can’t get a gate spell through these wards,” Variam repeated. “If she’s not here it means—”

“Variam?” I said. “Why are these wards still working?”

“Huh?”

“Remember what Sonder said last night?” I said. “Wards like this take a lot of maintenance. Why haven’t they run down?”

“Who cares?” Variam said. “I guess Crystal’s fixing them.”

“But Sonder said Vitus Aubuchon attuned them to himself,” I said. “It would have been almost impossible for someone else to take control of Fountain Reach.”

“Well, Crystal figured it out.”

“Maybe she didn’t,” I said quietly.

Variam looked at me in confusion. “What?”

I didn’t answer. A dozen images and thoughts were spinning through my head. A portrait on a wall. Notes on longevity magic, failed experiments on yellowing paper. Vitus Aubuchon, who had been sickly and aging and obsessed with his health. Sonder’s words: Basically all of Fountain Reach is one giant focus. As long as you’re within it, you can use it to power spells . . . Luna insisting that it couldn’t be a coincidence, two victims of the same age at the same place. Crystal’s scorn at working for the Council until she was “old and grey.” Anne’s last words: Now I feel like someone’s watching me . . .

I pulled out my phone and dialled Talisid’s number. It took Talisid a while to answer and when he did he sounded harassed. “Verus, I’ve got two other people—”

“One quick question,” I said. “The Aubuchon family used to own Fountain Reach.”

“Yes—”

“The last mage of the dynasty, Vitus Aubuchon,” I said. “Do you know what type of mage he was?”

“He was a space mage. Spatial manipulation, gate magic, that sort of thing. Is this—?”

Something clicked. “That’s all,” I said, and hung up and turned back to Variam. “We need to get back to Luna.”

“Do you know where Anne is?”

“No. But I think I know who took her.”

*  *  *

Luna was sitting up in bed by the time we got back to her room. She’d eaten everything I’d brought from the kitchens and was looking a lot healthier. I thanked Celia and sent her away, closing the door behind her before turning to Variam and Luna. I hadn’t answered any of Variam’s questions and both of them were watching me. “We don’t have much time,” I began, “so we’re going to have to make this fast.”

“Who took Anne?” Variam said.

“The same man who took that girl thirty years ago,” I said. “And God only knows how many others. Vitus Aubuchon.”

Variam frowned. “I thought he was—”

“Not dead,” I said. “Disappeared, yes, but not dead. He was doing longevity research, looking for a way to prolong his life. I think he found one.” I looked at Luna. “Remember what I told you about vampires? How they could live off humans by drinking their blood? There have always been rumours that before they were wiped out, some mages got vampires to teach them the trick.”

Luna’s eyes widened a little. “Wait, you mean . . . ?”

“Here’s what I think happened,” I said. “Vitus Aubuchon wanted to live forever. He couldn’t use life magic, so he designed this house as a giant focus for a longevity spell. But it needed fuel. Human fuel, young people in the prime of their youth and strength. It worked for a long time but then something went wrong. For whatever reason normal children weren’t enough anymore. So Vitus decided to start feeding off apprentices instead.

“And then Crystal came. I don’t know how they met, but they made some sort of deal. Crystal would find apprentices, ones who were vulnerable and alone, and bring them here to Fountain Reach for Vitus to feed on . . .” I trailed off, remembering Crystal’s words from two nights ago. The entire point of this whole plan was so we didn’t have to keep picking at random . . . “Shit,” I said quietly to myself.

“What?”

“That’s why Crystal held the tournament here,” I said. “They’re not looking for just any apprentice. They’re looking for the right apprentice. The point of the tournament was so that they could get a close-up view of all the apprentices using their magic. Anne hasn’t healed anyone since getting here, has she?”

“No . . .” Variam said.

I nodded. “Not until now. Vitus saw her and that was it. As soon as she was alone he snatched her and unless we stop him he’s going to do the same thing to her that he’s done to everyone else.”

“How do we get her back?” Variam said.

“I don’t know.”

“What?”

“I’m still working on that part.”

“You just said we didn’t have much time!”

“Vitus is a space mage. He could have taken Anne anywhere and I don’t know where.”

“Wait,” Luna broke in. “Didn’t Sonder say Vitus would have to stay inside the house?”

I nodded. “I don’t think she’s far, but—”

“So let’s burn the house down,” Variam said.

Luna looked at Variam in disbelief. “Are you nuts?”

“It’ll flush him out, won’t it?”

“It’s not going to—”

“Actually,” I said slowly, “I think that’s not a bad idea.” I turned towards the door. “Get ready for a fight. I’ll explain along the way.”

*  *  *

I got my gear, Luna got her whip, and I led her and Variam upstairs through Fountain Reach. “The first time I came here, Onyx shredded a wall,” I said. “When he did there was a scream. It was like some kind of defence system, but now I don’t think it was. I think Vitus is linked to this house. Hurting it hurts him.”

“So how does that help us find Anne?” Variam asked.

We turned down an old crooked corridor with animal heads lining the walls. “Wherever Vitus takes his victims, it’s somewhere hidden,” I said. “We won’t find it, not in time. But if Vitus could bring Anne there, he could bring us there too.”

The bedroom within looked just as it had the last two times I’d seen Crystal in it: old and dusty with a moth-eaten bed. The portrait on the wall stared down at us, sunken eyes looking out of a thin face. “What about everyone else?” Luna asked.

“You remember Anne’s story from last night?” I said. “Someone tried to burn Fountain Reach before and something stopped them. I don’t think Vitus can do anything in this part of the house, not directly. He has to take them somewhere else first.”

Luna looked from me to Variam. I could tell she wasn’t sure about the plan but didn’t want to go back either. “Now?” Variam asked.

I nodded. “Do it.”

Orange-red light flared up around Variam’s hands and heat poured into the back of the room. The wallpaper blackened then ignited, flames licking up from the floor. Luna and I backed away towards the door.

I felt a pulse of magic and a mental chime: an alarm spell. “Keep going,” I said, but Variam didn’t need to be told. More heat went in. The old bedroom was dry as dust and the flames were spreading quickly, the carpet at the end catching fire and the bed smouldering as well. The temperature in the room was rising but Variam did something and it levelled out, the heat staying in the far end of the room. Smoke was starting to spread and I coughed.

In the distance I could hear shouts and running footsteps. “Is it working?” Luna called.

“No!” I tried to think about the last time I’d seen the house react violently. Onyx had ripped a hole through the corridor. “Go for the walls!”

Variam raised his hand and an orange-red beam sprang out. It carved into the walls as though they were butter and cut sideways, burning a gash through the bones and structure of Fountain Reach.

This time the response was instant. A scream knifed through my head, pain and fury and discord. I’d been ready and only flinched, but Luna and Variam both doubled over. Variam lost his grip on his spells; the beam winked out and the heat rushed in, scorching me. “Variam!” I shouted.

Variam recovered, forcing the temperature down. The whole far end of the room was a sheet of flame now, the bed blackening and crumbling in the inferno as the fire reached eagerly towards us. Flames were licking up around the edge of the painting, the man inside seeming to glare out at us. I could sense people coming down the corridor and I recognised Lyle and Crystal. Variam struck again, that beam of fire slicing into the walls, and this time I felt the wards around us waver as Variam’s attack cut through one of the weblike strands that supported the spell around Fountain Reach.

The scream was louder, and this time there was only pain. The wards shifted, turned, and I felt the pull of a gate spell, space seeming to ripple and twist just as Lyle appeared in the doorway. The spell was centred around me and Variam and Luna but Lyle was caught too, dragged in from the edge. I caught one glimpse of Lyle’s startled face, Luna and Variam turning towards me, the flames guttering and dying as their fuel was sucked away from them, then the four of us were drawn elsewhere and everything was gone.

chapter 13

. . . And silence.

I was in a small windowless room that smelt of dust. I spun, checking for danger, but the futures ahead of me were silent and still. I was alone.

There were no lights but somehow I could still see. The place was lit with a weird kind of shadowy illumination that wasn’t light or darkness but something in between. I scanned but couldn’t sense the presence of Luna and Variam or anyone else. I opened the door and stepped out into a corridor. Like the room it was lit up in the same strange half-light, and looking down the hall I could see old darkened tables and animal heads mounted on the walls.

I was in Fountain Reach . . . except I wasn’t. The air was too still, the corridors too quiet. I’d never been comfortable in Fountain Reach, but this place felt utterly dead; it was hard to imagine anything living here. And yet at the same time it felt oddly familiar, as though I’d seen it before.

As I stood in the corridor I felt a weird shivering sensation. Just for an instant it felt as though there were someone else in the corridor walking straight through me—and then it was gone. I drew back, focusing my senses, and to my surprise found I could sense the presence of other people, very faintly. As I watched their shadowy outlines flitted through a wall and were gone.

I remembered the sense I’d had in Fountain Reach of something watching me, and realised that now I was doing the same thing. I was invisible to these people, as though I were hidden in the walls, peeking out through the cracks into the world of light and life.

This was where Vitus Aubuchon had gone. He’d created another place within Fountain Reach, a shadow reality where nobody else could go but from where he could look out . . . and draw people in. As I realised that, I noticed something else: My divination magic wasn’t damped and fuzzy anymore. Experimentally I tried looking a few minutes into the future and found that I could. The wards only blocked the other Fountain Reach, not this one. Vitus had designed Fountain Reach to cloud the senses of anyone coming here, but he’d left it so that he could see clearly himself.

I scanned ahead through the futures, searching for movement. I found Luna first, some distance away but on the same floor. Variam was next, moving towards Luna, and Lyle was nearby too. The spell had scattered us, splitting us up around this other Fountain Reach. But as I looked further, something else caught my attention. There was someone who wasn’t here yet . . . but she’d be arriving in the next couple of minutes and she was someone I did not want near Luna or Variam.

I turned away from Luna and began walking quickly down the corridor, searching through the futures in my head to narrow down the entry point. My footsteps echoed in the empty hallway, loud in the silence. The colours looked odd in this place, washed out and grey, and the air tasted dead and stale. I noticed my route would pass near a window and took a moment to look outside.

The view outside was . . . strange. Just like inside, everything was illuminated in a weird half-light, but there wasn’t any ground. Where the grounds of Fountain Reach should have been was a greyish mist and the sky above was covered in dark cloud. Looking farther into the distance, both mist and cloud faded away within a few hundred feet, meeting in blackness. Somehow I had the feeling that getting out of here on foot wasn’t an option.

Our new visitor would be arriving in only a couple of minutes, and I hurried down a narrow disused corridor towards the small door at the end. I reached the door, opened it, and paused. Behind the door was only a blank wall.

Interesting. I closed the door, stood behind it, and waited.

One minute later, I felt a tingle of magic and there was the sound of a key turning in a lock. The door swung open—but this time it opened into a small old room, which seemed to flame with brilliant colour. This was the real world, not the half-real copy I was in. A beautiful woman in a cream-coloured suit walked in quickly, letting the door swing shut behind her without looking back.

She sensed me before she’d gone two steps, but too late. Before she could turn I had my left hand tangled in her hair and pulling her head up while my right hand held a knife against her throat. “Crystal,” I said into her ear. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Crystal held quite still. Without moving the knife I took the item from her unresisting hand, then held it up where I could see it. It was a small iron key and it radiated magic. “A focus,” I said. “So Vitus gave you a way to get in and out of this place on your own, huh?”

“I don’t know what you’re hoping to accomplish,” Crystal said without turning her head, “but this is not a good way to go about it.” Despite the knife to her throat, her voice was steady.

“First things first,” I said, dropping the key into my pocket. “Please don’t try any attacks. No matter how fast you think you are, I promise you you’re not as fast as a muscle twitch. Now how about you lead me to where Vitus Aubuchon has been taking the kids?”

“I’m not quite sure what you’re talking about.”

I let myself think about the fact that if Crystal was going to be uncooperative it would be faster just to slit her throat and find Vitus’s lair myself.

“Oh, Vitus Aubuchon,” Crystal said hurriedly. “You’re looking for his sanctum?”

“Yes I am. Start walking.”

Crystal did. I matched pace with her, keeping the knife pressed against her throat and keeping my divination focused on the short-term chances of her trying anything. As long as I kept the knife there, they were very low. I’d spent enough time around Crystal to get a fairly good handle on her personality and I’d pegged her as the cautious type. I didn’t think she’d try to attack on her own, not as long as she thought she could get out of this some other way. “What is this place?” I said.

“I don’t actually know the details—”

I let myself think of cutting Crystal’s throat again.

Crystal changed gears quickly. “—it’s a shadow realm of Fountain Reach. It’s a copy, slightly out of phase with reality. The wards link the copy with the original.”

“And that key is a focus that lets you go between the two, right?”

“. . . Yes. But it’s not easy to use, you have to—”

“I’m sure I’ll figure it out.”

“Please don’t tell Vitus I let you know any of this,” Crystal said. She sounded afraid, fearful. “He’ll kill me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’ll help you. I’ll take you to him. Is that all right?”

“That’s great. Down these stairs?”

“Yes . . . Could you take the knife away?”

“I don’t think so.” I started down the stairs, keeping the knife to Crystal’s throat.

“Look, I didn’t have any choice,” Crystal said anxiously. “He brought me here the first time. If I didn’t help him he was going to—”

“He was going to do what?” I said. “Vitus can’t do anything outside this house. In fact, I don’t think he can even leave this house. So what exactly was stopping you from walking away as soon as you got out that first time?”

“There are—things he can do,” Crystal said with a little catch in her voice. “You don’t understand. He’s—”

“Oh, spare me the bullshit,” I said. “I’m not as gullible as Lyle. If you’re going to lie at least make it interesting.”

Crystal was silent for five seconds and when she spoke again the pretence of fear was gone from her voice; it was precise and cool. “I’m going to enjoy watching Vitus kill you.”

“You know, that might be the first honest thing you’ve ever said to me.” Following Crystal’s lead, I turned down another hallway; we were descending towards the lower regions of Fountain Reach. “While we’re on this truthful streak, why don’t you tell me why you signed up with Vitus?”

“Why should I?”

“Because you’re hoping to kill me before we leave, so where’s the harm?”

“That’s an interesting perspective.”

“Okay, let’s try another question. How long has Anne got before Vitus kills her?”

“That is the question, isn’t it?” Crystal said calmly. “Let’s just say that if I were you I wouldn’t wait around.”

A flash of anger went through me but I kept my voice level. “You’re very funny.”

Crystal suddenly came to a stop. We’d reached an intersection, corridors stretching away in all four directions into darkness. When Crystal spoke, her voice was suddenly high and frightened again. “No, please don’t hurt me! I’ll do whatever you say!”

I growled. “Stop that.” I was watching Crystal’s future actions closely and I could sense she was coiled, ready to strike. “I told you—”

The attack came from behind: a chaotic surge of fear and emotion and confusion that scrambled my thoughts. Crystal reacted instantly, ducking away from the knife as she struck at me with a wave of agony. But I’d had an instant’s warning and I was already moving, my instincts sending me diving to one side around the corner and out of line of sight while my conscious mind struggled to catch up. The backwash of Crystal’s spell sent pain up and down my nerves but a moment later I had my back pressed up against the wall.

“Lyle!” I heard Crystal gasp as I collected my thoughts. “You made it!”

Anger drove out the aftereffects of Lyle’s spell. “Lyle, you idiot!” I shouted around the corner. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Look, Alex,” Lyle called back. “Just put the knife down and we can talk about this.”

“Your psycho girlfriend is the one I need the knife to protect me from!” I shouted. “Along with all the apprentices she’s—”

Crystal moved in fast. I saw her coming, knew she was about to attack, and turned and ran. I might have been able to take Crystal one on one, but not with Lyle helping her. I sprinted down the hallway and ducked into a side passage a moment before Crystal made it around the corner. Crystal tried to chase me, but I was faster than she was and those heels didn’t do much to help her running speed. It didn’t take long before she gave up and went back towards Lyle, whom I could dimly hear calling in the distance.

I slowed to a jog, searching through the futures ahead as I mapped out a route to meet up with Variam and Luna. All the time I’d been interrogating Crystal she must have been talking telepathically with Lyle, convincing him that I was the bad guy and that she needed his help and directing him in to intercept us. And she’d done it while keeping up a second conversation with me and while reading my thoughts, all at the same time. I’d underestimated her.

I intercepted Variam and Luna at a landing leading off into a T junction. “Variam, Luna,” I called softly around the corner. “It’s me.”

“Alex?” Luna asked. She sounded relieved.

“Wait,” Variam said sharply. “Come out where we can see you.”

Luna was about to protest, but I stepped out with a shake of my head. “It’s all right.” I held my hands up for Variam to see; he was in the shadows around the corner, where he thought I couldn’t see him. “Okay?”

Variam studied me suspiciously for a moment, then nodded. “It’s him.”

Luna, Variam, and I gathered on the landing and I gave them a quick once-over. “You two okay?”

“We’re fine, we met up a couple of minutes ago,” Luna said. “Are you all right?”

I led Luna and Variam in the direction they’d come from and as I did I caught them up on my brief encounter with Lyle and Crystal. “Lyle’s working with her?” Luna said indignantly.

“Much as I’d love to blame this on him, probably not. I think Crystal’s using him as a patsy.”

“You’re keeping tabs on them, right?”

I nodded. “We’re about two minutes ahead of them. Crystal had to spin Lyle a story and it looks like it slowed them down.”

“Is Anne okay?” Variam asked.

“I think so.”

“What do you mean, you think so?”

“I think so.”

“Is she alive or hurt or in trouble or what?”

“Look, Variam, I’m navigating us a path, monitoring Crystal, watching for danger, and talking to you guys all at the same time. I’m a little—”

Fountain Reach shook. It was only a slight tremor but it was enough to make us stop in our tracks. Dust trickled from the ceiling and somewhere in my head I felt the ripple of a psychic scream, scraping along my nerves and making my hair stand on end.

“What was that?” Luna said.

“Trouble,” I said with a sinking heart. “Don’t slow down!”

The corridor ahead came to an end in a crooked door. Variam shoved it open to reveal a wide, dark space. There was a ceiling above but it was cracked and bumpy. Skeletal bushes rose before us, long dead. I led us in and mud squelched under our feet; the floor was earth, not wood or stone. “Where are we?” Luna asked quietly, glancing from side to side.

“Hedgemaze,” I said. I’d already mapped the route and led Variam and Luna through at a fast walk. “But Crystal called the whole place a ‘shadow realm.’”

Variam looked over with a frown. “We’re in a shadow realm?”

“You know what one is?”

“Yeah, but this isn’t really the time,” Variam said. “Someone else just came in, right?”

The hedgemaze must have been quite a sight once. Now it was a petrified ruin, the dead wood fading into the darkness as we wound our way towards the centre.

“Onyx,” I said. I’d been searching ahead and the futures where we ran into him were very hard to miss.

“How did he get in?” Luna said.

“From the sound of it I think he figured out how we got here and did a repeat performance.” Probably he’d shot up the house the same way Variam had. This wasn’t looking good—I’d been ready to deal with Vitus, but not Crystal and Onyx as well.

“Are we going to get to Anne first?” Variam said.

“Yeah, but not by much.” I glanced through the futures in which we turned back. Crystal was still pursuing with Lyle trailing after, Onyx was behind them both but catching up fast, and I still couldn’t pick Vitus out of the tangle. “Okay, this is going to get messy real fast. Vitus is up ahead and he wants Anne, but he’ll be going after us second. Crystal wants to silence us, make sure we don’t get out to spread the story. Lyle probably has no idea what’s going on, so he’s sticking next to Crystal. And Onyx . . . my guess is he’s here to kill everyone. Vitus, Crystal, me, and anyone who doesn’t get out of the way fast enough.”

“What’s the plan?” Luna asked.

“There isn’t one,” I said.

Luna and Variam looked at each other. I realised they were waiting for me to tell them what to do and felt a flash of frustration. Couldn’t they tell I was making this up as I went along?

But they were looking to me to lead them, and even if I didn’t know what I was doing I had to act as though I did. I tried to think of what would put Luna and Variam at the least risk. “All right,” I said. “I’ll go in and get Anne. You two hold the entrance as long as you can, then fall back. If we get separated work your way out of the maze back to the top floor of the house to the long corridor where we entered. I’ll meet you there and we can get out.”

“I’m going with—” Variam started to say.

“No,” I said instantly. “Look, if these guys all attack us at once we’re finished. Our only chance is to hold them as far away as we can. If we can keep them busy with each other, we can get away in the confusion. Crystal’s key will get us out if we can make it to the door.”

A shape loomed out of the darkness ahead of us and a moment later the skeletal bushes opened up into a clearing. Before us was a small building, its foundations sunk into the ancient mud and its upper level reaching up into the shadows. We’d reached the centre of the hedgemaze.

There was only one way in: a crosshatched metal door, stiff from long disuse. “Hold this door until you’re in danger and then get out,” I said as I got to work on it. “Try to delay Crystal long enough for Onyx to catch up, but if you can’t, or once the fighting gets serious, run.” The door scraped open and I turned to look at Luna and Variam. “Got it?”

Luna looked around nervously at the dead clearing. “Okay.”

“Fine,” Variam said. “But if you’re not back in five minutes, I’m going after—”

“If I’m not back in five minutes it probably means Anne and I are both dead. In that case, get out. There’s a second way out through the hedgemaze around the back.”

Variam scowled. Luna was watching the clearing. There was maybe thirty feet of muddy ground between the edge of the hedgemaze and the building, and the air was ominously silent. With my divination I could sense Crystal hurrying closer with Onyx on her heels. If Luna and Variam hid inside the door they’d have some cover, but not much.

“Alex?” Luna said. The clearing was quiet, but I knew it wouldn’t stay that way for long. “Hurry, okay?”

I walked into the darkness.

*  *  *

The inside of the building was cramped and decaying. Pieces of wall crunched under my feet and I had to turn sideways to squeeze through the single corridor, yet somehow as I picked my way through the debris I knew this little old building was the heart of Fountain Reach. All the space and luxury outside were just for show. The corridor bent around, then inward.

The room within was lined floor to ceiling with cracked grey tiles, and it stank. The air was heavy with a kind of sickly rich coppery smell that made me hold my breath. My foot slipped underneath me as I took the first step in, and I put my hand against the wall to steady myself. The tiles were cold. The place seemed to be darker than outside and only as my eyes adjusted did I start to make out the features of the room: the bathtub in the corner, the counters along one side, and the metal table in the centre. Lying on the metal table was a body.

As soon as I saw that I rushed to the table, my shoes skidding on the floor. The body on the table was Anne, and as I saw her my heart sank. Her head was hanging back off the edge of the table, and her throat had been messily cut open. “Oh no,” I whispered under my breath. I touched Anne’s skin to find that it was cool. I looked into the futures in which I put my ear to her chest and listened and couldn’t find anything. I’ve seen people with cut throats and I knew Anne’s wound had to be fatal, but I still clung to a sliver of hope. I’d seen her survive lethal wounds before. There were straps holding Anne to the table and I started pulling them open. “Come on,” I whispered to myself. “Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead . . .” The straps were sticky, but I was able to get them off. “Anne, if you can hear me, now would be—”

Anne sat up with a gasp and I nearly jumped out of my skin. She looked blindly from left to right in a panic and I caught her. “Easy! It’s okay, you’re safe.”

Anne clutched at my arm. “Where is he?” Her voice was raspy but recovering and the ugly slash across her throat was healing as I watched, new skin growing across the wound with a flicker of green light.

“He’s not here,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. “We’re . . .” I trailed off. Anne was staring past me and as I turned I saw that she was looking at the bathtub. Something flickered on my precognition and I suddenly realised what I’d slipped on earlier. The floor was covered in patches of that dark, sticky liquid and it was spread all over the room . . . and filling the bathtub. And it was there that the smell was coming from.

“Oh,” I said quietly.

The liquid in the bathtub stirred, dark ripples spreading and lapping at the edge. Something broke the surface, rivulets of blood trickling from the head as it turned slowly to face us. For a moment it held itself motionless and then the rest of the creature rose slowly and steadily out of the bath, coming fully into view as streams of blood splashed off the shoulders to splatter on the floor. It was a human body, wasted and twisted and skin pale from lack of light, but with pieces missing. The muscles were spaced unevenly around the spindly frame, too strong in places and too weak in others, and the arms were longer than they should have been, hanging below the knees. For all that, though, it could almost have passed as a man except for the face. There were no eyes in the sockets, only a pair of gaping black voids. The mouth opened, toothless, to let loose a hissing, sighing breath.

The creature that had once been Vitus Aubuchon stared sightlessly at us.

I moved first, half-dragging Anne in a rush for the door, but fast as I was Vitus was faster. There was a weird twisting, warping sensation and suddenly Vitus was standing blocking the exit, his breath making a cloud in the air as I backpedalled frantically.

There was one other exit, a doorway leading deeper into the building. I made a snap decision and bolted for it. Anne had found her feet again and followed me, and as we ran I heard a weird rasping, grating sound from behind us. Vitus Aubuchon was laughing.

We burst into the next room only to skid to a halt, and as I looked around I felt my mouth go dry. The walls were lined with alcoves, each about three feet wide by three feet deep, and they were all filled with human remains. The older alcoves contained bones, neatly piled on top of each other with the skull placed on top, rows and rows of them each with the skulls grinning emptily outward. The newer bodies were . . . fresher. Most were desiccated and dark but the closest alcove, on the far right, contained what looked like the huddled form of a girl, black hair covering her face. But for an odd shapelessness she might have been alive. There were dozens of alcoves, hundreds. Most were full, but there was space for more—a lot more. At the far end was a furnace but otherwise there was nothing else in the room . . . including doors. We’d come to a dead end.

From behind I could hear the dragging feet of Vitus drawing closer. I searched frantically through the futures, trying to find a way Anne and I could get out safely. I didn’t find one. It was getting harder and harder not to panic and I had to clamp down on my feelings as I tried to figure out what to do.

“Alex,” Anne whispered, and I could hear the fear in her voice.

“Can you do anything to stop him?” I said.

Anne hesitated for just an instant, then I saw something flash across her face and she nodded. “If I get close.”

I sized Anne up. She still looked wobbly on her feet, though at least she’d repaired the gaping wound to her throat. But while her eyes were afraid, they were steady. “Do it,” I said. “I’ll draw him in.” And let’s pray it works.

Anne drew back to the corner of the room nearest to the door; she was weaving some kind of spell about herself but it wasn’t doing anything that I could see. A moment later a shadow fell over the doorway as Vitus Aubuchon stepped in.

I stood facing Vitus, weight on the balls of my feet, tense and ready to jump. I was maybe thirty feet from him, between the alcoves filled with the bodies of those who’d died here in Fountain Reach. Anne was to Vitus’s right, less than half the distance away, but his sightless eyes were locked on me. I looked back into those empty sockets and felt a thrill of pure terror.

The energies of a spell swirled around Vitus and I threw myself right. The space I’d been in warped and shrank, the air seeming to ripple. It looked like nothing but I’d seen what would have happened if that had caught me. I came to a stop next to the alcoves; Vitus’s head turned to track me and the same spell flashed out again.

The blast radius was wider this time and I only just made it out. Two of the skeletons and an iron partition were caught in the spell and there was a crunching, snapping sound as they were crushed into fragments, the space around them crumpling like a paper bag. Splinters rattled on the floor as Vitus gave a hissing sound and advanced towards me.

Anne moved the instant Vitus’s back was to her. Vitus was just about to cast a third spell when Anne’s hand touched his shoulder.

And in that moment I finally understood why life mages are feared.

Anne ripped Vitus Aubuchon’s life out of his body like tearing a page out of a notebook. It was over so fast I literally didn’t see it. There was a green flash and then Vitus’s body was toppling, dead before it hit the ground.

I looked down at Vitus, then up at Anne, eyes wide. Anne was staring down at Vitus’s body. There was something in her eyes I’d never seen before and for just a moment I felt a chill, and then it was gone and she only looked pale and tired. “We should go,” Anne said.

Vitus’s body was starting to dissolve, the misshapen form turning black and breaking away into ash and dust. I picked my way around it to meet up with Anne. “Why didn’t he see you?”

“He can’t see,” Anne said. “He senses life, so I masked mine . . . We need to go!”

We hurried back into the room with the table and the bathtub, now silent and still once more. “That was what you were doing before?” I asked.

“I played dead.” Anne’s face looked drawn but at least she didn’t seem hurt anymore. “After he . . .”

I gave the room a last glance, shuddered, and was about to leave when I stopped. There had been a stir of movement from the bathtub. As I watched, a ripple spread across the dark surface, followed by another. “Anne?” I asked carefully. “He’s going to stay dead, right?”

Anne shook her head.

The ripples were increasing, and as I looked into the future I saw that in a few seconds something was going to break the surface. I ran for the door.

*  *  *

“I thought you killed him!” I shouted to Anne as we ran down the corridor.

“It doesn’t stick!” Anne shouted back. “Fountain Reach keeps him alive; it’s what it was made to do. As long as he’s in this house, he can’t die!”

I swore under my breath. “So he can teleport, he can bend space, and he’s immortal. Wonderful.”

In the time we’d been inside the entrance to the building had become a battlefield. The doorway was open and ragged now, the door a pile of scrap metal, and Variam and Luna were crouched on either side with gashes torn in the walls around them. Outside, the dark hedgemaze was lit up with flickering orange light; several of the dead bushes were on fire. Both Variam and Luna turned towards us as we approached and Luna’s eyes lit up. “Anne!”

“You’re okay?” Variam demanded.

I grabbed Anne and pulled her to one side. An instant later a salvo of force blades came scything in from outside, carving through brick and metal. They cut through the outer wall, went over the heads of Luna and Variam and past me and Anne, cut through the inner wall on the other side, and kept right on going. Variam swore. “So I’m guessing Onyx is here,” I said.

“So’s Crystal!” Luna said. She sounded shaken, but she was holding steady. “It’s crazy out there, I don’t know who’s fighting who—”

“Can’t make it across that ground,” Variam said. “We need to go back the way you came.”

“That’s worse!” Anne said.

“She’s right,” I said. “We’ll be caught between them and Vitus.” I pulled a condenser marble from my pocket. “Variam, when I give the word put a wall of fire down parallel to the front wall thirty feet out. Then run. Go right, head for the far side of the maze, and don’t stop.”

Variam nodded and from outside I heard the thunderclap of force magic. I leant out and threw the condenser through the doorway and out into the clearing, ahead and to the left. It shattered and mist sprang up. “Now!” I called to Variam.

Orange light wreathed Variam’s hands, and with a roar a wall of fire flared into life, lighting up the dark hedgemaze in leaping flame. It cut halfway through the mist and ignited the dead wood of the maze to the left and right, blocking off vision. Luna was out the door first with the rest of us right behind her.

Heat pulsed from the wall of flame ahead. The comforting grey cloud of the mist hung to my left, inviting me to enter, but I’d told the others to go right and that was where I ran. Normally when I create these mist clouds I run into them, using my magic to pick out a path where others would be blind. But I’d done it a few too many times lately and I knew that was exactly what Onyx would be expecting. Onyx couldn’t see through the wall of fire but he could see the mist cloud, and I heard the hiss as a spray of force blades cut through it. A moment later we’d put the building between us and Onyx, and as we ran back into the hedgemaze I felt the familiar warp-and-twist of Vitus’s teleport spell. I couldn’t see where Vitus landed and I didn’t stop to check. We were back in the maze and safe . . . at least for now.

We hurried through the maze, my divination magic picking us out a path. From behind I could sense the flash of attack spells as the battle continued. “Who’s winning?” Variam called from behind me.

“Don’t care!”

“They’re all still there,” Anne called. “Vitus, Crystal, Lyle, and Onyx.”

The door at the far end took us back into the mansion. The sounds of battle had faded into an eerie silence and once more Fountain Reach seemed to be watching and waiting. I led us towards the exit, abandoning stealth in favour of getting us out as fast as possible.

As I approached the door by which Crystal had entered, I felt a presence ahead of me. “Alex,” Anne whispered. “It’s—”

“Crystal,” I said. “I know. You guys stay back.”

“Screw that—” Variam began.

“You’ll stay the hell back,” I said sharply. “Crystal is not stupid. If she’s there she’s got something planned. You and Luna stay ready. Vitus is still around and we know he’s after Anne.”

Luna nodded. Variam looked frustrated but didn’t argue. I walked around the corner.

The corridor was narrow and led to the same small door. Without the key in my pocket I knew that door would open onto nothing but a blank wall, but with that key it would take us out of here. Crystal was standing halfway down the corridor, blocking my path. The weird half-light of this place blended with the yellow shades of her hair and clothes, turning her into a pale figure in the shadows. She watched me silently. I could tell she was holding herself ready, but I didn’t know for what.

I hesitated an instant, then started walking towards her. “Not bringing your friends?” Crystal asked softly.

I didn’t answer. I’d closed half the distance to Crystal, my knife ready in its sheath. Crystal watched me take two more steps, then shrugged slightly. “As you like.”

From behind me I felt a surge of magic as Vitus Aubuchon teleported into the middle of Anne, Variam, and Luna. And at the same instant Crystal drove into my mind with all her power, trying to seize control.

She was horribly strong. I’d been ready for her, but even so I was almost overwhelmed in those first few seconds. It felt like an enormous weight bearing down on my thoughts, crushing me. I staggered back but the pressure didn’t let up; if anything it grew stronger. Desperately I tried to force Crystal away, stopping her from getting any further in.

Dimly I could sense that a furious battle was going on next to me. Vitus’s horrible form was blocking the hallway: He’d trapped Anne in a prison of twisted space and was attacking Variam, trying to crush him. Variam was dodging from side to side, a snarl on his face, while Luna’s whip curled around Vitus, the silver mist soaking in. But I couldn’t spare any attention; if I took my concentration off Crystal for even a second I knew she’d have me. I could feel tendrils snaking into my thoughts, trying to seize control, and I pushed back with all of my might.

“Coming here was a very poor choice on your part,” Crystal said calmly. She didn’t even sound out of breath.

I didn’t answer. I focused on trying to hold Crystal back, drive her out of my mind. It was unbelievably difficult, like trying to push a car uphill, and in a sudden flash of understanding I knew that this was how all those missing apprentices had been brought here. “Just so you know,” Crystal said, “I’m going to make you kill Luna and Variam with your own hands.” She tilted her head. “How does it feel to know that you’ve failed completely?”

I felt a flare of white-hot anger and threw myself at Crystal’s mental pressure, hammering at it. And it shifted. It was only a tiny, tiny shift, but I’d managed to push Crystal back just a fraction and all of a sudden I knew she wasn’t invulnerable. “I don’t know,” I managed to say. “You tell me.”

I took a step forward. It felt like wading through deep water but the first one was the hardest. I took a second step and then a third, and with each one I shoved Crystal a little further back. I saw a flash of surprise in Crystal’s eyes, followed by concentration. The mental pressure redoubled and my progress halted.

Crystal and I stared at each other across the corridor. Neither of us moved but we fought as surely as if we wrestled on the floor. “Vitus is going to kill them,” Crystal said. “I hope you know that.”

I could still hear the sounds of battle behind me but I didn’t let myself think of whether Crystal was right. “You think you’re the first mage to try to possess me?” I said. I took all my anger and all my fear for Luna and Anne and Variam and threw it at Crystal, forcing her back. I took a step forward. “You think you’ll be the one to break my will? I’ve beaten a mind mage who was stronger than you’ll ever be.” Another push; another step. “I’ve had enchantresses bewitch me and elemental mages burn me. I’ve stood against one of the most powerful battle-mages in this country and watched him die. I’ve faced Light mages and Dark, constructs and assassins, elementals and dragons, and I’m still here.” Another step. “You think you’ll be the one to take me down? You think you’re going to succeed when they couldn’t?” Another step. “Not you. Not today!”

And I felt Crystal’s domination spell shatter, the force of her will scattering away and leaving my mind clear. Crystal staggered back and I moved forward, my hand going to the hilt of my knife. “Lyle!” Crystal shouted. “Help!”

Lyle burst in from a side door and I swore. “No!” I shouted, stopping him just before he could launch an attack. “We’re on the same side, damn it!”

“Put your weapon down, Alex!” Lyle shouted. He was standing near Crystal protectively, ready to strike.

“Lyle, I don’t know what Crystal has been telling you but I promise you it’s wrong. She’s the one who’s been bringing those apprentices here. It’s her house, for God’s sake! You seriously think she’s just an innocent victim here?”

Lyle shifted uneasily and I knew that whatever story Crystal had spun, it hadn’t convinced him completely. “Look, we’re just trying to get out of here,” Lyle said. Now that I got a better look at him I could see that he looked dishevelled and rattled but he didn’t seem to be hurt. “You’ve got the key, right? Just give it to us. Please?” His tone was pleading.

Crystal was standing motionless but I knew she was speaking with Lyle, even if I couldn’t hear her. I bit my lip in frustration. Crystal was right there . . . but if I made a move to attack, Lyle would too, and I couldn’t fight them both. I couldn’t hear the sounds of battle from behind anymore and that filled me with dread. I needed to get back there fast. “You want the key?” I said. “Take it.” I pulled Crystal’s key out of my pocket and threw it to Lyle.

Lyle caught it and stopped. He seemed to be at a loss. Crystal looked taken aback too; whatever she’d been expecting me to do, it hadn’t been that. “What are you waiting for?” I asked Lyle. “Open it and go find the Keepers. Unless you want to stay here?”

The words broke Lyle’s paralysis and he hurried past Crystal to the door, inserting the key. I felt a flash of magic as it turned in the lock and then the door opened, spilling a wash of brilliant light into the corridor. “Crystal!” Lyle called from the doorway.

“Come on, Crystal,” I said. “Let’s go see what the Keepers say.”

Crystal looked at me, then darted for the door.

I sprang after her but Crystal had thought and acted in an instant and I hadn’t had any warning. Crystal made it through the door and swung it closed behind her. I had just a fleeting image of Crystal’s lips curling in a slight smile, then the door slammed shut, leaving me in darkness.

A second later my hand closed on the handle and I yanked the door open to see a blank wall. I felt for the keyhole and swore. Crystal had taken the key with her. I stood there, staring at the wall, then turned back to where I’d seen Luna and the others and ran.

*  *  *

By the time I got there it was all over. Variam was propped up against the wall, blood on his clothes; his right arm had been horribly mangled and was hanging limp by his side. Anne was kneeling next to him, her face lit up by a soft green glow and filled with concentration as she worked her hands around Variam’s injured shoulder. Luna was leaning against the other wall; her face was white and she was shaking. But Vitus Aubuchon’s body was on the floor, blackened and decaying into nothingness.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Where’s Crystal?” Variam said.

“Gone,” I said. “She locked the door behind her.”

Variam looked at me, then away. “Um,” Luna said. “Is there another way out?”

“I don’t know,” I said. I was trying very hard to think.

“Alex, we can’t survive another attack,” Anne said. She didn’t look up from where she was working on Variam, and her voice was calm.

I didn’t know what to do but I knew we couldn’t stay here. “We’ve got about five minutes until Vitus comes back,” I said. “And Onyx is on his way too. Let’s move.”

With Anne supporting him Variam made it to his feet and we started walking. I picked a direction away from Onyx that I thought would give us the most cover. “Okay,” I said. “If anyone has any ideas, now would be a good time.”

Anne gave me a quick glance and shook her head. “Can we get out?” Luna asked.

“I’m not sure there is an out,” I said.

“Gate magic,” Variam said.

I looked at Variam. “Can you get out of a shadow realm with that?”

Variam gave a small nod. He was badly hurt and I could tell the adrenaline rush that had got him through the battle was wearing off; it was an effort for him to talk. “Harder, but yeah.”

Luna looked at me. “That other place we went to from the British Museum. Deleo got out of there with a gate, didn’t she?”

“Your stone . . .” Anne said.

I thought quickly. Gate stones didn’t work inside the real Fountain Reach; the wards blocked them. But the wards didn’t cover this Fountain Reach. I wasn’t sure it would work, but I couldn’t think of a better plan. “Let’s try it.”

We came into what seemed like this Fountain Reach’s copy of the duelling hall. It was higher and narrower than the one in our reality, with an arched ceiling and pillars along each wall. I picked out a side room that looked defensible and headed in.

Once we were inside Anne helped Variam down on a chair and I pulled the gate stone from my pocket. The focus was dark in the shadows, the rune barely visible. “Anne,” I said, holding it out. “Do you think you can work it on your own?”

Anne looked at it for a second, then nodded. I placed it into her hand. “Get going. I’ll buy you as much time as I can.”

“Wait,” Luna said. “What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me. This is what I do. Just get that gate open.”

Luna’s eyes flashed. I knew she was scared but even so she wanted to fight. “I’m not leaving without—”

“That was an order, not a request,” I said flatly. “Stay here.”

“We won’t leave without you,” Anne said. She was clasping the stone in one hand and her eyes were steady.

I nodded and walked out into the duelling hall.

*  *  *

Onyx strode in one minute later. The darkness seemed to follow him as he moved, and his eyes were black slits. I knew he’d been fighting both Vitus and Crystal but he didn’t look so much as scratched. His eyes flicked from left to right, coming to rest on me.

“Looks like you’re getting your duel after all, Onyx,” I said. I was standing on one of the pistes.

“Nowhere to run?” Onyx asked. He walked into the room and stopped, turned slightly side-on to me, his hands ready by his sides.

“You wanted a traditional duel,” I said. “Bring it.”

Onyx tilted his head and studied me for a moment.

I was moving before Onyx threw his spell and the force blade hit the spot where I’d been standing a moment ago. Chips of wood went skittering across the floor as I ducked behind a pillar. “Run and hide,” Onyx said contemptuously, walking forward. He kicked one of the wooden splinters, sending it clattering into the corner. “What does Morden want with a coward like you?”

“Speaking of Morden,” I said, taking care not to poke my head out, “didn’t he tell you to work with me?”

Onyx just laughed. He started to circle the pillar at a leisurely speed, not taking his eyes off my hiding place. I moved to match him, keeping the pillar between us. “Aren’t you supposed to be getting rid of Vitus?” I asked.

“Vitus isn’t going anywhere,” Onyx said. “I’ve been waiting for this.”

“Yeah, I bet you have,” I said. “Remember our chat in the basement? As soon I saw that look in your eyes I knew what you were planning. I’ve seen it before.”

“Talk, talk, talk,” Onyx said. He was circling to a position where if I kept trying to keep the pillar between me and him I’d come up against a table. “Let’s see what you got.”

Just before Onyx could trap me I moved sideways and back. A second later Onyx came around the edge to see nothing but empty space. “What I figured,” Onyx said.

“You know,” I said from behind a second pillar, “Morden’s going to be quite upset if you miss Vitus because you were busy with me.”

“Morden’s not here,” Onyx said, and I could tell he was smiling. He started walking towards my new hiding place, following the sound of my voice. “You’re supposed to know everything, right? Know why I’m going to kill you?”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact I do.”

“Yeah?” Onyx said. I could feel him lining up another spell. “Why?”

“Because you’re a murderous, egocentric asshole,” I said. “Because nobody beats you and walks away, even if you were the one who started the fight. You’re too aggressive to quit and too stupid to call it even. You’re just going to keep coming back over and over again until you’re dead.”

Onyx stopped, and I could tell he wasn’t smiling anymore. “Okay,” he said after a pause. “Enough talk.”

The plane of force was about the size and shape of an industrial saw blade, and it went through the base of the pillar in a spray of debris. I’d already gone flat and felt the breeze of the thing as it cleared my hair by six inches or so. The second force blade went through the top of the pillar. Cut at both ends, the pillar toppled and hit the floor with a shattering crash as I rolled out of the way and came to my feet. Onyx came into view a second later . . . and I hit him in the face with a staff.

This version of Fountain Reach didn’t have focus weapons, but I’d spotted the six-foot metal pole before Onyx had entered and I’d been letting him back me towards it. I didn’t know what it was made of but it was light and strong. Onyx was caught off balance—he’d obviously been expecting me to keep running, not close in—and I hit him with enough power to crack his skull.

Unfortunately it didn’t do the least bit of damage. The force shield around Onyx absorbed the blow effortlessly. It did make him flinch though, and the blast he’d been preparing went wide, tearing a chunk out of the wall. I pressed Onyx, striking again and again and pushing him out into the centre of the hall.

I felt the flicker of a spell and a swordlike plane of force appeared in Onyx’s right hand. To normal eyes it would have been invisible but to my mage’s sight it was a razor-thin line of smoky glass, and Onyx brought it around in a wide arc that would have ended somewhere in my rib cage. Letting that happen didn’t strike me as a good idea so I knocked the force blade up and over my head before landing the end of the staff in Onyx’s body, driving him back another step.

We fought in the shadows of the duelling hall, staff against sword. The inertial planes of the force magic made only a dull clack-clack against the metal pole and the loudest noise echoing around the dark room was our footsteps. The force weapon was sharp enough to cut the staff like paper but I kept parrying the flat of the blade, turning the edge away. As blow after blow got through Onyx’s guard it became clear that in terms of skill I had the edge on him. Onyx was fast—very fast—but speed alone isn’t a match for technique. The problem was that hitting him wasn’t actually doing anything. The invisible shield of force around Onyx had enough raw inertia to stop anything short of high-level battle-magic or a military heavy weapon, and my staff couldn’t even scratch it. It was Vitus Aubuchon all over again. I couldn’t kill Onyx but he could kill me.

I could feel the stirrings of magic in the room behind me, life and fire weaving together, and I knew Anne and Variam were trying to use my gate stone. They’d done the smart thing and stayed hidden, and from a glance through the futures it looked like they were starting to get it to work—

But I’d taken my focus off Onyx for an instant, and against someone as deadly as the Dark Chosen that was simply too long. My next attack was a fraction too slow and Onyx was able to get his blade in the way and this time the force blade met the staff edge-on. There was a faint shinnng! as one foot of staff went whirring off into the darkness, my next strike fell short, and Onyx’s blade flashed out at me.

I had my staff in place to parry, but it didn’t do much good. Onyx’s blade barely slowed down as it went through the metal and my backwards leap wasn’t quite fast enough. I felt a sharp horizontal sting across my chest and upper arm, then I was out of range and Onyx was bringing up his other hand, ready to throw another spell at me.

I dropped into a crouch, holding still. Onyx had been about to hurl a force lance, but as he saw that I was ready he stopped, standing side-on with his left arm up, palm flat. His eyes were fixed on me with flat concentration and I knew what he was thinking. He was trying to figure out how he could get me with that spell without me dodging out of the way. “Try it,” I said.

Onyx didn’t answer and I knew he was through with words. My chest and arm hurt and I could feel blood trickling down my skin, but I could still move and right now that was all that mattered. “You know,” I said, “before you go back to trying to hit me, there’s something I need to tell you. Actually, two things.”

Onyx’s eyes tracked me, ready to release the spell. I knew he’d fire the instant I moved. “First thing is we’ve been fighting for a few minutes now,” I said. “The second is that force magic of yours is really easy to detect from a distance.”

Onyx frowned slightly.

Behind Onyx, Vitus Aubuchon teleported into the duelling hall.

Onyx spun snake-quick and the force lance flashed out, but it curved away from Vitus, its path distorting. From behind I felt the flare of a gate spell and I heard Luna’s shout. “Alex!”

I turned and ran. I covered the distance in seconds and I had one last fleeting glimpse of Vitus, re-formed and whole again, those ghastly empty eye sockets locked on Onyx and one hand grasping towards him. The space around Onyx was warping, trying to compress inwards, and Onyx was crouched in a snarl, the force shield flickering and trying to maintain its shape as the two magics clashed. Then I was through the door. Where I’d left Anne and Luna and Variam an oval gateway was hanging in the air, its edges flickering green to match the light around Anne’s hands. Variam was already through and within that oval I could see the natural darkness of our own world.

Luna and Anne had only been waiting for me and as they saw me they darted through the gate one after the other. I knew the gate was about to close and I put my head down and sprinted.

It was very, very close. Anne’s grip on the spell faltered when I had ten feet to go and I turned the last three steps into a running jump. I went sailing through the gate, hit Anne along the way, and felt the spell snap behind me. We both went into the table and chairs in the middle of the room and hit the floor in a crash of furniture.

The light of the gate stone had extinguished with Anne’s spell and we were left in pitch-darkness, the only sound the noises of everyone checking to make sure they were in one piece. But it was natural darkness, not the strange half-light of that other place, and while it was cold it was the fresh cold of winter. I could smell dust and spiderwebs but the air was clean.

Orange light flared, illuminating Variam’s face as he held an orb of magelight above his head. He looked battered and weary but he was still in one piece and his eyes were alert as he looked around. In the glow we could see the tiles and table and chairs of the kitchen of my farmhouse in Wales. Outside was the darkness of a winter evening, and looking around I could see Luna and Anne. We were safe.

“Okay,” Luna said, breaking the silence with a sigh. “I do not want to do that again.”

“You and me both.” I pulled myself to my feet, wincing, and gave Anne a hand up. “You okay?”

Anne looked at my hand in surprise for a second, then smiled and took it. “I’m okay.” She brushed herself off, looking around. “I guess we’re back again?”

“Is it over?” Luna asked.

“No one’s going to follow us,” I said. I’d been looking into the futures of our staying in the house and they were all blessedly quiet. “It’s over.”

“What about Vitus?” Variam asked. He’d propped himself up against the wall, his shattered arm still hanging limp.

“You are not worrying about Vitus,” I said. “You’re going to bed to let Anne work on you. And you’re staying there until you’ve had a chance to rest.”

Variam tried to look indignant. “I’m—”

“You’re going to bed,” Anne said firmly. “Right now.”

Variam seemed about to argue, then looked at Anne and changed his mind. He allowed himself to be led off grumbling. Luna watched Anne and Variam go, then shook her head. “What’s the order, oh master?”

“You can get a fire started,” I said. “This place is bloody freezing. And while you do that I’m going to try and figure out who I should tell this whole crazy story to first.”

Luna opened up the stove and sniffed at it, sneezed, then looked dubiously at the basket of firewood. I’d just taken out my phone and was deciding which number to dial when I paused. “Ah, damn.”

“What’s wrong?” Luna asked.

I looked towards where Anne and Variam had vanished. “I just remembered I never restocked the kitchen.”

chapter 14

Explaining the whole thing to the Council kept me busy for the next few days.

I was interviewed by the Keepers, then by Council reps, then by the masters in charge of the apprentice program, then by the Keepers again, then by some other guys whose names I can’t remember, then by the Keepers one more time. After that I had to tell the whole story to each of them again, except slower and in more detail. After that I had to tell the whole story to each of them again, by which point I was about ready to chew my own arm off, or possibly someone else’s. Luna got lucky and was let out sometime around the second day.

Anne and Variam got interviewed too, and their interviews were a lot less friendly than mine. Anne had it especially bad—it took a long time to convince the Keepers that she hadn’t fled from custody and even then they didn’t stop treating her as a suspect. I later found out that the only way Anne finally got them to accept her story was by submitting to a memory probe.

The rest of the tournament—unsurprisingly—was cancelled. A Council task force evacuated everyone from Fountain Reach and established a cordon around the mansion. Fortunately all the remaining apprentices got away safe. Unfortunately Crystal did too. She’d seen which way the wind was blowing and had given Lyle the slip within minutes of getting back to Fountain Reach, and by the time the order went out to bring her in for questioning she was long gone. Talisid had been giving me regular updates and on the third day he sent me a message with an invitation.

*  *  *

The train that took Luna and me into the Cotswolds was the same one I’d taken for my first trip there, and as we alighted I looked around to see that the country station was deserted. The train pulled away from the platform, and as the rumble and clatter of the carriages faded into the distance everything became quiet. The town the station was built in was a small one and there wasn’t much traffic.

I walked out of the station and onto the main road. “Aren’t we taking a car?” Luna asked. She’d been quiet on the trip and was looking around at the green hills. It was less than an hour to sunset and the light was fading quickly.

“We’re early,” I said. “Might as well walk.”

Luna looked resigned but didn’t complain, and we turned towards Fountain Reach and settled into a steady pace. It had been a clear winter’s day and the temperature dropped like a rock as the sun disappeared behind the western hills. The stars came out, bright and twinkling in the clear air, the Square of Pegasus hanging almost directly overhead while the stars of the Summer Triangle sank into the west.

We came up around Fountain Reach from over the back hillside. We bypassed the campsite where we’d gathered around a fire with Anne and Variam and Sonder a few nights ago, and descended towards the clearing where I’d seen Onyx and Lisa before that. The woods were going from shadowy to pitch-black, but neither Luna nor I slipped or fell.

As we approached the clearing I began to make out lights between the trees, and we emerged onto the grass to see that shielded lamps had been stuck into the grass around the clearing’s edge. Two men were talking at the centre of the clearing: one I didn’t know and one I did. As I watched they finished their conversation and one turned and walked away down the hill, disappearing into the darkness. The other turned to us with a nod. “Verus. Luna.”

“Hey, Talisid,” I said. In the dim light I could see he was still wearing his maths-teacher suit, looking faintly ridiculous in the winter forest. There was the crackle of static and Talisid raised a hand apologetically. “Just a moment.” He took out a radio and spoke into it. “Receiving.”

“Charges are set,” a voice said from the radio speaker. “Everyone’s accounted for.”

“Did anyone enter the building?”

“No.”

“Good,” Talisid said. “You have full tactical command from this point. Proceed at your discretion.”

“Roger that,” the voice said. “Moving into final positions now.”

Talisid clicked the radio off and returned it to his pocket. “So you decided not to go in,” I said.

“The Council decided that the chances of a successful recovery from Vitus’s shadow realm were too low to justify the risks of mounting an expedition.” Talisid gave me a glance. “Based on your report it didn’t sound as though there was any realistic likelihood of finding survivors.”

I thought of the slaughterhouse in Vitus’s sanctum, piles of bones stacked neatly in their alcoves. “No,” I said.

We stood in the darkness on the hillside, looking down upon Fountain Reach. The mansion was dark, no lights showing from the windows. I couldn’t see any activity but I knew people were moving in the grounds. “Any news on Crystal?” I said.

“Of a sort,” Talisid said. “We haven’t been able to pick up her trail, but we managed to find one of her hideouts and it turned out to be quite a source of information.”

“About her and Vitus?”

“It seems Vitus had been practising his particular brand of life extension for some time,” Talisid said with an expression of distaste. “Apparently his ritual absorbed his victims’ life force through the medium of their blood—I’ll spare you the details. Unfortunately for him, the ritual was providing diminishing returns. Each killing was extending his own life by a shorter time. So he recruited Crystal to ensure a steady supply.”

“What did she get out of it?”

“Knowledge,” Talisid said. “Vitus shared his research with her. It seems Crystal came to believe that the flaw in the ritual had been Vitus’s choice of subjects. Crystal started preying on adepts, and when that didn’t work she began kidnapping apprentice mages. According to Crystal’s notes, she believed that if they found the right mage the ritual would grant perfect immortality, without the . . . flaws Vitus had developed.”

“And when they saw Anne use her magic, they decided she was the right mage.”

Talisid nodded. “Hopefully we’ll never find out if they were correct.”

“As long as Crystal’s still out there we might,” I said sharply. “Do you have any leads?”

“Unfortunately since she disappeared in Fountain Reach there’s very little to go on. We’ve tried tracer spells but so far nothing.”

“So she gets away clean.”

“I think the masters and relatives of the apprentices she helped murder might have something to say about that,” Talisid said dryly. “I know at least five mages who are currently bending their full resources towards tracking Crystal down and killing her.”

I made a neutral sound.

“Not everything is your responsibility, Verus,” Talisid said, and his voice was firm. “You found her. Others will take it from here.”

I turned away, looking into the darkness. Again I remembered that great bare room with its scent of death, rows and rows of alcoves filled with the remains of human bodies. I wondered how many Crystal had led there to their deaths, how many Vitus had butchered on that blood-soaked table. And I wondered what would have happened if Vitus and Crystal hadn’t decided that their ritual needed an apprentice. If they’d kept on killing normals and sensitives and adepts, as they’d done for so long before, would any of the Light mages have noticed? And if they had, how many would have cared?

“Um,” Luna said hesitantly. She’d been silent until now, watching our conversation from a safe distance. “Is Anne going to be okay? With the Council, I mean.”

“She’s still under arrest,” Talisid said, “but as far as I know there are no plans to press for a trial. The last I heard from Avenor he was coming around to the view that she hadn’t knowingly cooperated with any of the kidnappings.”

“Knowingly?” I said.

Talisid nodded. “They seem to have accepted your explanation as the most probable one.”

Luna looked between us. “What explanation?”

“Crystal had access to Anne through the apprentice program,” I said. “She could have read the information she needed out of Anne’s mind.”

“It doesn’t account for every detail,” Talisid said. “But given Crystal’s obvious guilt I think the Keepers are eventually going to accept it.”

“So they’re going to let Anne go?” Luna asked.

“I can’t give any guarantees, but that’s what I would expect.”

Luna looked relieved. “Looks like it’s about to kick off,” I said.

Talisid turned towards Fountain Reach. “So it is.”

For a few seconds the hillside was still. Then from below the night lit up in a flash as explosives went off all around Fountain Reach. The mansion’s outer walls simply disintegrated, coming down in a tumble of bricks and stone even as the echoes of the first blast came rumbling around the hills. The inner layers of the mansion were spared from the initial shockwave only to be caught in the spreading flames, fire engulfing the house far quicker than should be possible.

The blaze grew by leaps and bounds, licking higher and higher. From below I could sense fire magic working to enhance the flames and air magic pouring in pure oxygen to feed them. Sparks and embers went soaring into the night sky. Even from here I could feel a slight warmth; down below it must have been truly hellish.

The wards didn’t stand a chance and I felt them shredding and dissolving as the structure they were tied to burned away. I wondered what it must be like for Vitus, hidden in that pocket dimension that had once been his fortress and had now become his tomb. If it had been a smaller fire he might have been able to extinguish it by transporting away the air or the burning material as he had before, but there was nothing in the world that could have extinguished this. All he could do was sit there and watch.

I don’t know if Vitus came out. There was a minute or two during which the wards still held, even while all around them Fountain Reach burned with a single flame. Maybe somewhere in that time Vitus Aubuchon did emerge, leaving his sanctuary for one last time in a final desperate attempt to defend his home. If he did he died there, alone and unnoticed in the blaze. A moment later the internal structure of the mansion groaned and broke, and Fountain Reach collapsed in an enormous crash, throwing a storm of smoke and sparks into the sky as the wards that protected it and linked it to that other copy of itself flickered and died.

The mages below didn’t stop. They kept the fire going as the ruins of Fountain Reach dwindled, burning the wreckage to splinters and the splinters to ash. They weren’t here to find or confront Vitus, they were here to eliminate him, as efficiently and safely as possible. Only when there was nothing left but dust did they finally let the fire die.

Talisid and Luna and I looked down the hillside in silence. Where Fountain Reach had stood was an open patch of scorched ground, still glowing with heat. “I think we’re done here,” Talisid said. “Was there anything else?”

“No,” I said.

“You did a very good job,” Talisid said, giving a nod to Luna to include her. “Call me any time you need my assistance. Good night.”

Talisid walked down into the forest and disappeared into the darkness between the trees. I gave the scorched patch one final glance, then turned away. “Come on,” I said to Luna. “Time to go home.”

*  *  *

“Run through it for me one more time,” I said.

“Again?” Luna said with a sigh.

It was a few hours later and we were standing outside a coffee shop in Soho. Now that we were back in London the winter night was a little bit warmer but much less clear, the fuzz of the city glow clouding the sky above. Neon lights shone from the buildings and scatterings of people moved past in twos and threes. “I’m going to stay here until you pick me up,” Luna said in her why-do-I-have-to-do-this? voice.

“Or?”

“Or until it’s been one and a half hours.”

“And after that?”

“I go somewhere safe and call Sonder and Talisid and read them the message in this letter.”

“And if I call you and tell you it’s all clear?”

“Then I run like hell. Is this about that thing you had Sonder research for you?”

“Yes.” I handed Luna the envelope. “If everything goes to plan I’ll be back within an hour.”

“Why can’t I come?” Luna asked, accepting it. “I did last time.”

“If you open that letter you’ll know. Enjoy the coffee.”

*  *  *

Tiger’s Palace looked pretty much the same as when I’d last seen it. The shark-eyed bouncers let me pass, and the roar of music washed over me as I crossed the dance floor. I caught a glimpse of one of the kids who’d picked a fight with me and Luna. The instant he saw me his eyes went wide and he vanished into the crowd. I smiled to myself and walked up the stairs.

Jagadev’s throne room was filled with a smaller entourage than last time, and Jagadev wasn’t there. The Asian guy with sunglasses stopped me once again. If he was still bruised from the last visit, he didn’t show it. When I said I was here to see Jagadev, he gave a curt “Follow me” and led me farther in. The bead curtain parted to reveal a small maze of corridors. I passed a couple of heavies with badly concealed guns under their jackets who gave me unfriendly looks before Sunglasses stopped in front of a door. “Inside.”

I opened the door and walked in. It swung shut silently behind me.

Jagadev was there, and he was alone. The chamber was a dining room, wide and tall, with hangings of red and dark gold. Gold statuettes stood on tables, and curved swords and intricately woven tapestries hung on the walls. A fire blazed in the fireplace, its flickering light illuminating the long table at the centre, and at the middle of the table sat Jagadev. A meal was laid out before him but he sat with his clawed paws clasped and still. His dark eyes watched me opaquely as I approached the table and stopped.

Jagadev made a gesture towards the chair opposite him. “Sit.”

“Thanks.” I pulled out the chair. Jagadev’s plate was piled with some sort of meat I didn’t recognise and his glass was filled with red wine, but both seemed untouched.

“You wished to speak to me,” Jagadev said in his growling purr once I was seated.

“I did,” I said. “First, I’d like to thank you for the pointer towards Fountain Reach. It was very accurate, as I’m sure you know.”

I stopped. “Is that all?” Jagadev said.

“No,” I said. “I think I might have figured out who’s been trying to kill your ward Anne. I thought you might be interested.”

“Speak.”

“Thanks.” I settled back in the wooden chair. “It interested me because once I looked back on it the first thing I noticed was just how much bad stuff has been happening to Anne over the last week. First there were those assassins in Archway, then there were those constructs at the motorway café, then she got arrested by the Council and could easily have gotten executed, and then she nearly got killed off by Vitus. When you think about it it’s actually pretty surprising she’s still alive.”

Jagadev watched me silently. “So,” I said. “I looked at Anne and tried to figure out why someone would want her dead so badly. And I really couldn’t come up with a good explanation. Okay, Vitus was after her because she was an apprentice who was the right age. And the Council were after her because they thought she was Vitus’s accomplice. But the assassins and the constructs didn’t fit with that at all. So I tried to figure out who was behind those.

“The obvious person to blame was Crystal, because she was the one who kidnapped all the others. But if it was Crystal then she should have been trying to kidnap Anne, not kill her. And there was something else—the more I thought about it the more it seemed to me that neither of the attacks would have done Crystal or Vitus any favours. They wouldn’t have led us away from Fountain Reach—if anything they would have done the exact opposite. If I’d been killed in the middle of investigating that place it would just have convinced the next few investigators that I was on the right track. So whoever was behind it, they weren’t on Crystal and Vitus’s side. But they weren’t on Anne’s side either, because they were trying to kill her. And they weren’t on my side or Variam’s side, because they could have killed us too, and they weren’t on Morden or Onyx’s side, because those guys wanted me alive, at least until they found Vitus. In fact, it didn’t seem like they were on anyone’s side, which didn’t make any sense.

“So I decided I’d been going about this the wrong way. I threw out all my ideas and started from square one. And when I looked at it with a fresh eye the first thing that jumped out at me was that every time Anne had been in danger, your name seemed to crop up. That first time in Archway she’d gone there in your car with your driver. Same with the motorway services. Vitus trying to kill her wasn’t your doing . . . but it was your doing that she was in Fountain Reach in the first place. And that’s a bit odd, isn’t it? Anne doesn’t duel, so why send her to a duelling tournament when there’s someone out there kidnapping apprentices? Especially when you knew that Fountain Reach was the place those kidnappings were coming from? And finally there was the Council arresting her. It didn’t seem like that could be your fault . . . until I remembered that habit of yours of asking Anne about her classmates. The Keepers are probably going to decide that Crystal got that information out of Anne’s mind, but they’re not a hundred percent happy with that explanation and neither am I. Of course, if the information was getting passed on to Crystal by someone she told it to . . . well, then that would make Anne a perfect spy, wouldn’t it? She’d be Crystal’s accomplice without ever meeting her. But as long as she was alive, she’d be a link that could be traced back to you.”

I stopped and waited. The only sound was the crackle of the fire. “Are you accusing me of attempting to kill my own ward?” Jagadev asked.

“It doesn’t seem to make sense, does it?” I said. “After all, you pointed me towards Fountain Reach. It’s almost as if you wanted to get rid of everyone. Anne and Variam and me and Vitus and Crystal and Onyx . . . and a whole lot of random apprentices in England.”

Jagadev extended his hand to pick up his glass of wine and drank from it, his eyes not leaving mine. “Then there were those gunmen who went after Anne,” I said “I always had the feeling they were killed to stop them from talking about their employer, but it was interesting how they were killed, wasn’t it? Those weren’t gunshot wounds, more like claws. Almost like a big cat.”

Jagadev set the glass down. “Please come to the point.”

“Sorry. Anyway, the problem was that I still couldn’t figure out any reasonable motive. So I did some historical research. I eventually found what I was looking for but I had to go back a long way. All the way to 1865.”

I felt Jagadev go still. “For Americans, that was the Thirteenth Amendment,” I said. “For Indians, it was the British Raj. And for mages, it was the rakshasa wars. That was the year a group of British and Indian mages supported by an auxiliary force attacked the palace of a rakshasa named Lady Arati. Arati was killed, but the other rakshasa in the palace—her husband—escaped.” I paused. “Just out of interest I tried to trace the family trees of the mages who carried out that attack. It was very difficult. Over the decades nearly all of them seem to have suffered mysterious deaths or just disappeared. In fact as far as I can tell, there are only two direct descendants of those mages alive today. Their names are Anne Walker and Variam Singh. And the name of the rakshasa that escaped that attack was Lord Jagadev.”

Jagadev didn’t move or speak. “Mages like the idea of immortality,” I said. “But I don’t think many of us understand what it would really mean. What would it be like to lose someone with whom you were going to live forever? What would you do about it?” I paused. “You could take revenge. It wouldn’t be hard, with all that time to do it in. But in the end, no matter what you did, all the men and women who did the deed would be dead of old age if nothing else. So what then? What price to avenge the death of an immortal? Maybe going after the children of the ones who killed her, following the line down and down until every one of their descendants was gone. Or maybe going after all mages, manipulating events to cause the deaths of as many apprentices as possible, reducing the number of mages in the world one by one.” I stopped and looked at Jagadev. “What do you think? When is it enough?”

The room was very quiet, and Jagadev was still. The futures weren’t. Looking ahead I saw futures branching, the room erupting into a blur of violence. “Before you make any decisions,” I said, “I should point out that there are people who know where I am. They’ve got copies of what we’re discussing and they’re under orders not to open them. Yet.”

Jagadev and I sat and looked at each other. Ahead of me the futures flickered between two branches. In one, we continued to sit and look at each other. In the other . . . I’d come prepared, but even so I wasn’t sure I would make it out of the room. I expect to be threatened in these sorts of meetings, but Jagadev wasn’t going to make threats. If he started something it would be spectacular.

Gradually the futures of violence began to recede and finally winked out. Jagadev stayed silent for a full minute before speaking. “I hope you have some proof for your assertions.”

“Anne and Variam’s family history isn’t difficult to check,” I said.

“Nor does it prove anything.”

“Not on its own,” I agreed. “Of course, if those two were to suffer mysterious deaths as well you’d suddenly become a very likely suspect.”

“What do you want?” Jagadev said.

“First, no more assassins in the night,” I said. “Second, I want you to cut your ties with Anne and Variam. They go free and clear with no more plots against them.”

“And if I do not?”

“Then I’ll take everything I’ve told you and everything else I’ve found and publish it to every mage in the country,” I said. “Right now there are a lot of mages looking for someone to blame for their missing apprentices. They’d love to have someone to vent their rage on.”

“Again,” Jagadev said. “You have no proof.”

“They won’t care,” I said. “Not for a nonhuman.”

“And you think they will listen to you, Alex Verus?” Jagadev said softly. “To one who betrayed his master, turned against his tradition, and is responsible for the deaths of so many other mages himself? One who holds himself apart from the Light Council and the Dark associations, with mortal enemies amongst both, and whose closest allies are adepts and nonhumans? They will accept your story on nothing but your word? I think not.”

“Jagadev, let me tell you something about diviners,” I said. “You’re right that other mages don’t like us very much. But do you know the real reason they don’t want us around? It’s not because they don’t trust us to find out the truth. It’s because they trust us all too well.”

“Then let me tell you something about myself,” Jagadev said. His voice stayed soft, but something about it sent a chill down my spine. “You are very far indeed from the first mage to threaten me. Do you think I hold this domain at the whim of your Council? I have resources you cannot conceive of. If you bring war to me, then let me assure you that the apprentices whose lives you seem to value so highly will be the first casualties.”

We sat staring at each other for a long moment, then I broke the deadlock, leaning back in my chair. “That is the problem, isn’t it? If you ever really decided to cut loose you could do a lot of damage. On the other hand, by publishing this information I could do you a lot of damage. And if it came to war you’d eventually lose. You know it and I know it. It wouldn’t matter how many you killed. It’d be wolves pulling down a tiger. They’d bring you down by sheer weight of numbers.” I met Jagadev’s eyes. “So I guess what it comes down to is this. Is taking your revenge on two human apprentices more important to you than your own immortal life?”

“And what do you gain from this?” Jagadev asked.

“Does it matter?” I said. “Anne and Variam are a liability to you now. I’m going to be watching them and so will others, and if anything happens to them while they’re supposed to be in your care we’ll know it was you. Even if it wasn’t.”

I could have said more, but stopped. Some instinct told me that trying to persuade Jagadev further wasn’t going to help. Instead I sat and waited, watching the futures whirl ahead of me. The fire crackled in the quiet room, throwing flickering light over Jagadev’s orange-striped face and glinting off his opaque black eyes.

“Anne and Variam are banished from my domain,” Jagadev said at last. “As are you. Should any of you set foot in this place again your lives are forfeit.”

I nodded.

“Go,” Jagadev said.

I did. My muscles were tensed all the way to the door; if Jagadev was going to try anything, now would be the time. Every step I half-expected to hear a sudden rush of movement behind me.

But Jagadev did nothing. I reached the door and took a last look back. The rakshasa was still watching me from the table, lit up in the firelight, the meal untasted before him. I studied him for a moment and then turned and left. The guards let me go.

*  *  *

It was another clear winter’s day. The temperature had been getting lower and lower until it was close to freezing, and according to the forecasts there might even be snow this weekend. But for today the skies were clear, and we were taking the opportunity to do some moving.

“That the last one?” I said as I came back out into the street and saw the solitary box by the van.

“Yep,” Sonder said. “Is there anything else?”

“It’s fine,” I said. “Go ahead and take the van back. Thanks for the help.”

“It’s okay,” Sonder said. “Uh, you know, I could probably find somewhere they could use. The Council has a few buildings that are pretty much always empty.”

I shook my head. “You’ve done more than enough.”

Sonder hesitated. “Have you told them about . . . ?”

“What you found out about Jagadev?” I asked. “No. And to be honest, I’m not sure I’m going to.”

Sonder looked startled. “Really?”

I nodded. “But . . .” Sonder said. “It’s the truth. I mean, I know it’s not going to be fun for them to hear, but . . .”

“You did the research on Anne and Variam’s family history,” I said. “How much of an extended family do they have?”

Sonder thought for a moment. “I don’t think they have much of one. Not in their generation anyway. Variam used to have—”

“Right. How many of those deaths do you think were from natural causes?”

Sonder paused. “Oh.”

“And how do you think Variam in particular is going to react when he finds out?”

“Um. I guess he’s not going to be happy.”

“No,” I said. “He’s not.”

We stood by the van in silence for a moment. “What are you going to do?” Sonder asked.

“Sooner or later they’re going to have to know,” I said. “But . . . I think I’m going to wait. At least until things quiet down.”

“I guess,” Sonder said. “Are we still on for dinner?”

“Sure. Drop by whenever you like.”

As Sonder drove the van away I picked up the box and carried it back to the shop. As I did I noticed that a couple of customers were hovering around the front door. “Hi,” one of them said as I fumbled for the handle. “Are you open?”

“Sure,” I said, shouldering the door open. “Come in and—” I stopped as I realised no one was behind the counter.

“Do you work here?” the younger one said.

“Yeah.” I put the box down and headed past the counter for the hall. “Wait just a sec and I’ll find the sales manager.”

I heard the argument from all the way down the stairs. “You are not leaving that crap all over my room,” Luna was saying.

“It’s where I’m staying, all right?” Variam said.

“I don’t care where you stay but you’re not staying here.”

“You said this was a spare room!”

“I told Anne this was a spare room. I didn’t say you could have it.”

“This is such bullshit,” Variam said. “You don’t even live here.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes classes run late and I sleep over, and I don’t want to be picking your dirty clothes off the floor.”

“My clothes aren’t—”

“Hi,” I said, sticking my head through the door of the spare room. “Is there a problem?”

“Variam wants my room,” Luna said with a frown. She was standing in front of the camp bed with her arms folded.

“It’s not your room—” Variam started.

“All right,” I cut in. “Let me break it down for you guys. I have two rooms available, the living room and the spare. I don’t care who sleeps where, but if you’re a guest here you should be polite to your host, and if you’re a host you should be trying to make your guest feel comfortable.”

Luna and Variam looked at each other, then back at me. “Okay?” I said.

“Okay,” Luna said.

“So who gets the room?” Variam said.

“You’re over twenty years old,” I said. “Sort it out yourselves. Oh, and Variam, the rest of your boxes are downstairs, and Luna, you’re supposed to be minding the shop.”

Luna sighed and obeyed. Variam followed. As I left I heard them start arguing again.

I wandered into the living room to find the rest of the boxes in a pile, stacked neatly but unopened. I thought for a minute, then went out onto my balcony and climbed the ladder to the roof.

There’s not much on the roof of my flat—a little parapet around the edge, one chimney, and that’s it. It’s bare and cold and there’s no shelter, but I love coming up here all the same and it’s because of the view. The edges of the roof go out just far enough that you can’t look down into the street, but other than that there’s no direction you can’t see. As I climbed I could hear the sounds of the city all around us; the whistling of the wind on the rooftops, the creak of stone and metal from the buildings nearby, the low steady growl of traffic. Voices echoed up from the streets around, a train rumbled along one of the railway bridges in the middle distance, and far overhead an airliner drew a clear contrail of white across the blue sky. Millions of people, millions of stories, all blending into the sounds of London.

Anne was sitting on the parapet, looking southward over the skyline with her hands around her knees. She looked back as I crossed the roof. “Cold?” I asked.

Anne shook her head and I sat down next to her with a sigh. It really was a great view. “Are Luna and Vari okay?” Anne asked.

“Oh, they’ll be fine. Just sorting out the pecking order.”

“Thank you for letting us stay here,” Anne said. “And . . . for everything else.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“When Vitus took me . . .” Anne said. She was staring down at the building opposite, and she had to stop and take a breath before she could go on. “I was so scared I couldn’t think. I was lying on that table, trying to keep myself alive and hide my life so he couldn’t find me. I didn’t know if I could do it. The first time nearly killed me and I knew if Vitus came back to take any more of my blood I’d die. Then I felt you come in and Vari and Luna and . . .” She looked up at me, red-brown eyes serious. “I wasn’t scared anymore. I knew you’d come.”

I looked away. I always get uncomfortable when people are grateful to me—I’m never sure I really deserve it. “Eh. The only reason it was me was because I made Variam stay back and guard the entrance.”

“Vari always fights,” Anne said simply. “He always tries to protect me and I know he’ll never give up. But I don’t know if he’ll be okay. Usually . . . I guess it’s like I need to be responsible for everyone. And I don’t mind or anything, but . . . It feels like I don’t need to worry about that so much that when you’re around. It’s nice.”

“You know, I’ve always wondered,” I said. “What is the deal with you and Variam? How did you get to know each other?”

“Everyone asks that,” Anne said with a slight smile. “We met because of another boy called Harbir. He was Variam’s older brother and when things started happening at my school Harbir came to help. He was like that.” Anne’s smile faded. “But he was killed. I didn’t know how to use my magic back then, but . . . I wish I’d been able to do something.

“After that Sagash kidnapped me and took me away. I was in his castle for a long time. Sagash was a Dark mage but he didn’t have any other apprentices. He wanted me to become his Chosen, and when I said no he tried to make me.” Anne was quiet for a moment. “It was . . . bad. Really bad. Back then I didn’t know Vari well—we only met because he was Harbir’s brother. He could have stayed at home and been safe. But he didn’t. He came looking for me and he tracked Sagash down and in the end we were able to get away. I think he did it because of Harbir. One of the last things Harbir had been trying to do before he disappeared was protect me and . . . I guess Vari feels he kind of inherited the responsibility. He takes that kind of thing really seriously. He’d never let me get hurt, even if he doesn’t like me all that much.”

“Wait, what?”

“He doesn’t hate me or anything,” Anne said. “But I think it gets on his nerves the way I’m so quiet about things. He likes it when people stand up to him.”

“So that’s why he finally started listening to me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing.”

Anne gave me a puzzled look, then shook it off. “Did everyone make it out from Vitus’s sanctum okay? The Keepers wouldn’t tell me.”

“Crystal got away clean,” I said. “Lyle too—he got out with Crystal and she left him behind. He wasn’t hurt or anything, but last I heard he was in hot water. He was supposed to be keeping the apprentices in the White Stone safe and instead he ended up arranging them an all-expenses paid trip to Death Mansion.”

“Are the Council going to blame him?”

I shook my head. “He didn’t actually know what was going on, so no. Still, I don’t think he’s going to be getting any promotions for a while.” It was an odd feeling. I’ve had a grudge against Lyle for the longest time, but now that things had gone wrong for him I found to my surprise that I wasn’t especially happy about it. If he’d gotten in trouble because he’d finally taken advantage of the wrong person I probably would have laughed, but the way it looked to me was that it had been Crystal who’d taken advantage of him. Somehow that just made it sad.

“What about Onyx?” Anne asked. “Do you think he’s . . . ?”

“I wish,” I said with a snort. “I’ve seen him survive worse. I’m just glad he hasn’t come back for a rematch yet.”

We sat listening to the sounds of the city. The cold air bit at me and I knew I ought to go in soon, but I was reluctant to break the moment. “It feels strange,” Anne said at last.

“What does?”

“Being away from Jagadev,” Anne said. At some point she’d stopped tacking Lord onto his name. “It’s the first time Vari and I have been all on our own.”

“You’re wondering what you should do,” I said.

Anne nodded. “Well, for the short term you can both stay here,” I said. “I might not have as much status as some, but as long as you’re living under this roof you’ll have some protection at least.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t get too grateful. I’ll probably want you to help out around the place.”

I saw Anne try to hide a smile. “But . . .” I said. “In the long run you and Variam are going to have to decide what to do next.”

Anne seemed about to say something, hesitated.

“I can’t take the two of you on as apprentices,” I said. “I couldn’t take on someone else and teach Luna as well. But even if I didn’t have Luna, I still couldn’t teach you properly. I only understand the basics of elemental and living magic, and you and Variam are way beyond anything I could show you. Both of you have more power right now than I’ll ever have. You need a teacher who can use the same type of magic that you can.”

A chill wind gusted over us, ruffling our hair. “Or you could try and make a go of it as independents,” I said. “But that’s got its own problems. You’re going to be seen as rogues or runaways or both. If you can get enough support and pass the journeyman tests, then the Light Council will have to recognise you as adult mages. But that’s not easy.”

Anne sighed. “None of it is, is it?” She straightened. “Well, we’ve made it this far. We’ll make do.”

“You will,” I said. “And you won’t be on your own this time.”

Anne looked at me and smiled. I got up and held my hand out to her. “Come on. Let’s go help Variam unpack.”

We went down out of the cold and towards the warmth and voices below.

chosen

BENEDICT JACKA

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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CHOSEN

An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author

Copyright © 2013 by Benedict Jacka.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group.

ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-60942-2

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Ace mass-market edition / September 2013

Cover photographs: River Thames © Michael Trevillion / Trevillion Images; abstract waves © Uka/Shutterstock; abstract wavy lines © Tarchyshnik Andrei / Shutterstock.

Cover design by Judith Lagerman.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

chapter 1

The night was warm and still. Through the open windows of my flat a gentle breeze blew, faint scents carrying on the air: tarmac, burnt rubber, the distant smell of a barbecue. The street outside was filled with the steady whisper of traffic, voices rising briefly above the background noise before fading into it again, and from two blocks over came the rhythmic thump of club music. A helicopter was prowling the skies above, tracking the wail of police sirens, and from time to time it would pass overhead in a clatter of rotors.

Inside, my flat was peaceful. Flies moved in lazy arcs under the light, and birds and animals looked quietly down from the pictures on the walls. The coffee table had been moved to the centre of the room; it was covered with cardboard hexes and wooden playing pieces, and four out of the five of us were sitting around it. Sonder and I were on chairs, Luna was sitting cross-legged on a beanbag, and Variam was at one end of the sofa, scowling down at his cards. At the other end of the sofa and a little way from the game was Anne, curled up with her legs tucked under her.

“Uh, Variam?” Sonder said. Sonder has messy black hair and glasses, and always seems to have a permanent air of scruffiness about him, as though he’s just slept in his clothes. “Your turn.”

Variam picked up the dice and threw them without looking. “Seven.”

Luna stretched to see. “That’s an eight, you idiot.”

Sonder perked up. “Awesome! Five ore, two grain.”

Variam ignored them both. “We should be practising,” he told me.

“You’ve been practising for weeks,” I said, waiting for Sonder to finish scooping cards before taking my own.

“It’s better than just sitting here.”

“Are you done?” Sonder asked Variam.

Variam nodded, and Sonder picked up the dice. “We could do more combat drills,” Variam said as Sonder made his roll.

“You don’t need more combat drills.”

“She does,” Variam said, pointing at Anne.

Luna looked at Variam in annoyance. “Your appointment tomorrow’s for a consultation, not a battle,” I said before Luna could start an argument. “She just wants to find out a bit about you. I’ll be surprised if she even asks you to cast a spell.”

Sonder hesitated, looking between us. “We might need to show her what we can do,” Variam said.

“Variam, she’s a little old lady,” I said. “She lives in a terraced house in Brondesbury. She is not going to want you to show her how well you can incinerate things.”

Variam sat back with an aggravated look. “Um,” Sonder said. “I’ll get a city and a development card.” He pushed the dice over to Luna. “Your turn.”

Luna waited for Sonder to withdraw his hand before picking up the dice and rolling them. To my mage’s sight Luna’s curse appeared as a silvery aura, twining around her limbs and body like living mist. Silver tendrils played over the dice as they bounced, and disappeared once the dice came to rest. “Seven,” Luna said with satisfaction. “Let’s see, I think the robber can go”—she picked up the black piece and traced a circle with it over the board—“there.” She set it down in the middle of Variam’s settlements and held out a hand, fingers extended. “Gimme.”

Variam woke up. “What?”

“Card, please.”

“Why are you going for me? They’re going to win!”

“Annoying you is more fun. Card, please.”

Variam scowled and held his cards out with poor grace. Luna took her time over picking one, making Variam’s scowl deepen before she plucked one out. The silver mist of her curse pulled in close to her fingers as she did. Luna’s curse brings bad luck, and it’s quite lethal; even a strand of that mist is dangerous, and skin-to-skin contact is deadly. Once upon a time Luna would never have been able to get so close to another person without putting them at risk, but she’s been training to control her curse for nearly a year and a half now and it’s paid off. The silver mist was layered in near to her skin, bright and dense, and only a few faint traces had spread to the playing pieces, leaving them bathed in tiny silver auras. The auras around the items weren’t a problem; her curse doesn’t do much to objects. Living creatures are another story.

The dice came around to me, and after the resources had been counted out I looked at my hand. The first to ten points would win, and I had eight. Glancing into the future in which I turned over the top development card, I saw that it was a victory point. “Settlement,” I said, placing the wooden playing piece down on the map, then rose to my feet. “I’m getting a drink; you guys want something?”

“Could I have some water?” Sonder asked.

“I kind of want a drink, but I’m not sure what,” Luna said.

“I think there’s some of the cordial left that I made yesterday,” Anne said in her soft voice. “The elderflower and lime?”

Luna perked up. “Oh, that was nice.”

I walked into the kitchen, took the bottle out of the fridge, and was just filling a glass when I felt the presence behind me. I held out the drink without looking, and it was taken from my hand after a moment’s pause. “Thank you,” Anne said.

Anne is tall and slim, only an inch or so shorter than me, with black hair that brushes her shoulders and reddish-brown eyes. She looks striking, but she’s got a quiet, unobtrusive manner that tends not to draw attention. “What’s up?” I asked, filling another glass.

“You could have won that game, couldn’t you?” Anne said.

I turned with a smile. “Guess I need a better poker face.”

Back in the living room I could hear raised voices: Variam and Luna had started arguing again. “Were you letting them win?” Anne asked curiously.

“To win I’d have needed Luna or Vari to trade me their cards,” I said. “Probably could have convinced them, but I’d have had to lie.”

“You don’t think it’s worth it?”

“I’ve done enough shady stuff,” I said. “I’d rather stay friends unless I’ve got a really good reason not to.”

Anne gave a smile, but it faded quickly. She glanced back over her shoulder, up at the cupboards. “Something wrong?” I said.

“There’s someone outside.”

I straightened, suddenly alert. “Where?”

Anne is a life mage, and a powerful one. Most people think “life mage” means “healer,” and they’re half right, but life magic is far more than that—it gives control over every aspect of a living creature, healing or harming with a touch. Life mages can sense life, “seeing” living creatures, and Anne’s particularly good at it. Her accuracy is amazing; she can learn more in a minute just by looking at you than a doctor could work out in twenty-four hours with a full hospital’s worth of equipment. I’ve never been able to figure out exactly how she does it, though she’s tried to explain it a couple of times. She just seems to read a person’s body in the same way that you or I can read the expression on someone’s face.

On a practical note, this makes Anne really, really good at spotting people—she can notice them through walls, floors, and even solid rock if she feels like it, and if she’s ever met them she can recognise them with perfect accuracy. “He was down on the street,” Anne said. “I didn’t pay any attention at first, but . . . he moved away and came up to the rooftop. It looked like he was trying to watch us.”

“Who is he?”

“I’ve never met him before,” Anne said. “He’s about eighteen years old, not very big or strong but he’s healthy, and he’s on his own.” She pointed up through the wall at a slight angle. “About seventy feet that way.”

“No one’s after you or Vari at the moment, are they?”

“Not that I know about,” Anne said simply.

There was a reason I was asking. Anne and Variam are what you might call very advanced apprentices; they aren’t mages but they’re experienced enough that they probably should be. Four years ago they got involved with a Dark mage called Sagash. The official story (at least, the story the Council believes) is that Anne and Variam entered Sagash’s service as apprentices before leaving nine months later. What actually happened was that Sagash kidnapped Anne and tortured her until she did what she was told. Variam went looking for her, and when he tracked her down there was an almighty battle. Their next stop was a rakshasa named Jagadev, who arranged for their entry into the Light apprentice program and took them into his household right up until last winter, when Anne got arrested by the Council on suspicion of being an accessory to murder. In the aftermath Jagadev kicked them out and I let them move into my flat. When you have a history like that you attract a lot of attention, and in the time I’d known Anne and Variam they’d been hunted by assassins, constructs, a pair of Council Keepers, and two different Dark mages, just for starters. It’s not that they look for trouble but it does seem to follow them around.

Of course, Anne and Variam aren’t the only ones with a bad reputation. The Council thinks I was trained as a Dark apprentice too—the difference is, in my case they’re right, and if our mystery guest wasn’t after Anne or Variam there was a good chance he was after me. But while we’d been talking I’d had the time to confirm he was there and I’d gathered enough information to decide that he wasn’t any immediate threat. My abilities aren’t as good as Anne’s at analysing living creatures but they’re much better for sensing danger, and I’d already decided I could handle this on my own. “I’ll go have a chat,” I told Anne.

Anne hesitated, glancing back at the living room. “I’ll be okay,” I said. “When Vari and Luna finish arguing and Sonder wins on his next turn, tell them I’ll be back in five minutes.”

Anne looked concerned, but nodded. “Be careful.”

* * *

The roof of my flat has a great view. It’s not especially high, but it’s right in the middle of the densest part of Camden. Brickwork and bridges and parapets and aerials and chimneys reach up all around, surrounding you in a sea of buildings, as though you’re looking out over a horizon made from the cityscape. It was a clear night and a few fuzzy stars shone down from above, struggling against the light pollution, while to the left a crescent moon was rising. The scent of food drifted on the warm air: Indian from the restaurants at the end of the street, Italian from the one a block over, barbecue from the gardens near the canal. I moved into a chimney’s shadow and let the darkness cover me.

The guy trying to spy on us was three rooftops over, and as I got a closer look I mentally changed his designation from “guy” to “kid.” I could have sneaked up on him without too much trouble, but as I looked into the future I saw that he was going to come my way before long. I settled down to wait.

A few minutes passed. The helicopter that had been buzzing around the council estate to the south passed overhead again, the discordant clatter of the rotors drowning out everything else until it lost interest and flew away north, its lights blinking white-green-red in the night. A pack of teenagers in hoodies swaggered down the street below us, shouting drunkenly; there was the tinkling crash of a bottle breaking, followed by a scuffle and a yell. Once the street was quiet again the kid left the cover of his rooftop and crept towards my hiding place.

Divination magic works by sensing probabilities. To me, potential futures appear as lines of light against the darkness; the brighter and more vivid, the more likely. By glancing over the futures in which I stepped out into the kid’s line of sight I could watch him despite the objects between us, and as I did I kept an eye on the futures of the kid’s actions. Most of them showed a sudden flurry of movement as he saw me, while in a few he continued to move steadily, unaware. I saw that the futures in which he stayed unaware of me were the ones in which I moved left around the chimney and I did just that, matching my actions to the futures in which I was undetected. I hardly had to pay attention to do it; I’ve had so much practice at using my divination for stealth that it’s become automatic. The kid passed by, oblivious, and walked onto the roof of my flat.

I’d had time to do a fairly thorough scan of the rooftops around us, flicking through the futures in which I went searching in different directions, and I was pretty sure the kid was alone. As I watched, he moved to the ladder leading down to my balcony and crouched, peering over the edge. I rose silently from behind the chimney and walked quietly up behind, stopping ten feet away. “Looking for someone?” I said to his back.

The kid jumped, trying to leap up, spin around, and look in every direction all at once. He nearly fell over the edge, and as he saw me he scrambled to reach into his jacket, fumbling out a weapon. It was a short combat knife, about the length of his hand, and he promptly dropped it with a clatter. He bent down to grab it, nearly fell off the roof again, and finally got it pointing in my direction, breathing fast.

I watched the whole thing with an expression of mild interest. “Finished?”

The kid didn’t answer, staring at me with wide eyes. “So I’m guessing you’re looking for me?” I said.

Silence. The kid was Chinese, though looking through the futures I could tell he spoke with a London accent; I pegged him as British-born. He was small and wiry, and looked quick. “You know,” I said, “if you’re just going to stand there staring, this is going to be a really one-sided conversation.”

Yet more silence. I opened my mouth to make a snarky comment and stopped as I suddenly recognised the emotion in the kid’s eyes. He was terrified—not just jumpy, but scared out of his wits. And the person he was terrified of was me.

I’m really not used to people being afraid of me. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of mages get uneasy around diviners, but it’s because they think you might dig out their secrets—they know a diviner’s no physical threat. And while secrets can be as deadly as any other weapon in the magical world, fear is an instinctual thing. When you know you can beat someone up it’s a lot harder to be scared of them.

Obviously this kid hadn’t gotten that particular memo. He was practically paralysed, to the point where it looked like he could barely move. I wasn’t worried about the knife—from what I could see he looked more likely to stab himself than anyone else. “Who sent you?” I said, my voice sharp and commanding. I didn’t ask who he was—this guy was a pawn, not a king.

The tone of voice worked, and the kid mumbled an answer before he could stop himself. “Will.”

“You his apprentice?” I asked. The kid stared at me in obvious confusion and I cocked my head. He wasn’t acting like a mage. “Adept, then?”

He started, and I nodded to myself. “Okay, what do you want to know?”

“Huh?”

I shrugged. “You came here to find something out, right? Let’s hear it.”

The kid continued to stare at me. Apparently this hadn’t been in the script. “Okay, look,” I said. “Could we speed this up? I’ve got company over, and don’t take this personally, but you’re not turning out to be the most fascinating conversation partner.”

“Are—” The kid’s voice wavered and he swallowed. “You’re Verus, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I’m the big bad scary Verus.”

“What were you doing?” the kid said.

I stared at him for a second before answering slowly and carefully. “I was playing a board game.”

The kid hesitated. “So you’ve discovered my secret,” I said. “Congrats.” I nodded to the knife. “Now put that away. You obviously don’t have a clue how to use it.”

By the way, just in case any of you are thinking about trying this at home, this is not how you’re supposed to handle a nervous guy with a knife. If someone pulls a weapon on you, the correct response is to run—or if you can’t manage that, to deck them before they get the chance to draw it. But I’d been looking into the futures in which I engaged the kid and it was woefully obvious that he had absolutely no idea how to use the thing. If I went for him it was three to one that he’d fall off the roof and probably stab himself in the process.

The kid started and looked down at the blade—he’d obviously forgotten he was holding it—but didn’t lower the weapon. I sighed, suddenly running out of patience. Oh, screw this. I walked to one side. “Get out of here.”

The kid stared at me again. “Beat it,” I said, gesturing. I’d left the kid a clear path back where he came. “If your boss wants to spy on me, tell him to come do it himself.”

The kid looked from me to the empty darkness and began slowly moving away, trying to retreat and watch me at the same time. I took another look into the futures and saw how easy it would be to take him down. Lunge, grab, twist, and he’d be on the ground. The knife would be out of his hand and into mine, and then we could have a nice long chat about exactly who’d sent him here.

I didn’t do it. I would have, once. A spy usually just means someone’s being nosy, but it can also mean they’re thinking about making a move on you, which means that it’s fairly common for mages who realise they’re being spied on to shoot first and ask questions later. On top of that, the kind of people I used to hang out with tended to assume that not reacting to a potential threat with immediate violence was a sign of weakness. It might be nothing, but why take the chance?

But here’s the thing about living like a paranoid hermit: it sucks. It’s impossible to explain just how tired you can get of violence—that weary feeling where you see someone who’s looking for trouble and want to ask, Do we really have to do this? The more time I spent with Luna and Sonder and Variam and Anne, the more I realised that I liked not treating everyone I met as a potential threat. Going after the kid and interrogating him felt like stepping away from that, and I didn’t want to do it. So I stood and watched as he edged around me. Once he had a clear line of retreat he turned and ran into the darkness. The sound of racing footsteps faded and I was alone.

Now that I look back, I wonder what would have happened if I’d done things differently. If I’d spoken or acted another way, could I have avoided the whole ugly mess? Or would it just have made things worse? Maybe someone else could have managed it. I don’t know.

But at the time I had no idea what was coming. I just waited to make sure the kid was gone, then headed back down to my flat to tell Anne and the others the story.

* * *

Iwoke the next morning to the pleasant feeling of light and warmth. From long habit, the first thing I did was scan the future for danger, looking for the telltale flashes of threats and violence. Absolutely nothing came up and I stayed relaxed, turning to get my head out of the light before opening my eyes. The sun was streaming into my bedroom, the rays lighting up my bed and carpet in brilliant colour, and glancing up through the window I could see a bright blue sky. It was going to be a clear summer’s day.

My bedroom’s a comfortable size, with two tall windows that let in the morning sun and give a view out onto the rooftops of Camden. The walls are white and bare except for a couple of pictures I inherited from the previous owner, and there’s a long desk that’s usually cluttered with whatever magic items I’m working on at the moment. A door leads into the living room. From under the door I could smell something tasty coming from the kitchen and I didn’t even need to look to know that Anne was there.

I wasn’t in a hurry so I just lay there in my bed, enjoying the sun and quiet while lazily looking through the futures ahead of me. Once I was completely awake I got up and took a few steps on the carpet in my bare feet, stretching my legs before dressing and opening the door.

The living room was neat and clean except for the corner with Variam’s camp bed, which looked as though it had been converted into a nest for a medium-sized tornado. Variam has a ridiculous amount of energy and only sleeps about six hours a night, which usually means that by the time I’m up he’s already left the house. I washed, shaved, and wandered into the kitchen, where Anne was making breakfast.

Since Anne and Variam had moved in last winter, my home had gone from a fairly lonely place to something more like a shared house. It had been eight months since Anne and Variam had arrived, and between seeing them and taking lessons from me Luna was spending so much time here that she might as well be living here too. We’d all had plenty of time to learn each other’s quirks, and one of the first things we’d found out was everyone else’s cooking styles. My cooking can be best described as functional. I’m one of those people who doesn’t care much about food—I like it enough to appreciate it when it’s done well but not enough to learn to get really good. The end result is edible, but I don’t think there’s much chance anyone’s ever going to get excited about eating it.

Anne’s a superb cook. She told us that she grew up doing the cooking for her house, and it shows—she can make a meal out of literally anything and it’ll taste good. Luna isn’t bad, but she’s accident prone. The bad luck from her curse may not affect her, but it works just fine on everything else, and putting her in an environment filled with lit fires, sharp knives, and potentially poisonous substances is just a really bad idea. Her last attempt at oil frying is the reason I’ve got a CO₂ extinguisher mounted on the wall. Variam is terrible. His dishes come in three flavours: scorched, charred, and burnt to a crisp. I have the suspicion that he makes it awful on purpose just so he doesn’t get asked to do it again, but I can’t prove it.

Anne met me with a smile and a plate of delicious fried stuff. “Anne, I love you,” I said as I took it from her.

Anne laughed. “You probably say that to any woman who feeds you.”

“I didn’t say it to the last woman who used this kitchen before you and Luna.” I sat down at the table and started eating. It tasted as good as it smelt.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” I said between mouthfuls. “Turned out she was working for a guy who wanted to kill us. She helped catch me and Luna so he could have a try at murdering us both. Was one of my more spectacularly dysfunctional breakups.”

Anne paused and looked at me. “You’re not joking, are you?”

“I’ll tell you the story sometime,” I said. “Vari gone out?”

“He went for a run.” Anne took the remainder of the sausages, hash browns, and bacon from the pan and divided them in two. Half went on her plate and the other half in another pan, which she closed carefully.

I nodded at the pan. “For Vari?”

“Mm-hm.” Anne took her plate over and sat opposite me. She had just as much food as I did. Anne may be thin, but she eats a lot.

“It really annoys Luna that you’re always so nice to him.”

“I know,” Anne said with a rueful look. “I keep telling her I don’t mind.”

I laughed. “You never mind being nice to people.”

“Well . . . maybe sometimes,” Anne said with a quick smile. “Vari can be bad-tempered, but he’s not a bully. He never tries to control anyone. And . . . he’s a little nervous at the moment.”

I looked at Anne in surprise. “Why now?”

“He’s worried we’ve been looking for a master for too long,” Anne said. “We’re not really supposed to be in the apprentice program, are we? Vari thinks that the longer this goes on, the more chance someone will start paying attention to us.”

Well, that spoiled the fun a bit. I didn’t answer, but Anne was watching me and I knew she could already tell from my reaction that Vari was right.

One of the reasons I’d invited Anne and Variam to stay with me last winter had been for their protection. They’re not recognised members of magical society, but I am (just about), and the idea had been that I’d try to find them a master. Unfortunately that had proven a lot harder than I’d expected. It turns out that if you add up the number of novice mages in Britain looking for a master, and the number of qualified and respected Light or independent master mages looking for an apprentice, there are way more applicants than places. And Anne and Variam’s record only made things worse—to most Light and independent mages, being associated with a Dark mage, a rakshasa, and a murder investigation is sort of the equivalent of being a illegal immigrant, a terrorist, and a registered sex offender all at once. By this point I’d been at it for more than half a year and it was starting to feel depressingly like job hunting, right down to the we regret to inform you rejection letters and the creeping sense of futility.

The one bit of good news was that Anne and Variam were still enrolled in the Light apprentice program, a kind of university structure where apprentices are taught in small classes, meaning that even if they don’t have a master they still have opportunities for study. Problem is, you’re not supposed to be allowed into the program unless you’re sponsored. Jagadev had arranged for Anne and Variam’s entry, and when the two of them had moved into my flat people had assumed I’d taken over their sponsorship, even though officially I hadn’t. If I petitioned I might be able to manage it . . . but then again I might not, and whether or not it worked it would draw all the wrong kinds of attention. “Do you want to push harder?” I asked Anne.

“How?”

“You know why you’ve been turned down so much,” I said. “It’s the whole history with Sagash and Jagadev.” I hesitated, choosing my words carefully. “There are mages who’d be less concerned by that.”

“Dark mages?” Anne said quietly.

“Not all of them,” I said. “It’s just . . . Look, so far I’ve been pretty picky about the mages I’ve approached. If anything’s made me even a little bit twitchy, I’ve steered clear. I could change that. It’s not something I want to do, but . . . as things stand right now, you and Vari have absolutely no rights under mage law. Living with me gives you a little protection but not much, and it’s not like I’m exactly short on enemies. I don’t like the idea of you guys signing up with a mage I don’t trust, but in the long run it might actually make you both safer.”

Anne had listened quietly as I spoke, watching me closely. As I finished my food, she thought for a second and shook her head. “No.”

“Not all of them are going to be bad. They’re just ones I’m not sure about.”

“Then I don’t want to go near them. I don’t want to be apprenticed to a mage I don’t trust. I’d rather have no master than a bad one.”

“It might take a while—”

“Then I’ll wait,” Anne said. “I don’t care how long it takes. I was Sagash’s apprentice once and I’m not doing that again, not ever.” Her eyes were set and there was an anger there that brought me up short. “As long as there’s any chance they could be like that, I’m never going with them.”

I leant back in surprise. “Okay. I guess we’ll cross off that plan.”

Anne stared right through me, and for just a moment I wondered where I’d seen that expression of hers before. A memory flickered through my head: green light flashing off bones, a body falling . . .

Then Anne seemed to realise what she was doing and the moment was gone. “Um . . .” She brushed her hair back, turning her face away, suddenly embarrassed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean . . . Is it okay us still staying here? I don’t want to . . .”

“Oh, it’s fine,” I said, though inwardly I was curious. What had triggered that? “Look, you guys have been here long enough to see how active a social life I usually have. It’s nice having people to talk to.”

“You don’t mind being so crowded?” Anne asked. “I mean, this flat’s not that big.”

I shrugged. “I’m kind of the self-contained type. As long as you guys don’t start sleeping in my bedroom I’m fine.” Though come to think of it, I always used to have trouble sleeping if anyone else was in the flat. For some reason Anne and Variam didn’t trigger that reflex.

Anne smiled, but it faded quickly. She looked like she was working her way up to asking something. “What is it?” I said.

“Um . . .” Anne said. “It’s just . . . You don’t get uncomfortable when I’m near you, do you?”

I looked at her in surprise. “That’s a weird question. No, why?”

Anne looked away. “Mages . . . usually don’t like it if I’m close to them.”

“Why not?”

“You know . . .” Anne stopped and started again. “People show their feelings in their bodies. The tension, the way they move . . . If they’re afraid or uncomfortable I can see it.”

I looked at Anne, puzzled. “Okay.” I had the feeling she was trying to tell me something, but I wasn’t sure what.

I heard the sound of the back door from below. “Vari’s back,” Anne said before I could check. She got up, taking the plates to the sink. I thought about asking more, but I could already hear Variam running up the stairs and decided to leave it for another time. A second later Variam came in, and by the time we’d sorted out who would get to use the shower first I’d forgotten about it.

chapter 2

Anne and Variam’s appointment was for eleven o’clock; they were seeing a mage who’d been recommended to me as someone who might be able to help out with their finding-a-master problem. After they were gone I went to wash up, found that Anne had done it already, and went downstairs to open the shop.

My day job when I don’t have anything life-threatening to deal with is running a business called the Arcana Emporium, the name of which is a long-winded way of saying “magic shop.” I don’t publicise that I’m a mage, but I don’t exactly hide it either, and one of the odd things I’ve learnt over the years is just how much you can get away with if you’re blatant enough. Hide something behind smoke and mirrors and make people work to find it, and they’ll tear the place down looking for what’s there. Put up a sign up saying magic shop, and no one believes you.

I still don’t know where most of my customers come from. I don’t advertise and I’m off the main street, so most of it has to be word of mouth. Every now and again I’ll Google my shop to see what people are saying about me and I swear I get the weirdest results. There are people out there who think I’m everything from a reincarnated angel from the pharaoh dynasties of Egypt to a thousand-year-old half dragon who’s secretly sponsoring a quest across time and space in an attempt to kill himself. (No, I don’t know why.) I suppose I should be grateful there isn’t any slash fiction. On second thought, I’m not going to look too closely just in case there is.

Anyway, the result of all this is that I get a pretty bizarre mix of customers. The biggest group are the tourists and curiosity-shoppers, and they’re pretty easy to deal with. They take for granted that magic isn’t real, and so for them it’s a simple business transaction. I get money, and they get something weird to take home, where they’ll tell stories about the funny guy who pretends to sell magic items. Mixed in with the normals are the clued-in—sensitives, adepts, apprentices, and even the odd mage. They’re the ones my stock is actually for, and they’re definitely the only ones who have any idea how to use it. I like talking to these guys.

The problem customers are the ones in between. They know that magic’s real, but they expect it to behave like . . . well, like what they mean when they say “like magic.” Now don’t get me wrong, magic can do some pretty impressive stuff, but it has limits and it has rules. If you try to mess with it without knowing what you’re doing, it’s far more likely to complicate your life than it is to help. It’s not a universal solution to whatever issues you might currently have.

None of which stops people from coming in here expecting me to fix their problems for them.

* * *

The man stepped forward and slapped something down on the counter with a thump. Then he glared at me. “Well?”

“Um,” I said.

He pointed. “Do you know what that is?”

I looked at the thing on my counter. It was covered with silver scales, and it smelt. “It’s a fish.”

“Do you know where it came from?”

“I’d guess the sea.”

“It was on my chair. That’s where it came from.”

“Okay,” I said. “Does this happen often?”

“This is the third time!”

“So . . . you’ve attracted the attention of a compulsively generous fishmonger?”

“What?” The man stared at me. “What are you talking about?”

“Sorry. What seems to be the problem?”

“The problem,” the man said, speaking slowly and clearly, “is that it’s a curse.”

“Ah,” I said. “And you know this because . . . ?”

“My cat told me.”

“Your cat,” I said. “Right. It’s all starting to make sense now.”

The man rolled his eyes. “You know what, forget it, I’ll do it myself. Where are your spell components?”

I pointed. “Second rack in the corner.”

The man turned and walked off. “Hey,” I called. “Could you take your fish with you, please?”

The next three customers wanted a knife, a selection of herbs, and a crystal ball, respectively. The fourth harangued me at length about why the shop had been closed yesterday even though the sign said that it didn’t close until five and did I know how much travelling time I’d cost her? By the time she’d finished threatening to report me to the Office of Fair Trading and stormed off, a queue had grown up behind her.

Luna came in just as I was dealing with customer number . . . something or other, a bearded guy in a worn leather jacket. He smelt of beer and was taking much, much longer than he should to get the message that I was not going to sell him a love potion. “Hi, Alex!” Luna called over the sound of the bell.

“I already told you, there isn’t a formula,” I told the man. “If there were, Chanel would be selling it already . . . Where have you been?”

“Duelling class ran late,” Luna said, weaving between the customers. As she moved I saw the invisible silver mist mould itself to her body, clinging in a tight, dense layer on top of her exercise clothes instead of reaching out to the people in the shop. Once upon a time Luna could never have gotten that close to a crowd—she would have stopped at the edge and hesitated—but she’s been my apprentice for more than a year and she’s done a lot of growing. Not just in magical skill, but in confidence too. “I can use the shower, right?”

“Huh? Yeah, sure.” Luna disappeared into the corridor leading to the stairs up to my flat, and I turned back to the man at the counter. “Look, man, you got to help me,” the man began again.

“Look,” I said. “Even if I could make you a love potion—which, by the way, I can’t—have you any idea how unethical this is? You’re screwing around with someone’s emotions. It’s not something you do without a really good reason.”

Luna stuck her head back into the shop. “Hey, Alex? Is there supposed to be a fish out here?”

I covered my eyes. “No. There’s not.”

“What should I do with it?”

“Look,” the man started again. “You got to help me.”

“No, I don’t,” I told him, and turned to Luna. “I don’t care. Put it in the freezer or something.”

“Are you sure?”

“Why?”

“Isn’t that supposed to spoil the taste?”

“Look, man, I really need this,” the man said.

“I don’t care,” I said to both of them, then looked at Luna. “Put it wherever you’re supposed to put it.”

“Where’s that?”

“How should I know?”

“Well,” Luna said logically, “are we having this for dinner, or is it for something else?”

“I don’t care! Just get rid of it!”

Luna disappeared with the fish. “Um, excuse me,” a boy in his twenties said. He’d been waiting behind Love Potion Guy for five minutes, tapping his foot. “Do you have—”

“No,” I said, and turned back to Love Potion Guy. “I can’t help you, and I guarantee that if you try to go through with this plan it’ll make things worse. Just sort things out the normal way.”

Love Potion Guy stared at me hopelessly. “I can’t.”

Mr. Impatient started up again. “Excuse me, I need—”

“I don’t have them,” I said.

Luna stuck her head back in. “Hey, Alex?”

“Now what?”

“There’s about a dozen more fish in your bedroom.”

I closed my eyes. “Please tell me you’re making this up.”

“Yup.”

I opened my eyes and stared at her. Luna was grinning. “Couldn’t resist, sorry. First fish was real, though. I put it in the fridge.”

I took a deep breath, mentally calculating throwing angles between the items within reach and Luna’s head, but she beat a quick retreat. “Listen,” Love Potion Guy began again.

“No,” I said. “You’ve told me that story twice and a third time’s not going to help.”

“I need—” Mr. Impatient began.

“I already told you, I don’t have them.”

“You haven’t—”

“Doesn’t change the fact that this isn’t that kind of shop.”

“But—”

“They’re real, not fake, and just because I sell knives doesn’t mean I sell cards.”

“Look—” Love Potion Guy said.

I looked back and forth between Love Potion Guy and Mr. Impatient, answering the questions without waiting for them to ask them. “No, no, yes, no, it wouldn’t help, yes every day, it doesn’t matter because I still wouldn’t do it, I’ve already tried that, just try talking to her, first because they’re not profitable enough and second because I don’t care, if you do it’s because they’re trying to con you, the Magic Box on the other side of Camden and here’s one of their cards.” I dropped a business card into Mr. Impatient’s hand and looked between them. They were staring at me. “Are we done here? Because there’s a guy behind you who wants to find out how much money he’s been left in a will and he’s not going to take no for an answer either.”

We weren’t done. Getting rid of the whole crowd took the best part of an hour, but at least the crazies all left at more or less the same time, possibly because of some weird kind of magnetic principle. By the time Luna came back, the shop was empty. I was slumped in the chair and gave her a glower. “Sorry,” Luna said in an I’m-not-sorry-at-all tone.

“Funny how you always time your jokes for when I’m too busy to go after you.”

“Oh, come on,” Luna said with a grin. “Your face was hilarious.”

“I’m getting a vision,” I said. “It’s my mystical diviner’s powers. I foresee myself suddenly assigning you many more shifts at the shop.”

“No, you won’t,” Luna said with perfect confidence.

“Oh, really?”

“You’re not going to make me do it on my own,” Luna said. “The only reason you keep the shop is so you can run the counter yourself.”

I blinked and looked at her. “How do you figure that?”

When I first met Luna she was twenty-one. She’s twenty-three now, a blue-eyed, fair-skinned, wavy-haired half-English-half-Italian girl whose life’s been trending steadily upwards over the past two years despite occasional interludes of danger and violence. Luna’s always been fit, but lately she’s turned into quite an athlete—she was introduced to azimuth duelling last winter and took to it like a duck to water, and she’s been practising hard ever since. “Well, it’s not like you do it for the money,” Luna said. Her hair was damp, the water darkening it from its usual light brown, and as she spoke she started untangling it with the aid of a hairbrush.

“It makes a profit.”

“Not much.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I used to get your stock, remember?” Luna said. Before Luna had been my apprentice she’d worked for me part time, searching for magical items. I’d bought them from her and divided them up; the weaker ones I put up for sale in the restricted section, and the dangerous ones I kept for myself. “You hardly ever sell the expensive stuff.”

“Have you been going through my records?”

“You don’t have any proper ones; I checked. Anyway, if you cared that much about it you’d keep regular hours.”

“I have regular hours.”

“Unless something comes up.”

“Stuff does keep coming up.”

“But you could hire an assistant,” Luna said. “If you really wanted to dump the work on someone else you could have done it by now.”

“Well, yeah.” For years I’ve had vague plans for getting someone to help run the place, but I’ve always put it off. For one thing there aren’t many people I’d trust with the job, but even if I could find someone I’m not sure I’d do it. The people in the magical community whom I feel closest to aren’t the established mages but the have-nots—apprentices, adepts, lesser talents, and all the other small-time practitioners out there—and those are the people that my shop lets me meet.

Luna finished brushing her hair and started tying it back in a ponytail. “So who are Anne and Vari seeing this time?”

“Her name’s Dr. Shirland,” I said. “Mind mage. She’s an independent.”

“If she’s a mind mage, how’s she going to teach Anne and Vari?”

“She’s not, but she might know someone who will. From what I’ve heard she’s supposed to be some kind of consultant. I’m hoping she can get Anne and Vari an interview with a life or fire mage who could teach them.”

“Oh, like that guy they met in the spring?”

I rolled my eyes. “Let’s hope it goes a bit better than that. Last thing we need is another . . .” A future ahead of us caught my attention and I stopped, concentrating.

Luna tilted her head. “What is it?”

“Someone’s coming,” I said. The pattern was different from a regular customer; as I focused on the future in which she walked through the door I saw the flicker of auras. “A mage.”

Luna had been sitting on the counter; now she hopped off, suddenly alert. “Trouble?”

“Don’t think so.” I was already looking for the flash and chaos of combat and couldn’t see it. “Get your focus just in case.”

Luna vanished. I walked forward and flipped the sign in the window from OPEN to CLOSED before returning to my desk to quickly check the weapons underneath. As Luna reappeared I stood behind the counter and waited. A few seconds later the bell rang and the door swung open.

I’d been watching the woman as she’d walked down the street, and by the time she stepped in I’d had the chance to take a good look at her. She was big and hefty-looking, with brown hair and a round, pleasant face, and she wore a wide-cut suit. “Hi,” she said, looking from Luna to me. “Verus, right?”

“That’s me,” I said. And you’re Keeper Caldera.

“Keeper Caldera. Good to meet you.” Caldera walked forward to shake my hand. “Mind if we have a word?”

Keepers are the enforcement arm of the Light Council, a mixture of soldiers, police, and internal investigators. Most mages are wary of them, and for good reason; if a Keeper wants to talk to you, it’s usually bad news. “Depends on the word.”

“You’re not under investigation,” Caldera said. “I’d just like to ask a few questions about something I’m working on.”

I hesitated. I wasn’t keen on talking to a Keeper, but if I brushed Caldera off she’d probably just come back again. “All right,” I said reluctantly. “Not here though.” I’m still wary about having other mages around my shop and I didn’t really want customers looking through the window and seeing us.

“Fine by me,” Caldera said. “Tell you what, there’s a really nice pub just around the corner. I’ll buy you a pint.”

“Uh . . .” Okay, that wasn’t standard Keeper procedure as far as I knew. “I guess that works. Let me close up and I’ll meet you outside.”

* * *

Caldera’s definition of “around the corner” turned out to be on the optimistic side, and it took us twenty minutes to make our way through the busy Camden streets. Luna kept pace with me, staying half a step behind to keep me out of the radius of her curse; Caldera hadn’t specifically invited her but I’d signalled for her to come, and apart from a glance Caldera hadn’t objected. I kept an eye out the whole way, scanning for danger; it wasn’t that Caldera had done anything particularly suspicious, but my past experiences with Keepers have generally been less than positive. Nothing pinged; if I was in danger, it wasn’t the immediate kind.

The pub Caldera had picked for us looked like it had been built some time around the Iron Age: an old, crooked building with irregular floors and low ceilings, filled with nooks and crannies. It obviously hadn’t been designed for tall people, and I had to duck as I followed Caldera down the stairs into the stone cellar. “Right,” Caldera said as she led us past the patrons and to a secluded corner. “What are you having?”

“Just a Coke, please,” Luna said.

“Seriously?”

“I don’t drink.”

“Fair enough. You?”

“Whatever they’ve got on tap,” I said.

Caldera winced. “Okay, look. I’ll get you something good.” She headed to the bar.

“Is she really a Keeper?” Luna asked once Caldera was gone.

“Oh yeah,” I said, looking around the drawings and photos on the grubby paint-on-brick walls. I’d already looked into the future in which I asked Caldera, and I’d seen her show me her Keeper’s signet with its distinctive magical fingerprint. “Though it’s the first time I’ve had one ask me out to the pub.”

“Here we go,” Caldera announced, returning with a drink in either hand. She set them down in front of us and dropped into a corner seat with a contented sigh.

I took a dubious look at the contents of the pint glass she’d pushed in front of me. “What is it?”

“Porter,” Caldera said. “Try it.”

I checked to make sure it wasn’t going to poison me or anything, then took a sip. I raised my eyebrows. “Huh.”

“Like it?”

“Tastes . . . interesting.” I took another drink. It had a fruity flavour, with an odd aftertaste.

“Pretty good, right?” Caldera said. “Notice how it turns into a roasted coffee flavour after the raisin start? Not many pubs in London sell this stuff. They only brew it in London, bottle-conditioned—have to pour it out carefully to leave the yeast sediment in the bottom.”

“Hm. I’ll have to try it again next time.”

“There we go. Done some good today.”

I gave Caldera an amused look. “Not that I’m questioning your expertise on beer, but wasn’t there something you wanted to ask?”

“Right.” Caldera glanced at Luna. “You’re okay with her sitting in on this, right?”

“Luna’s my apprentice,” I said. “You can tell her anything you’d tell me.”

Luna gave me a quick, warm look. “All right,” Caldera said, looking straight at me. “It’s to do with your old master, Richard Drakh.”

I felt my muscles tense. My past with Richard was the one thing I did not want to talk about with Luna, or anyone else for that matter. “What’s happened?”

“There are rumours going around,” Caldera said, watching me carefully. “That he’s coming back.”

The old half-healed, never-healed memories flashed through my mind, fear and helplessness and pain. I shut them out with an effort of will, keeping my voice steady. “There are always rumours.”

“It’s been ten years.”

“So?”

“So they didn’t start from nowhere, did they?” Caldera said. “The powers-that-be want to know what’s going on.”

“Because they don’t have any hard evidence?”

“Can’t say.”

Caldera’s poker face wasn’t bad, but I’m pretty good at reading people and I knew the answer to my question was yes. The Council didn’t have any proof that Richard was back—this was just a fishing expedition. A bit of the tension went out of my muscles. Luna watched the two of us from over her Coke, her eyes filled with curiosity. “You’re hoping I might know something,” I said. “Because I used to be Richard’s apprentice. Right?”

“Pretty much.”

“I haven’t seen him in more than ten years.” I met Caldera’s eyes. “I’m guessing you looked up my background before coming here?”

Caldera’s expression didn’t change. “Heard the story.”

“Then you know why I stayed away,” I said. “I haven’t heard anything about him. Not when I left, and not after I left. And you know what? I’m fine with that.”

Caldera held my gaze for a second. “All right,” she said after a pause. “What about his Chosen, then? Deleo. Does she know something?”

I looked away. “Deleo and I aren’t exactly friends.”

“You were in contact with her last year, right?”

“Briefly.”

“Learn anything?”

“Yeah.” I turned back to Caldera. “I learnt that Deleo’s crazier than a sack of rabid weasels. You want to interview her, go right ahead, but I’m not going to be standing next to you when you do it.”

Caldera made a pacifying gesture. “All right. Look, we don’t have many people to ask, okay? Not like Dark mages are going to cooperate with a Keeper.”

“They don’t cooperate with anyone. And I’m a rogue, remember? You think they’re going to trust me?” I shook my head. “What are you expecting to turn up?”

“Okay,” Caldera said. “Here’s how it is. I wasn’t around back when Richard was active, but from what I heard he had a lot of people running scared. Some of the Guardian types thought he had a plan, was working on something big with the Dark mages, I don’t know. Then all of a sudden, right when he was at the top of his game, he disappeared. Rumour was he’d gone somewhere, but he never showed up and neither did those two apprentices of his. After a few years the guys on the case filed all three of them as missing-presumed-dead and forgot about it.”

“Those two apprentices” had been Tobruk and Shireen. Deleo and I had been numbers three and four. “If they’d known Richard they wouldn’t have filed him as ‘presumed’ anything.”

“So where do you think he went?”

I shrugged.

“I thought diviners knew everything.”

“Richard disappeared in the summer ten years ago,” I said. Come to think of it, it was ten years almost to the day. It had been August then, and it was August now. “By the time he vanished . . . Well, let’s just say he and I weren’t on the best of terms.”

“You have to have some clue,” Caldera said. She was leaning forward, hands clasped, frank and persuasive. “Come on. You’re not seriously telling me you didn’t know anything.”

“You don’t know what Richard was like,” I said quietly. I held Caldera’s eyes, allowing a little of the memories to show through, letting her see I was telling the truth. “Those mages were right to be scared of him. You think he told me his plans? I lived in his mansion for two years, and by the end of it the biggest thing I’d learnt about him was how much I didn’t know. Anything you saw of him, it was because he wanted you to see it.”

“You’re a diviner, right? You never took a look to see?”

“That’s not how it works,” I said, and shook my head. “I’m sorry, Caldera. I don’t have what you’re looking for. I don’t know what Richard’s plans were. As far as I know, no one did.”

A silence fell over the table. Caldera drew back and I could tell she was disappointed. My phone chimed and I glanced at it. “I’d better go.”

Caldera held out a card. “If you think of anything or if anything happens, give me a call, okay?”

I hesitated, then slipped it into my pocket. “Thanks for the drink.”

* * *

“Who was that message from?” Luna asked once we were back out on the streets.

“Anne,” I said. “She says they’ve finished, but she’s not going to be back until late.” I frowned. Something about the message had sounded a little off. I glanced through the futures in which I called Anne and Variam, just to make sure they were all right. Well, they were answering their phones . . .

I snapped back to the present to realise Luna had asked me something about Caldera. “Not sure,” I said. “Listen, I think I’m going to go pay a visit to our mind mage consultant. You go back to the shop and meet up with Vari.”

“Can’t I come?”

“Next time. Anyway, I’m taking you out tonight, remember? Go get ready.”

Luna had been about to keep on pushing, but that diverted her. “Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“What kind of surprise?”

“An educational surprise.”

Luna gave me a suspicious look. “It’ll be fun,” I said. “Wear something nice.”

“Like what, battle armour?”

“I’ll leave that up to your judgement. Remember, seven o’clock. Don’t be late.”

* * *

The quickest route from Camden to Brondesbury is the overground line, which was once called the Silverlink Metro but now goes by the unimaginative name of the London Overground. I watched the rooftops and gardens of north-central London go by, then got off and walked to where Anne and Variam had met Dr. Ruth Shirland.

Dr. Shirland lived in a terraced house in a small closed-in street. It was a residential area and solidly middle class, the kind of place where you’re paying a lot more for the location than for the building. It’s not the kind of place you’d expect a mage to live, but I’ve seen stranger choices. I rang the bell and waited.

Dr. Shirland opened the door. She was about sixty years old, short and delicate looking, with grey curly hair, small round glasses, and the kind of wrinkles you get from smiling a lot. “Oh, hello,” she said. “Alex Verus, isn’t it? Come right in.”

“Thanks.”

I was escorted into a small and cosy sitting room with a modest number of chairs and a lot of bookshelves. I accepted tea, refused biscuits, and was inspected by a fat black-and-white tomcat who sniffed my hand, permitted himself to be stroked, then curled up on an armchair clearly reserved for his exclusive use. “Thanks for seeing me,” I said.

“It’s no trouble,” Dr. Shirland said. “Though I do have a patient in an hour.”

“A patient?”

“I’m a consulting psychologist,” Dr. Shirland said. “I see mages, but I have a regular practice as well.”

“Yeah, I imagine being able to read thoughts would make psychology easier. Are you reading mine now?”

Dr. Shirland raised an eyebrow. “Would you believe me if I told you I wasn’t?”

“Probably not.”

“Why not?”

“Call it a precaution,” I said. “Besides, in my experience most mages can never resist using their powers.”

“Would you include yourself in that category?”

“I can’t read thoughts.”

“But you can see what someone’s going to say.”

“But you can look inside someone’s head even if it’s something they’re not going to say.”

“It’s actually more complicated than that,” Dr. Shirland said, “but most people aren’t concerned with technical details. I imagine they don’t draw much distinction between your being able to predict some of the things they do and all of the things they do?”

“Not generally.”

“Being psychically naked before another is quite a frightening concept,” Dr. Shirland said. “Once that line is crossed, it makes very little difference how far one goes. The breach of privacy is just as extreme either way.”

I thought about it and gave a slight smile. “I suppose that’s a fair point.”

Dr. Shirland sipped her tea. I sat back in the armchair. From the other chair, the cat opened an eye to take a look at me and then went to sleep.

“I understand you’ve taken on the role of sponsor for Anne and Variam?” Dr. Shirland said.

“It’s not officially registered, but yes.”

Dr. Shirland gave a nod. “Before we go any further, please understand that I will not repeat to you anything that either of them has told me in confidence. The only information I will give is that which I believe is appropriate for you to receive as a sponsor.”

“Understood.”

“Good,” Dr. Shirland said briskly. “I understand you’ve been trying to find Anne and Variam an apprenticeship with a Light mage or a Light-leaning independent?”

“Yes.”

“In my judgement the chances of your succeeding in doing so are very low, with one exception.”

I was silent. “Well, I’d hoped for better,” I said after a moment, “but I guess I’ll take what I can get. What’s the exception?”

“I think Variam might have a future as a Council Keeper.”

I stared at her. “You’re kidding.”

“Not at all.”

“Vari hates Keepers!”

“So he told me. I understand he and Anne came under investigation last year.”

“If by ‘came under investigation’ you mean ‘were arrested,’ then yes. And Vari had issues with them before that. He thinks the Council abandoned them both and he’s . . . pretty much right. He’s got a giant chip on his shoulder about mages in general and Light mages in particular, and if there’s one group you’re going to blame for what Light mages do, it’s the Keepers.”

“I understand, but all the same I think that’s where his abilities would be best appreciated. He’s a fighter and he’s determined, and he’s an essentially active personality who needs work to do. He’ll always have some difficulty with discipline, but the Council have employed fire mages before, you know. The Keeper orders are where they traditionally put them.”

“And the fact that he’s associated with a Dark mage?”

“In my opinion, that’s the strongest reason to recommend it. The Keepers are the only arm of the Council who deal with Dark mages on a regular basis. Firsthand knowledge of Dark culture without being a Dark mage would be a selling point to them. If Variam can convince them he’s what he says he is, there’s a good chance they’ll give him the chance to prove himself.”

I thought for a minute. “Did you have someone in mind?”

“I gave Variam the contact details of a Keeper who I think might be a good match. The decision has to be his, of course.”

I turned it over in my mind and shrugged. “Well, I still think it still sounds weird, but I guess it could work. What about Anne?”

“Anne is going to be more difficult.”

“Why?”

“Well for one thing, she’s a life mage.”

I frowned. “Why’s that a problem?”

“Because life mages can do more than heal.”

“They can do the opposite, I know.” I’d seen Anne do it, though only twice. “I don’t see how it matters. Pretty much every mage can kill you one way or another.”

“From your point of view, perhaps,” Dr. Shirland said. “But most mages are rarely threatened, and when they are it’s usually in a way they can understand and deal with. And if they’re an elemental mage, then of course they have their shields. A powerful protection, at least against most things.”

“Life magic goes through shields?”

“As if they weren’t there. I’ve never seen it myself but I’ve spoken to people who have. Just imagine how frightening that would be. Always to have been in a privileged position, safe and powerful, and to have that suddenly taken away. A life mage who can touch another person can do literally anything they want to them.”

“But if you’re looking for an apprentice—” I began, then stopped.

Dr. Shirland nodded. “Typically in a master-apprentice relationship, all the power lies with the master. But with a life apprentice, every time the master comes within arm’s reach he places his life in her hands.”

I thought about it, then shook my head in frustration. “It still doesn’t make sense. Okay, I can see why that would make some mages jumpy, especially the paranoid ones. But they can’t be like that all the time. I mean, mages get life magic treatments, don’t they? They have to let life mages get close sometimes.”

“Ones they trust.”

“And they wouldn’t trust her,” I said with a sigh. Now I saw what she was getting at. “Because of Sagash and Jagadev and the murders last year.”

“Yes,” Dr. Shirland said. “They’d consider her—potentially, at least—touched by darkness.”

I brooded over that for a moment. “Could you change their minds?” I said.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I think they may be right.”

I looked up in surprise. Dr. Shirland was looking steadily at me. “What do you mean?”

“Anne was held by Sagash for a period of nine months,” Dr. Shirland said, “beginning almost four years ago and ending a little over three years ago. Has she spoken to you about what happened over that period?”

“She doesn’t talk about it.”

Dr. Shirland nodded. “During our conversation, Anne spoke freely about her life since she and Variam moved in with you. However, the closer we moved to that time, the more reticent she became. I could feel it casting a shadow over everything she said.”

“Yeah, but . . .” I raked my fingers through my hair. “The whole reason Anne got involved in all this was because Sagash kidnapped her. And the reason Vari got involved was because he went to try to rescue her. They’re the victims in all this. It’s not fair to blame them.”

“It’s not a matter of blame. If I approached anyone to refer Anne as an apprentice, the first question they’d ask would be whether she was potentially dangerous. And I wouldn’t honestly be able to answer no.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “Anne’s probably the nicest person I know. She won’t even kill flies. She might be powerful, but she’s not dangerous. She’s . . . I don’t know. Innocent.”

Dr. Shirland gave me a look. “I don’t think she’s quite so innocent as you believe.”

I started to answer and then stopped.

Last winter I was called in on a missing-persons case. A contact of mine from the Council had noticed that apprentices were going missing but didn’t know who was doing it or how, and he sent me to find out. I found out. It led to me and Anne being trapped in a room stacked with dead bodies, being hunted down by a once-human creature called Vitus Aubuchon. I’d distracted Vitus and Anne had killed him. Don’t get me wrong, it had been more than justified—not only had Vitus been the one responsible for all those dead bodies, he’d just cut Anne’s throat and had been in the process of trying to kill me too.

But looking back on it, I had a disturbing thought. Getting good with spells takes time and effort. When apprentices try something new they usually spend ages fumbling around before they can make it work, and even then they’re clumsy. Anne hadn’t been clumsy. She’d ripped Vitus’s life out of his body in a single action. It had been very quick and very efficient.

I looked up to see that Dr. Shirland was watching me. “What happened to her when she was with Sagash?” I said.

“Anne did not volunteer details.”

“Did you find some out anyway?”

“You mean by entering her mind?”

I gave a nod.

Dr. Shirland looked at me with raised eyebrows. “You’re asking me if I entered her mind to search her memories and feelings without her consent—an action that not only would be a breach of trust but which would also add further psychic damage to what was clearly already an intensely traumatic experience?”

“Pretty much.”

“No.” Dr. Shirland’s tone made it clear the subject was closed.

“Sorry,” I said. “Just checking.”

There was a pause. “So is there anything you can do?” I said.

“With finding her a master?” Dr. Shirland shook her head. “I don’t think there’s anyone I could recommend in good conscience until this is resolved. I invited her to come back and talk further, but she gave me a very polite refusal.”

I sat in silence for a little while. “Well,” I said at last, “thanks for the help. I appreciate the effort.”

“You’re welcome. Call me if you’d like to talk again.”

* * *

Ispent the journey home thinking, and was still thinking as I walked through the shop and started up the stairs to my flat. As I climbed I heard a thud from above, followed by another thud five seconds later.

Variam was slumped on the sofa in the living room. Vari is short and wiry, with Indian-dark skin and thin arms and legs. He wears a Sikh turban and dresses in clothes that always seem to have just been thrown together but still manage to look good. Despite how small he is, Vari’s got presence; he draws attention wherever he goes, and seems to make friends and enemies equally fast. Right now he was sprawled with his legs out, glowering. As I walked in he threw a tennis ball to bounce off the wall with the thud I’d heard earlier before catching it again. He flicked me a glance and went back to glaring at the wall.

I stepped over Variam and went into the kitchen to fetch myself a drink. Once I’d filled the glass I came back in and leant against the doorjamb, watching Variam chuck the ball against the wall with a thud each time. “Want a drink?” I said.

Variam gave a negative sort of grunt.

“So I’m guessing you didn’t like what she had to tell you.”

Variam shot me a look.

I walked over and dropped into an armchair with a sigh. “The Keeper idea might not be a bad one, you know. I thought it was crazy at first, too, but it does kind of make sense.”

“I don’t care about the Keepers.”

“What is it, then?”

Variam bounced the ball off the wall with another thud, and took a while to answer. “It’s just me.”

“What is?”

“All the time, she was talking like me and Anne were going to be somewhere different. If I signed up with some Keeper we’d be split up, right?”

“Well, there might be some way . . .”

Vari looked at me.

I raised a hand. “Okay, okay. Yeah, you probably would be. You’d still be able to see her, but apprentice training is pretty focused. You wouldn’t be able to do everything together anymore.”

Vari went back to throwing the ball. “Would that be so bad?” I said.

“We’re supposed to stick together,” Variam said.

“Hard to fit in with getting a master.”

“What if I get one and Anne doesn’t?”

“It’s not like I’m going to kick her out. She can still stay here.”

Variam threw the ball to go thud again. “Supposed to be my job.”

“Why does it matter to you so badly?” I said curiously. Since I’ve known Variam he’s always watched over Anne, but I’ve never asked him why.

Variam was silent and I knew he was thinking about answering, but when he finally spoke all that he said was, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

I glanced at my watch. It was ten to seven, and looking through the futures ahead I could tell that Luna would arrive in five minutes. “Luna and I are going to be out till late,” I said, getting up. “If you get hungry there’s a fish in the fridge.”

chapter 3

It was a summer evening in Leicester Square. The sun was dipping behind the buildings to the west, shafts of golden light slipping down the streets to light up the shop fronts and windows. The square was packed with people, Londoners and out-of-towners and tourists all crowding together into one noisy boisterous mass. Along the north side sketch artists had set up shop, selling caricatures and celebrity portraits to the curious, while the square of grass itself was scattered with sitting people. The smells of cooking food drifted from the restaurants all around the edge, pizza and noodles and steak.

Luna and I sat at a table at the edge of one of the outdoor restaurants, right by the rope barrier that marked off the seating area. “How much do you know about probability?” I asked her.

“A little,” Luna said with a shrug. “We did it in school.”

I took out a deck of cards and sorted quickly through it, taking out the four aces. “An event’s probability is a measurement of how certain we are that it’ll occur. If we’re sure it won’t happen, the probability is zero. If we’re sure it will happen, the probability is one. Otherwise it’s somewhere in between.” I showed the aces to Luna, then put the rest of the deck away and shuffled the four aces together. “If I keep shuffling these four cards, what’s the probability that the ace of spades will be on top when I finish?”

“Uh . . . a quarter?”

I nodded. “A shuffle isn’t random, but if it’s being done properly it might as well be. Too many variables.” I finished shuffling and dealt the four cards facedown. “If I tell you to pick a card, what’s the probability you’ll pick the ace of spades?”

“A quarter again?”

“Pretty much. You could probably do better if you paid attention to my patterns, but if you just guess then that’s right.” I pointed at one of the cards. “What’s the probability that card’s the ace of spades?”

“Still a quarter.”

I shook my head. “Wrong. It’s zero.” I pointed at another card. “Zero.” Another card. “Zero.” The last card. “One.” I flipped it to show the black-on-white of the ace of spades.

Luna frowned for a second, then her frown cleared. “Oh, I get it.”

“While the cards are being shuffled, they’re random,” I said. “Once they’re dealt they’re not random anymore—you just don’t know what they are. That’s the difference between your magic and mine. I can’t change how the cards are dealt, but I can see them. But you can change how the cards are dealt. Your magic works on all those little chaotic unpredictable things—reflexes, bounces, how something falls or slips. I think if you practise enough you should be able to start controlling it.”

Luna gave me a suspicious look. “Why did you take me out here to tell me this?”

I gave Luna a grin. “Because tonight we’re going there.” I pointed across the square to the bright lights of the casino.

* * *

The Empire Casino is on the north side of Leicester Square, dwarfed by the cinemas towering around it. It’s not the nicest casino in London and it’s not the most high-class, but it does have one big thing in its favour: it’s anonymous. Its position right in the heart of the West End means that it gets a near-constant stream of tourists and travellers and businessmen, which is handy when you don’t want to attract attention.

Luna got carded at the door. “Oh look, he thinks you look under twenty-one,” I said once she was done.

“Yeah, yeah,” Luna said as we walked down the steps into the entrance tunnel. “I still don’t think this is going to work.”

The tunnel opened up into a lobby with two stairways leading farther down: one to the slots and the poker room, the other to the main casino floor. I gave the receptionist a nod and headed towards one of the flights of stairs. “Look, my curse hurts things,” Luna said, keeping her voice down. “It doesn’t do helpful.”

“It protects you.”

“It protects me from accidents. There’s a difference.”

We came out onto the casino floor and into a hubbub of noise. The casino was laid out in two storeys, the main floor taken up with gaming tables and the bar while the balcony running around the room above held restaurants and a lounge. Although there were no windows, the room was filled with light: from the ceiling a yellow-white glow shone from flashy-looking chandeliers, and on the walls big projection screens displayed sports matches. The air smelt of fabric and sweat. “You remember last year?” I said. “When Deleo and Khazad tracked you down in that parking garage?”

“Yeah . . .”

“They were using a tracer. Your curse burned it out from thirty feet away.”

“I guess.”

“So that was more than just protecting you from accidents,” I said. “The tracer was dangerous only because it could have showed them where you were, but the curse fried it anyway. That means one of two things. Either the curse picks up on what you subconsciously know is dangerous, or it’s got enough awareness to be able to recognise indirect threats and neutralise them on its own initiative. Which means it ought to be able to help you in other ways too.” I gestured to the floor around us. “This is your element. Pure chance is exactly what your magic has power over. I think you can do this.”

“All right,” Luna said with a sigh. “I’ll give it a shot.”

I pulled a pack of notes from my pocket. “You buy chips on the tables. If you lose this, come back and I’ll get you some more.”

Luna counted it, eyebrows raised. “Five hundred pounds?”

“Yep.”

“Isn’t that kind of a lot to throw away?”

“Wait till you see how much the other players lose,” I said. “Have fun.”

* * *

Once Luna was gone I took a walk through the casino, letting the sights and sounds wash around me. It had been a while since I’d been in one, and being here again felt like coming back to an old home.

I used to spend a lot of time in casinos, back in my early twenties. By the end of the summer of ten years ago I’d broken away from Richard and his remaining apprentices for good, but I was in bad shape. The extended nightmare of my last year in Richard’s mansion and that horrible final battle with Tobruk had left me seriously screwed up mentally and I wasn’t in any condition to start putting my life back together. On top of that I had no home, no money, and no prospects. All I had was myself and my magic.

So I turned to gambling and got my first nice surprise in a long while when I discovered how easy it was. Okay, there were a few hiccups (it turns out casinos are quite happy to decide that you must be cheating somehow even if they can’t prove how), but once I learnt to be careful it was a low-effort, risk-free source of income. There was a real rush to it too, at least to begin with. I’d just spent the best part of two years being the runt among the apprentices, always having to watch my back in case a more powerful mage decided to squash me. Now all of a sudden, instead of being below everyone else, I was above them. I could take everyone else’s money and there was nothing they could do about it. It was exciting.

But over the years the excitement faded. I learnt the same thing that everyone learns sooner or later: nothing’s any fun if you can have as much of it as you like. When you’re poor money’s desperately important, but the wealthier you get the less it matters. I like money for the freedom and the independence that it gives me, and that works only up to a point—once you’re over a certain limit then getting any richer doesn’t help.

I also started to feel sorry for the people I was taking money from. The men (and it’s mostly men, though you do get the odd woman) that you meet in a casino aren’t the most attractive guys in the world, but they’re still people and often they’re gambling with money they really can’t afford to lose. I started to go less and less often, and finally I just stopped. I have enough money in my bank accounts—I don’t need to keep stealing.

So as I went around the tables I didn’t make much of an effort. I played blackjack, and although the table maximum was a thousand pounds I kept my bets small, winning just enough that I’d be able to resupply Luna if needed. As I did I kept an eye on her, watching through the crowd. She’d gravitated to the roulette tables and occasionally I’d see the silver mist of her curse drift outwards to touch the wheel. I could tell she was doing something, though I wasn’t sure what. When the table she was playing at broke up I went to join her at the bar. “How’s it going?” I asked as she ordered.

“Badly.”

“How much did you lose?”

“I don’t want to know,” Luna said gloomily. “About half.”

“Get anywhere?”

“Well, every time I sit down at a table, everyone seems to start losing,” Luna said. “The wheel on that last one just came up zero three times in a row. Does that count?”

The bartender came back with Luna’s drink and she took a sip, turning to look out over the casino floor. I gave her a glance as she did. She was wearing a yellow-gold dress that set off her pale skin, and she had her hair loose around her shoulders instead of in the bunches that she’d used when I’d first known her. It made her look older, more like an adult. She was annoyed, but it was a positive sort of annoyance, the kind where you’re trying to solve a problem. Luna’s come a long way since the day she first walked into my shop. “You look good,” I said. “The dress Arachne’s?”

“Oh, thanks,” Luna said, looking pleased. “It’s the outfit she was showing me in the spring. She did some alterations for me.”

“What kind?”

“The shoes are flat, see?” Luna said, lifting a foot to demonstrate. “And the way the skirt is cut lets me run in it. The purse has got a pouch for my whip, and it’s roomy enough for that pocket kit you gave me.”

I blinked at Luna. “Well, points for being prepared, but what exactly did you think we’d be doing tonight?”

“I have no idea. I’m just going to be ready for when the fight starts this time.”

“There’s not going to be a fight. We’re just here to play.”

Luna gave me an extremely sceptical look. “I’m serious,” I said.

“Uh-huh,” Luna said. “How many magic items are you carrying again?”

“Nothing much.”

“Like?”

“Just a few condensers,” I said. “And a feather ring and a decoy. Oh, and some glitterdust. And my gate stones, but I always carry those. I guess one or two others. Maybe three or four.”

Luna just looked at me. “What?” I said. “Most of them aren’t even for combat.”

“And you wonder where I’m getting this from.”

I shook my head. “Whatever makes you happy. I’ll be in the poker room.”

* * *

To reach the poker room I had to go through a tunnel of slot machines, their lights blinking blue-yellow-white, but the poker room itself was quieter. A steady murmur of conversation blended with the rustle of cards and the clink of chips, and cheesy eighties music played at a low volume over the speakers. I found a seat at a table and joined in.

Poker’s a mixture of probability and psychology, and it’s probably my favourite of the card games. Although there are rules on what hand beats what, poker isn’t actually a game of who’s got the best hand—it’s a game of wagering based on incomplete information. If you have complete information (such as by oh, say, divination), then there’s no challenge. So as I started playing I deliberately didn’t look into the future to see what hands everyone else had. It spoils the fun, and it’s harder for me to justify to my conscience. In games like blackjack and roulette you’re playing against the house, but in poker you’re playing against the other customers of the casino.

An hour or so passed and I settled into the game, slipping into that particular mental zone of focus. New players came; old players left. Luna didn’t call, which I took as a good sign.

The player opposite me at the table, a balding businessman with a round face, went all in against the scruffy-looking guy to my right. His two pair met a straight. The businessman banged the table, swore in Cantonese, and left. A few minutes later he was replaced by a kid.

I was the blind on the next hand. The kid raised high, and I folded. Next hand I was dealer. The kid checked, I raised, he reraised, and I folded again. I folded the next few hands, and the kid did the same. Next round I was dealt a pair of queens. I raised, the kid reraised, and I matched him. He called my raises all the way to the river and showed a middle pair. I got back what I’d lost from the earlier fold and some more besides.

Next round the same thing happened again. The kid kept on raising at me, ignoring everyone else. Sometimes it worked, but he lost more than he won. “Very aggressive,” I said as his single ace fell to my top pair. The kid didn’t answer.

Two hands later we ended up head-to-head again. “Two players,” the dealer said, laying out the flop.

“You know, I’m starting to think you’re following me,” I said, glancing at the face-up cards. There was a two, a five, and a nine. My ace-five gave me a pair, and I had position.

“So this is how you make your money,” the kid said with a faint American accent. He knocked on the table to check.

I gave the kid a sharp glance. “Depends who I’m playing against.” He was twenty or so, with messy black hair, and he looked athletic and fit. I threw in a chip.

“Raise of five pounds,” the dealer said. He was Australian, with ginger hair and a beard, and his name tag said BRUCE. He turned to the kid, who matched the bet without looking. The dealer put out another card. It was another two. The kid checked again.

“Been in the country long?” I said, tossing in more chips. The kid’s accent and body language were close to British, but slightly off.

“I’ve got unfinished business,” the kid said. He didn’t take his eyes off mine.

“Raise of fifteen pounds,” the dealer said to the kid. He matched the bet and the dealer dealt out a final card, a seven.

The kid threw in some chips. “Raise of twenty-seven pounds,” the dealer said to me. I thought briefly, then shrugged and matched the bet. The kid flipped over his cards to show an off-suit six and eight.

A ripple of laughter went up around the table. The dealer slid out the five, seven, and nine from the face-up cards. “Straight.” He looked at me.

I shook my head and tossed my cards into the discard. “Nice hand.”

The dealer pushed the pile of chips to the kid, replenishing his stack. “Tough beat,” the guy on my right said.

The Romanian man at the end of the table shook his head. “You were lucky,” he told the kid. “The odds were—”

“I don’t care about the odds,” the kid said, without looking at the man.

The Romanian looked at me and raised his hands in a what can you do? gesture. “You don’t know who I am, do you?” the kid told me.

“Sorry,” I said. “Have we met?”

The kid’s eyes flashed with utter fury. It was there for only a moment, but I’ve seen that look before and it brought me up short. The kid hated me—not just dislike, but bone-deep hatred. He wasn’t here to play. He was here for me.

I held quite still, looking around me with my diviner’s senses, and felt a chill go down my spine. The room was full of people, but scattered through the crowd were a handful of boys and girls who looked about the same age as the kid in front of me, and they were all watching me. A black girl with a shock of curly dyed-gold hair was glaring at me from the right side of the room, while a boy who looked like he should be on a recruiting poster for the U.S. Army was by the door, watching with folded arms. There was another kid with South American looks standing at my back. He was in position to get me from behind, and as I focused I could feel a faint trace of magic in him, ready to strike.

“You haven’t even figured it out, have you?” the kid said. His eyes hadn’t left me since he’d sat down.

“Who are you?” I said.

“The name’s Will,” the kid said.

The dealer had been looking between the two of us. “Hey,” he said. “There a problem here?”

The kid—Will—ignored him, keeping his eyes fixed on me. His name sounded familiar, but I had bigger problems to worry about—I was flicking through the futures and I could see that the window for talking was narrowing fast. Will and his friends were about to try to force me to go with them, and if I refused they were going to attack.

“What’ll it be, Verus?” Will said.

It didn’t surprise me that Will knew my name. “What do you want?”

“I think we should take this outside,” Will said, his dark eyes staring into mine.

“Hey,” another player said in annoyance. He obviously hadn’t figured out what was going on, though from the glances some of the other players were giving they were starting to. “You folding or what?”

“Sir,” the dealer said politely. “Let’s leave it for after the game, okay?”

I calculated quickly. The boy behind me was a life-drinker, and he was ready to put his lethal touch into my back. I could probably dodge his first strike, but my position was bad. Packed into the middle of the crowd I had little room to move, and anything that missed me would hit the other customers. On top of that, the poker room was a dead end with only one way out. “You know, I think I’m going to take a break,” I said. I tossed a chip to the dealer. “Fold my hands till I get back, okay, Bruce?”

“Thank you, sir,” Bruce said, but his eyes were wary. I rose to my feet, keeping my movements slow and easy. Will got up as I started to move, and he and the life-drinker followed me closely out.

Gold-hair girl and Captain America fell in behind them, giving me looks as they did. The girl looked the more aggressive, but I knew both would hesitate before striking. The life-drinker wouldn’t. I could sense the spell waiting in his hands, cold and hungry, and I knew he was eager to use it. I mentally moved him above Will on the priority list. I’ve been life-drained before, and I know exactly how deadly it is.

The slot machine tunnel was wide enough for only one person, and as I walked into it the group behind me were forced into single file. That was better; now the life-drinker was between me and the rest of them. As we approached the stairs to the reception area, the doors to the main casino floor swung open and two boys stepped out. One of them was a skinny Indian kid with square glasses. The other I recognised from last night: it was the one who’d been spying on us. He stopped as he saw me, his eyes going wide.

I halted as well, making the line behind me bunch up. “Will?” the Indian boy said, trying to peer past me. “I wiped the—”

“Dhruv!” the Chinese kid whispered. “That’s him!”

The Indian boy froze. “So,” I said to the Chinese kid. “I guess this answers the question of who you’re working for, huh?”

The life-drinker had been about to push me forward, but now he stopped and gave the Chinese kid a suspicious look. “You talked to him?”

The Chinese kid looked back and forth between me and the life-drinker. “No, uh—”

“Hey,” gold-hair girl called from the back. “What’s going—”

For just a second the group of them were distracted, and as the girl started to say on I whipped my heel up and back, kicking the life-drinker hard and accurately in the crotch. In the same instant I lunged forward off the other leg, sprinting for the two boys ahead of me. Dhruv and the Chinese kid flinched away and I ran between them, slamming through the doors and onto the casino floor.

Shouts came from the corridor behind, but I had a couple of seconds’ lead and in combat that’s a long time. I had absolutely no intention of fighting if I could avoid it—Will and his friends wanted this fight, and as far as I was concerned that was a good reason to get out of here. I curved around the bar and was just starting to turn towards the stairs when I heard a flurry of footsteps behind me and someone hit me at waist level. We both went tumbling to the carpet, and as I tried to pull myself up I heard a snarl and felt Will hurling himself on top of me with inhuman speed.

I twisted onto my side and got my leg back just in time. I had one glimpse of Will falling towards me, his eyes filled with insane fury, then I kicked up off the floor, my foot catching him in the stomach hard enough to send him flying. He did a funny sort of flip in midair and came down on hands and toes. Gold-hair girl was coming in after him and she was about to throw a fire spell, but before either could line up on me I pulled a crystal from my pocket and crushed it.

Mist surged from between my fingers, a dull grey cloud blanketing the area in an instant. I couldn’t see but I heard running steps and I rolled left just in time for Will to miss me, charging blindly through the space in which I’d been. I came to my feet and listened.

Calls and chatter were going up from all around as the casino’s inhabitants started to notice what was going on. From outside I knew the mist from the condenser would look like a grey cloud about forty feet wide, spread out over the floor and half of the bar. Will had stumbled back out of the cloud and he and his friends were spreading out to surround it. I could sense magic being channelled: time, space, life, fire. Apprentices or adepts? I guessed adepts.

Will and the others were arguing and seemed reluctant to enter, but even so my position wasn’t great. The mist cloud wouldn’t last forever and if I made a break for it now I’d be run down in the open. I needed to whittle down the odds. Two steps brought me to the bar and I grabbed a bottle of white rum, lifting it by the neck.

I heard Will’s voice raised above the others. “Bev, burn it!” Fire magic surged and the mist flashed orange-red. The chatter of the casino turned into shouts and screams.

The flames had run along the ground, a three-foot wall of fire springing up in a line from the caster. A second wall of fire followed and this one came straight at me. I leapt blindly, warned by my divination magic, and felt heat sting my right side as the fire licked against the bar. Glancing through the futures I saw that it was gold-hair girl. She was trying to burn me out, fill the mist with flames, but neither she nor the life-drinker was facing me and I knew they’d lost my position. Definitely adepts. I started running at gold-hair girl, and as she sent a third blast of ground fire I burst out of the mist into the lights of the casino.

The girl was facing the wrong way and the fire went far to my right; I was already swinging and as she turned, her mouth making a little O of surprise, I smashed the bottle over her head. She stumbled and went to her knees. The life-drinker was next to her, green-black light flickering at his palm, and he had just enough time to take a step towards me before I snapped my other arm out to fling a handful of glittering dust into his face.

One of the reasons I like glitterdust is that no one takes it seriously—people see the pretty sparkles and think it’s a joke. They change their mind fast when they get hit by the stuff, but by then it’s too late. Glitterdust sticks to whatever it hits and if that dust gets in your eyes you’re blind until you can wash it out. The life-drinker yelled and fell backwards, clawing at his eyes, his spell fizzling out as he staggered blindly into a chair and went over.

My precognition shrilled a warning and I jumped forward, hearing a hiss as something cut the air behind me. I caught my balance and spun, glimpsing in that moment that a space was opening up as the casino players scrambled hurriedly away. Captain America was facing me with his eyes set and he was holding a sword, a long-handled katana which he was just bringing back after missing with the first slash. I grabbed a chair and as he swung again I blocked it, closing on his outside, but as I did I saw Will come racing around holding a sword of his own and I changed direction to dive back into the cloud.

The temperature inside the mist was higher now, and I could see a fuzzy glow from the bar; the fire was spreading. With my magic I knew the adepts had congregated again. The life-drinker was still blind, but the fire girl had gotten up and I bit back a curse. She was about to send that ground fire into my hiding place again. The fire was already starting to burn away the mist and I didn’t want to be around when it reached the spirits in the bar. Where the hell did they get those swords?

The casino was in chaos, men pushing and shoving to get away as the crowd began to panic, the dealers and arriving security trying to maintain order and get out the fire extinguishers. The adepts were between me and the exit, and as the next burst of fire came racing into the mist I vaulted the bar and ran out the other side of the cloud, heading for the stairs up to the balcony.

I was almost at the stairs when I heard the shout and knew that the adepts were chasing me again. I should have been able to outpace them, but as I reached the top I heard a hiss from behind me and had to throw myself into a roll to dodge another slash. I came to my feet to face Will.

He was moving fast, much too fast, and as I focused on him I could sense the aura of time magic accelerating his movements. He was wielding a battered-looking shortsword and he came at me hard, slashing and stabbing. If he’d been moving at normal speed I might have managed a disarm but he was so quick that all I could do was keep backing away. I caught up a drink from a table and threw it at Will’s face, glass and all. He ducked under it and I took the moment’s breather to put the table between us. “What the hell is your problem?” I snapped at him.

Will slashed at me and I shoved the table into him, making his stroke fall short. “Who are you?” I said. “What do you even want?”

“Shut up,” Will said. He was breathing fast; spots of colour rode in his cheeks and his eyes were burning.

“I’ve never seen you before!” I shouted. Inwardly I was trying to figure out how the hell to throw off this band of crazies. I didn’t have anything fast enough to hit this guy, but the fire downstairs was spreading, casino security was rushing around, and someone must have called the police by now. The longer I could keep him talking, the more pressure there’d be for his team to pull out.

Will snarled. “You don’t even remember?”

“Remember what?”

“No!” Will shouted back. “I won’t let you forget! I want you to know why before I kill you!”

“You’re out of your mind,” I said in disbelief. Another one of them was working his way around behind me, and I put my back against the glass balustrade, my hand on the railing. The drop to the casino floor was fifteen feet and there was a table beneath.

“Sedona, Arizona!” Will shouted over the chaos of the casino. “Eleven years ago! I was there and so were you!”

“I don’t—” I started to say, then froze, meeting Will’s gaze. His eyes were dark and wide, filled with rage . . . and familiar. A horrible fear shot through me. Oh no. It can’t be. Please tell me it’s not—

“My name is Will Traviss,” Will said through clenched teeth. “You.” He drew his sword back. “Killed.” His other hand came down on the table. “My.” His head went down and he tensed. “Sister!” He came over the table in a rush.

My thoughts were frozen but instinct sent me backwards over the railing, the sword stroke going over my head. I caught the edge of the balcony and then swung and dropped, hitting the table and rolling to land in a crouch on the casino floor. Will was right behind, splintering the table as he came after me.

I fought on reflex, still half stunned, trying to get away. From around me I caught fleeting glimpses of the chaos: fire licking across the bar, security men abandoning their extinguishers and running, two players scrabbling for chips at an overturned table. One security man grabbed Captain America as he came charging into the fight again and the American kid snapped an elbow into the man’s face, sending him staggering back with blood spurting from his nose. Gold-hair girl sent ground fire roaring out and Captain America tried to flank me, but it was Will who was the most dangerous, his sword a flickering blur. I couldn’t spare the half second to grab a weapon or stun them, and all I could do was keep dodging and backing away.

The futures were lines of light in my vision, the paths in which I was safe glowing against the dull background of the futures in which I fell. There was no time for thought, only reflex. Slip the thrust, dodge right so that the ground fire would block Captain America, come up to face Will again. The futures in which I was safe shifted, twisted, and with a sudden chill I saw that they were growing fewer. Only a dozen now, and attacks were starting to get through. Will’s sword opened a gash along my forearm, and as I jumped away from the next slash ground fire scorched my leg. Only five safe futures. I tried to break past Captain America but metal projectiles cut the air, forcing me back.

Four safe futures. I got Captain America between me and Will, but before I could exploit it the girl sent another burst of ground fire that pushed me out of position. Two safe futures. I ducked under Will’s slash and hit him shoulder first, coming up to take another cut on the arm, sliding back just far enough to avoid a fatal blow. One safe future and there were no choices at all now, just a single razor-thin path through the whirl of flame and blades. Feint at the girl, jump back. One safe future. Dodge the spray, duck the sword. Fire all over the casino. Still one safe future. Deflect, stabbing pain as metal cut skin. Twist and weave. One safe future.

One safe future—

One safe future—

No safe futures.

I had just time to think Oh, then Will’s sword rammed through my gut.

It felt like a murderously hard punch. The impact came first and I lost my breath in a gasp, then an instant later agony ripped through my lower body. I tried to scream but my lungs were empty. Another blow hit me from behind and I was driven downwards, the sword grating on bone as the impact pushed me off the blade, and the second wave of pain was so horrendous that my vision greyed out.

When I came to I was on the floor. My lower body hurt with a hideous pain, every movement sending waves of agony spidering outwards. I could hear the crackle of flames and smell smoke on the air. “—cameras are still blind,” someone was saying.

“Lee,” Will said. “Lee!”

“Huh?” It was the Chinese kid’s voice, somewhere close.

“Get him out of here.”

“What about him?” another voice said. It was the Indian boy.

My vision cleared enough to make out people standing above me: Will, gold-hair girl, Captain America. They turned to look down at me. “He’s still alive,” the girl said, sounding surprised.

Will gave me a glance and looked away. The Indian boy appeared in my line of sight, pushing his glasses up to peer down at me. An expression of nausea crossed his face as he saw my lower body. “We could take him—” he began.

“No,” Will said without looking.

“He’s the only lead we’ve got to Rachel.”

“No,” Will said again. He flicked the sword and I saw drops of liquid—my blood—fly away. “We finish it.” He turned back towards me, meeting my eyes. His face was set and cold, and in a sudden flash of insight I knew it was the same expression I’d worn in the past, when I made the decision to kill. Will took a step forward.

Running footsteps sounded from my left and a strand of silver mist wrapped around Will, soaking into his body. Will jumped back in surprise, his sword coming up into a defensive guard. An instant later a girl skidded to a halt in front of me, putting herself between me and him.

The girl was Luna. The gold dress hung lightly off her, not hindering her movements, and the silver mist of her curse spread out around her, tendrils lashing outwards and curving away from me. In her right hand she held a tapered wand, fifteen inches long and ivory-coloured with a sphere set at the base. From the tip a strand of silver mist emerged, growing from the wand to form an invisible whip, and as I watched in a daze she levelled it at Will. Her voice shook a little, but her hand was steady. “Get away from him, you bastard.”

Gold-hair girl and Captain America looked at each other in confusion, then at their leader. “Will?” Captain America said.

“Who’s she?” gold-hair girl said.

Will hesitated, then shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.” But he didn’t seem as certain anymore. “Move,” he told Luna.

“Make me,” Luna said.

Will pointed his sword at Luna. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Luna laughed. Tension vibrated through her voice but her stance didn’t waver. “Trust me, you really don’t want to get close enough to stick me with that.”

Will hesitated again, and I could see the silver glow of Luna’s curse clinging to him. My heart was in my throat: half hope, half fear. “Bev,” Will said, gesturing at me. “Fry him and let’s go.”

The gold-haired girl hesitated, looking from Luna to me, then shook her head. She threw out an arm and ground fire roared out, racing towards me.

Luna stepped between us and her whip lashed out to meet the attack head-on. Silver mist tore into the fire, eradicated it, and the ground fire sputtered to a halt in a flash of light. Gold-hair girl stared at Luna in confusion, trying to understand where her spell had gone.

Luna pivoted smoothly and brought her whip around for the backswing, the strand leaping out eagerly to wrap around the other girl. Luna’s curse is invisible to anyone who doesn’t know exactly what to look for; to Will and the others, she would just look like a girl waving a wand. “What are you doing?” Will demanded. “Finish him!”

Gold-hair girl tried again, and this time she put more power into the spell. Luna’s whip was already moving and the fire didn’t make it even halfway before the strand hit it. The silver mist simply erased the spell, destroying the magic before it could reach her. Again Luna’s backswing hit the girl, the silver aura around her growing.

Fire was spreading all around the room, and the heat and smoke was making it hard to breathe. We were the only ones left on the casino floor; everyone else had fled. I desperately wanted to help but it was all I could do to stay conscious.

“Screw this,” Will said angrily, striding forward towards Luna, sword ready. He tried to grab Luna and throw her aside, but she twisted and shoved him back, the silver mist surging gleefully into Will as he entered the lethal danger zone of Luna’s curse. The gold-haired girl aimed at me again, and she looked pissed off. Fire ignited as she cast her spell.

I felt the snap as Luna’s curse took hold. The ground fire twisted, missing badly. Instead of burning me it homed in on Will, the wall of flame engulfing his legs.

Will screamed and jumped back, shoes and trousers alight. He hit the floor, flailing desperately to put the fire out. The Indian boy rushed to help, and gold-hair girl stared from him to Luna in horror. For an instant she was frozen, and so she was standing still when half the bar exploded with a roar and a thump that sent a heavy bottle flying with laser-guided precision into the side of her head. There was a thud of glass on bone and she dropped like a rock.

Captain America darted to the girl’s side. Luna stood on the balls of her feet, whip poised, ready to strike again. Will came up, legs charred and smoking, eyes crazed with pain. From outside I could hear the wail of sirens, growing louder. “Will!” Captain America shouted, hoisting the girl; he staggered as he did. “Time to go!”

“No!” Will shouted. “He’s right there!” He started towards us but stopped almost instantly; the fire was still burning, forming a wall of flame between him and us.

“Will, it’s time to go!” the Indian boy shouted. He grabbed the taller boy, dragging him away. Captain America was already on his way out, sprinting with the girl in his arms without giving us a backwards glance. Will fought the Indian boy for a second, then snarled at me from across the flames and turned and ran.

Luna’s eyes tracked them all the way out, then as they disappeared from sight she sagged in relief, stumbling and then coughing from the smoke. She looked at me and flinched as her eyes reached my stomach. “Oh crap. Alex? Alex, can you hear me?”

The sirens were right outside the casino. Luna fumbled a handkerchief from her bag and held it over her nose and mouth, looking from side to side. The whole far end of the room was in flames and the fire was getting closer. “Shit, shit, shit,” Luna said to herself. “Look, you’re going to be okay, all right? I just need to move you . . . but I can’t . . . oh crap. Uh—”

Don’t need to move, I thought dizzily. Sixty seconds and the firemen’ll be here. Call and it’ll be forty-five, I wanted to tell her but couldn’t manage speaking. The pain was getting worse, and I was vaguely aware I was going into shock.

“Help!” Luna shouted. She crouched down near me, eyes searching through the flame and smoke. “Is anybody there? We’re in here!”

First the crackle of flames, then I heard thudding footsteps. “Help!” Luna shouted. “Over here!”

Men appeared out of the smoke, thick helmets with lowered visors making them look like stormtroopers. They wore the yellow-and-blue of the London fire brigade. “He’s been hurt!” Luna said, coughing and backing away as they closed on us. “You need to—”

The fireman at the front said something that was too muffled through his helmet to hear. Luna shook her head, watching helplessly. Two of the firemen positioned themselves on either side of me. I knew they were about to lift me up and I knew that the pain would be unbelievable. I tried to tell them, but I don’t think they heard me. I heard the firemen counting and felt gloved hands on me, then they lifted me in a well-rehearsed surge.

My magic was as accurate as ever and the pain was exactly as horrendous as I’d predicted. The only mercy was that I was aware of it for only a few seconds before everything went black.

chapter 4

Idrifted, and I dreamed.

Old memories flitted through my mind, familiar faces and ones half forgotten: Rachel, Shireen, Arachne, Helikaon, Richard. From time to time I heard voices that weren’t my own, distant murmurs fading in and out of hearing, but I couldn’t make out the words. Eventually the voices went away and I fell into a deeper dream, one that was less a dream than a memory. I knew that it wasn’t real, that I was seeing the past and not the present, but somehow it didn’t seem to matter and I watched quietly without trying to wake. The colours were vibrant, the sounds crisp and clear, as if I were experiencing it for the first time.

The scene was a desert, islands of red rock rising into bumpy hills. The hills were barren but greenery covered the lower levels, bushes and stubby trees growing in defiance of the heat. The sun was setting, casting long shadows across the empty land, and the sky above was a fantastic glow of red and yellow and blue. A vehicle bounced across the rocky ground in a plume of dust, the only sign of human life for miles. As it drew near one of the hills it slowed and stopped. Four people got out.

They were young, no more than nineteen or twenty, and wore the clothes of city dwellers. The first out was a girl, small and slight, with short dark-red hair and impatient movements. She looked from side to side at the emptiness all around and turned back to the car. “Well?”

The boy she was talking to was her age, taller than her but without her quick confidence. His hair was black and untidy, messed with the dust of travel. He looked familiar, and so he should: he was me from eleven years ago. He didn’t answer the girl, looking towards the hill and frowning.

“Alex!” the girl demanded. Her name was Shireen. “Today?”

“All right! Give me a minute.”

Another girl—Rachel—had left the car, moving to stand next to Shireen. She was pretty, with deep blue eyes that gave her a thoughtful look, and she grimaced at the dust, waving a hand to try to get it away from her clothes and hair. “Is this the right place?”

Shireen shrugged. “That’s what I want to know.” She glanced at the other boy, then folded her arms with poor grace and waited.

The dust thrown up by the car settled. The desert throbbed with heat, the air burning hot from the long day, but neither Shireen nor the other boy seemed to notice. “Why would anyone live out here?” Rachel asked, looking around at the barren landscape with revulsion.

“Hiding from us,” Shireen said.

Rachel frowned. “Why does Richard want this girl, anyway?”

Shireen shrugged again. Rachel fell silent.

Minutes passed, then my younger self stirred. “They’re there.”

Everyone turned to look. “You’re sure?” Shireen said.

“Of course I’m sure,” my younger self said. He pointed at the hill of red sandstone ahead. “That hill’s got a canyon through it, with an opening at the centre. That’s where they are. They’ve got a camp in the middle.”

“Finally,” Shireen said, and walked back to the car.

My younger self frowned at her. “What are you doing? We can’t drive, they’ll hear us.”

“How many are there?” Rachel said.

“Just two. A boy and a girl.”

“Wasn’t there supposed to be a third one? A little kid?”

My younger self shrugged. “Might be. It’s hard to see from this distance.”

There was a laugh from the fourth member of the party. “Only here for one thing and you can’t even do that.”

My younger self turned, scowling, to look at the boy who’d been leaning against the car. Tobruk was tall and good-looking, with muscles that showed through his T-shirt. His origin was hard to place; he could have passed for West Indian, African, Middle Eastern, or a mix of all three. He grinned a lot, and he was grinning now. “What’s your problem?” my younger self said.

Tobruk’s grin didn’t slip. “Don’t fucking talk back to me, Alex.”

“Hey,” Shireen said, her voice sharp. “Quit it.”

“You’re not in charge,” Rachel told Tobruk. “Stop acting like it.”

Tobruk gave Rachel a lazy look. He didn’t move but there was something considering in his gaze, and Rachel shied away. Shireen shook her head in disgust. “Boys,” she muttered, then looked at my younger self. “Which way to the other entrance?”

My younger self took his eyes from Tobruk with a start and pointed. Shireen gave a nod. “We’ll go round the other side. You stay here and make sure they don’t get out this way.” She gave the two of them a pitying look. “Try not to screw it up.” She left, and Rachel followed.

Tobruk watched them go. My younger self did too, then looked at Tobruk. Tobruk showed his teeth in a grin. My younger self looked away. Rachel and Shireen disappeared into the trees. Tobruk leant back against the car and appeared to go to sleep.

Ten minutes passed. The sun dipped towards the horizon and the shadows lengthened. Tobruk opened his eyes, stretched, and began ambling towards the canyon entrance. “Where are you going?” my younger self said.

“Coming?” Tobruk said over his shoulder.

“Shireen said . . .”

“You always do as you’re told?” Tobruk said, sounding bored.

My younger self hesitated, looking after Shireen and Rachel, and then hurried after Tobruk. The entrance was visible in the sunset, the western edge casting a tall shadow against the rock. “Aren’t they expecting us to stay back there?” my younger self said.

Tobruk shook his head. “You are such a pussy.”

My younger self looked away angrily, and Tobruk gave him a pitying look. “You don’t have a clue why Richard sent us, do you?”

“He wants the girl.”

“So why doesn’t he do it himself?”

My younger self shrugged. “We’re apprentices. They get us to do their work.”

Tobruk gave a wave as if acknowledging the point. “He wants us to prove ourselves, see? Show what we can do.”

My younger self gave Tobruk a puzzled look and Tobruk laughed, slinging an arm around his shoulders. “You’re so cute. Stick with me, huh? I’ll take care of you.” His grip tightened. “Till Richard doesn’t want you.”

My younger self struggled to get out of Tobruk’s grip. Tobruk held on for a few seconds, just to prove he could, then let go. My younger self backed off, rubbing his neck and glaring at Tobruk. Tobruk didn’t look back but instead walked into the canyon, passing out of the light and into the shadow as he picked his way between the rocks. After a few seconds my younger self followed.

“So what?” my younger self said after a minute. The canyon entrance was narrowing behind them as they went deeper. “You want to be the one to bring her in?”

Tobruk shrugged. “Why do you want to be there?” my younger self asked.

“’Cause I’m fucking tired of driving you round the desert,” Tobruk said. “Those bitches are going to screw it up. They don’t have the balls to finish it and the girl’s going to go running off and I’ll have to find her again.”

“They . . .” My younger self paused. “Wait, what do you mean, ‘finish it’?”

“He just wants the girl, right?”

My younger self stared at him. Tobruk shot a grin over his shoulder. “Losing your nerve?”

My younger self stopped. Tobruk didn’t, and my younger self had to hurry to catch up. “It’s not that . . .” he began. “Look, I don’t think we—”

“Out in the desert where no one’ll see,” Tobruk said. He sounded bored again. “That’s what you said, right? This was your idea.”

“But . . .” My younger self’s face was uncertain. “We don’t have to do this.”

“So?”

“I mean, we don’t have to do it this way. We could—I don’t know. Knock him out or something.”

Tobruk turned to look at my younger self, eyebrows raised. “So?”

My younger self hesitated.

Tobruk shook his head. “Just shut up and stay out of the way.”

The two of them kept going, and the canyon began to widen. Above, the sky was darkening from blue to purple, the strands of cloud glowing yellow-red. “I think—” my younger self started to say, and as he did the crack of a gunshot came from up ahead, the sound echoing around the canyon walls. Tobruk broke into a sprint and after a moment my younger self followed. The canyon twisted left and right, then opened out.

The centre of the hill was hollow and open to the sky, creating a sheltered bowl of enclosed ground hidden from outside eyes. The trees and bushes were denser here and there was even a little grass marking some kind of water source. An old beat-up car was parked in the shade, and two tents had been pitched under the trees, one taller and sized for two, the other only big enough for a child. Birds had been roosting in the trees but now were fleeing from the sound of the shot, flying up over the edge of the rocks and disappearing from sight.

Shireen and Rachel were near the tents, blue-red light flickering in front of them. They were shoulder to shoulder and Rachel was holding a water shield in a hemisphere angled to protect them both, the blue glow weak but holding steady. Shireen’s hand was wreathed in orange-red and she was pointing it at the boy ahead of them.

The boy was maybe sixteen or seventeen; he was pointing a gun at Shireen, and he was obviously way out of his depth. He was shouting at Shireen and she was shouting back, their voices overlapping. A girl was a little way behind the boy, standing at the edge of the tents; she had long brown hair and looked afraid. Tobruk and my younger self were behind them but still some distance away and Tobruk kept running, moving with a long, loping stride that made surprisingly little noise.

“Drop it!” Shireen was shouting at the boy.

“Don’t move!” the boy shouted back. He half-turned his head, trying to watch Shireen and the girl at the same time. “Cath, run!”

“What about you?” the girl shouted.

“I said drop it!” Shireen shouted again.

“Don’t come any closer!” the boy shouted. “Cath, get out, please!”

“You too! Come on!”

Rachel saw Tobruk and my younger self coming up behind the boy and flicked her eyes quickly back, keeping the shield steady. Shireen made a frustrated sound. The spell hovering at her hand was an incineration burst but she didn’t strike. “We just want her!” Shireen said. “Put the gun—”

Tobruk hadn’t stopped or slowed. As Shireen started to say down, Tobruk sent a blast of red fire into the boy’s back.

The boy screamed, twisting, his body and arm alight. Tobruk hit him again, the jet of flame engulfing the boy’s body, and he hit the ground, flailing desperately, trying to put out the fire. The girl’s eyes went wide in horror and she ran forward. “Matt!”

Tobruk closed his fingers into a fist and the fire that was licking at the boy’s body flared up, turning an ugly dark-red. It intensified, burning hotter and fiercer, clinging to him and eating into his flesh. The boy’s shrieks became ear-piercing, horrible, an animal sound. The girl had been trying to beat out the flames but they scorched her, driving her back as the shape within the fire writhed and blackened.

The shrieks cut off abruptly. The flames crackled a moment longer, then Tobruk relaxed his hand and they guttered and died. Where the boy had been was a charred, shapeless mass, glowing with heat. The smell was hideous, thick and putrid and sweet. Smoke rose into the air.

“Matt!” the girl screamed. She fell to her knees by the smoking corpse, shaking her head, tears starting to leak from her eyes. “Matt, oh God, no. No, no, no—”

Shireen and Rachel were staring at the corpse and so was my younger self, all three of them frozen. Tobruk walked forward and grabbed the girl by the hair, dragging her away. She screamed and wept and fought, trying to get back to the body, as Tobruk shoved her to the ground. “Little help?” Tobruk called.

No one else moved. Tobruk got an arm around the girl’s neck and began choking her. She fought desperately, trying to break free.

“Tobruk?” Shireen said. She’d recovered first and stared between him and the body. “What the hell?”

“You going to give me a hand?” Tobruk said.

“You—” Shireen drew in a breath. “You fucking psycho! What the hell?”

“This really the time?” Tobruk said. The girl’s face was going red, her eyes bulging as Tobruk squeezed tighter.

“You’re killing her!” Rachel said.

The girl gave a final spasm and went limp, slumping. “Chill,” Tobruk said. He flipped her over onto her front and pulled a length of cord from his pocket, tying her hands.

“You didn’t have to kill him!” Shireen shouted. “We didn’t have to do this!”

“You all going to say that?”

“We just wanted the girl! We didn’t have to—”

Tobruk looked up at Shireen and she flinched, stepping back. “No loose ends,” Tobruk said. “Remember?”

Shireen hesitated. “That’s not what—”

“How’d you think this was going to go?” Tobruk said. He finished binding the girl and stood, getting a grip and lifting her in a fireman’s carry, then started walking back towards the canyon. “I’m done here,” he said without looking back. “You want to stick around, you can walk.”

Shireen gave a final look at the corpse, then hurried after Tobruk. She caught up to him near the mouth of the canyon and began arguing as she paced him, her voice fading into echoes as they both disappeared behind the rocks. Rachel and my younger self didn’t move, staring at the remains. My younger self turned to look at her and eventually she met his gaze. For a long moment they stared at each other, some kind of strange communication passing between them, then Rachel looked away and followed Shireen.

My younger self was left alone. He stared at the remains for a long time until a sound made him look around. The campsite was silent. He turned, stumbling, and broke into a run towards the canyon. Above, the sky was darkening and the first birds were beginning to circle, drawn to the carrion below.

* * *

Iswam up to consciousness slowly. As my senses returned one at a time, I became gradually aware of my surroundings: warm air, echoes in the distance, the presence of magic. I felt the touch of soft hands on my body, running from my stomach to my chest, and heard the rustle of movement. It was all very peaceful and I lay back, enjoying the sensations. Only after a few minutes did I open my eyes.

I was lying on a raised bed in a small cave. Soft light glowed from orbs set into the walls, casting a dim glow over the room. The cave had been stacked with rolls of fabric and bolts of cloth, but they’d been pushed to the far side to leave a clear space around the bed. The air was warm and dry.

Anne was sitting next to me. Her clothes were rumpled and her grey blouse was marked with dark stains that looked like dried blood, but her posture was alert and her hand was resting on my arm. Her face was more drawn than I remembered, and her red-brown eyes were watching me. “Alex?” she said in her soft voice.

I just looked at her. Somehow, I’d never noticed before just how beautiful Anne was. After the pain and violence of the battle in the casino, and the death and ugliness of the dream, she was something gentle and beautiful, and I lay quietly, taking in the sight.

“Alex?” Anne said again. Her hand tightened on my arm, just slightly. “Can you hear me?”

“I’m—” My voice came out as a rasp, and I had to stop and swallow. “Yeah.”

Anne’s eyes filled with tears and she turned away. I looked at her, puzzled. “Why are you crying?”

Anne’s voice was muffled. “Why do you think?” She paused a second then turned back, eyes still red but set in concentration. She touched her hand to my forehead, chest, stomach, and I felt the stir of magic against my bare skin as she spoke under her breath. “Brain activity is okay, respiration is okay, blood pressure . . .” She chewed her lip. “Still low . . . Do you think you can manage drinking?”

Now that I thought about it, I was really thirsty. “Yeah.”

“Just a little,” Anne warned me as she held a straw to my lips. I sucked it down greedily and was disappointed when she pulled it away.

“Hey,” I said weakly.

“I don’t want to test the mend to your stomach,” Anne said. “I wouldn’t give you anything at all unless I had to . . . You can have some more in an hour.”

I lay quietly for a little while. I wasn’t wearing anything except my underwear and the bedclothes had been drawn back to expose my chest, but that didn’t really feel all that important right now. “We’re in Arachne’s cave, right?”

Anne nodded.

“Who else is here?”

“Luna’s sleeping through there.” Anne nodded at a solid wall. She smiled slightly, wiping away the last traces of tears. “She’s going to be angry she wasn’t here to see you wake up. She stayed up all night while I was working.”

“All night?” I glanced at the cave. “How long was I out?”

“Sixteen hours,” Anne said. “I could have woken you earlier, but you needed the rest.” She looked out into the cavern. “Arachne’s in the cavern, and Variam and Sonder are getting supplies. I asked for some stuff from the flat and the market.”

“You’ve been up all night?” I asked. Casting spells for that long takes it out of you, especially on top of lack of sleep.

Anne shook her head. “There are biochemical processes that keep you awake. I can go a lot longer than this.”

I glanced at her clothes. “Uh, how did you get those bloodstains?”

Anne looked at me with eyebrows raised. “They’re yours.”

“Oh.”

I was quiet for a little while as Anne continued to check over me. “How close was I . . .” I said. I didn’t add to dying, but the words hung in the air.

Anne didn’t meet my eyes, but her hand tightened on my wrist for an instant before moving to the side of my neck. “You don’t want to know.”

“So remember when you told me that it felt like you didn’t need to worry about me so much? I guess I kind of screwed that up, didn’t I?”

Anne gave something between a laugh and a sob and dropped her head, her hair brushing my chest. “Don’t . . .” She drew a breath and looked up at me. “Don’t do anything like this again. Please.”

I smiled. “I’ll work on that.”

Footsteps sounded from the tunnel, and Anne straightened as Luna walked in. She’d changed clothes at some point during the night and was wearing something less eye-catching. “Hey!” she said cheerfully as she saw me. “You’re up!”

“You don’t sound too surprised.”

“Well, yeah,” Luna said. “You had Anne with you.” She pulled up a chair, keeping her distance. The silver mist of her curse curled around her at the edge of my vision, marking the boundary beyond which she couldn’t safely approach. “So how’s it feel to be back from the dead?”

“A lot better than the alternative,” I said. I felt tired and fragile, but there was no pain and I could talk. Anne’s good at what she does. I glanced between the two of them. “What did I miss?”

Anne looked at Luna. “Well,” Luna said, settling back into her chair. “You remember the firemen picking you up?”

“Not much else, but yeah.”

“They got you out the front door. They were bringing the hoses in and there was smoke everywhere. It was packed outside and I was worried those guys might still be around, so I stuck next to you and called Anne and Vari and told them to get moving. Then the police started setting up barriers and the ambulance showed up and the medics got to you. I was on the phone to Anne and she was giving me advice on what to do and she told me to let them treat you until she got there. They put you in the ambulance and I got them to take me too and they took us to the hospital.” Luna stopped.

I thought for a second, trying to figure it out. “The hospital?”

“Yeah.”

“Did they . . . discharge me or something?”

“Ah . . .” Luna said. “Not exactly.”

I looked around at the walls of Arachne’s cave, puzzled. “Then how did I end up here?”

“Anne said not to tell you about that until you’re better.”

I looked from Luna to Anne, eyebrows raised. “Let’s just say we’re lucky that Vari looks good in a uniform,” Luna added.

“Luna!” Anne said.

“Sorry.”

I sighed and laid my head back. “You know what, I don’t want to know.”

“So did you see me against those guys?” Luna said. “Did you catch the bit where I blocked that fire wall with my whip?”

“From my angle it was kind of hard to miss.”

“Good! I was worried you were too far gone to see it.”

“I’m glad you’ve got your priorities straight,” I said dryly.

“So I saved your life back there,” Luna said, ignoring my comment. “Didn’t I?”

“Yes.”

“I mean, really saved your life. You would have died if I hadn’t been there, right?”

“Yes.”

“You looked really helpless when you were on the floor like that. You were just lying there sprawled out and—”

“Is there somewhere you’re going with this?”

“So now do I get to be the master and you have to do what I say?”

I glared at her. “No!”

“Well, you know, maybe you’re slowing down with age. Do you think I should start being your bodyguard?”

“You’re going to have to work on your coverage if you’re planning to take that up,” I said. “Where were you while I was fighting anyway?”

“I was in the bathroom.”

“Right. If I ever get killed when you’re supposed to be protecting me, that’ll make a great explanation.”

“So do you think any of the security cameras got the fight?” Luna said. “Because if they did I could show it to Vari and the others at duelling class.”

I couldn’t help laughing, and Luna grinned too. “So,” she said, becoming serious, “who were they?”

My smile faded. “That’s . . . a long story.” Talking with Anne and Luna had let me briefly forget everything from last night, but now it suddenly came back again.

The silence stretched out, and Anne and Luna looked at each other. “Well, I guess it can wait,” Luna suggested.

“I’ll tell you,” I said. “Just . . . I don’t really want to tell this story more than once.”

“We’ll wait until Vari and Sonder are back,” Anne said. “In the meantime, you should rest.” She gave Luna a glance.

Luna nodded and rose. “I’ll tell them.” She paused at the tunnel leading out, one hand on the rock wall. “Alex? Glad you’re okay.” She disappeared.

* * *

“You’ve gotten careless,” Arachne told me.

“I know,” I said with a sigh. “Things have been quiet lately.”

“Not that quiet.”

“Okay, not that quiet. But the last few months it’s been the subtle sort of trouble, you know? It’s been politics I’ve been worried about, not assassins going after me right in the middle of a bloody casino.”

Arachne is about the size of a rhino and much taller, eight hairy legs running up to a black arachnid body highlighted in cobalt blue. Eight black eyes are clustered above a set of fangs that wouldn’t look out of place on a sabre-toothed tiger, and she can scuttle at lightning speed. One glance at her would make most people would run screaming, but I have exactly the opposite reaction and I prefer Arachne’s company to pretty much anyone else’s. I was glad Luna and Anne and Variam had brought me here; it was probably the safest place they could have picked.

Arachne’s lair is under Hampstead Heath. The entrance tunnel is hidden beneath an old tree and leads down into a huge circular cavern hung with a dazzling rainbow of clothes and fabrics. The walls, floor, and ceiling are stone, worn smooth from centuries of use except for a jagged patch around one of the side caves that marks the spot where someone was inconsiderate enough to set off some explosives last year. Anne had helped me into a robe and escorted me into the main chamber, and I was resting on a sofa, talking to Arachne as she sewed on her workbench. Anne was sitting quietly by the main entrance, and Luna had gone out to make a call.

“I still can’t believe they attacked me out in the open like that,” I said. “It seems crazy.”

“From the sound of it this boy doesn’t seem to care very much about risks.”

“I guess that’s it, isn’t it?” I said. “I’ve gotten used to dealing with professionals. They wouldn’t take a risk like that; they’re predictable. It’s the bloody amateurs you have to watch out for.”

“Well, just in case you run into any more amateurs, I think you ought to wear something a little more protective,” Arachne said. Arachne’s voice has a clicking rustle to it, not quite loud enough to be obtrusive but enough to remind you it’s there. “I’ve been telling you that for months.”

“Yeah, yeah. You were right, I was wrong.”

“I hope this’ll teach you a little more humility at least.”

“Look, I’ve already got Luna giving me grief me over this. I don’t need it from you too.”

“It’s good to be reminded of one’s mortality from time to time.” Arachne can’t smile, but her voice sounded amused. “Though perhaps in future you could find a slightly less extreme way of doing it.”

Voices echoed down the tunnel and Variam and Sonder arrived, walking down with Luna in the lead. As soon as Variam and Sonder saw me they wanted to know if I was all right, and it took me a while to convince them that I was, which led in turn to Luna giving Variam and Sonder another retelling of her version of the fight in the casino.

By the time it was done we were sitting in a rough circle on Arachne’s sofas, while Arachne worked quietly off to one side. “So,” Variam said. “Who are these guys and how do we get rid of them?”

“I might have found out something about that,” Sonder said unexpectedly. “I was asking around and there’s this new group showing up among the adepts.”

Adepts are the next step down from mages on the power scale; they can use magic but only in one very specific way. A time mage like Sonder can speed time up, slow it down, look into the past, and even do really weird stuff like kicking something out of the timeline entirely, at least in theory. A time adept can only do one of those things—they have one spell they can use, and that’s it. They don’t get the best treatment from mages and a lot of them carry a fair bit of resentment as a result. “They’re supposed to be some kind of vigilantes?” Sonder said. “Or they’ve been getting into fights, anyway. I don’t know if they’re the same people, though—the ones I heard about are supposed to only have a problem with Dark mages.”

“What makes you think they’re not the same ones?” I said dryly.

“But you’re not . . .” Sonder began, then trailed off. “Oh.”

“What sort of fights?” Luna asked.

“I think they’re supposed to be pro-adept?” Sonder said. “They attacked some Dark mage in Bristol a while back.”

Variam shot Luna a glance, frowning. “If they’re so pro-adept, how come they were after you?”

Luna shrugged. “They weren’t, they were after Alex. I just got in the way.”

“Okay . . .” Variam said doubtfully, looking at me.

I hesitated, on the edge of speaking. It would be so easy to change the subject, and for a moment I grabbed at the idea. Tell them an edited version, skate over the worst bits, and move on. For all the time that I’d spent with Anne and Variam and Sonder and Luna over the past year I’d never told them much about myself, not even Luna. And they trusted me—if I told them I didn’t want to talk about it, they’d accept it.

Except . . .

Except that they did trust me. When I’d been hurt, they’d come without hesitation. Sonder and Luna had been at my side all the way through the search for the fateweaver and the attack on Arachne last year, and Anne and Variam had joined them after the events of last winter. Hadn’t they earned the right to know what was really going on? And if they were willing to put themselves at risk, shouldn’t I at least tell them why?

The silence stretched out, the four of them glancing at me and waiting for me to speak. From the other side of the room, I could hear the soft whisk-whisk of Arachne’s needle. “The adept who stabbed me is called Will Traviss,” I said at last. It was an effort to get the words out. “He thinks I killed his sister.”

The four of them looked at each other. “Why does he think that?” Variam said.

“Because I did,” I said. “Or as good as.” It was hard to say it, but an odd sort of relief, too. At least I wouldn’t have to hide it anymore.

I wanted to look away but forced myself to meet their eyes. All of them looked taken aback, and Sonder looked outright shocked. “What I’m about to tell you happened ten to twelve years ago,” I said. “There’s no way to make this short, so you’re going to have to be patient. And . . . just so you know, this story doesn’t have a happy ending.” I took a breath and began.

chapter 5

“In my last year of school,” I began, “I was recruited by a Dark mage named Richard Drakh.” Even after all these years, saying his name still brought back a touch of the old fear. “My magic had started to come in a couple of years before, but I didn’t understand what I was doing. I didn’t know anything about the magical world, or Dark and Light mages, or anything like that. Richard offered me a position as his apprentice, and I said yes. I left home and moved into Richard’s mansion.

“There were three other apprentices that he’d recruited around the same time, and they were about the same age as me. Two of them were girls—a fire mage named Shireen, and a water mage named Rachel. They’d known each other from before and they were pretty much best friends. The last apprentice was a boy, Tobruk, and he was a fire mage too. Tobruk was the strongest, Shireen was close behind, both of them were stronger than Rachel, and all of them were stronger than me. Richard trained us and when we were ready he introduced us into magical society, Dark and Light. We met other mages, we took part in contests and tournaments, and all the time we competed with each other. I treated it like a game, back then.

“Richard started giving us assignments. We’d be sent to do an investigation, or get hold of something and bring it back. As the months went by the assignments got more dangerous. For us, and for everyone else. Sometimes the people we were sent after didn’t cooperate; sometimes there were others after the same thing we were. There were fights. Rachel got shot on one mission and would have died if Shireen hadn’t pulled her out. We got more ruthless after that. Richard didn’t give us any explanation for why we were being sent out, and he didn’t answer questions. We got into the habit of following orders.

“In September of that year, Richard sent us out to find a girl. Her name was Catherine Traviss, and Richard wanted her brought back to the mansion, alive—he was very clear on that part. Somehow or other she’d found out Richard was after her, and she’d fled to the United States with her younger brother. I guess she was hoping that would be far enough. It wasn’t. We followed her to the U.S. and tracked her down in Arizona. She’d travelled with her boyfriend, a guy called Matthew Stewart, and the two of them were camped out in the desert. I found them, and Shireen and Rachel and Tobruk went in to get her. Her boyfriend tried to fight them off . . .” I trailed off, remembering what had come after. The way in which fire magic kills is horrible beyond description. I tried to think of some way to make them understand just how awful the sight and sound and smell had been, and couldn’t. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

“Tobruk killed him,” I said at last. “It . . . wasn’t pretty. We got Catherine. Alive, just like Richard said. And we brought her back.

“I guess that was the point at which I started having doubts. Don’t get me wrong, we’d done some shady stuff already, but there’d always been some way to justify it. Most of the time the people we were going up against weren’t any nicer than we were—either they were Dark apprentices too, or as good as. But Catherine and her boyfriend hadn’t been part of that world. They hadn’t done anything at all.

“Richard hadn’t told us why he wanted Catherine. I’d had some idea he just wanted to talk to her, which was pretty stupid of me now that I think about it. Richard had her locked in the cells beneath the mansion and told us to make sure she stayed there. Shireen and Rachel didn’t go near her. Tobruk did.

“Tobruk was . . . None of us were especially nice people back then, but Tobruk was the worst. I think out of all the Dark apprentices I met in that time, he was the cruellest. He started making regular visits down to Catherine and he’d . . . amuse himself with her.” I stopped. I didn’t want to go into the details; just remembering it was nauseating. I took a quick glance around the four faces watching me. Sonder looked uncomprehending, but something flickered in Anne’s eyes and I had the sudden unpleasant feeling that she knew exactly what I was leaving out.

“It took me longer than it should have, but I decided to help Catherine escape. I scouted out the guard shifts, then one night I crept down and got her out of her cell.” I fell silent briefly. “It didn’t work. Richard was waiting for me and Rachel and Shireen and Tobruk were with him. He gave me one chance to put Catherine back. I didn’t take it. Tobruk put me down. When I woke up I was in a cell of my own.

“I’d taken it for granted, being under Richard’s protection. When Richard took that protection away . . . then suddenly I was in the same position Catherine was. And Tobruk made sure I got the same experience. Not exactly the same—his tastes didn’t run that way—but he was pretty creative at coming up with substitutes.

“It went on for a long time. I didn’t see anyone except Tobruk, and the rest of the time I was left alone. But even if I wasn’t Richard’s apprentice I was still a diviner, and every now and again Tobruk and Rachel and Shireen would run up against something that they couldn’t handle but I could. The trips were short and I was always watched, but I was patient. Eventually I found a way out.

“I was more careful this time. I’d learnt Richard had a new enemy, a Light mage, and I waited until he was busy with her before I made my escape. This time it worked. I made it away, but I knew Richard would send the other three after me. The only question was which one would catch me first.

“I went to the Light mages for help. They didn’t want to know—as far as they were concerned it was one Dark mage against another. I went to every mage that I’d gotten to know during my time as Richard’s apprentice, and they all turned me away. They didn’t want to get involved—they were all just waiting for Richard to finish me off. And finally I went to the last place I could think of. Here. To Arachne.” I glanced over at Arachne, still sewing quietly. I knew she could hear me, but she didn’t react. “She could have turned me away like the others. She didn’t. She took me in. Arachne hid me and let me heal and rest, but she couldn’t keep me hidden forever. When I was ready I took the help she gave me and went out to face the people chasing me. The first one to find me was Shireen, and she was . . . different. She was under orders to bring me back, but for the first time she wasn’t sure. I’d spoken to her a few times towards the end, and maybe something I said made her change her mind. Or maybe she changed it herself. She went back to the mansion empty-handed and I never saw her again.

“And then Tobruk came. He was stronger and tougher and better trained than me, but I’d had time to prepare and I knew what he’d do. He could have killed me if he’d gone all-out, but he couldn’t resist playing cat and mouse one last time. And even at the end, he never really believed that someone as weak as me could threaten him. I set a trap for him in an old building, and I killed him and turned the building into his funeral pyre. And then I kept running and getting ready for whoever would come next.

“Nobody came. Days went by, then weeks, then months. Nobody else came after me. And I never saw Richard again.”

I stopped talking. The cavern fell silent but for the whisk of Arachne’s needle. Seconds dragged by.

Luna was the first to speak. “So do we go after this Will guy or wait for him to come back?”

Everyone turned to stare at her. “What?” Luna said.

Sonder looked disbelieving. “Didn’t you hear that story?”

“Yes,” Luna said.

“This guy, Will . . . He’s not just some monster. He’s got a reason for doing this.”

“Everybody who’s tried to kill us has had a reason,” Luna pointed out. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to let them.”

“You said that Catherine girl had a little brother,” Variam said. “You think it’s the same guy?”

I nodded. “When we attacked Catherine’s camp we only saw her and her boyfriend, but there were tents for three people. She was supposed to have taken her brother with her when she ran . . . Will would be about the right age.”

“And now he wants revenge for what happened to his sister,” Variam said.

“You didn’t hurt her, though,” Luna said.

“No, I just showed the people who did hurt her where to find her. Somehow I don’t think that argument’s going to impress him very much.”

Silence fell again, and it stretched until it became uncomfortable. Suddenly I couldn’t bear to sit there any longer; I didn’t want to look at their faces for fear of what I’d find there. “I need a rest,” I said, rising to my feet. I felt Anne look up at me but raised a hand, not meeting her eyes. “I’m just tired. I’ll talk to you later.” I walked back towards the cave in which I’d woken up. As I left the cavern I heard the murmurs start up behind me.

* * *

Back in the smaller room, I lay on my back on the bed and let my breath out in a sigh. I was more tired than I should have been and I knew that even with Anne’s healing, I hadn’t yet recovered from last night’s injuries.

Well, I’ve told them. Now that I’d done it I felt drained. I’d known I couldn’t keep it hidden forever, but I’d always put it off. I stared up at the rock ceiling and wondered how they’d treat me now. In the years since I’d known Luna and Sonder and Anne and Variam, I’d played the role of a . . . what? Protector? Teacher? Friend? Something I wasn’t, anyway. They hadn’t known about my past, and so when I’d been with them I’d been able to escape it.

Was that why I’d worked so hard to help the four of them? When I’d joined Richard I’d been too self-centred to ever really care about helping anyone. When had that changed? Over the last year and a half I’d put myself in danger to help Luna and Sonder and then Variam and Anne, not just once but over and over again, and as I thought about it I realised that I didn’t regret it at all. I’d do it again without a second thought.

Maybe while I was with the four of them, I’d been able to pretend to be a different person. And at some point I’d noticed that I liked being that person a lot more than I liked who I used to be.

But the person I’d been pretending to be wouldn’t have gotten two innocent kids killed . . .

Lost in my own thoughts, I didn’t notice Luna’s approach until I heard her footsteps echoing down the corridor. “Hey,” she said as she walked in, then pulled out a chair and dropped into it. “They’re still arguing.”

“Yeah, that figures.” I pulled myself upright and looked at Luna. “Still want to be my apprentice?”

Luna looked at me in surprise. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because of what I told you out there.”

“Oh.” Luna shrugged. “I’d guessed most of that already.”

I stared at her.

“Okay, I didn’t know the details,” Luna said. “But I knew you used to be a Dark mage. There was going to be something.”

“What about Catherine?”

Luna shrugged again. “You’ve kind of got a thing about people coming to you for help. Especially if they’re young. I figured it had to be something like that.”

I looked at Luna’s face, frank and straightforward, and had to laugh. All this time I’d been trying to keep it hidden and she’d known all along. I spend so much time finding out other people’s secrets, and somehow it had never occurred to me that someone else could do the same to me. “It doesn’t bother you?” I said once I’d caught my breath. “Having a master who was trained as a Dark mage?”

“I don’t care,” Luna said. I stopped laughing to see that she was looking at me steadily. “I go to classes and matches and I hear everyone talking about Dark and Light, and they all seem to think that the faction you’re part of is the most important thing in the world. Well, I don’t like either of them. Neither of them are ever going to want me, because I’m not a mage. They don’t care about me. Why should I care about them?”

I fell silent. “It’s not that simple,” I said at last. “I know you’ve got reason not to like either faction. But they are different, and I shouldn’t have joined up with Richard the way I did.”

Luna gave me a puzzled look. “If you don’t like Dark mages, why did you join Richard in the first place?”

I sighed. “Short answer? Because I hated pretty much everyone. I felt like the world had treated me like crap, and this was my chance to turn it around. No one had ever cared about me, so why should I care about anyone else? When you spend all your time lonely and miserable, it’s really easy to start hating everyone who has what you don’t.” I glanced at Luna. “You understand that, don’t you?”

Luna’s eyes went distant, and she nodded. We sat in silence for a little while. “Why did you change your mind?” Luna said quietly.

“Because of Catherine and that boy,” I said. “I guess . . . The way I’d always justified it to myself was that the rest of the world had started it. But those two hadn’t done anything to me. So I tried to fix it. And I failed.”

Luna sat without speaking and I wondered what she was thinking about. It was a relief when I heard footsteps and Anne and Variam arrived. I looked between them, then down the tunnel. “Sonder?” I said.

“He had to leave,” Anne said. There was a slight distance in her manner, but at least she didn’t flinch when I looked at her.

“He’s still choking on the whole ex–Dark mage thing,” Variam said. “He said he’d call.”

It wasn’t really a surprise. Sonder had always been the idealistic one, and I had the feeling it was going to take a while for him to get used to this . . . if he ever did. I glanced at Variam. “How about you?”

“I figure we owe you,” Variam said.

“I don’t want you to get involved in this because you feel you have to.”

“Yeah, well, that’s my call, right?” Variam shrugged. “You’re about the only mage who’s ever stuck around to help us out. I’m not leaving because of some old grudge.”

I didn’t say anything but I gave Variam a nod, and he gave me one back. I looked at Anne, who answered in her soft voice. “I’m not blaming Sonder for leaving,” she said, and again there was that trace of remoteness that hadn’t been there before. “But . . . what’s done is done. I don’t want anyone else to die.” Her eyes held mine and there was a question there.

“Neither do I,” I said, and I felt Anne relax slightly.

“Okay,” Luna said, raising a hand. “Not to point out the obvious, but they seem just fine with someone dying, as long as it’s you.”

“Is there any way to talk to them?” Anne asked.

“Yeah, I got a close look at these guys,” Luna said. “They really didn’t seem in a talking mood.”

“How many of ’em are there, and what can they do?” Variam said.

“Six that I saw,” I said. “At least three are magic-users, probably adepts. Will can accelerate himself, the girl throws ground fire, and the tall one’s a life-drinker. I caught a whiff of space magic too.”

“Only four of them were fighting though,” Luna said.

“That we saw,” I said. “If they can put together an attack team of six, they’ve probably got others.”

“If their group’s that big, they’re going to have trouble hiding,” Variam said with a frown. “There should be some way to track them down.”

“But if you go following them it’ll just lead to another fight,” Anne said.

“You got any better ideas?”

“There has to be some way to get them to listen,” Anne said. “Otherwise it’ll turn into a battle, and the longer that goes on the harder it’ll be to stop.”

“Can you think of anything?” I said. “Because Luna’s right—they really didn’t seem interested in talking things out.”

Anne bit her lip, thinking. “Could we try the Council?” Luna asked. “What about Talisid?”

“He’s still in Russia from that business last month, and I can’t think of any other Council mages I’d trust with this.”

“What about Caldera?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Caldera was asking about Richard,” Luna said. “Then the same day, these guys go after you. It’s probably not a coincidence, right?”

I thought about it. “Caldera was looking into rumours of Richard coming back,” I said. “Maybe those same rumours are the reason Will’s group made their move now.”

“If she’s a Keeper, she’d know more about these guys, wouldn’t she?” Luna said.

“More bloody Keepers,” Variam muttered.

“What happened to Catherine?” Anne asked.

Luna and Variam looked at Anne in surprise. “You mean back then?” I said. “She was alive when I escaped. Beyond that . . . I don’t know.”

“Maybe she’s still alive,” Anne said.

“Didn’t Will tell Alex she was dead?” Luna asked.

“But he also thought Alex killed her,” Anne said. “If he was wrong about that, maybe he’s wrong about her being dead too.”

I sighed. “I’d like to believe it, but . . . I don’t know. Odds aren’t good.”

“It’s possible though, isn’t it?” Anne said. “And if she is alive, you could find her.”

“I guess,” I said reluctantly. “But Anne, it was ten years ago. It’s one hell of a cold trail.”

“But think about what would happen if you did,” Anne said. “It would take away this boy’s reason to go after you, wouldn’t it?” She looked at me. “You said you wanted a way to deal with these adepts without having to fight them. Even if you can’t find Catherine, you might turn up something that helps.”

Variam and Luna looked at each other, then at me. “I guess it’s worth a try,” Variam said unwillingly.

“Where would you look, though?” Luna asked.

“It’s not where.” My heart sank as I said it. “It’s who. There’s only one person who’d know.”

* * *

We spoke for another hour before breaking up for the evening. I wanted to go home, but Anne flatly refused to let me out of Arachne’s lair until I’d had a full day’s rest, and I gave in. Anne stayed to keep an eye on me, Luna stayed to keep Anne company, and in the end we all spent the night there. Before going to sleep I made two calls and left two messages: one to the number Caldera had left me, and one to an unnamed number that cut in to a voice mail service. “It’s Alex,” I said into the phone. “We need to meet. Call me back.” I hung up and walked back down the tunnel. The day had tired me more than I’d realised, and as soon as I lay down I fell into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

The next day dawned hot and dry, the heat reaching down into the earth to raise the temperature of Arachne’s cave. Anne checked on me several times, and by the afternoon finally decided I was fit for action. “Now, do try not to get stabbed again,” Arachne said as I got ready to leave. “At least not until next week.”

“Would you lay off already? It’s not like I do this regularly.”

“Well, whether you do or don’t, come back in a couple of days. I’ll have something for you.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

“I think you’re doing the right thing.”

I looked at Arachne in surprise. “Trying to find Catherine?”

“Your friend Anne came to the right answer, even if she might not know why,” Arachne said. “Whatever you find at the end of this, you’ve needed to do it for a long time.”

“Let’s hope you’re right,” I said. Anne and Variam and Luna emerged from one of the side caves and I waved to them. “I’ll see you soon.”

* * *

It was a beautiful day and Hampstead Heath was packed, people soaking up the warmth of the sun and resting in the shade. Students threw Frisbees on the greens while families walked at a leisurely pace down the wooded paths, children and dogs racing around their ankles. The four of us left the Heath and crossed Kentish Town, taking the bridge over the canal.

Coming back to my shop felt less like coming home and more like making camp in enemy territory. I scanned my shop and flat thoroughly from a distance, then we entered on foot and searched the building from top to bottom. Once we were done Anne and Variam left to make a circuit of the block.

“Anything?” I asked once Anne was back.

“I don’t think so,” Anne said. “The streets are crowded but I can’t see anyone watching.”

I nodded. “I can’t find anything either.”

“That’s kind of weird,” Luna said curiously. “Shouldn’t they be staking the place out or something?”

“Who cares?” Variam said. “They’ll show up sooner or later.”

“No, Luna’s right,” I said with a frown. “If I were them and I’d lost the trail at the casino, I’d try to pick us up again here.”

“Luna said their leader was injured in the fight,” Anne said. “They might be waiting for him to recover.”

“Well,” I said, “for now, we wait.”

* * *

Anne, Variam, and Luna all had afternoon classes, but they skipped them and the four of us stayed inside for the day. I ran the three of them through the building’s defences, making sure they knew how to activate them if they were needed and to stay out of the way once they were. If Will and his friends decided they wanted a rematch I was going to be ready for them.

At four o’clock the phone rang. Not my mobile but the landline, which I hardly ever use. I picked it up and spoke. “It’s Alex. We need to meet.”

A woman’s voice spoke from the other end of the line, familiar and cold. “What do you want?”

“I’ve got questions.”

“I don’t care.”

“I have something to trade. Information.”

“And?”

“Have I ever called you before?” I asked. “You think I’d be coming to you if this wasn’t important?”

Silence. “Tonight at ten o’clock,” the voice said at last. “The market at the Old Truman Brewery. Try anything and I’ll kill you.” She hung up before I could answer.

I put the phone down and turned to the others. “Well, it’s a start.”

“Was that Rachel?” Luna said. She and Variam were looking at me, while Anne was looking out the window.

“Call her Deleo,” I said. “For some reason her old name really pisses her off.”

“She’s going to help?” Variam said.

“She’s going to talk.”

“Alex?” Anne said, a warning note in her voice. “We’ve got a problem.”

We all turned to look. “That boy from two nights ago is back,” Anne said. “And he’s not alone.”

Variam and Luna rose, and I started scanning futures. “How many?” Variam said.

“Two that I can see,” Anne said. “Him and another the same age.”

“It’s them,” I said. Looking into the futures in which I left the shop and turned right, I could see myself running straight into them. “Four . . . no, five. Probably more.”

Luna had drawn her whip and was standing by the door. “What’s the plan?”

I thought quickly. Will’s group were down the street and they were coming closer. But there were other people out there too . . . An odd idea occurred to me. “I’m going to open the shop.”

Anne, Variam, and Luna all turned to stare at me.

* * *

“Alex?” Luna said quietly from my left. “What exactly is the plan here?”

The sign on my shop’s front door said OPEN, and a steady stream of customers was trickling in. It was a sunny day in tourist season, the busiest time of the year, and already the shop was starting to fill up. An American couple chatted loudly over the sword and knife table, while a girl with a satchel and long skirts was going through the herb and powder rack. Luna had taken up a position in the back left corner, Variam was behind the counter with me, and Anne had slipped into the roped-off area holding the magical items to the right, partly hidden from view. “I’m playing a hunch,” I said.

“What hunch?”

The girl in the skirts approached the counter. “Do you have any aconite?”

“Sorry,” I said. “That stuff’s too dangerous to sell over the counter.”

She nodded. “Could I order some? I can show you some ID if you’d like.”

We sorted it out, I agreed to get some for her by next week, and she bought some other herbs. From the selection and her pentacle necklace I pegged her as a Wiccan. I rang up the sale and she left.

“This is stupid,” Variam said through his teeth once she was gone.

“Mr. Diplomacy’s got a point,” Luna said. She kept her voice down, her eyes tracking the customers. “This is way more crowded than the casino. If a fight starts here I don’t think I can miss all these guys.”

“That’s the idea,” I said.

“They’re coming,” Anne said quietly.

Through the shop window, on the other side of the street, I saw the Chinese kid. I met his eyes through the glass; he flinched visibly and ducked back behind a van. “That’s right,” I murmured. “Now go tell Will we know you’re here.”

“Why are we waiting?” Variam said.

“It’s their move,” I said.

“Yeah, how about we take that move and shove it—”

Another customer came to the counter and Variam fell silent, glowering. As I finished serving them, my phone rang and I glanced at it. It was a new number, and I answered. “Caldera,” I said. “Hi.”

“Hey, Verus,” Caldera said. I could hear traffic in the background; it sounded like she was near a main road. “Got your message.”

“Mind coming to my shop for a chat?”

“Thought you didn’t know anything?”

“I had what you might call a motivational experience.” Across the street, three figures had appeared. It was Will, the gold-haired girl, and the Indian kid.

“All right, I’ll head over. Should be with you in an hour or two.”

Will and the other two began walking towards us, crossing the street. They were heading straight for the shop. “Uh, Caldera?” I said, not taking my eyes off them. “You might want to hurry.”

“What’s the rush?”

“Let’s just say you’re not the only one with an interest in Richard’s old apprentices.”

The bell rang as Will strode through the door. His two companions followed him in to flank him, eyes flicking from side to side, gold-hair girl on his left and the Indian boy on his right. Anne caught my attention with a movement of her head and as I glanced at her she held up two fingers and gestured outside the shop to either side. I made a small motion to show I’d understood and kept my eyes on Will.

Will and the other two approached the counter. I’d dropped the phone as soon as they entered and my hand was under the counter, resting on the concealed shelf. They came to a halt ten feet away, staring at me.

There was a long silence. The shop was still filled with the buzz of conversation, but around the counter all was quiet. I could feel the potential for violence but couldn’t see it in the futures . . . yet. “Looking for something?” I said at last.

Will’s gaze slid off me and scanned the others. He dismissed Anne with a glance and studied Variam briefly before settling on Luna. “Who are you?”

“The one who kicked your ass,” Luna said. The handle of her whip was hidden behind her forearm, and the silver mist of her curse coiled around her, quick and eager. She looked casual but I could tell she was ready to spring.

Will’s eyes narrowed, and he looked back at me. “Getting reinforcements?”

“Pretty much,” I said. “Mind if I ask you something?”

Will ignored me and addressed the others. “Why are you helping this piece of shit?”

“None of your business,” Variam said.

“Because we’re his friends,” Luna said. “You have a problem with him, you have a problem with us.”

“Friends?” the gold-hair girl said in a London accent, and laughed.

“Do you know what he did?” the Indian boy said, addressing Luna and Variam.

“Yeah, actually, we do,” Luna said. “He told us.”

“And you’re on his side?” Will said incredulously.

“So you’re Dark mages too?” the Indian boy said.

“It’s not about sides,” Anne said, speaking for the first time in her soft voice. All three of them turned to her, and she met their eyes. “We are his friends. And if you try to kill him we won’t stand aside.”

I felt an odd choking sensation and blinked before shaking it away quickly. But Will and the other two looked off-balance, and in a sudden flash of insight I realised that they hadn’t come in here prepared to confront anyone but me. Friends hadn’t been in the script.

A customer approached, a middle-aged man with a balding head. “Um, excuse me,” he said. “Could I get—?”

Will and the girl turned to stare at him. The man trailed off. “. . . I’ll come back,” he finished, and backed away.

“Is that what this is about?” the Indian boy asked me, gesturing around the shop. “Human shields?”

“Call it that if you like,” I said. “The question is, do you want to start a fight in the middle of them?”

Will gave me a look of utter contempt. “You really are a piece of work, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, given that you tried to murder me I can’t say I care much about your good opinion,” I said. “Now let’s do a head count. You’re outnumbered, outgunned, and in the middle of a crowd full of civilian witnesses. So again—do you really want to start a fight here?”

Will tensed. My precognition lit up and I closed my hand on the gun beneath the counter. He was about to—

The Indian boy grabbed Will. “Will! No.”

Will’s lips curled but he didn’t move. The customers seemed to be belatedly noticing that something was going on and a few of them had backed away, giving us some space. “I’m gonna fuck you up,” gold-hair girl told me and Luna.

“Try to send that ground fire at me or Alex,” Luna told the girl clearly, “and I will stuff it down your throat.”

“Bev!” The Indian boy caught the girl’s arm, his voice urgent. “Don’t! Remember the plan!”

Will shook the Indian boy off, but his face was controlled again and the moment was gone. “Big man, hiding behind kids,” he said, staring at me. “Why don’t you come out on your own?”

“Because I’d lose,” I said. “Last time we tried that you beat me, remember?”

Will’s lip curled. “Scared?”

“Actually, yes,” I said. “I’d rather not get killed if it’s all the same to you. Oh, and while we’re at it, what makes you so sure your sister’s dead?”

Will had been about to snap something back at me, but that made him stop. “Is that some kind of joke?”

“The last time I saw Catherine, she was still alive,” I said. “How about this? You stop trying to kill me, and I’ll do all I can to find her.”

Will stared at me. “That’s bullshit!” the girl said angrily. “We know she’s dead, we got told—”

“Bev!” the Indian boy snapped.

I held Will’s gaze. “Well?” I said when he didn’t move. “How about it?”

For just an instant I thought I saw a flicker of doubt in Will’s eyes, then he took a step back. “Come on,” he said to the other two and backed away, not taking his eyes off me. Gold-hair girl and the Indian boy gave us suspicious looks but followed. The three of them retreated to the door and pulled it shut behind them. The bell went ding-ding as they withdrew into the street, and they were gone.

chapter 6

The four of us stood silently, looking with our different senses to figure out what would come next. “Well,” Luna said at last. “I guess that could have gone worse.”

“They’re going,” Anne said, looking at the wall.

“Looks like,” I said. I raised my voice, addressing the customers still scattered around the shop. “Sorry, everyone, we’re closing. Going to have to leave.”

There was some grumbling, but the more perceptive of the customers had caught the tail end of the confrontation and had figured out that staying might not be the best plan. Once I’d finished herding them out, I locked the door and flipped the sign to CLOSED.

“They out of range?” Variam asked Anne.

Anne nodded. “They didn’t slow down.”

“How did you know they wouldn’t start a fight?” Luna said curiously.

“Remember when you jumped in front of me at the casino?” I said. “They could have swarmed you but they didn’t. They just tried to get you out of the way.”

Luna frowned. “So?”

“Will’s lot think they’re the good guys,” I said with a sigh. “They weren’t planning on hurting anyone except me. I think the way they were expecting this to go was that they’d show up, I’d fight them, and they’d defeat the evil Dark mage with their bravery and teamwork. Me having friends wasn’t in the script.” I’m still getting used to it myself.

“Do you think they’ll listen?” Anne asked. “To what you said?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Meeting you guys threw them off, I think. They’ll probably pull back and try to figure out what to do next.” I tapped my fingers on the counter, thinking. “I can see this going two ways. If they stop thinking of me as the enemy and start thinking of me as a person, they’ll come back to negotiate. See what they can get.”

“He won’t,” Variam said.

Anne frowned at Variam. “They might.”

“They might,” Variam said. “He won’t.”

I didn’t answer, feeling a twinge of unease. There’d been a moment where Will had hesitated. Wasn’t there a chance he might listen? Logic said yes, but . . .

Something flickered in the futures ahead, and I took a glance. “Caldera’s coming,” I said, and that made me relax slightly. I didn’t really think that Will and his friends would come back so soon, but if they did, having another mage around would help.

“Keepers,” Variam said. “Always show up after it’s too late.”

* * *

“Hey, Verus,” Caldera said as I let her in. “So what’s the rush?”

“We had some visitors,” I told her. “I’d like you to meet Anne and Variam.”

We did introductions. Variam gave Caldera a barely civil nod. Anne was polite as usual. “So what’s up?” Caldera said.

“I’m looking for information on a group,” I said. “They’re young, eighteen to early twenties, mostly adepts I think. New on the scene and aggressive, leader is a guy called Will.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Caldera said with a frown. “I thought you wanted to talk about Richard.”

“I think this is connected to Richard.”

“Yeah? Why?”

“That’s”—I hesitated—“not something I want to go into.”

Caldera turned away with an expression of disgust. “It’s personal,” I said.

“What do you think I am, directory enquiries?” Caldera said. She shook her head and turned to walk away. “You’re having a laugh.”

“Wait,” I said. “This is important.”

Caldera paused, looking back with her hand on the door. “I’ve got a job to do, all right? You’ve got something to tell me, spit it out.”

“Let’s trade,” I said. “I need to know about this group. Tell me, and I’ll help you out with your investigation.”

“So you’re going to tell me what’s going on with Richard?”

“No. I told you, I don’t know where he is.”

“Then what have you got?”

“I can help you some other way.”

“How?”

“Come on,” I said. “You’re seriously telling me you can’t think of anything a diviner would be able to help you out with? Try me.”

Caldera measured me with her eyes, and I knew what she was thinking: she was weighing up whether to trust me. Luna, Anne, and Variam stayed quiet, for which I was grateful. “All right,” Caldera said at last, and took her hand off the door. She walked up and gave me a challenging look. “I want you to get me into Richard’s mansion.”

I stared at her. “Are you serious?” When Caldera only raised her eyebrows, I went on. “You want to break into a Dark mage’s house? Do you have any idea just how many things could go wrong with that?”

“No, but you can make a list if it’ll make you feel better.”

“If you’re looking for interesting ways to commit suicide, why don’t you just go interview Deleo? It’d be faster.”

“Can’t find her.”

I hesitated, belatedly remembering that I was going to go interview Deleo that same night. I hoped Luna and the others were keeping a straight face. If I offered to bring Caldera along, would she accept that instead? No, bad idea, very bad idea. As soon as Deleo spotted Caldera she’d vanish, and that was if we were lucky. Given the choice between breaking into Richard’s mansion and pissing off Deleo, I’d rather break into the mansion.

“So are you in or out?” Caldera said, mistaking my hesitation. “Look, all the information I’ve got says the place is deserted. And you’re a diviner, aren’t you? Aren’t you supposed to be good at sniffing out traps?”

I really didn’t like the idea. Diviners are good at sniffing out traps, and I’m good even by diviner standards, but it’s the kind of thing you don’t want to do unless you have to—there are a lot of things that can go wrong. On the other hand it’s something I know how to do, and looking into the future I could see that Caldera wasn’t going to be bargained down. “All right,” I said at last, not trying to hide my reluctance. “My help on a trip into Richard’s mansion, in exchange for the information on the adepts.”

“I can get that to you in a couple of days.”

“Or you could give it to me right now.”

Caldera raised her eyebrows. “How do you figure?”

“Here’s the thing,” I said. “I think you know how to do your job. And since these adepts are obviously connected to the rumours about Richard, I think you already looked them up.” I’d also looked into the future and seen fragments of her telling me about them, but I left out that part. “So how about it?”

“So what’s stopping you from doing a vanishing act as soon as I tell you what you want to hear?”

“At some point we’re going to have to trust each other,” I said. “And if you don’t trust me, then you really shouldn’t be relying on me to break you into a Dark mage’s mansion.”

Caldera studied me for a moment, then shrugged. “Fine. Then we’re hitting the mansion tomorrow morning.”

“Are you in some sort of hurry?”

“Aren’t you?” Caldera stuck out her hand. “Deal?”

I took it. “Deal.”

We shook hands, and I felt the tension in the shop go away. “How do you know about these guys?” Luna asked.

“Ways and means,” Caldera said. She leant back against the wall and glanced at me. “Ready?”

I got a notebook and a pencil. “The guys you’re talking about are an adept vigilante group,” Caldera said. “They got going about a month ago and they’re calling themselves the Nightstalkers.”

I looked up from the page, eyebrows raised. “The Nightstalkers?”

“You listening or not?”

I started writing and Caldera went on. “The leader is named William Traviss and he’s eighteen years old,” she said. “Time adept who can use haste. British-born, moved to the States when he was nine following the death of his parents. Only other family was an older sister, and she disappeared soon after. He grew up in the United States and picked up a police record to go with it, juvie stuff mostly. At some point—we don’t know when—he started recruiting other adepts. His line was that adepts needed to stand up and protect themselves—we’re being oppressed by the evil magocracy, band together and throw off your shackles, that kind of thing. Once he’d gotten a core group together, he moved back here and they started operations.”

“What kind of operations?”

“Small stuff to start. Recruitment, throwing their weight around. Then they started messing with Dark mages, targeting their operations, mostly with a view to rescuing people. Their big splash was Bristol. A Dark mage named Locus was running a major slaving nexus out of the inner city, buying and selling sensitives and adepts. The Nightstalkers took him on and actually won. Didn’t kill him, but they messed him up pretty badly, and when he ran they broke all the slaves loose. They got a lot of converts from that.”

I closed my eyes briefly and looked away. And the lessons they’ll have taken away from that are that all Dark mages are evil, and that violence works. Great. “And since then?”

“Word is they’re looking for Richard.”

“You guys planning to do anything about all this?” Variam said.

“Like what?” Caldera said. “Get between Dark mages and a bunch of militant adepts?”

“Thought you were supposed to keep the peace?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, Dark mages aren’t exactly popular,” Caldera said. “Doesn’t matter if there’s a truce; no one’s that motivated to get in the way.”

Variam looked away in disgust. “Look, I’m not saying I like it,” Caldera said. “But the Keepers do what the Council says. And as long as these adepts stick to going after Dark mages the Council couldn’t give a shit. Some of them are probably cheering them on.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” I said. “Come on, Vari. It’s not like this is anything new.”

“Who are the others?” Luna asked.

“Second-in-command to William is Dhruv Chaudhury,” Caldera said. “He and William go back a way. He’s supposed to be the brains of the group, comes up with the ideas. Magnetism adept, can create magnetic monopoles. Next up is Kyle Summers. Supposed to be a space magic user—not a gater—but other than that we don’t have much on him. Seems to have some military background, though he’s not much older than the others.”

“I guess that’s Captain America,” I said to myself. “What about a life-drinker? Same age as Will, South American looks?”

“Oh yes,” Caldera said. “Jaime Cordeiro, otherwise known as Ja-Ja. We’re very interested in Mr. Cordeiro. The Brazilian police were investigating him for murder, but he got out of the country before any charges were laid. Met William in the U.S. and followed him here. Suspected of life-draining, though nothing’s been proven. I’d keep your distance from him if I were you.”

“What about the fire girl?” Luna said.

Caldera shook her head. “That’s all I got. We know there are at least three others in the group, but we haven’t got details. Our guess is they’re new recruits that William picked up since arriving in the U.K. and they haven’t been around long enough to pick up a reputation. Sorry.”

I took my pencil off the page and studied what I’d written. It read, Will: Time/acceleration. Dhruv: Magnetism/monopole. Gold-hair: Fire/ground fire. Life-drinker: Life/drain. Cap. America: Space/? Chinese kid: ?/?. “It’s a start,” I said. I pushed the notebook over to Luna for her to read. “What’s your take on these guys?”

“Short version?” Caldera said. “They’re out of their league. They’ve been lucky so far but sooner or later they’re going to piss off the wrong guy.” She looked at me with slightly raised eyebrows as if implying that I might know something about that.

“Call me if anything else comes up?”

“I’ll tell you face to face,” Caldera said. “Tomorrow morning, remember? Don’t be late.” She gave the others a nod and left.

* * *

Both Variam and Luna wanted to come with me to the meeting with Deleo, but in the end I took only Luna. It was dark by the time we left, and we took the Tube to our destination, the trains busy with people heading out for a night on the town.

The Old Truman Brewery is a complex of buildings near Brick Lane, spread over two blocks and surrounded by a strange mixture of trendy shops and decaying buildings. The brewery closed in the 1980s and was promptly converted into an arts and events centre, and nowadays it’s a dense, confusing sprawl of brick and concrete, wide indoor spaces mixing with art galleries, bars, and fashion stalls. On Sundays it turns into a hipster magnet, thousands of twenty– and thirtysomethings in odd outfits swarming the place in search of food, clothes, posters, jewellery, and just about everything else. How busy it is on other days varies, depending on whether there’s an event running or not. Tonight there wasn’t one and the building was dark.

It was an odd choice of place for a meeting. At night the brewery’s as deserted as any other event hall, and entry would be easy enough—the brewery’s not much more than a giant concrete shed and so has pretty basic security since it doesn’t have anything worth stealing. On the other hand, if you’re looking for privacy in Central London there are better places to go and the closely packed buildings are perfect for an ambush. Ambushes aren’t much threat to a diviner, but Cinder and Deleo aren’t diviners. As we watched the building I explained all that to Luna.

“So why did they pick it?” Luna asked.

“Maybe they didn’t have time to set up somewhere better,” I said with a frown.

“So does that mean they’re busy with something?”

I shrugged. “Or they just don’t think I’m important enough to be worth the trouble. I want you to stay out here.” I pointed over the courtyard to a crumpled car on top of a storage container. “That should do—you’ll be able to drop behind the wall if something goes wrong. Watch the entrance and call me if anyone goes in.”

Luna nodded. Once upon a time she would have pushed to come in with me but she’s had enough experience with Cinder and Deleo to know that they are not people you want to mess with. “Do you think they’ll try anything?”

“I wish I knew,” I said. “If they do, run like hell and we’ll meet back at the shop.”

* * *

The inside of the brewery was wide and dark, brick walls painted white and square pillars running from the ceiling down to the concrete floor. The ground floor was empty, but glass fronting along the far side gave a view out onto a shopping street dotted with people. Cinder and Deleo wouldn’t be here: too conspicuous. I took the fire stairs up.

The second floor was made up of a main hall twice the size of a basketball court, double doors along the sides opening onto ramps which led down into other areas. The pillars were still here, surrounded with wood and metal display stands, currently empty. The roof rose and fell in peaks, corrugated metal framing frosted glass windows looking up into the black sky, and fluorescent lights hung dark and still. The building was empty and I settled down to wait.

Rachel kept me waiting almost forty-five minutes. It was on purpose; Rachel knows what I can do and she knew that as long as I could see they were coming I wouldn’t give up and leave. It was just a way of annoying me, and I rested my back against one of the pillars and made myself relax. The old brewery had the vaguely eerie feeling that all large public places have after dark, echoing and silent and empty.

When Rachel and Cinder finally showed up it was at the other end of the brewery, opening a gate into a sealed area out of my sight. I’d already picked my location—the open double doors connecting the main hall and a side hall—and as they arrived I took two gold discs from my pocket, laying them to the right and left of the doorway. The discs were a one-shot item that would create a wall of force, blocking the doorway with a near-impenetrable barrier. When you’re dealing with mages it’s a good idea to take precautions. I stood two steps back from the doorway inside the smaller hall and waited. After a few minutes I heard footsteps echoing around the big hall ahead, boots ringing on concrete. Green-red light began to flicker around the pillars; it brightened as the footsteps grew louder, and Cinder and Rachel came striding around the corner.

Cinder and Rachel work together and they’re both scary as hell, though in very different ways. Cinder is big, as tall as me and much more muscular, with the build of a boxer or a wrestler. His eyes flicked from side to side, passing over me quickly and watching for threats. Rachel was looking straight at me before she even came around the corner, her eyes locked onto mine. She’d grown her hair out since the last time I’d seen her and she moved smoothly, with no trace of injury from her old battles. Rachel’s quite beautiful, but she hides the top half of her face behind a mask, black silk showing only her blue eyes. Both she and Cinder had light spells active; Cinder’s was a flame-red orb flickering at his hands, while Rachel’s wavered between blue and sea-green and hovered at her shoulder. They came to a stop thirty feet away.

The first rule of dealing with Dark mages is that you don’t show fear. Both Cinder and Rachel are terrifyingly powerful, far more powerful than I am, and I know my chances of taking either of them in a straight-up fight are just about zero. My instinct on seeing them was to turn and run. Instead I stood with arms folded and told them, “You’re late.”

“Deal with it,” Cinder said in his rumbling voice.

“You can use gate spells,” I pointed out. “You can literally cross the world in under a minute. How is it possible for you to be late?”

“Why are you here?” Rachel said. She hadn’t stopped staring at me.

Rachel scares me. It’s not just that she’s willing and able to disintegrate me into a pile of dust; it’s that she’s insane. Back when I knew her as an apprentice she was pretty and thoughtful, always sticking close to Shireen, but something happened to her after I left and when I saw her again last year she was very different from the girl I’d once known. As I looked into the future Rachel’s actions were jagged; shifting and unpredictable. Cinder’s stance was watchful, but I couldn’t see any futures in which he attacked me; he wasn’t going to start a fight without a reason. Rachel might. Futures in which we stood and talked mixed with flickers of chaos and violence, and the hell of it was I had no idea what would set her off. “I’m looking for someone,” I said. “I think you might be able to help.”

“Don’t waste my time,” Rachel said. There was an edge to her voice; Rachel and I never really got on but ever since I met her again last year she’s hated me and I don’t know why. “What do you know?”

“There’s a . . . potential threat,” I said. “Right now it’s not an active danger to either of you, but before long it’s going to be. Tell me where to find the person I’m looking for, and I’ll give you warning.”

“A warning,” Rachel said with contempt. “That’s all you have?”

“It’s something that matters to you.”

Rachel stepped forward. The light at her shoulder deepened to a dark sea-green, and I felt the futures of violence fork and multiply. “You sold me to Belthas,” she said in a low, dangerous voice.

I wanted to back away but forced myself to stand still. “You got me captured by Morden,” I said, keeping my voice level. “Your construct nearly strangled me, you tried to abduct my apprentice, and you’ve threatened to kill me more times than I can count. Don’t give me the self-righteous act.”

Rachel stared at me and inwardly I tensed. If she struck I’d have to move very fast. Then Rachel’s eyes cleared and the futures were suddenly peaceful again. “Try it again,” she said, “and I’ll kill you.”

“Again with the threatening to kill me,” I said. “Look, will you just listen for thirty seconds? If you can’t help me, you can say so and we can both stop wasting each other’s time.”

Cinder’s lips twitched as though he wanted to grin. Rachel’s eyes bored into me for a long moment, then she looked to her left. “Get on with it.”

“I want to find out what happened to that girl Richard was holding,” I said. “Catherine Traviss.”

Rachel’s head snapped around to stare at me and she went utterly still. “You were still free to move around back then,” I said. “What happened to her after I—?”

“She sent you, didn’t she?” Rachel whispered.

“What? Who?”

“Get out.”

I opened my mouth to answer . . . and my precognition screamed a warning. Rachel was standing tense, frozen, but if I spoke a single word she was going to come at me with all her power and do her absolute best to kill me. “Get out,” Rachel whispered again.

I began to back away. “Del,” Cinder rumbled, looking suddenly uneasy.

“Get out.” Rachel’s voice rose suddenly to a scream, echoing in the empty building. “Get out. GET OUT! GET OUT! GET—”

I didn’t quite run but I got as close as I could to it without turning my back. I could feel the futures of violence spreading, getting closer, and the only way out was away. I had one last glimpse of Rachel, fists clenched and her face white with rage, then I put a wall between us and turned and ran.

Rachel and Cinder didn’t follow. Searching back with my magic I could catch murmurs of conversation, Cinder’s deep voice mixing with fragments from Rachel. Footsteps sounded, and I knew they were leaving. I kept my distance until I felt the flicker of gate magic from the other side of the building and I knew Rachel was gone.

Once my heart had stopped pounding I retraced my steps to the doorway where I’d met the two of them. The gold discs of the forcewall were untouched and I picked them up, slipping them into my trouser pocket. What the hell had that been about?

Something flickered on my precognition and I knew Cinder was coming back. I thought of withdrawing but my line of retreat was clear, and looking into the future I saw that the futures of combat were gone. I stood in the doorway and waited until Cinder appeared in the gloom, the red light still flickering at his hand. “So,” I said. “I’m guessing Deleo doesn’t want another chat.”

I haven’t known Cinder as long as I’ve known Rachel, but I get on a lot better with him than I do with her. We teamed up a couple of times last year, and while we’re not exactly friends we do have a kind of working relationship. Cinder shook his head, his brow furrowed. “What the hell set her off?” I asked.

“Del’s . . . got stuff,” Cinder said. His voice wasn’t friendly but it wasn’t hostile either, and I knew that was the closest he was going to get to an apology.

“No kidding. I’m not going to be ringing her up any time soon if that’s what you’re asking.”

Cinder hesitated. “Who was she?”

I looked at him in surprise. “Catherine?”

Cinder gave a nod. “Someone Deleo and I . . . treated badly,” I said. “I lost track of her when I left. Deleo never mentioned her?”

“She doesn’t talk about back then,” Cinder said.

I looked away. “Yeah,” I said. “I guess I can understand that.”

We stood in silence for a little while. “Del’s got something to do,” Cinder said at last. “You want to stay away till she’s done.”

I looked at Cinder, then nodded. Cinder withdrew, keeping an eye on me, and his light faded away around the corner and disappeared. I stood in the darkness for a while then left.

* * *

It was after midnight when Luna and I got back. Anne and Variam reported that all had been quiet, and once we were assembled in the living room I told them the story.

“Do you think there’s any way to persuade her?” Anne asked once I was finished.

“No,” Luna said, shaking her head very definitely. “You’ve never met this woman. She does not do compromises.”

“So now what?” Variam asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I could try digging around but I think it’d just end up the same way. The only answers to what happened back then are inside Rachel’s head.”

“What about Sonder?” Anne asked.

I grimaced. “Right now I’m not sure Sonder wants to be around me. And ten years is a hell of a gap, even for someone as good as he is.”

“You’re going to the mansion tomorrow, right?” Variam said.

“That’s about the only angle I can see that’s left. And honestly, I’m not expecting much. What’s there going to be after all this time?”

We sat in silence for a little while. “Do you think it’s time to give up on this whole finding-Catherine thing?” Luna asked.

“But then what else is there to try?” Anne asked. “It’s the best chance of settling this peacefully.”

Variam rolled his eyes. “Yeah, good luck with that.”

“No, Anne’s right,” I said. “I want to do this. I just can’t see how.”

Luna had been looking down at the coffee table, but now she shrugged and raised her eyes to look at me. “Well, I can think of one way.”

I looked at her and then flinched. “Oh, you’re kidding.”

“You said it,” Luna pointed out. “The only answers are inside Rachel’s head.”

Variam looked between us. “What are you talking about?”

* * *

“So let me get this straight,” Variam said twenty minutes later. “You’re going to some kind of freaky dream-place to get the information out of Rachel while she’s asleep?”

“More or less,” I said, taking off my shoes.

“You can see people’s memories in Elsewhere,” Luna said. She didn’t mention how she knew.

“So just out of curiosity,” Variam said, “how’s Miss Psycho Bitch going to react if she catches you going through her head?”

“I’m going to guess ‘badly,’” I said as I slid my shoes under my bed. “Let’s hope she doesn’t notice.”

“Should I come?” Luna asked.

I shook my head. “One can hide better than two. Besides, I need someone to keep watch. Will’s lot know where I live, and I still don’t trust them not to try some sort of night raid.”

“I’ll do it,” Anne volunteered. “I can stay awake.”

“Is it good for you to keep doing that?”

“I slept last night,” Anne pointed out. “Besides, I can spot them before anyone else.”

“Wake me up at dawn,” Variam said. “I’ll take watch and you can get a few hours.”

Luna yawned. “Fair enough. Night.”

Luna and Variam squabbled briefly over the bathroom before going to bed, Luna withdrawing to the spare room while Variam set up the camp bed in the corner of the living room and fell asleep almost instantly. Anne curled up on the living room sofa with a book, the faint light of the lamp making her bare arms and neck glow softly in the darkness. I pulled the connecting door most of the way shut and hung up my coat before lying down on my bed with a sigh. It was too hot to sleep fully clothed but I was too tired to undress, so I pulled off my socks and left it at that. The clock by my bed read 12:48 and I watched it for a while as I listened to the sounds fade away. With Anne and Luna and Variam all here my flat felt lived-in and cosy, alert and alive. The day’s work on top of the last traces of fatigue from my injury had tired me more than I realised, and in only minutes my eyes drifted closed. As I did I reached out with my mind, searching for a place I’d been to before, a place to which I’d return again. Sleep came.

chapter 7

Iopened my eyes.

I was standing in my bedroom, and I was alone. White light streamed through the windows, mixing with the ambient glow of the walls and ceiling and floor. There were no shadows; everything was bright and clear. Through the windows I could see the buildings and towers of a great empty city. There were hints of London in the architecture but it was different, vaster, the streets wider and the buildings huge and open. Beyond the buildings was empty sky.

I walked through my flat, down the stairs, and out of the shop. My front door opened out into a long avenue stretching off into the distance, torches mounted along either side burning with yellow flames, and I began walking forward. Without looking I knew the route back to my flat would have disappeared. It didn’t matter; here in Elsewhere, one place was as good as another.

I turned off the avenue and into one of the buildings, passing through the hallway and out onto a narrower street. Elsewhere felt different from the last time I’d been here. In the past the city had always been silent, empty of movement and growth. This time as I walked I kept noticing life: trees planted in rows and growing in gardens, birds gliding overhead. As I turned one corner I saw a fox trotting quickly across the road ahead of me. It stopped and looked at me, then kept going, disappearing into an alleyway. I could hear a very faint murmur of sound at the edge of my hearing, not the hum of a real city, but what might have been an echo of one. The street I was on ended in a medium-sized square, buildings on three sides and an arcade on the fourth marking the boundary with a wide plaza. I found a stone bench under a tree and sat down.

I’ve never really understood how Elsewhere works. In my early visits I tried to figure out the rules, and every time I ended up making things worse. Intuition seems to work better than reason here; the more times I’ve come the more I’ve learnt to trust my instincts. Right now my instincts told me that if I stayed here long enough, the person I needed would find me. So I sat, and waited.

I heard her before I saw her: footsteps echoing off the stone from the direction of the plaza. Looking up I saw her walking through the columns of the arcade, small and athletic, short dark-red hair and a quick smile. “Hey, Alex,” Shireen said. “Wondered when you’d come.”

Shireen looked different from how I’d seen her in the dream. Physically she was almost the same, but her manner was easier—back when we’d both been apprentices Shireen had always been full of energy but there’d been a tension there, a temper. Now she seemed relaxed. “Hey,” I said.

“So.” Shireen dropped down on the bench next to me. “How’s things?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I said. “But before we get started on this, there’s something I’d like to know. What exactly are you?”

Shireen didn’t look insulted—more like amused. “What do you think I am?”

“You look like Shireen and you sound like Shireen,” I said. “But Shireen died ten years ago. It’s like you’re a picture of how she was the last time I saw her. How are you still here?”

Shireen’s smile faded, and she studied me for a moment. “I’m an afterimage,” she said at last. “A picture when the original is gone. But I can see and I can feel and I can remember. I know what you’re looking for.”

“Catherine,” I said.

Shireen nodded. “I can show you what happened to her.”

“Any chance you can skip ahead and give me the short version?”

“No.” Shireen sounded quite definite. “I’ve helped you before and I’ll help you now, but this time I want something back. I’ll show you what happened to Catherine and where she is, but only if you see the whole story.”

“Which story?”

“Rachel’s,” Shireen said. “What happened to Catherine, how Richard disappeared, why I’m talking to you now. It all comes back to her and it’s time you understood why. Don’t forget—if it wasn’t for me you would have been lost last year. You owe me.”

I looked at Shireen for a moment. “That’s all you want?” I said at last. “For me to know the story?”

“That’s part of it,” Shireen said. “There’s one more thing, but I won’t ask until you’ve seen what really happened ten years ago. The parts you weren’t there for.”

“I can’t promise I’ll say yes to that. Not without knowing what it is.”

“I understand.”

I stood in silence for a little while. “How are you going to show me this?”

“Rachel’s memories,” Shireen said. “You’ll see what she saw.”

I frowned at that. I’ve walked through my own memories in Elsewhere, watching the events unfold as if they were happening all over again, but never someone else’s. No one knows much about Elsewhere, but if there’s one thing they agree on, it’s that you shape it yourself. “How can you do that?”

“You’ll know once you’ve seen it,” Shireen said. “I know I keep saying that, but it’s true.” She grinned suddenly. “Come on. Aren’t you curious?”

I gave Shireen a narrow look, then looked away, out through the arcade to the white stone of the plaza. Around us the city was quiet, waiting. I turned back. “Let’s do it.”

Shireen nodded and held out her hand, palm up. “Hold on tight.”

I took her hand, and—

* * *

Iwas standing on a grassy slope, green trees scattered around and rhododendrons flowering to either side. I was in what was either quite a small park or a very large garden, and it looked well kept and tended. I could see glimpses of a wall surrounding the greenery, and just visible over the trees behind was a big white-painted house. The sky was overcast but light, the sun glowing through the clouds. It looked almost natural, but something about it was just slightly off.

At the bottom of the slope was a pond. There was a willow tree leaning over it, and under the willow was a girl, fifteen or sixteen years old and dressed neatly in blue and white. She was sitting cross-legged by the pond, looking down at the water with her face set in concentration. I was standing in plain view, but she didn’t seem to notice me. Hesitantly I moved, then when she didn’t react I came closer.

The girl was Rachel, but it took me a moment before I was sure that it was really her; she looked very different from the woman she would grow into. In Richard’s mansion Rachel had been pretty but elusive, rarely showing what she was thinking. When I’d met her again last year, that ambivalence had hardened into a diamond mask that showed nothing of what might be behind it. But here, as she stared down at the water, there was an openness which I’d only seen hints of when we’d first met, something soft and unformed.

Rachel’s eyes were still fixed on the pond, and as she stared at it the surface rippled. She extended a hand, soft blue light starting to flicker at her palm, and as she did a droplet of water rose from the pond’s surface to hover at her fingertips. The light brightened and another droplet rose, then another, a thin stream of water flowing upwards to gather in a floating orb. Carefully Rachel raised her hand and the orb rose with it, wobbling as it did, droplets breaking off to hover for a few moments before melding together again. Rachel’s movements were slow and careful, and there was a strange dreamlike look to her eyes, as though she were seeing something wonderful and far away.

There was a rustle of leaves. Rachel started, the light winked out, and the orb of water fell back into the pond with a splash. She scrambled to to her feet.

The girl who’d just brushed her way through the willow fronds was a younger version of Shireen. She was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, scuffed and dirty, and she was looking at Rachel with satisfaction. “So it was you,” she said.

Rachel took a step back. “How did you get in here?”

“Climbed over the wall,” Shireen said. “Come on, I just want to talk.”

“How long were you watching?”

“Long enough.” Rachel drew back and Shireen raised a hand. “It’s okay, it’s okay. Hey, you want to see something?”

Orange light flared at Shireen’s hand and a flame caught in the air above her fingers, clearer and brighter than Rachel’s spell. Rachel had been backing away, but as she saw the magic she halted, staring. “Cool, huh?” Shireen said.

Slowly Rachel came closer, until the two of them stood face to face under the willow tree. “How do you . . . ?” she asked, gazing at the light as if fascinated.

“Do it?” Shireen said. “Same as you.”

“How do you make it so strong?” Rachel said. She hadn’t taken her eyes away.

Shireen shrugged. “I don’t know, it’s always been like that.” She closed her hand and the spell winked out. “Do your parents know?”

Rachel hesitated, then shook her head. “I’m keeping it secret from mine,” Shireen said.

“What is this?” Rachel asked. “How can we use it? What are we?”

“Don’t know,” Shireen said again. She grinned. “But it’ll be fun finding out, right?”

Rachel looked back at Shireen, then gave a little smile. “I’m Shireen,” Shireen said. “You?”

“Rachel.”

The scene blurred and shifted. I had a last glimpse of the two of them standing together by the water’s edge, then—

* * *

We were indoors, in a roomy bedroom with a high ceiling. The furnishings were new and well kept but anonymous, the sort you’d get at a good boarding school or hotel. Tall windows let in lots of light, giving a view out onto a row of houses. In the distance the hum of cars rose and fell.

Rachel was lying on the bed reading. She was wearing what looked like a uniform—white blouse with a dark green skirt—and there was a green pullover slung over the back of a chair. She was older now, close to the age she’d been when we’d first met, and she looked more sure of herself, her movements more confident. Muffled footsteps sounded on the carpet outside and the door swung open. Rachel spoke in annoyance, not raising her eyes. “You’re supposed to knock.”

Shireen shut the door behind her. “Nice to see you too.”

Rachel looked in surprise and her face lit up. “You’re here! Wait, how did—?”

“Caught an early train.” Shireen wasn’t wearing a uniform and compared to Rachel she looked scruffy, but she moved with the same energy she’d always had. She dropped into a chair, glancing around. “Wow, you get nice rooms.”

“This is the best one,” Rachel said. “Haven’t you got school?”

“Forget about that—this is important. You remember what we were talking about back in the summer?”

Rachel sat up, alert. “You’ve found a teacher?”

“He found me,” Shireen said. “His name’s Richard Drakh and he’s looking for apprentices. I wasn’t sure at first but I did some asking around and this guy’s the real deal. He’s really powerful. People are careful around him.”

“So what does he want?”

“Heh,” Shireen said. “He asked me something like that. He’s offering me an apprenticeship. And he’s got more than one place.” Shireen raised her eyebrows. “Interested?”

“He’s offering me one too?”

“Well, kind of.”

Rachel sat back with a frown. “I just said that I knew someone else who’d be interested and asked whether he had other places,” Shireen said. “He said yes. I think he wants you.”

“If he wants me, why didn’t he ask me?”

“Maybe he doesn’t know about you yet. Come on, Rach, who cares who was first?”

I’d been looking between the two girls as they talked. As Shireen spoke I turned back to Rachel—and jerked back, throat constricting as I tried to scream. Something was standing behind her: a spindly shape, tall and slender and utterly inhuman, its features a blur of shadow. Its head reached nearly to the ceiling and it was holding still.

And just as suddenly it was gone. I stood in the centre of the room, looking wildly from side to side, heart hammering. The room was empty except for me and the two girls.

“. . . going to be a full-time gig,” Shireen was saying. Neither she nor Rachel had shown any reaction; they were talking as though nothing had happened. “He’s going to show me his place on Saturday. If I say yes—if we say yes—we’re going to move in. It’s going to be magic lessons, introductions, the whole thing. Everything we need.”

“What about school?”

“Who cares about school?”

“The university applications—”

“Forget that. This is like getting an offer from Oxford and Cambridge and Harvard all at once. It’s our big chance.”

Rachel got up and walked to the window, the book still hanging from one hand, and I followed her to peer out. Nothing. There was no trace of whatever that thing had been, but my heart was still pounding. I knew I’d seen it. “What’s wrong?” Shireen asked.

Rachel turned back with a frown. “I don’t want to leave.”

Shireen looked at her in surprise. “Why not?”

“Because things are good here,” Rachel said. “The other girls do what I want.”

Shireen rolled her eyes. “That’s because they’re scared of you. You’re a big fish in a small pond.”

“Well, what’s wrong with that?”

“Look, what you’re doing here is kid stuff,” Shireen said. “Okay, so you’re queen of your dorm—”

“House.”

Shireen waved a hand. “Whatever. It doesn’t get you anything. And next year you’re going to uni and things are going to change. It’s not going to be so easy to push people around.”

Rachel shrugged. “What are they going to do about it?”

“It’s not what they’ll do,” Shireen said. “It’s who might notice.”

“What do you mean?”

Shireen glanced at the window. “Look, the more I learn about this stuff, the more I get the feeling we’re not that safe. If Richard Drakh could find us, someone else could too.”

An uneasy expression flickered across Rachel’s face. “Like who?”

“I don’t know,” Shireen said. “But I’ve heard stories. Sometimes magic-users around our age just . . . go missing. And no one seems that keen on talking about where.”

Shireen and Rachel stayed silent for a moment. The sun had gone behind a cloud, and the light on the houses outside was muted. “Look,” Shireen said. “You’ve been wanting your magic to be stronger, right? This guy can teach us.”

Rachel sighed. “Fine, I’ll listen to him. But he’s going to have to be really convincing.”

* * *

The shift was quicker this time, and in only an instant I was in another bedroom, this one expensive-looking and cluttered with clothes. I recognised it as being like my room in Richard’s mansion but the layout was different, and it took me a moment to realise that it was one of the girls’ rooms, either Shireen’s or Rachel’s.

The door slammed open and Shireen stormed through in midsentence. “—self-righteous assholes!” The door banged off the wall and Shireen kicked it before turning on Rachel, who’d been following behind. “Can you believe this? What century do these guys think they’re in?”

Rachel shrugged and shut the door. “They act like we’re pretty little dolls on a shelf,” Shireen said, pacing up and down. “And they expect us to be grateful. ‘Oh yes, sir, I’m a good little girl.’ Never any respect. We just don’t matter.”

“I told you,” Rachel said. “Back home we were special. Now we’re just two more apprentices.”

Shireen flung herself into a chair, brooding. “I bet they’d act different if we were boys. They pay attention to Tobruk.”

“Do you think—” Rachel began.

There was a tentative knock on the door. “What?” Shireen shouted.

The door cracked open and a nervous-looking face appeared in the gap. “Get us something to eat,” Shireen said.

The face hesitated. I vaguely remembered him: Zander, one of the easily forgotten, often-changing servant population of Richard’s mansion. “Uh—” Zander said.

“Did I stutter?” Shireen said. “You want me to tell Richard you’re not doing your job?”

Zander paled and vanished. The door clicked shut and the sound of his hurrying footsteps faded away. Shireen shook her head. “Even the servants are taking the piss now.”

Rachel hadn’t paid attention to Zander; she was looking thoughtful. “Do you think this was what Richard meant?”

“The whole power thing?” Shireen said. She drummed her fingers. “Maybe he’s right. It’s the only way we’re ever going to change anything, isn’t it?”

“It’s the only way they’re ever going to respect us.”

“Fine,” Shireen said. “Let’s teach them some respect.”

As she spoke the words Shireen faded, and so did Rachel. The clothes vanished and the windows darkened, layers of dust covering the furniture and bed. I was alone in an empty room.

A hand tapped me on the shoulder and I spun with a yelp. Shireen gave me a quizzical look. “What’s wrong?”

“Don’t scare me like that,” I muttered. The room around us looked decayed and abandoned, as though it had been deserted for years.

“Who did you think I was?”

“A minute ago,” I said. “I thought I saw . . .”

“Saw what?”

“Never mind.” I looked at Shireen. “So that was the way it happened? Richard came to you and you went to Rachel?”

“I could always talk Rachel into things.” Shireen walked over to inspect the chair where her younger self had been sitting. It was worn and faded now, with holes in the fabric. “She’d argue but she’d go along with it in the end.”

“You were stupid.”

“We were teenagers,” Shireen said. “Anyway, it’s not like you can talk.”

“Oh, I haven’t got anything to be proud of either,” I said with a sigh. “My reasons for signing up were much dumber than yours . . . What were you talking about at the end?”

“When?”

“About respect. Changing things.”

“We always figured we were going to do something special with our magic,” Shireen said. “Like in the movies, when the heroine gets her powers, you know? She always ends up fighting a bunch of bad guys and saving the world.”

“Saving the world?”

“I’m not saying we went out to do charity work,” Shireen said. “But we saw a lot of mage society while we were with Richard and we didn’t much like the way it treated women. Too many apprentice girls getting stepped on and way too many female slaves.”

I looked at Shireen for a moment. “If you had a problem with slaves,” I said at last, “maybe you should have tried doing something about the ones in your basement.”

Shireen didn’t meet my eyes and there was an awkward silence. “Sorry,” she said at last.

I kept gazing at Shireen. For a moment I felt the old rage starting to rise, then with an effort of will I shook it off. “Forget it.”

“You said something like that to me back then,” Shireen said at last. “That time I came to your cell. Remember?”

I looked at her curiously. “So you were listening? I was never sure . . .”

“I didn’t want to,” Shireen said. “I went upstairs and tried to forget about it. But it was like . . . a seed, I guess. All the next few weeks I’d be in the middle of doing something and I’d start thinking about you and Catherine. It wouldn’t stop bugging me.”

“Well, I’m sorry if thinking about what was happening to the two of us was making your life less convenient.”

“You can really be a dick sometimes,” Shireen said. “But you know what? That was kind of why it worked. I didn’t like you and you didn’t like me, and so you were the one person who told me the truth.”

I looked at the empty space where Rachel had stood. “Do you think this is how it works for all Dark mages? Just drifting, going a little further each day? Then one day you look around and realise what you’re turning into . . .”

“It was for me,” Shireen said simply.

“What happened when you want back to the mansion, Shireen?”

Shireen went still.

“The last I saw you, it was at the abandoned block,” I said. “You said you were going back to find Rachel and Catherine, and I watched you walk away and I never saw you again. What happened after that?”

Shireen was silent for a moment. “When I left the mansion I was looking for you,” she said at last. “But I didn’t know what I was going to do when I found you. I didn’t know if I wanted to fight you or talk to you or bring you back or . . . The one thing I was sure of was that we were out of time. Either it was going to be Tobruk, or . . .” She stopped, frowning.

“Or what?”

“You have to go.” Shireen turned on me. “Now!”

I looked around in confusion. The room was empty. “Go where?”

“Out of Elsewhere. You’re in danger. You have to wake up.” The lines of the room around us began to blur and dissolve, the colours fading into each other. Shireen advanced until she was right in front of me, staring up at me. “Wake up!” The colours blurred into grey and we were falling, my stomach lurching as we dropped. I couldn’t see Shireen or anything else but I could hear her voice shouting at me. “Wake up! Wake—!”

* * *

“—up! Alex, wake up!”

I came awake with a start. My room was dark and a slim figure was leaning over me, shaking me. “Huh?” I sat up, shaking my head. “What?”

“Will’s friends, the adepts, they’re back.” Anne’s voice was low and urgent. “They’re here.”

My precognition was nagging at me, warning of danger. The clock by my bed said 3:17 and the city outside was quiet. From the direction of the living room I could hear movement; Luna and Variam were up. I was still disoriented from waking and couldn’t process it all. “Where?”

“I don’t know—” Anne looked back over her shoulder. “They’ve gone.”

“Gone where?” The warning of danger was getting louder and louder. Something was coming for us but I couldn’t see what. Nobody was going to come through the door, but . . .

“I can’t see, they’re out of my range. They came onto the roof and they were doing something, then they started running.”

“On the—?” Suddenly the visions of the future ahead snapped into focus and my eyes went wide. “Oh shit.” I lunged off the bed, grabbing Anne. She made a startled noise as I dived for the side of the room, shoving her under the desk before rolling in myself.

There was a roar and what felt like a blow to every part of my body at once. The floor bucked and settled, and a vibration went through the building as what felt like a landslide hit all around us with a thundering crash. Dust filled the air.

I tried to roll back out from under the desk and scraped against something jagged; there was rubble piled across the floor. I scrambled out on my hands and knees and felt a breeze: looking up, I saw sky. Half the roof of my flat was gone.

It had been some kind of explosive, and from the mess it must have gone off right above my bed. Where my bed and table had been was a pile of rubble, forming a slope up to the hole in the roof. The wall onto the street had survived but half the interior wall was gone, including the door through to the living room. Anne struggled out from underneath the desk, coughing, and I helped her up. “Can you move?”

Anne shook her head; she hadn’t had the second’s warning I had and she looked dazed. “I’m okay.”

I looked around to see that the doorway to my living room was a pile of shattered bricks and plaster. We were sitting ducks in here, and the only way out was up. I started climbing. “Come on.”

The rubble was unstable and the jagged edges hurt my skin, but at least barefoot I could climb well. “Can you spot Luna and Vari?” I called down to Anne as I reached up for a handhold. I was about to grab a piece of the ceiling but saw that it would start a landslide and reached for a broken beam instead.

“They’re okay but there’s someone coming!” Anne called up. “Ahead and to your left.”

I took one look into the futures, saw the flicker of combat, and put on a burst of speed, scraping my elbow as I scrambled up onto the half-destroyed roof. Where the front of my roof had been was now a pit, dust still swirling in the night air. I could hear shouts and noise from the buildings around.

A figure came jogging out of the shadows ahead. He was only a silhouette in the darkness, but I knew who it was—Jaime Cordeiro, aka Ja-Ja, aka the life-drinker, the one Caldera had warned me about and the last person on Will’s team I wanted to get close to. He swerved towards me, his palm coming up.

I reached into my pocket for a weapon and my fingers closed on nothing: my items were buried under the rubble ten feet below. Ja-Ja lunged and I dived, rolling and coming back to my feet to turn and face him. Ja-Ja managed to brake before going over the edge and started back towards me. I danced back, the roof cool under my bare feet, not taking my eyes off Ja-Ja’s hands. One touch and I’d be dead or crippled. Ja-Ja lunged again and I dodged behind a chimney. He moved left, then right; I matched him, keeping the brickwork between us.

Ja-Ja crouched, tensed. From the faint glow of the city lights I could see he was wearing clear plastic goggles; Will’s lot were learning from experience. Bad sign. I heard a crash from the direction of my flat, followed by a surge of fire magic, and I knew that more were coming in from below but I couldn’t take my eyes off Ja-Ja. I had to take him down, but I didn’t have a weapon and I couldn’t risk coming within reach—

A hand touched Ja-Ja from behind, and he spun to face Anne. She was standing close, her arm extended and the fingers of her left hand resting lightly against his chest. Ja-Ja looked at her face to face and his expression was ugly. “Back off or I hurt you, bitch.”

Anne met Ja-Ja’s gaze, her eyes steady. “Don’t.”

Ja-Ja didn’t ask twice. His right hand came up fast and he slapped it into Anne between her breasts. Green-black light flickered around his arm and I had an instant to see the attack in my mage’s sight: focused and lethal, designed to rip the life from Anne’s body. One hit from that spell would kill most people. Two hits would kill anyone. Before I could move the spell flashed through Ja-Ja’s palm and into Anne.

Nothing happened. The green-black light vanished. Anne looked at Ja-Ja.

Ja-Ja looked taken aback. He looked down at his palm, then up at Anne, then tried again. Again the lethal green-black light flickered from his hand and into Anne’s body. Again nothing happened.

“Please stop doing that,” Anne said.

“That should have worked,” Ja-Ja muttered. He was still standing with his hand against Anne. All of a sudden instead of looking threatening he looked faintly ridiculous.

“It’s okay,” I said brightly. “It happens to a lot of guys.”

“Shut up,” Ja-Ja snapped.

“I’m sure it doesn’t happen to you usually. Maybe you can take a rest and try again in a few minutes.”

Ja-Ja snarled. “I said shut up!” He drew back for a punch.

Anne’s fingers hadn’t left Ja-Ja, and as he started to swing, leaf-green light flickered from her hand into his body. He crumpled instantly, unconscious before he hit the floor. Anne glanced at me. “Maybe you should stop taunting them.”

No one else had come; we were alone on the roof. Ja-Ja was out but I could still sense fire magic and there was danger ahead. “What’s going on down there?” I said. “Are Vari and Luna okay?”

“They’re not hurt,” Anne said, looking down through the roof. “They’re at the top of the stairs; Will and the others didn’t—” She cut off, frowning. “That’s strange. They’re pulling back.”

The futures of danger suddenly multiplied, branching, and as I looked at them my heart sank. “Oh crap.” I started running the way Ja-Ja had come, across the rooftops. “Come on!”

Anne looked from me to my flat, startled. “Luna and Vari—”

“They’re not coming for Luna and Vari!” I called back. “They’re coming for us!”

I heard a sharp breath and then Anne was running after me. “How?” she called.

“Gater!” I’d already looked into the future and seen the oval portal appearing above my flat and Will’s group pouring through it. Given the trend I was guessing it was from a gate adept, and that was bad news. As long as Will’s group had access to gate magic we couldn’t outrun them—they’d just gate ahead to cut us off. The only way to lose them would be to get away from their gater’s known locations.

I dodged between chimneys and scrambled over roofs, trying to get to the end of the street. Anne can’t see in the dark but she’s quick and fit and she was keeping up well. Behind I felt the flicker of gate magic and knew Will and the rest were on the rooftops too. Sirens were starting to sound in the distance, but I knew that by the time they got here it would be too late, and Will’s adepts were more than a match for the police anyway. Running barefoot on the bricks and tarmac I felt vulnerable. I was wearing only my T-shirt and trousers, and the only item I was carrying was the two discs of my forcewall, left forgotten in my pocket after my meeting with Cinder and Deleo. Maybe if I used them to block the roof behind us . . .

I felt the flicker of gate magic again and skidded to a halt. “Shit,” I said into the darkness.

Anne dropped down behind me. “What’s wrong?”

“They’ve split,” I said. “Half in front, half behind.” They were in two groups of three now. Looking into the futures in which we kept running, I saw all of them turn into a flurry of chaos and battle. If we kept going as we were we’d be caught in minutes.

Anne looked around. “The house below’s empty—”

“We’d be fish in a barrel,” I said. Going across the rooftops was out. To our left was the street, but that would just get us boxed in. The safest direction was through the back lots to the right, but then we’d run into the railway line . . .

. . . Oh.

That could work.

I turned and headed for the edge of the roof. “This way. Fire escape over the edge.”

The fire escape was painted black and almost invisible in the darkness. I dropped and heard the metal clang beneath my feet, then kept going down until the fire escape levelled out. Ahead was a fenced area leading into the building’s car park and to our left was the brick wall of the building itself. To the right was a sheer drop onto railway lines.

I led Anne across until the second set of lines were right beneath us. They emerged from a tunnel under the building and continued for about a hundred feet before disappearing beneath the next street over. “Jump over and hang on to the other side,” I told Anne, pointing at the railings.

Anne hesitated for an instant then obeyed, swinging her legs over to stand on the walkway on the other side of the railings. “You know what you’re doing, right?”

“There’s a freight train coming in two minutes,” I said. “We’re going to hitch a lift. I’ll time it for both of us but you’re going to have to let go exactly when I tell you.”

Anne looked down. It was more than a twenty-foot drop to the wood and steel of the railway tracks. She looked back up at me. “Just so you know, there are really few people whom I’d trust if they told me to jump onto railway lines.”

“I know.”

“Please make sure you get this right.” There was a trace of nerves in Anne’s voice.

“I will,” I said. “Can you see Will’s gang?”

Anne nodded up and over my right shoulder. “They’re coming.”

A rumbling sound echoed through the tunnel and I felt the walkway beginning to tremble beneath my feet. “I’ll count you down,” I said. “When you hit, drop and stay low.”

Anne took a breath and then slid her hands down the railings, swinging down to a crouch. The rumbling grew louder, rising to a roar. “Get ready,” I called over the noise of the train. I heard a clang from above and knew Will was close, but I didn’t take my eyes off Anne. She looked back at me through the railings, silent and tense. “On zero,” I called. “Three . . . two . . . one . . . zero!”

As I said one, the rails below us brightened and the engine roared past in a sudden rush of wind and metal and noise. Anne dropped exactly as I said zero, twisting as she fell. She landed catlike on hands and feet in the centre of the first freight carriage, and I vaulted the railing and dropped after her.

There was one sickening moment of free-fall where everything hung suspended, then I crashed into the metal of the carriage with a painful thump, bruising my feet and shoulder as I rolled. I came up just in time to see the roof of the next tunnel heading towards me and I went flat.

The train went into the tunnel and the world became pitch-darkness and deafening noise. The tops of the freight cars were flat metal and there was nothing to hold on to, so all I could do was lie flat and hope. I could feel the steady vibration of the wheels through the car, the carriage going cha-chunk cha-chunk . . . cha-chunk cha-chunk again and again. The time in the tunnel felt like an age, but looking back I don’t think it could have been more than a minute. Finally with a whoosh we were out in the open and I rose to a crouch, looking around.

The train had come out onto a stretch of open track. To one side houses and gardens slid by, while behind us the tunnel mouth receded away, one freight car after another emerging into the fuzzy darkness of the summer night. Cables and girders slid by above as the train rolled along at a steady twenty-five miles per hour. The freight carriages were rectangular and dark-blue; the metal gave good footing but there was no cover unless you wanted to get down into the gap between the cars. Anne was at the front of the train on the first carriage, but behind us the cars were still appearing from the tunnel and I looked into the future, searching for movement. Nothing . . . nothing . . . crap.

I heard a clang from behind me and didn’t look around. Anne stepped up next to me, peering back through the darkness. “Anything?”

“Do you want the good news or the bad news?”

Anne sighed. “Bad.”

“We’ve got three of them still on our tail,” I said, pointing down to where the end of the train faded into darkness. “Will, the Chinese kid, and Captain America.”

“What’s the good news?”

“The good news is I think we’ve lost the others.”

Anne shook her head. “You’ve got a funny definition of good news.” She touched my shoulder and I felt a soft warmth spread through me as the ache from the bruises I’d picked up went away.

“Thanks.” I walked to the middle of the carriage, taking the gold discs out of my pocket.

“I guess this is a problem with trains as an escape plan,” Anne said, looking around. The rush of wind was steady, but not loud enough to drown out voices. “Once you’re on it’s kind of hard to get off.”

“Does tend to be.” I placed the discs at either edge of the car, checking to make sure the vibration of the train wouldn’t bump them off. The timing on this was going to be tight. Will’s group was advancing up the train; we had no more than a minute.

“Is that another forcewall?”

“Yep.” I squinted down the line of where the forcewall would activate, then looked around. We were on the train’s fourth carriage: behind us were the third, second, and first carriages, followed by the engine. “Okay. When I tell you to go, I need you to get back off this carriage to the next one up.”

Anne raised her eyebrows. “While you stay behind?”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll be right after you,” I said. “I don’t want to get any closer to this than I have to.” Movement caught my eye from down the train, and I stepped back. “Here they come.”

Will and the other two adepts came out of the darkness like flitting shadows, leaping from car to car as the train rumbled through the night. As they saw us waiting for them they slowed, Will letting the other two catch up, then they made the jump onto the fourth carriage where we were standing and stopped about twenty feet away. Will stood in the centre with Captain America backing him up; both wore what looked like light ballistic vests and Will was holding a shortsword in his left hand that I was pretty sure was the same one that he’d stabbed me with back in the casino. The Chinese kid hung a little farther back. Unlike the other two he didn’t have any visible weapons or armour. The five of us stared at each other in the darkness.

“So,” I said at last. “I’m guessing I should take this as a ‘no’ on the truce offer?”

Will’s eyes stayed locked on me. “End of the line.”

“You wish,” I said. Will didn’t look away, and neither did I. The seconds stretched out, violence hanging in the air.

“You know,” Will said suddenly, “before we do this, there’s something I want to know.” He stood facing me in the darkness, easily keeping his balance on the rocking train. “Why us? You could have picked any adept in England. What was so important about my family that you had to destroy our lives?”

I looked at Will for a moment, then sighed. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know.” Will’s voice was flat.

“Richard told us to get Catherine. He never told us why.”

Will studied me. “Just following orders, huh?”

“I’d like to say it was something better than that,” I said. “But yeah. That pretty much sums it up. I tried to undo it, but by then it was too late.”

“Wow. Guess you’ve had a tough life.”

I looked at Will silently.

“Good thing it’s over.” In a blur of motion Will levelled a handgun at my chest and pulled the trigger.

Before the gun fired I said the command word. To normal eyes nothing happened. In my sight the two gold discs flared to life and a forcewall flicked into existence on top of the train, forming a vertical barrier separating the adepts from me and Anne. An instant later I saw the flash of the gun.

Forcewalls work by transferring momentum; any body impacting the wall from either side has its momentum transferred into the object the forcewall is anchored to. Force mages can anchor their walls as they choose but for one-shot items like this, which work on command and only for a limited time, the anchor target has to be built in. In the case of my gold-disc walls, the anchor is set to whatever the discs rest on—in this case, the freight car.

The bullet from Will’s gun left the barrel at a little over twelve hundred feet per second and travelled the distance to the forcewall in much, much less time than it took me to flinch. As it struck the forcewall its momentum was transferred through the gold discs down into the body of the freight car. The bullet was fast, but momentum is a function of both velocity and mass, and the bullet had a mass of only about a quarter of an ounce. The freight car had a mass of somewhere north of sixty thousand pounds, not counting its cargo. The freight car didn’t even quiver.

Will emptied his gun at me, the steady bang bang bang muffled through the forcewall. The rest of the shots accomplished about as much as the first. At last the gun clicked empty and he lowered it, staring.

The squashed bullets were lying at the foot of the wall on Will’s side, vibrating slightly with the movement of the train. It was hard to tell in the darkness but it looked like Will had been using hollow-point ammunition, designed to expand upon hitting its target. It’s not much good at getting through armour or shields but leaves very nasty wounds in a living body, making it the kind of bullet you use for shooting someone whom you don’t expect to be well protected and whom you really aren’t interested in taking alive. “Are you done?” I asked.

Will pulled out a clip and began reloading. As he did he spoke sideways to Captain America. “Got anything that’ll blow through that?”

Captain America gave Will a disbelieving look. “On a train?”

“Wait,” Anne said. “You’re the one who set that bomb?”

“Uh . . .”

“How could you do that?” Anne demanded. “You could have killed everyone in the flat!”

“It wasn’t aimed at the room you were in,” Captain America said, but he sounded defensive.

“Not aimed—! You dropped the roof on my head! If Alex hadn’t gotten me out of the way it would have crushed me!”

“Wait,” the Chinese kid said uneasily. “You were in the living room.”

“I moved!” Anne was nearly shouting, which was quite something from her. “Don’t any of you realise what you’re doing? You can’t just play around with this! People are going to die!”

“That’s the idea,” Will said curtly. “Get out of the way and you won’t be one of them.”

“How can you still think you’re the good guys when you do things like this?” Anne demanded. “You’re going to—”

Will had put away his handgun and shortsword. Now he held his hand out to Captain America, who reached into what looked like thin air. I felt the flicker of space magic as Captain America pulled two full-sized submachine guns out of a portal so faint as to be almost invisible, handing one to Will and keeping the other for himself. Dimensional storage, I thought. So that’s where they keep getting those weapons from.

Will cocked the gun and levelled it at Anne. “I’m not asking,” he said in a flat voice. “Verus murdered my sister and I’m going to kill him for it. Get in the way and I’ll do the same to you.”

Anne hesitated, her eyes flicking between the guns, and I knew what she was thinking. Life magic is powerful, but it has two weaknesses: it’s touch range only, and it doesn’t have any defences against direct physical attack. Anne is very good at healing, but both she and her patient have to be alive for her to do any healing, and bullets do damage much faster than she can heal it. The last time she’d run up against men with guns it hadn’t gone well for her. “Let me ask you something,” I said to Will. “Say you actually manage to pull this off. What then?”

Will had moved up to the wall of force and now he kicked at it, keeping his gun trained on me. “Not your problem, is it?”

“Is that the only thing you care about?” I said. “Killing me?”

Will shook his head. “You don’t get it, do you? This isn’t about you. This is about every adept who’s ever been fucked over by a mage who wanted something. You’re not the only mage we’re going after. You’re just one more name on the list.”

“And this is how you’re planning to work your way down it? Killing everyone one by one?”

Will shrugged. “It’s all you mages listen to, right? Anyway, it works.”

“No, it doesn’t! Using violence to solve all your problems just means you end up with bigger problems that’ll multiply faster than you can deal with them. Let me put this in terms you’ll understand. You will run out of bullets”—I pointed down at the spent ammo at Will’s feet—“and out of people”—I pointed at Captain America and the Chinese kid—“before you run out of problems.”

Will didn’t even look at me. “I figured you’d say something like that.”

“Rachel’s the next one on your list, isn’t she?”

Captain America glanced at Will. Will stepped back from the wall without answering. “You’ll lose,” I said.

“We beat you,” Will said.

I pointed at the Chinese kid. “You. Your name’s Lee, right?”

The Chinese kid—Lee—drew back a little. He’d been standing well back and looked like he’d been trying to avoid attention. “Uh . . .”

“You found me for Will, right?” I said. “So I guess he’ll be using you to keep looking for me, and then for Rachel too. Well, Rachel is stronger than me. Much stronger, and that’s not counting the guy she hangs out with. If you’re having this much trouble with me, how the hell do you think you can beat her?”

Lee looked around. Captain America gave him a nod. “We’ll be stronger by then,” Lee said. “We’ll have had more practice.”

I threw up my hands. “Jesus Christ, you think you’re playing a computer game! Killing someone does not make you level up! All it gets you is nightmares for the rest of your life and the never-ending hatred of everybody who ever cared about the person you murdered!”

My voice had risen to a shout, and both Lee and Captain America stood staring at me; without looking I knew Anne had turned to do the same. I stood balancing on the train, the wheels rumbling beneath my feet. The futures of Lee and Captain America flickered, shifting. Will’s didn’t, and his eyes stayed steady. “They said you were good at talking your way out of things,” he said. “Not going to work this time.”

I felt Lee and Captain America’s futures waver and then fall into line to match Will’s. I wanted to swear, wanted to keep shouting, but my precognition was starting to sound a warning and I knew we were out of time. “Anne,” I said. “Go. Get down.”

Anne turned and ran, crossing the gap from the fourth to the third carriage with a running jump. I gave Will’s group a last glance and followed, putting a little extra speed into the leap to make sure I cleared it. Up ahead I could see a dark wall with streetlights running along the top of it, and the tracks ran into a black circle. We’d had a long run in the open but London’s a built-up place, and every railway line in the city goes underground sooner or later. In this case sooner or later meant now. As soon as I’d made it onto the third car I dropped and craned my neck back to look.

Will, Lee, and Captain America were staring at us through the forcewall, watching the tunnel entrance draw nearer. I wasn’t close enough to see their expressions but I saw the jolt go through Captain America as he figured it out, and as the tunnel mouth swept over us he yelled a warning and turned to run. Lee followed; Will stayed a little too long and had only just started to sprint away as the fourth carriage passed into the tunnel, and through the shrinking window of the tunnel mouth I had one last glimpse of their backs before the forcewall hit the top of the tunnel and physics took over.

I didn’t get much of a view of what happened next. It was all very fast and my attention was focused on hanging on. Looking back on it with the benefit of hindsight and having read the accident reports, what I think happened was this.

The forcewall hit the brickwork at the top of the tunnel and, just as it had with the bullets, the forcewall tried to transfer the momentum of the impact down into the freight car. The forcewalls I use are powerful by one-shot standards but there’s a certain maximum amount of momentum they can transfer. This doesn’t matter in normal situations because there’s no way a normal human can break the wall’s limits. The momentum in the sixty-thousand-pound freight car fell well outside the wall’s limits. The wall resisted for a fraction of a second, then vanished as the energy stored in the discs ran out.

But in that fraction of a second the wall transferred enough momentum to put a major dent in the freight car’s velocity, and all of a sudden the fourth car was moving at a different speed from the rest of the train. The freight car wasn’t harmed, at least not directly—the discs spread the momentum through a large enough volume that the car got away with only minor buckling. The coupling between the third and fourth cars didn’t do so well. It had been designed to withstand gradual stress, not instant stress, and it snapped, separating the first three cars and the engine from the rest of the train and sending a massive jolt through the metal.

The coupling between the fourth and fifth cars had a different problem: instead of being stretched, it was suddenly and violently compressed. The buffers absorbed some of the impact but the rest was transferred into the cars. Something had to give, and the back wheels of the fourth carriage went off the track, followed by the front wheels of the fifth carriage as the two freight cars jack-knifed into the side and mouth of the tunnel.

The rest of the train ploughed into the now-derailed carriages at full speed.

From my point of view I just heard a massive grinding, booming crash, something like a gigantic set of dinner plates being thrown down a staircase, and I felt a shudder through the wheels and metal of the train. Dust and debris went flying, along with shattered bricks from the tunnel mouth. And then just that quickly it was over, and the carriages kept rolling, carrying us away down the tunnel. Anne and I were left in the darkness, riding the back end of the suddenly much shorter train.

With the roar of the train there was no way to talk, and the tunnel made it too risky to move, so I lay flat and waited for the train to stop. After only a couple of minutes I felt the pressure as the train engaged its brakes and began decelerating, slower and slower. It came to a halt with a final screech of metal and a moment later I heard the engine door open up ahead. I knew the driver would be coming down on the right and I reached up to touch Anne, signalling for her to descend on the left. We climbed down the carriage, slipped by the driver as he hurried past on the other side, and started walking towards the fuzzy grey patch that marked the end of the tunnel ahead.

By the time we came out into the open we could hear distant sirens, but the section of track we were on was empty. We walked along the lines until we found an exit and climbed up and out to street level. No one followed.

chapter 8

By the time Anne and I cleared the area the sirens had converged behind us. We took a looping course around, heading back towards Camden Town as more and more emergency vehicles arrived. My phone was under half a ton of rubble in my bedroom but Anne had managed to keep hold of hers, and as we walked back through the empty streets the first thing we did was check what had happened to Luna and Variam. Anne’s first call didn’t get an answer, nor her second, nor her fifth, but as we crossed Chalk Farm her phone beeped. Anne read the message and gave a sigh of relief. “They’re okay.”

“Both of them?”

“Both of them.”

I relaxed a little. Putting Anne in danger had been bad enough. If Luna and Vari had been hurt . . . “Can you call them?”

Anne shook her head. “They’re busy with the police. It . . . didn’t sound like they were going to get away soon.”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “Bomb going off in Central London. Right.” Now I was going to have the antiterror divisions of the Metropolitan Police and MI5 crawling over my flat. This was going to be a major headache.

“Is it going to be a problem?”

“I can probably call in some favours and get it settled, but I’m going to have to stay away from the shop for a while. Getting dragged into a police station with Will’s lot out there would be bad.” I nodded at a side street. “This way.”

We crossed the street. “Will Luna and Vari be okay?” Anne asked.

“Believe it or not, I’ve actually drilled Luna on this.” My contingency plans had been for something more along the lines of a fireball than a high explosive, but still. “She knows what to do, and she and Vari haven’t done anything illegal lately as far as I know. They should be fine.”

“Okay. That’s good.” Anne looked around. “Ah, where are we going?”

“I’ve done enough running around in bare feet for one night,” I said. “I’m going to get some shoes.”

* * *

The Morrisons supermarket in Camden Town is a huge white building sandwiched between railway lines, and it’s so big it has its own roundabout and bus stops. By the time we got there the sky was lightening in the east, and I spent a few seconds checking for watchers before we slipped onto the grounds and to the outbuilding beyond the car park. The door to the outbuilding was locked; I took a key from a hidden location behind a ventilator and let us in.

The inside was dark and filled with the hum of machinery. I led Anne through the pipes and generators to a locker in the corner of the room labelled HAZARDOUS WASTE DO NOT TOUCH. It had a combination lock, which I opened and handed to Anne. “Hang on to this a sec.”

Anne watched curiously as I pulled out a big gym bag. “You hide that here?”

“Nobody comes here except the maintenance guys,” I said, unzipping the bag. I pulled out a pair of shoes and some socks and started putting them on.

“What’s inside?”

“Shoes, a coat, two full changes of clothes, shaving kit, and a towel,” I said, tying my laces. “Plus loose cash, a prepaid credit card, a knife, a multitool, spare keys, a first-aid kit, a phone, rope, cleaning supplies . . .”

“Why do you have all of this here and not at your flat?”

“In case I can’t go to my flat.” I grabbed the knife, phone, and cash, slung the bag back into the locker, and relocked it. “Let’s go before this place starts waking up.”

* * *

“An annuller?” Anne said in puzzlement, looking at the white arch.

We were in the old gym in Islington. It’s Council property, and I’d managed to talk my way past the sleepy watchman on the door and up to the duelling hall. The azimuth focuses at either end of the duelling pistes were old, but the annuller was new; they’d installed it recently. “Yeah,” I said, putting my fingers to the arch. This one was made out of what felt like carbon rather than stone; it must be one of the new models.

“You’re worried about a spell?” Anne asked.

“Not exactly.” The material was different but the design was familiar, and it took me only a few seconds to confirm that I knew how to work it. I focused my will into the item, letting it charge. “Something that’s been bugging me for a while is how those guys keep finding me. It’s been years since I’ve been to that casino, but they seemed to know exactly where I was.”

Anne thought about it. “Do you think they followed you?”

I shook my head. “I think it’s something to do with that Chinese kid, Lee. Remember what he said on the train? He knew you were in the living room.”

“That’s true.” Anne frowned. “And he couldn’t have seen me through the windows . . . Do you think that’s the kind of magic he can use? Some sort of seeking?”

“That’s my guess. He was the first one to show up back on Friday night. I think Will’s using him to find me.”

The annuller hummed briefly and then came to life, a pale silvery glow hanging in the archway. “You too,” I told Anne.

Anne nodded and moved next to me. We stepped through the archway at the same time and there was a silvery flash, followed by a moment of vertigo that passed quickly. Looking around, I saw that the archway was dark again.

Anne shivered slightly. “That always feels weird. Like I’m in the wrong place.”

“I know what you mean.” There were some chairs along the wall, and I dropped into one with a sigh. “Well, if it was a standard tracer that should have broken it.” All of a sudden I felt completely exhausted. I’d had only a few hours of sleep and I’d been running on adrenaline ever since the attack. Now the aftereffects had set in and I just wanted to collapse.

“I could wake you up,” Anne offered.

“Thanks, but no. I’d just have to pay for it later.” I looked at her. “Thanks for what you did tonight. I’m not sure I would have made it on my own.”

Anne smiled and we sat for a little while in silence. The gym was quiet and empty, and from outside the morning sun was sending shafts of sunlight through the windows above, motes of dust hanging visible in the air. All around us the rumble of traffic and voices was starting to grow to a gentle swell, the steady rustle of London waking up for another summer’s day. It felt peaceful and calm. “Can you talk to me about something?” I said. “Otherwise I’m going to fall asleep here.”

“Well, I was going to ask,” Anne said. “Are we safe here?”

“Right,” I said with a sigh. “That.” Nothing like the prospect of violent death to keep you awake. “It depends on whether the annuller broke their tracking ability. If it did, they’ll have to figure out a new way to pick us up.”

“Actually, what I meant was whether you know we’re safe here,” Anne said. “With your magic.”

“I’ve been looking nonstop since we left the train,” I said. “I haven’t seen any sign of them finding us here but that doesn’t mean they can’t find us, it just means they’re not doing it right now. If some of them were hurt in that crash they’ve probably pulled back to regroup.”

“Do you think they’re okay?”

I shook my head. “Anne, I swear, only you would worry about something like that.”

Anne was silent. “I’m not sure,” I said. “I think they got off the carriage before it hit.”

“What if they didn’t?”

“I don’t know.”

“Alex?” Anne said. She was looking at me with those odd reddish eyes of hers. “What you said on the train, about killing someone? Did you mean it?”

I looked off into the corner of the gym. “Yes.”

Anne sat quietly. I knew she was deciding what to ask next and the question I was afraid of was how many. Somehow I knew that no matter how I answered, it wouldn’t lead to anything good.

“You feel like you’re on the same side as people like Will, don’t you?” Anne said.

I looked at Anne in surprise, then nodded. “Pretty much. You know what’s really screwed up about all this? If Will’s lot had just come into my shop asking for help defending themselves against Dark mages, I’d probably have said yes.” I sighed. “And Will might be trying to kill me, but a lot of what he’s saying is right. Mages do treat adepts badly. And if I were his age and in his position, I’m not a hundred percent sure I’d be doing anything different.”

“What about now?”

I shrugged. “When you’re twenty you’re all about action. You want to change things. If you make it to thirty you learn about consequences. Will’s lot haven’t learnt that yet. But then the reason they’re after me is because of the crap I did when I was twenty . . .” I raked my hand through my hair. “Damn it. I don’t know what to do.”

“There has to be some way,” Anne said.

“Right now I don’t know what it is,” I said. “Will’s lot might be stupid and they might not care about consequences, but that doesn’t make them less dangerous; it makes them more dangerous. And as long as they’re together I don’t think I can beat them.”

“You’re not on your own, though,” Anne said. “You’ve got me and Luna and Vari.”

“So Vari should burn them to death?” I said. “Luna should curse them and have a bullet bounce into their head? Is that what you mean?”

Anne looked away. “No.”

I looked at Anne curiously. “Other people really matter to you, don’t they?”

Anne was silent. “You know, Will was willing to kill you back there,” I said. “He would have tried to get around you, but if you’d made him choose between shooting you and letting me get away, he would have shot you.”

“I know.”

“But you still don’t want to hurt him.”

Anne stayed quiet for a little longer this time. “Do you know what I see when I look at someone?”

I shook my head.

“Everything,” Anne said. “Their movements, their nerves, the play of their muscles and skin . . . It’s like a tapestry of green light, layer on layer. Every part connects to every other part and everything works together. Even when it’s hurt it works to repair itself.” Anne’s voice was quiet, and she was watching me as she spoke; I knew she was trying to make me understand. “That’s all I do, when I use my magic. Your body wants to heal; I just give it a little help. Watching it rebuilding, growing . . . It’s beautiful. I can’t imagine ever wanting to hurt it. I know what Will and his friends were trying to do. But . . . even then, I don’t want them hurt.”

I was silent. “You don’t want to hurt them either, do you?” Anne said. “That’s why you’re trying to talk to them.”

“We don’t always get what we want.”

“But there are other ways,” Anne said. “You might find something in Richard’s mansion, or in Deleo’s memories. You’re not going to try to kill them. Are you?”

I hesitated. Anne was looking right at me, those odd reddish eyes searching mine, and I felt trapped. I wanted to say no, but somewhere inside me a darker, more cynical voice was warning me not to make promises I might not be able to keep . . . “No,” I said.

I felt Anne relax. We sat quietly for a while, watching the sunlight move across the wall.

* * *

By the time I was sure Will’s lot weren’t pursuing, it was too late to go back to sleep, and I wouldn’t have felt safe doing it anyway. A quick check confirmed that the police were still swarming over my shop, so I told Anne to meet up with Variam and Luna. “Do you want me to come with you?” Anne asked. We were a couple of streets away from my shop, near Camden Market.

I shook my head. “You’ve risked your life for me once today already. Besides, the more people we have, the more chance one of us is going to set something off.”

Anne nodded, then to my surprise gave me a quick hug. I flinched slightly—it had been so long since anyone had done that, it took me a second to realise what she was doing. “Be careful,” she told me, then turned and walked away.

I watched her go, then shook my head and went to get ready for my return to Richard’s mansion.

* * *

Preparation is important for a diviner, and if I have to go somewhere dangerous I always make sure I’ve got as much leverage as possible. With my flat occupied by the police I couldn’t access my items there, so I had to go scrounging. By the time I’d begged, borrowed, and traded for enough magic items to make me feel reasonably safe, it was past noon.

The one item I hesitated over was my mist cloak. It’s the most effective form of stealth I have, but it was also back in the safe room in my flat. I might be able to get it out without the police stopping me, but then again I might not. What decided me against it in the end was that I’d be with Caldera—for various reasons I’d much rather the Keepers didn’t find out that I own that particular item. I picked up a last few bits and pieces and dialled Caldera’s number.

Caldera didn’t sound happy. “What kept you?”

“Sorry,” I said. “Long night.”

“I left you two messages, didn’t you get them? Never mind, just get over here. We’re on our way to the park near yours with the grounding circle. You know the place?”

“I’ll be there.”

* * *

The park near my shop is about a ten-minute walk away. Even though it’s in the middle of Camden it always seems to be deserted, maybe because of the construction vehicles parked around it. As a result of some geographical oddities it has an unusually low level of background magic, which is handy if you want to study something or use a tricky spell. It’s not widely used, but I’m far from the only one who knows about it and this wasn’t the first time I’d met another mage there.

Caldera was under the trees at the far end, and she wasn’t alone. I crossed the park, ducked under the branches, then looked between her and the person she’d brought along. “This is a bad idea.”

Sonder was standing next to Caldera, wearing the kind of get-up city dwellers buy from camping stores when they want to go hiking. “What?” he said.

“Why is he here?” I asked Caldera.

“Because he’s a time mage,” Caldera said, glancing between us. She was wearing old workman’s clothes, patched and mended from long use, as well as a webbing belt with sealed pouches. “You’ve worked together before, right?”

“I thought this was supposed to be a quick in-and-out.”

“We know the place is empty,” Caldera said. “I need to know if anyone’s been using it, and that means timesight.”

“Timesight only shows you one location at one time,” I said. “Scanning the whole mansion is going to take hours.”

“Then we better get started, hadn’t we?”

I looked around reluctantly. Sonder looked a little offended, but that wasn’t why I was feeling uneasy. All my instincts told me that visiting Richard’s mansion was dangerous. Trying to do a full search, like it was some sort of crime scene . . .

But I’d given my word and it wasn’t enough to make me back out, at least not yet. “All right.”

Caldera raised a hand, weaving a spell under the cover of the trees. A pale brown light sprang up next to the tree trunk, growing and widening until it steadied into a vertical oval. Shapes appeared in the oval, the colours changing from pale brown to green and grey and then sharpening and becoming clear, forming an image of earth and grass and trees. For a moment it was only an image, as if seen through a window, then the window was gone and we were looking through a gateway. A cool breeze blew through, ruffling my hair; the place we were going was a few degrees colder than the summer heat of the park.

I led the way. Sonder followed and Caldera came last, letting the gateway vanish behind her.

* * *

You can tell a lot about a mage by where they live.

Apprentices usually live with their masters. Sometimes they’ll have a flat or shared rooms, but it’s still generally the master who arranges it. They’re not really expected to be responsible for themselves; it’s their master who provides for them, and in return they’re expected to do as they’re told.

Once an apprentice graduates to journeyman status, things change. Now they’re free to do as they like, and usually one of the first things they do is get themselves a place of their own. Mages rarely have to worry about money and it’s easy for them to buy themselves a house, as long as they don’t go for anything extravagant. Of course, lots of them do want something extravagant, and it’s common for established mages to own a mansion. Some of it is about status—my house is more ostentatious than yours—but there’s a practical element too. Some of the things mages get up to require a fair amount of space, and if you’re trying to perform a large-scale ritual then there are a lot of benefits to being able to stage it in your own home rather than an unsecured area.

The next thing to sort out is location. Light mages like to place their mansions in the hearts of big cities or in attractive and well-populated areas of the countryside near towns and main roads. It makes it easy for guests to get there, and it makes it easy to get hold of servants and catering staff to entertain the guests. A mage who chooses an easily accessible location is making a statement; he’s saying that he’s willing to entertain visitors (though probably only select visitors). Other mages go for a compromise, choosing to live in the suburbs or in slightly more removed areas of the country. You can still reach them easily enough but they’ve got a little more privacy.

And some mages don’t want to live near anyone else at all.

Richard’s mansion was the last type. It was in a remote corner of Wales, hidden away amidst forest and rolling hills. The mansion itself was an oblong with two jutting wings but with no car park, no driveway, and no roads. Rail lines didn’t go anywhere near the place and there wasn’t so much as a gravel path leading to the front door.

It’s very rare to build a house in a place so isolated, and there are only a few reasons anyone would want to do it. It can be because you don’t want visitors. It can be because you don’t want anyone getting in. And it can be because you don’t want anyone getting out.

I stood in the shade at the edge of the tree cover, looking across at the mansion. When I’d last seen the grounds they’d been cleared, but now they were wild and overgrown; the old plots had been reclaimed by the forest around us, wildflowers and bushes a tangled riot in what had once been an ordered garden. The lawn was now a meadow, and behind the mansion green hills rose up into the blue sky. It would have been beautiful if I hadn’t known what the place had been used for.

“Anything?” Caldera said from behind me.

“I wasn’t looking,” I said. It’s a weird feeling, seeing something that was once the centre of your life. For a moment the old memories flooded back; my last glimpse of the mansion, lit windows against the black night, snatched over my shoulder as I fled. I’d sworn never to come back—or if I did, it would have been to destroy the place. In the end I never did return . . . not physically, at least. For a long time I saw it every night in my dreams.

But emotions fade, and as I looked at the mansion I realised to my surprise that most of the old hate and fear was gone. For all that it represented, for all the danger that might still be inside, it was just a building—steeped in history, ancient and dangerous, but for now at least, deserted.

“When you’re ready,” Caldera said.

I shook off the memories. Time to focus. “The grounds are clear. Let’s move up.”

We picked our way through the overgrown trails, brushing through the grass. Birds sang from the nearby trees and the air smelt of pollen and of summer. Richard’s mansion grew larger as we approached; despite its age the building didn’t look weatherbeaten or damaged, and apart from a little roughening around the edges it looked just as it had when I’d lived here. The walls could have been mistaken for brickwork but weren’t. Despite its sprawl, the mansion only had two storeys. “I thought it’d be bigger,” Sonder said.

“Most of it’s underground,” I said absently, scanning ahead. “That’s funny.”

“What’s funny?” Caldera said.

“There are wards.”

Caldera looked at me in surprise. “After ten years?”

I shook my head. “No, the old gate and scrying wards are gone. But there’s a trigger there.” I pointed at the front door. “It’s not locked, but if you walk through you’ll set off a silent alarm.”

Caldera frowned at it. “I can’t see anything.”

“It’s not designed to be visible,” I said. There are ways of shrouding or inverting wards that make them difficult to detect. This one was hard to spot, but the design was familiar. In fact it was very familiar . . . “Wait a minute,” I said, my heart sinking. “Let me check something.”

Sonder and Caldera waited for me. “Deleo,” I said after a moment. “Great.”

“She’s here?” Sonder said in alarm.

I nodded at the door. “If we set that thing off she will be. It’s designed to alert her.”

“What’s her response time?” Caldera asked.

“Fast. Minutes.”

“I thought this place was deserted?” Sonder said.

“I think we might just have found out why it’s deserted,” I said. The futures of Deleo gating in were chaotic and unpredictable, but I was pretty sure I didn’t want a closer look. I had the feeling that if she found us here she’d kill first and ask questions later.

“Can you disarm it?” Sonder asked.

I nodded. “It’ll take a while, but yeah.” I studied it with narrowed eyes. “Doing it safely is going to be slow but we can probably—”

“Yeah, let’s speed this up,” Caldera said. She pointed at a section of wall to the right. “Is that bit warded?”

“Uh,” I said. “No.”

Caldera walked up through the bushes and placed both hands flat against the stone wall. Brownish light flared and the stone melted and flowed. The section of wall in front of her thinned and vanished, becoming an archway, the stone that had occupied the empty space moving to buttress the gap. The stone stopped flowing, Caldera took her hands away, and the light faded. Where there had been a blank wall was a reinforced arch, leading into darkness. “There,” Caldera said. “We clear?”

“I guess that’s a faster way to do it,” I said, walking up to the gap and taking a glance through. “Clear.”

Caldera summoned up a light and the three of us walked in.

* * *

The inside of the mansion hadn’t aged as gracefully as the outside. Dust covered everything and bits of furniture had been overturned. “You two stick together,” Caldera said. “I’m going to take a look around.”

I gave her an exasperated look. “Do the words ‘safety precautions’ mean anything to you?”

“Yeah, people keep telling me something about that,” Caldera said. “Be right back.”

“Just don’t go below the ground floor,” I called after her as she left. Her footsteps faded away and I shook my head. “And people tell me I take risks.”

Sonder didn’t answer. He played the light of his torch around the hallway, the glow flicking over dusty paintings. “Well, this is your party,” I told him. “Where do you want to start?”

“Is there any kind of meeting room?” Sonder asked. “Somewhere people would assemble?”

I nodded down the hall. “That way.”

The rooms on the ground floor of the mansion were the kitchens, storerooms, dining room, and servants’ quarters. The room we entered had once been a living room, but as I walked in I slowed and stopped. The light from our torches showed broken chairs, and drawers and shelves had been emptied, their contents strewn over the floor. The sofa in the centre had been cut in half, a huge section of the middle missing and the stuffing spilling out.

“Was it . . . always like this?” Sonder said, staring at the sofa.

I shook my head. “No.” This was the room where Shireen, Rachel, Tobruk, and I had all gathered with Richard that first night, and where we’d kept meeting in the months afterward. “What happened here?”

“Wait a minute,” Sonder said, frowning. His eyes became distant.

I stood in silence, looking around. While we’d been Richard’s apprentices this had been a kind of briefing room; it was where he’d given us our assignments and where we’d gathered to talk in our free time. My eyes drifted to Richard’s old armchair; unlike the rest of the furniture it hadn’t been touched and I unconsciously stepped away from it. The fireplace was dark and cold.

Sonder stayed in his trance for a long time, fifteen minutes at least. When he finally looked up at me, he looked uneasy. “It was Deleo.”

“She trashed the place?”

Sonder shook his head. “No. Three other men did. They were here five months ago. I think they were looking for something.”

“Looking for what?”

“I don’t know,” Sonder said, looking around. “I don’t think they got the chance to find it. Deleo walked in that door and she . . . killed them. All of them.”

I looked around the empty room. There was dust but no bones. “What happened to the bodies?”

Sonder pointed at the dust at my feet.

“Oh.” I stepped aside. “Right.” I’d thought there was something familiar about the way that sofa had been destroyed. Rachel had grown a lot more powerful in the years since I’d left, and she seemed to specialise in disintegration. “Did they have any kind of magic?”

“Not enough,” Sonder said.

We stood in the empty, dead room, the beams of our torches the only light. “You don’t think Deleo’s still living here, do you?” Sonder asked.

I shook my head. “Nobody’s living here. I shouldn’t have to tell you that.”

“Then why’s Deleo still coming?”

“From the sound of it she only shows up if someone trips the burglar alarm,” I said. “I think she’s just guarding this place. All she cares about is making sure no one else touches it.”

“But . . .” Sonder looked around. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“What doesn’t?”

“Doing it like this!” Sonder said. “There wasn’t a warning anywhere or anything like that. The front door wasn’t even locked! We could have just walked in without knowing any better and she would have tried to kill us!”

“From the sound of it that’s exactly what she’s been doing.”

“But why doesn’t she do it the normal way?” Sonder said. “No one even knows that this is her house! She could have . . . I don’t know, registered it with the Council or something.”

“She is letting people know that this is her house.”

“They can’t spread the message if they’re all dead!”

I shrugged. “She probably lets a few go. Or maybe she just assumes that if enough people go missing then sooner or later the others will take the hint.”

Sonder shook his head. “That’s insane.”

I looked at Sonder for a moment. “If you want to be a scholar,” I said at last, “you have to learn not to see things so simply.”

“What do you mean?”

“Deleo and Dark mages seem insane to you because you’re judging them by your standards,” I said. “You’re assuming they have the same goals you do. What makes you so sure Deleo wants to warn people off peacefully?”

Sonder looked at me, puzzled. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that if you’re the kind of person who likes to take out your frustrations on other people, then occasionally having to murder some burglars is less of a drawback and more a perk of the job.”

Sonder stared at me in revulsion. “Are you serious?”

I sighed. “I’m not saying that’s why she does it, I’m saying it might be. The point is that Deleo doesn’t live in your world. What you said about registering with the Council? To Dark mages that’d be a joke. They only respect authority if it’s backed up by force. Registering might actually attract them—they’d figure that if she was trying to get the protection of Light mages, then she couldn’t handle it herself. And it would mostly be other Dark mages she’d be worried about.”

“You’re telling me they’d listen to people being murdered, but they wouldn’t read a sign on the door?”

“Yes! Dark mages are different from you, don’t you get that? They don’t follow rules and they don’t do as they’re told! If you set a boundary the first thing they’ll do is push it to see if you’ll do anything. What Deleo is doing is a normal way to send a message in Dark society, and if you don’t understand that then you shouldn’t be here.”

Sonder and I stared at each other for a moment, then Sonder looked away. “I’m not here because of you.” He sounded defensive. “I’ve been doing Council work for the Keepers since last year.”

“I know.”

“I know what I’m doing,” Sonder said. “It’s not like I’m an apprentice anymore. They keep saying—” He stopped and went on. “It’s not like it’s all new to me. I see things that most people never do. Crimes, secrets . . . They think it’s hidden, but it’s not.”

“But they don’t quite take you seriously, no matter how much you know, do they? Trust me, I know all about that.”

Sonder stood in silence for a moment. “How could you ever join people like this?” he said at last.

I knew Sonder wasn’t talking about Light mages anymore. “People change, Sonder,” I said. “I know you see a lot, and I know you see things that others can’t. But you’ve always been detached from it. Keepers like Caldera don’t need you to be involved, they just need you to be good with your magic.”

“I do get involved.”

“Because of other people,” I said. “The main way you use your timesight is to help everyone else out. You’re not the one who causes the problem—you’re the one who gets called in after someone else causes a problem.” I looked at Sonder. “In a lot of ways you’re an example of what’s best about Light mages. But it makes it hard for you to understand people like me and Deleo. When you really and truly screw things up—when you look around and realise that your life’s a disaster and it’s nobody’s fault but your own—then it makes you ask some hard questions. You look into the mirror and you realise you don’t much like the person looking back at you. And you start figuring out how to change that.” I shrugged. “Or you stop looking into mirrors . . . You’ve never had to do that. You’ve never had to really stop and question your beliefs, because they’ve worked. It’s not a bad thing. Just . . . remember that it’s not that way for everyone else.”

Sonder didn’t answer. “What else did you see?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Come on, Sonder,” I said. “Our magic types aren’t that far apart. You were looking back for the last time I was here, weren’t you?”

Sonder’s not a good liar. He hesitated just long enough to make it very obvious what the answer was. “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I was going to ask you to do it anyway. Did you see any trace of Catherine?”

“No,” Sonder admitted.

“But the wards are down.”

“They’re down now,” Sonder said. “They’re not down then. Anything past about nine years just blanks out. And it’s at the edge of my range anyway.”

I nodded, hiding my disappointment. I hadn’t really been expecting it to be that easy but it had been worth a try. “I guess we keep looking.”

Caldera came back a few minutes later. “Anything?” I asked as she walked in.

“Waste of time,” Caldera said. “This place hasn’t been used in years.”

“Deleo was here,” Sonder said. “She killed three men who tried to loot this room five months ago.”

“Dark-style home defence, huh?” Caldera glanced at the ruined sofa. “A couple of the other rooms have been trashed too.”

“Should I check them?” Sonder asked.

Caldera shook her head. “No, it’s Richard I want. Deleo’s only important if she can lead us to him.”

“So we’re going?” I said.

Caldera raised an eyebrow. “In a hurry to leave?”

“I’m in a hurry not to run into Deleo.”

“So watch for her.”

“I’ve been watching for her nonstop since we gated in,” I said. “You know the best way of making sure we don’t run into her? Not sticking around any longer than we have to.”

“I’m a Keeper, Verus,” Caldera said. “If we ran scared every time we had to deal with a Dark mage, we wouldn’t be much good at our jobs.” She looked at Sonder. “Can you follow where Deleo went?”

“I don’t think she came in the front door,” Sonder said.

“She wouldn’t have to,” I said. “She knows the whole mansion and there are no gate wards. She can gate into any part she likes.”

“Then let’s check the basement,” Caldera said.

I sighed and started towards the doorway. “I knew you were going to say that.”

* * *

“It’s warded,” I said.

We were at the end of the main hallway on the ground floor. The entrance to the lower levels was a simple arch in the wall, and the glow from Caldera’s light illuminated stone steps leading down into shadow. “It’s another alarm ward, right?” Sonder said, concentrating on the archway. “It looks the same as the first.”

“It is.”

“Right,” Caldera said, walking to the wall. “Same again, then.”

“Don’t!” I said sharply. “It’s a trap.”

Caldera frowned at me. “I can’t see anything.”

“The alarm ward is just a cover,” I said. “It’s meant to make you think that you can get past it the same way you did the first. The real defence is there.” I pointed down into the darkness. “Anything that goes down there is going to summon a nocturne.”

“What the hell is that?”

“Darkness elemental. They hunt by sound. You don’t want to meet one.”

“So what’s the trigger?” Caldera said. “How do we get around it?”

“If there’s a limit to the trigger area, I can’t find it,” I said. I’d been looking through potential futures and I couldn’t find a single one where we went down there without fighting the thing. “And it’s sensitive. It’s not just set to living things, objects are going to trigger it too.”

“There has to be some way to avoid it, right?” Sonder said. “Maybe a password?”

“I’m not sure there is.”

“Really?”

“Look, I’ve seen a lot of magical defences and they usually have a pattern. They’re designed to let the right people in and keep the wrong people out. This one isn’t made that way. It’s the kind of ward you set up if you don’t want to let anybody in. Even Deleo would have trouble disarming this without setting it off first.”

“Why would she do that?” Sonder asked.

“If she wasn’t coming down here either,” I said. “This trap is the equivalent of filling a room with poison gas and then sealing it from the outside. You don’t do it if you’re planning to use it.” I looked at Caldera. “Deleo hasn’t been using this mansion. The only reason she comes here is if someone trips the burglar alarm, so she can reset the wards.”

“You mean that’s what she’s been doing until now,” Caldera countered. “She could have set this ward up to last for ten years and be planning to disarm it when Richard came back.”

“Which we’ve seen absolutely no evidence for.”

Caldera looked down the steps with narrowed eyes. “If we took this thing on, could we beat it?”

I looked at Caldera in disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Well?”

“I have no idea! Combats are way too chaotic to see more than a few seconds ahead. I can tell the thing’s going to go out of its way to try and kill you, isn’t that enough?”

“Why her?” Sonder asked.

“Because she makes the most noise.”

“So make an educated guess,” Caldera said. She folded her arms and looked at me. “Can we get past this thing?”

It’s times like this that remind me just how big a gap there is between elemental mages and diviners. For me, combat is dangerous. A bullet or a blade will kill me as fast as anyone else and the best way to avoid that is not to be in a fight in the first place. I have to be afraid of physical threats, or I wouldn’t survive. For mages like Caldera it’s different. The shields and defensive spells of elemental mages aren’t invulnerable but they’re damn close, and the kinds of weapons that would kill an unarmoured human—guns, knives, grenades—don’t do much to an elemental mage except piss them off. Bringing them down in a straight fight takes the kind of firepower that the average person is simply not going to be carrying around, which means that when an elemental mage looks at an ordinary human being, they know that barring something unexpected they’ve got nothing to fear from them. It gives them a very different mindset from someone like me.

I looked at Caldera, sizing her up. Heavyset and overweight, she didn’t look like most people’s idea of an action heroine. But I’d been watching her on the way here and I’d noticed that she didn’t move like someone who was unhealthy, and also that she hadn’t gotten out of breath once. There might be a lot of fat on her but I had the feeling there was a lot of muscle too, and the way she acted gave me the impression that she knew how to take care of herself. A sparring match with her would be interesting.

“Well?” Caldera said.

“Probably,” I said reluctantly. I really didn’t want to encourage Caldera but I also didn’t want to lie. “Nocturnes don’t have the power of true elementals. But I can’t guarantee that the fight won’t tip Deleo off too. And I don’t care how good you are, you couldn’t take her and a nocturne at the same time.”

Caldera looked away. “Look, don’t you think it’s time to get out of here?” I said. “Maybe you’re right about Richard and maybe you’re not, but this place has been empty for years. If there’s anything to find, it’s not here.”

Caldera hesitated and, looking ahead, I could tell she was at last seriously thinking about it. I would have liked to know more, but I’d already spent too long focusing on the futures of us fighting the nocturne and I needed to get back to watching for danger. I sent my senses branching out ahead through the futures of us waiting where we were now, looking for any shift in the status quo.

And with a jolt I found it. We weren’t alone in the mansion anymore. There were people here—familiar people, heading straight for us. “We have to go,” I said. “Now!”

Sonder and Caldera looked at me in surprise. “Why?” Sonder asked.

“Because there’s a bunch of people coming here to kill me, and they’re going to do it unless we get out of here right now!”

Sonder’s eyes widened. “Wait, it’s—?”

“Yes!”

“How do—?” Caldera started to ask.

“Because I’ve seen them!” I was frantically mapping out escape routes and it didn’t look good. They were directly between us and the front entrance—they must have come in the same way we did—and they were closing in fast. We’d have to get around them or go over.

Caldera frowned at me. “Why do they want to kill you?”

“Because of something I did ten years ago—I’ll tell you the story, but not here!”

“Wait,” Caldera said. “I’m not moving unless you tell me more than that.”

I wanted to scream. “Are you trying to get us—”

I’d been searching as fast as I could through the futures and in that instant I realised two things. First, using the annuller hadn’t worked. In all of the futures in which I shifted my position, the path of the incoming group adjusted to match me. They knew exactly where I was and trying to hide wasn’t going to help. Second, they were moving faster than we were. Even if I could get Caldera and Sonder moving, they would be on us before we could get out of the mansion. “Too late,” I said, looking down the corridor. A moment later Will appeared around the corner.

chapter 9

The Nightstalkers had come out in force this time, and they just kept coming around the corner one after another. Will was at the front with Lee and Dhruv flanking him, gold-hair girl and Captain America were right behind with Ja-Ja the life-drinker, and at the back, almost hidden by the others, was a girl I hadn’t seen before who looked English. Seven in all. They advanced down the corridor towards us.

Caldera stepped between me and them. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

Will came to a halt and the rest of them followed his lead. He didn’t look at Caldera; just like each time before, his eyes stayed locked on me. “I’m not here for you.”

“You’re William Traviss, aren’t you?” Caldera said. “Mind telling me what you’re doing on a mage’s property?”

“I don’t care whose property this is.” Will shifted his stare to Caldera. “The man behind you murdered my sister and I’m here for him. Get out of my way.”

Caldera looked back at him, then turned her head just slightly towards me, not taking her eyes off Will. “Verus?” she said, and there was a slight edge to her voice. “Anything you want to tell me?”

I let out a breath. The futures were shifting too much to make any useful predictions now. It was all going to depend on Caldera, and I couldn’t tell which way she would jump. “When I was Richard’s apprentice, I was part of a team that captured Will’s sister,” I said. I kept my voice level. “Will thinks she was killed. I don’t know if it’s true.”

“Liar!” Will snarled, his eyes flaring. “You knew what was happening to her!”

I looked away, unwilling to meet Will’s eyes. “You think I didn’t know?” Will said, and I could hear the hate in his voice. “A year she was held in here. So you sick fucks could use her for fun!”

“And that was why I tried to break her out!” I snapped back. “Yes, I screwed it up, but at least I tried!”

“Right,” Will said scornfully. “You were trying to save her.”

“Whether you believe it or not, it’s the truth. And how are you so damn sure she’s dead? Even I don’t know what happened to her!”

“She died here in this mansion,” Will said. “And I’m going to make sure the same happens to you.”

“We just did this! You were in a train crash twelve hours ago! How are you even here?”

“Enough!” Caldera shouted.

Will and I both stopped. “You,” Caldera said, pointing at Lee. “How did you get in here?”

“Uh . . .”

“Through the door, or through the archway in the wall?”

“None of your business,” Will said, just as Lee said, “The archway.”

Will glared at Lee and Lee dropped his eyes. “At least you’ve got some sense,” Caldera said. “Now let’s see if I’ve got this straight. Are you telling me the reason you’ve come here is to murder the mage behind me?”

“He’s the murderer!” Will said.

“And I’m Keeper Caldera of the Order of the Star,” Caldera said calmly. “That means I police crimes involving mages. Are you about to commit one?”

“The only crimes you Keepers care about are the ones where it’s mages that are the victims,” Will said. He was focused on Caldera now, eyes narrowed, and he wasn’t backing down. “Murdering an adept doesn’t even count in your book, does it? We’re nothing to you.”

“The law is the law,” Caldera said. “And it applies to adepts as well as mages. You might want to think about that.”

The rest of Will’s group had been silent until now, but at this point gold-hair girl spoke up. “So what are we supposed to do when some mage decides to enslave us?” She looked angry. “Just take it?”

“You can bring your case before the Council,” Caldera said. “Your petition will be heard.”

“Right,” gold-hair girl said sarcastically. “And they’re going to care.”

“I don’t make the laws,” Caldera said. “But I do enforce them.” Her voice sharpened. “Now let’s get something clear: this is not up for debate. I’m here on Council business and you’re trespassing. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“You’re right,” Will said, and his voice was soft. His eyes were fixed on Caldera. “It’s not up for debate.”

I felt the mood in the corridor shift, and the futures shifted with it. All of a sudden I could sense violence. “Walk away, William,” Caldera said quietly.

“I walked away from Verus yesterday,” Will said. “Not this time.” He held out his hand to Captain America without looking. I saw Captain America’s eyes flick between Caldera and me and he hesitated for just an instant, then he reached into thin air. Space magic flickered as he pulled out Will’s shortsword and handed it to him then took out a submachine gun for himself. Gold-hair girl’s eyes narrowed on Caldera and I felt the familiar trace of fire magic beginning to build.

“One more step forward,” Caldera said, “and you’ll be attacking a Council Keeper.” Caldera was standing in the middle of the corridor facing all of them, her voice steady. “All of you listen to me very carefully. You might think you’re fighting some sort of war against mages. You’re not. The Council knows all about you and they’ve left you alone. Use those weapons in your hands and that will change. And you will not like the consequences.”

“The Council isn’t here,” Will said. He was standing quite still and I knew he was holding his magic ready. When he moved, it would be very fast. “Just you.”

“And me,” I said, stepping forward and looking between the adepts. “If you keep following Will, it’s going to get you killed. Don’t you see that?”

“Stay out of this, Verus,” Caldera said.

I didn’t look away from Will. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve kind of got a stake in this.”

“Ignore the Keeper and the other one,” Will said over his shoulder. “We’re only here for Verus.”

“That’s not how it works,” Caldera said sharply. “If you—”

“Look out!” I snapped and jumped back just as Will lunged for me.

I’d seen Will in action enough times now to figure out that in terms of straight-up combat ability, his magic was a close match for mine. I could predict his moves, but he was so quick that all my divination let me do was keep up with him. He closed the distance between us in a flash, and if I hadn’t already jumped back he would have run me through.

But while Will might be faster, Caldera had a lot less distance to cover than he did. She stepped into his way and Will slammed straight into her centre of mass with a thud. Caldera didn’t even budge; it was as if Will had run into a wall. She tried to grab him, but even though Will had to be hurting from the impact he was still fast enough to dodge aside and try to get past again.

But they’d forgotten about Sonder. Sonder had kept his mouth shut in the conversation and stayed behind Caldera, but now he put out his hand towards Will, his face set, and cast his own time spell, similar to Will’s but inverted. The two spells met and cancelled each other out and all of a sudden Will was moving at normal speed. He stumbled and came to a stop, a look of surprise flashing across his face.

Caldera hit Will in the chest. It was an open-hand strike, and she drove up off the floor with all her weight behind it. The impact lifted Will into the air and threw him the best part of ten feet, and he hit Dhruv on the way down. The two of them went down in a tangle of arms and legs.

Caldera glared at the adepts, her hands low and spread. “Who’s next?”

Will pulled himself up, gasping. He’d been winded and it took him a few seconds to catch his breath. “Shoot him!” he said, pointing at me. “He’s right there, just kill him!”

Captain America and gold-hair girl had both been ready to fire when Will had rushed in, but the people in the way had made them hesitate. Now they both aimed at me, and as they did I sidestepped behind Caldera. Captain America tracked me with his gun, saw that Caldera was in the way, and checked his fire.

Gold-hair girl didn’t. Red light flared around her hands and ground fire roared out. It was directed at me but hit Caldera instead, and Caldera disappeared in a flash of flame. An instant later the fire was gone. Caldera wasn’t. Her clothes were scorched and smoking but she didn’t even look scratched and I could see earth magic glowing about her, reinforcing and strengthening her body. “You,” she said to the adepts, “are starting to piss me off.”

Several of the adepts took a step back. Will didn’t. “You cowards!” he snapped. “We’ve beaten mages before!” Without looking back he charged straight for me. After a moment’s hesitation the rest of them followed, and that was when things got really messy.

The corridor dissolved into a melee, weapons and fire and confusion. Will was trying to get past Caldera, bullets and ground fire flashing out past them, and the hallway was a press of bodies and blows. There was too much going on and it was all I could do just to keep myself alive. Again and again I saw myself fall dead or wounded, stabbed or shot or burnt, and again and again I slid aside just enough that the strike would miss. The air heated from the fire magic, and bullets struck chips of stone from the walls. Caldera stood alone against the tide but the corridor was narrow and they couldn’t all reach her at once. They kept getting in each other’s way, and whoever was at the front would be focused by Sonder’s slowing magic and by Caldera’s punishing blows. One hit was all it took to send them staggering back, but as soon as they did another would move in to take their place.

The Indian boy, Dhruv, threw a set of metal spheres into the air; an invisible field caught them and sent them spinning around him in an elliptical orbit, moving faster and faster before zipping towards me as though hurled from a sling. I ducked behind Caldera and they slammed into her instead, cracking off her hardened skin. “Stop doing that,” Caldera said through clenched teeth, aiming another punch at Will.

“Some of us don’t have stone skin,” I said just as Captain America popped up around Will and fired at me point-blank. I was already dodging and the burst hit thin air; he fell back instantly, ejecting his magazine and reaching for a new one.

“Find us a way out,” Caldera said over her shoulder, but I couldn’t answer; Dhruv was sending another volley at me from over Will’s head and this time he curved them in, attacking from the side. I had to dive sideways, stumbling for a second, and as I came to my feet another blast of flame engulfed Caldera.

Ja-Ja was on her instantly. The life-drinker had stayed at the edge of the fight, lurking and waiting to strike, and in the second that Caldera was still blinded from the blast he struck. Green-black light flashed at his palm as he touched Caldera’s side, and even at a distance I felt a draining, tugging sensation, like being on the edge of a whirlpool.

Caldera gave a roar that was half rage and half pain, and struck at Ja-Ja with the ferocity of a wounded bear. I heard the crack as her blow landed and Ja-Ja went flying down the corridor, but Caldera stumbled and went to one knee. She was up again in an instant and I knew combat reflexes were keeping her moving—you never stay down in a fight, you always get up as fast as you can—but she was swaying and I could tell she was badly hurt.

Ja-Ja picked himself up. Caldera’s punch should have broken his bones but my heart sank as I looked at him and I saw that he was smiling. Whatever he’d taken from Caldera, it had been enough to let him shrug off the hit. “Tastes nice,” he said. “I could go for dessert.”

“What the fuck are you doing?” Captain America snapped at Ja-Ja. He was still holding his gun, but he wasn’t aiming it at me anymore.

“We said don’t hurt her!” Dhruv shouted.

Ja-Ja gave Dhruv a contemptuous look. “Yeah, you were doing so great.”

Will was hesitating, looking between Caldera and Ja-Ja. For the moment the adepts were distracted but I knew it wouldn’t last. One of the metal spheres Dhruv had been firing at me was lying on the floor, and I scooped it up. “Caldera!” I said sharply with a note of command in my voice. “Watch!”

Caldera turned, hurt but angry, and Sonder did as well. Before Caldera could speak, I flicked the sphere back down the corridor. It glanced off the wall and through the archway down to the basement, and I heard the clack-clack-clack as it went bouncing down the steps. Caldera and Sonder stared for a second, then their eyes went wide at the same instant. I put my finger to my lips.

“Keeper,” Will said, and all three of us turned to look at him. He was frowning at Caldera. “We’re not here for you. You and the time mage can go. We just want Verus.”

Caldera looked back at him, then gave him the finger.

Captain America raised his eyebrows; he actually looked impressed. Ja-Ja looked eager, and I knew he was hoping Caldera would say no. Will just looked pissed off. “You aren’t going to win this,” he said. “Get out of—”

The nocturne came out of the shadows, homing in on Will like iron filings to a magnet. Its body was black smoke and blended into the darkness behind it so perfectly that only its blue-white eyes were visible. Will leapt back, eyes going wide in shock, but even he wasn’t quick enough and a tendril of darkness twined around his leg, yanking him off his feet.

The corridor erupted into chaos, the adepts scrambling to get away from the nocturne or rushing to fight it, but this time I wasn’t watching. I grabbed Caldera’s arm and yanked at her. Even wounded as she was, it was like trying to move a rock, but it got her attention. “Come on!”

We fled towards the stairs. Before we got out of sight I took a glance back and had one glimpse of Will on his back, slashing at the nocturne as it pulled him in. Captain America was kneeling and firing, gun flashing in staccato bursts, the nocturne reaching for him, and then we were racing up the stairs with the shouts and gunfire fading behind us.

By the time we made it up to the second floor Caldera was staggering and I knew we wouldn’t make it out of the mansion in time. I made a snap decision and pulled a door open. “In!” Once they were inside I slammed it behind us.

Sonder looked around, dismayed. We were in a bedroom, old and neglected, the bed covered in dust and the light dim through the grimy windows, and I realised that it was my old room. I hadn’t been intending to pick it but my feet had remembered the way. “There’s no way out!”

“You’ll have to gate us from here,” I told Caldera.

Caldera looked around and I knew what she was thinking. Gating is one of the more general elemental spells, but also one of the most dangerous; it works by creating a similarity between two points in space and to do it reliably you have to be very familiar with both the place you’re leaving and the place you’re going to. Caldera had studied the copse of trees on her last visit here; that was why she’d gated us there and not directly inside. She hadn’t studied this room. Gating from here would be risky.

On the other hand, trying to make the run out of the mansion with a bunch of homicidal adepts on our tail would be a lot more risky. I felt the futures fall into line as Caldera made her decision, and she began the spell. “Cover me,” she ordered.

I could hear the battle going on downstairs, and I didn’t know how much time we had. Nocturnes are semi-insubstantial and shooting them just draws their attention, but they can still be burnt and they’re still alive. If Will’s group could get organised—and unfortunately for me, they seemed to be pretty good at getting organised—then they’d be able to banish it. “I’ve got a forcewall,” I told Sonder, nodding at the door.

“I can do better than that,” Sonder said, and raised his hand towards the door. For a few seconds nothing happened, then the area around the door seemed to twist and warp before suddenly reflecting our images back at us. Where the door had been was a mirrored sphere, radiating from the wall. I could feel the time magic in the effect but it wasn’t a spell I’d ever seen before. “What is it?” I said.

“Stasis,” Sonder said, not taking his eyes off the sphere.

I raised my eyebrows. Even slowing someone down as Sonder had done a minute ago isn’t easy, and a temporal stasis is supposed to be even tougher. Sonder had gotten a lot better over the past year. From below I felt a flare of life magic, the draining, tugging sensation of Ja-Ja’s spell, and there was a whining, rasping sound just on the edge of hearing that made both me and Sonder flinch. The stasis flickered briefly, then strengthened. “I think the nocturne just lost,” I said. “Caldera?”

“Working on it,” Caldera said.

Sonder and I glanced at each other, then Sonder focused again on his stasis and I started calculating probabilities. I couldn’t see any future in which the adepts got through the stasis . . . yet. I also wasn’t sure how long it would take Caldera to pull off the gate, or whether she could manage it at all. From the stairs I heard running footsteps. They paused briefly in the corridor, then started towards us. “Caldera?” I said again.

“I’m working on it!”

The footsteps halted. The stasis was muffling the sounds, but I was pretty sure they were on the other side. I wondered what would happen if they opened the door into the spell. I couldn’t see the answer from my angle; in all of the futures I could see, the stasis remained as it was, smooth and unbroken. I heard a distant banging sound.

Then from behind I felt the catch as the gate spell took, and the portal opened behind us. Looking around, I saw the brown-rimmed oval hanging in the air, and through it someone’s living room. “Move!” Caldera shouted.

I didn’t argue, jumping through and landing on carpet. Caldera followed and Sonder came last, backing through the gate, still holding his focus on the stasis spell. The instant he was through, Caldera let the gate collapse and I had one last glimpse of my old bedroom before the gate winked out and was gone.

We were in the living room of what looked like a flat, an old sofa and armchairs surrounding a messy coffee table piled with books and letters. Dirty glasses and tea mugs were scattered around the papers, and one shelf was filled with bottles of spirits. It was a comfortable sort of untidy, the kind of room where it’s easy to fall asleep on the sofa. Through the window I could see London houses: we were on the second floor. I checked and rechecked the futures and confirmed that we were safe. No one was following us . . . at least not soon.

“What the hell was that?” Caldera said.

I turned to see that Caldera was glaring at me. “What?”

“How long have you known that Will and his Nightstalkers have been trying to kill you?”

“Since the last couple of times they tried.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“No.”

Caldera grabbed at me, trying to shove me up against the wall. It caught me by surprise and Sonder jumped back wide-eyed, but Caldera wasn’t fast enough to catch me, at least not wounded as she was. I knocked her hand away and she stumbled past. “What were you expecting?” I snapped. “I met you three days ago and you’re a Keeper. You think I’m going to tell you everything?”

Caldera rounded on me. “You put us in danger! You nearly got us killed!”

“And you led us in there! Which part of ‘going into Richard’s mansion is fucking insane’ did you not follow, Caldera? Was I not clear enough?”

“You should have told us!” Caldera still looked furious, but at least she didn’t seem about to lunge for me again. “We could have—”

“You could have what? I told you going into Richard’s mansion was suicidal. I told you Deleo had the place warded and there was nothing to find. I told you we were staying too long and it was time to get out, and you didn’t listen! You didn’t pay attention to anything I said that didn’t relate to your bloody job!” I shook my head in disgust. “Mages like you treat diviners like we’re some kind of information feed. You ask us a question, we pull out the answer, and you forget about us. Well, we don’t always have the answers you want, but what we are good at is telling when something’s dangerous. So next time a diviner tells you that, try listening!”

Caldera and I faced each other, glaring, until a cough broke the silence. We both turned to see that Sonder was raising his hand nervously. “Um,” he said. “Could we maybe talk about this quietly? Without the shouting and grabbing?”

All of a sudden the tension ebbed away. Caldera swayed on her feet and I caught her shoulder, staggering a little as I tried to hold her up. I’m pretty strong, but Caldera wasn’t light. “I’m fine,” Caldera muttered, trying to push me off.

“You’re not fine,” I said. “You need a healer.”

“I could call Anne,” Sonder said.

“That girl from the shop? Isn’t she ex-Dark?” Caldera shook her head. “I’m not letting her touch me.”

I sighed. “Caldera, you might be an asshole, but you just got hurt because you stepped in the way of a bunch of people trying to kill me. I’m not leaving until I know you’re okay.”

“Yeah, thanks for that.” Caldera dropped into one of the armchairs. “I’ll call one of the Keeper healers.”

“Then do it.”

Caldera gave me a look. “You aren’t supposed to be around.”

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “What, you’re not supposed to have non-Light mages around for medical care? What exactly are you afraid I’m going to see?”

“It’s procedure, Verus,” Caldera said. She looked very weary all of a sudden.

“I’ll stay with her,” Sonder volunteered.

I looked at him for a second. I would have liked to stay, and despite everything I had the feeling Caldera didn’t really want to throw me out. But Caldera was probably right; if she was going to call in Keeper personnel they weren’t going to have much use for a non-Light diviner of questionable background. I wouldn’t be doing anyone any favours by staying. I turned to go.

“Verus,” Caldera said.

I stopped and looked back. Slumped in the chair, Caldera looked weary but still alert. “Don’t go after Will. Stay away from him.”

“That’s kind of easier said than done.”

“They attacked a Keeper,” Caldera said. “This isn’t your problem anymore. Just keep your head down and we’ll take it from here.”

I looked at Caldera for a moment. “I’ll give it a try,” I said at last, and walked out into the hall. The door to the flat was warded. I let myself out.

* * *

Ihad a lot to think about on the journey back.

There’s a feeling you get when you’re under pressure: a kind of nonstop anxiety, where it seems as if you’re spending all your time reacting to one crisis after another instead of doing anything yourself. I’ve had that feeling before, and one of the things I’ve learnt over the years is that when you get it, it means you’re doing something wrong.

I’d just nearly been killed three times in four days. The first time I’d been saved by Luna, the second time by Anne, and the third time by Caldera. If I kept this up, then sooner or later Will’s lot were going to catch me when I didn’t have a super-powered woman around to help me out. When what you’re doing isn’t working, you stop and figure out what’s wrong.

What was I doing wrong?

The first time, Will and the adepts had found me at the casino. The second time it had been at my house, and the third time it had been at Richard’s mansion. But looking back on it, I had advance warning each time. Before the casino, I’d met Lee on the rooftops, and I’d gone out anyway. I’d spoken to Will in the shop, and even though it was obvious they knew where I lived, I’d gone to sleep in my flat. And then, even knowing that they had a way to track me, I’d gone to Richard’s mansion. I’d used the annuller, which would have blocked most tracking spells . . . but I hadn’t known for sure that it would block their tracking spell. What I should have done was find an empty, quiet place and then look into the future for however long it took to confirm that they weren’t going to find me. Trying to make sure that something can’t happen is slow and frustrating work, but I should have spent the hours to do it and I hadn’t.

Arachne was right—I had been careless. And I’d put Caldera and Sonder at risk as a result.

It’s an unpleasant feeling to realise that other people are paying for your mistakes. Worse, this was something I was supposed to be good at. I’d been careful about this kind of thing once. Back in Richard’s mansion I never would have been so thoughtless—if I had, I wouldn’t have survived. The only thing that had kept me alive through those two years had been a hair-trigger sense for danger. Every second and every thought had been utterly focused on survival. What had changed?

I’d changed. It was as simple as that. For most of the past year I’d been spending my time teaching Luna, helping Anne and Variam, dealing with customers, working, relaxing, socialising, and generally having something much closer to a normal life. Oh, there had been danger, but it had been the sudden kind of danger, usually solved by running away. I’d never been seriously and persistently hunted. Even when I’d realised that Will and the adepts were coming for me, I’d treated it as a problem to be investigated.

But right now I wasn’t an investigator, I was prey. If the Nightstalkers caught me, they would kill me.

First they’d have to catch me.

Understanding that felt like opening a door to a part of my mind that had been closed for a long time. I felt the old animal wariness start to seep back, and I looked at the problem coldly and dispassionately. As long as the Nightstalkers had a reliable way to track me, they could keep forcing fights on their terms. If I allowed them to do that then sooner or later I’d be brought down and killed. The first priority had to be to break their tracking link.

The only thing so far that seemed to have blocked the link was Arachne’s lair. I’d been there for a day and a half after the casino fight, recovering, and the Nightstalkers hadn’t gone after me there. It had taken them much less time than that to track me down everywhere else, so evidence suggested that the wards on Arachne’s lair were strong enough to hide me. Which meant that whatever their spell was, it wasn’t unstoppable.

But I couldn’t stay in Arachne’s lair forever. I needed a way to hide while moving, and my best chance at doing that was my mist cloak. The first task was to retrieve it.

* * *

Getting past the police was the easy part.

I could only guess at the number of detectives who must have been swarming over my flat throughout the morning, but London’s a busy place and, no matter how spectacular the explosion, sooner or later the police have somewhere else to be. There was only one PC on duty, standing at the front of my shop and waving tourists away from the blue-and-white POLICE DO NOT CROSS tape.

Humans have a habit of thinking in two dimensions rather than three. We remember to guard the back door and the front door; we don’t usually guard the roof. I got onto the rooftops via the nearby flats, passed the railway line where Anne and I had made our escape last night, then crouched in the shadow of a chimney stack and looked into the future of what would happen if I stayed here.

The Nightstalkers were on their way, which wasn’t good news but by this point really wasn’t much of a surprise. Not only had the nocturne not shaken them, they actually seemed to be homing in on me faster and faster each time. I followed up the routes to check and . . . yes, they were going to gate onto the roof ahead, probably at the same spot they’d used to try to cut me and Anne off last night. I had maybe five minutes before they arrived.

I could run, but that would just be making the same mistake all over again. They’d keep chasing, and I’d be burning energy running away, reacting to them instead of doing anything constructive myself. Instead I looked into the futures in which I got my mist cloak. There wasn’t time to confirm that it’d hide me but it looked possible, and even if it didn’t work I’d have a better chance behind my home defences than out in the open. I moved quickly across the rooftops to my flat, skirted the hole in the top, and climbed down to the balcony to let myself in. My flat was a mess. While Anne and I had been busy with Ja-Ja, Variam and Luna had been fighting off the rest of the Nightstalkers below. It looked like they’d made their stand on the top landing, and the walls and banisters were charred. I moved down the stairs, heading for my safe room.

There are three floors to the building I live in. The first floor is the shop, along with a small boxroom for storage. The third floor is the flat where I actually live, with my bedroom, living room, bathroom, and kitchen, as well as the way out to the balcony and the roof. The second floor has the main storage room, a spare room which I converted into a bedroom last year and which is currently being occupied by Anne, and another door which looks sealed off. It isn’t—it’s my safe room, and it’s where I keep anything really valuable or dangerous.

I touched a spot on the door, said the command word, and felt the wards go down as I let myself in, shutting the door behind me. My safe room doesn’t have any windows and with the door shut it was pitch-dark. I didn’t turn on the light, relying on my diviner’s senses to navigate. My mist cloak was hanging on a peg at the side of the room; I pulled it around my shoulders, feeling the magic in the item meld itself around me, then I stepped to the corner and waited.

It’s easy to pick up magic items when you run a magic shop. I’ve been doing it for years and the size of my collection would surprise most mages . . . if I’d ever show it to them, which I wouldn’t. Although the safe room was dark, I could feel the dozens of overlapping auras from the items, holding steady in an uneasy equilibrium. The contents of the room would have looked bizarre to anyone able to see them. There was a sword hanging on the wall, oddly curved and with a hilt sculpted into the shape of a crocodile. A pale green egg rested on a shelf, point up in apparent defiance of gravity. Three darts were clamped tightly into a metal holder with a lock on it, and a white-and-blue tube of lacquered wood carved with flowers sat on its own in the middle of the table, far away from everything else. Odd items with odd purposes, most of them useless except for the person or situation for which they were designed. But just a few were very useful indeed, and my mist cloak was one of them.

My mist cloak is an imbued item and actually alive, though not in a way most people would understand. It’s weak by imbued-item standards, which makes it vastly more powerful than the one-shots I usually carry, and it does two things. The first is a type of adaptive camouflage, its colour changing to match its surroundings. It’s not invisibility—you can be seen if you move, and in broad daylight you just look very unfashionably dressed—but in cover or shadows, it makes you pretty hard to find.

The second ability is more specialised and from my point of view much more valuable. A mist cloak hides its wearer from magical senses, turning them into a kind of black hole against magical detection. Very few other mages know that I have access to that particular trick and I work hard to keep it that way—I’ve done a few things which the Council would have nailed me to the wall for if I hadn’t been wearing my mist cloak at the time. Now I was counting on it yet again.

Looking into the future, there was good news and bad news. The good news was that the mist cloak was definitely doing something—the lines of my futures and the Nightstalkers’ didn’t automatically converge into combat anymore. The bad news was that combat was still possible, it just wasn’t certain. I looked to see what would happen if I left the room and went back the way I came, and saw that the Nightstalkers were already here and heading in my direction. There were only three this time: Lee, Dhruv, and Captain America. I held my position and waited. After only a couple of minutes I heard footsteps through the wall, trying to be quiet.

One of the simpler uses of divination magic is short-range spying; you can look ahead into the futures in which you move closer to a target in order to watch them. People are unpredictable, so they have to be only a few seconds away, but as long as the environment is static it works consistently enough. My house was silent and empty, and the futures in which I opened the door were easy to follow. All three of them were there, standing close to one another. None had visible weapons, which was interesting. I knew Captain America and Dhruv would only need a second to draw them, but I could do a lot in a second. It looked like I wasn’t the only one making mistakes.

“I can’t find him,” Lee said at last. In the ambient light from the windows he looked nervous. He was right to be.

“You’re sure he was here?” Dhruv asked.

“I think so,” Lee said, glancing around.

“Was he moving when you lost him, or did he just vanish?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Well, which spot did you lose him in?”

“I don’t know,” Lee said, sounding aggravated. “I keep telling you, I just know the direction. You didn’t give me time to triangulate.”

“He probably gated,” Captain America said. He had an American accent too, though I didn’t recognise what kind. He didn’t look as edgy as Lee but he did look alert.

“Diviners can’t use gate magic,” Dhruv said.

“Didn’t stop him before.”

“That was the Keeper,” Dhruv said. “And Lee said she wasn’t with him anymore. Right?”

“No . . .” Lee said reluctantly.

“So.”

“Why were we fighting her?” Lee said. “I thought you just wanted Verus.”

“Because she wouldn’t get out of the way.”

“We could have waited.”

“That was Will’s decision, not yours,” Dhruv said. “You want to take it up with him?”

Lee was silent, but Captain America spoke up again. “He’s got a point.” As he spoke he kept looking from side to side, watching each door in turn as he faced Dhruv. “And what the fuck was Ja-Ja doing?”

“It was the middle of a fight,” Dhruv said. But there had been a moment’s hesitation, and I could tell he wasn’t quite as sure of himself as he was acting.

“Yeah, and it was supposed to be against Verus,” Captain America said. He didn’t sound happy. “What, we’re killing everyone in our way now?”

“Ja-Ja didn’t obey orders,” Dhruv said.

“Ja-Ja’s a psycho.”

“He’s our big gun.”

“Which doesn’t change the fact that he’s a fucking psycho.” Captain America’s voice was hard. “He shouldn’t be on the team.”

“As long as we can point him in the right direction, he’s useful.”

“I’m not seeing that,” Captain America said. “Didn’t he just nearly murder a Keeper? Isn’t that a problem?”

“When did you get so picky?” Dhruv said in annoyance. “‘No problem that can’t be solved by high explosives,’ wasn’t that what you used to say? You didn’t argue about that bomb. And you, Lee. You think the Keepers would have gotten you away from Locus? You’re here because of Will. Don’t forget that.”

Both Lee and Captain America were silent. “Look, we’ll talk about it back at base,” Dhruv said. “Let’s check this floor and get out of here. Have you tried all the rooms?”

“Those two,” Captain America said. “This one’s locked.”

“Lee?” Dhruv said. “Anyone on the other side?”

There was a pause and I tensed. “No,” Lee said at last.

“Can you get it open?” Dhruv asked Captain America.

Captain America hesitated and I held very still. I’d deliberately left the wards on the safe room down. They could have held the Nightstalkers out for a while, but they would have as good as told them that there was something in here to find. It would have taken them a while to break through, but I had no doubt they could do it eventually and once inside they couldn’t fail to find me.

But right now they weren’t expecting to find me, or they never would have had that conversation where I could hear them. For once I had the advantage of surprise, and I was done screwing around. My knife was hidden beneath the cloak, and if they forced their way through into this room I was going to kill them, simple as that. I’d promised Anne that I wouldn’t, and back when I’d said that I’d meant it, but I’d rather break a promise than die and that was what it was going to come down to at this rate. I’d take Dhruv or Captain America from ambush, then I’d bring up the wards to split the remaining two, kill whoever was on the same side as me, then run. Will would be on my trail in seconds and the chase would be brutal and ugly, but I’d been pushed as far as I was willing to go. I watched the futures flicker before me, Captain America making the decision, and wondered if he had any idea how close he and his friends were to death right now.

“No,” Captain America said at last. “Not without the cops hearing.”

“Fine, it looks sealed anyway. Let’s go.” Their footsteps started up again, trailing down the hall and then up the stairs. And then they were gone.

I waited for a long time, listening and looking ahead, but in both present and future the building was silent. I’d shaken the Nightstalkers. Now I had to figure out what to do next.

* * *

Istayed in that room for the rest of the day.

My mist cloak could hide me from Lee, but it’s not the best fashion choice for walking outside in broad daylight and while I waited for the long summer evening to end I called Luna. The phone rang for a while before picking up. “Hello?” Luna asked.

“It’s Alex. You guys okay?”

“Alex!” I could hear the relief in Luna’s voice. “We’re fine. Where are you?”

“You first. Did you sort things out with the police?”

“Uh, more or less,” Luna said. “They kind of want to talk to you.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to talk to them.” I could probably convince the police that the explosion hadn’t been my fault—which was the truth, ironically enough—but I absolutely couldn’t afford the distraction. “What did you tell them?”

“There wasn’t much we could tell them. The house blew up and you and Anne were on the wrong side, then all of a sudden they came up the stairs and it was me and Vari holding the landing. I thought they were going to swarm us then all of a sudden they were gone, I guess they were chasing—” I heard a voice in the background and Luna’s voice suddenly became muffled, as though she were talking to someone else. “Yeah, it’s him . . . I don’t know, how am I supposed—Fine, I’ll ask, just shut up.” Her voice became clear again. “Vari wants to know what happened at the mansion.”

“Managed to avoid Deleo, didn’t manage to avoid the Nightstalkers. Sonder was there and Caldera got hurt but we made it out alive.”

“Sonder was there? Why— Never mind. Are you okay? We didn’t know what had happened until we got Anne’s message.”

“I’m fine. Is Anne there too?”

“Yeah, we’re all at my flat. Where are you?”

“Hiding.”

“Um . . .” Luna said. “Okay.”

“There’s been a change of plans,” I said. “I’m not going to meet up with you.”

There was a moment’s silence. “Why not?”

“Right now I’m using my mist cloak to shake them. That won’t work if I’m with you guys. And Will and Ja-Ja have attacked a Keeper now. The Council is going to have trouble ignoring this.”

“Wait, so that’s the plan?” Luna sounded very sceptical. “Hope the Council sorts it out?”

“I haven’t given up on Elsewhere,” I said. “I was interrupted last time and I’m going to go back tonight. For now there’s not much you guys can do. Just stay together and stay safe.”

Luna took a while to answer. “All right,” she said at last. She didn’t sound happy, but she didn’t argue. “Be careful, okay?”

We spoke for a little longer, then I talked briefly with Anne and Variam. Even over the phone, speaking to them made me feel better, like warming my hands at a distant fire. At last I said my good-byes and hung up, then looked at the phone. I wasn’t happy either, and I knew why. It was because I hadn’t really been telling Luna the truth.

I hadn’t been lying. Waiting for tonight and the next visit to Elsewhere was a good plan, and it made sense to at least give Caldera a chance to see if she could keep her promise, even if deep down I didn’t really believe that the Keepers were going to bail me out. But there was a second reason I was staying away from Luna and Variam and especially Anne, and it was because of a quiet dark voice growing at the back of my mind telling me that there was only one way this was going to end. I wasn’t yet willing to follow that line of thought all the way through, but I knew better than to ignore it.

I stayed in my flat as the sun dwindled in the western sky, haunting the empty building like a ghost. The police didn’t return and neither did the Nightstalkers, and I spent my time digging through the ruins of my bedroom, salvaging what I could. There’s something unpleasant about having your home attacked, a kind of violation. I’ve had my flat invaded by various intruders before, including an assassin construct, two or three different Dark mages, and a particularly unfriendly shapeshifter, but none of them had wrecked the place so badly. Despite the damage I would have liked to sleep in my own flat, but common sense advised against it and once the sun had set I left my shop. I wondered how long it would be before I’d come back again.

* * *

Being able to look into the future gives you a certain amount of protection against being killed in your sleep, but as last night had demonstrated it’s not reliable. The basic problem is free will; once someone’s made their plans to kill you it’s easy to see them coming, but if they don’t decide on the details of their assassination attempt until after you’ve gone to sleep then it gets iffy. Until this was over I wasn’t going to be sleeping in any of the places I’d been attacked in. In fact, I wasn’t going to be following any of my usual routines at all.

This is the reason being hunted sucks so much. If you know who’s chasing you and how, it’s not difficult to throw off pursuers. The problem is doing anything else. I couldn’t run my shop, or live in my flat, or hang out with Luna or Anne or Variam or Sonder, or follow any of my usual patterns, because if I did I could be traced. Most people can get away from hunters in the short term—it’s the long term that trips them up. Even if you’re being hunted, life goes on: you have a job to do, places to go, and a home to live in. All those things make you predictable, and sooner or later someone will use them to find you. I couldn’t keep hiding forever. Right now, though, I just needed somewhere to sleep.

The Royal National Hotel is next to Russell Square, a gigantic concrete-and-brick building that sprawls over an entire city block. It’s the largest hotel in London and feels like a small airport, right down to the people sitting on the carpets in the lounge with luggage piled around them. My mist cloak drew stares but I was too tired to care. The reception staff didn’t even blink; either they were too well trained or they’d seen so many weird guests that nothing fazed them anymore. Probably both.

My room was on the second floor with a view out over the flagpoles of the inner courtyard. I didn’t undress or even empty my pockets; I just dropped on the bed and closed my eyes. I was asleep inside two minutes.

chapter 10

The plaza was filled with white light, doves pecking on the stones and roosting in the branches of the line of trees in the distance. I was sitting on the same bench, looking up at the glowing sky, and in the distance I could hear the rustle of wind. “You know,” I said, “each time I go back to Elsewhere it feels like I get here faster.”

“You do,” Shireen said from next to me. She was sitting on the bench; I didn’t know if she’d been there before I spoke, but I’d known she’d be there after.

“What’s changed?”

“Finding your way in Elsewhere is just like anything else,” Shireen said. “The more you do it, the easier it gets. Are you ready to go back?”

“One thing,” I said. “I’m seeing Rachel’s memories when I do this, aren’t I? What’s it like for her? Can she feel anything?”

“Maybe,” Shireen said. “I think to her it just feels like another dream.”

“Could she tell the difference? Find me while I’m there?”

Shireen hesitated. “I’m not sure.”

“You’re not very good at being reassuring, you know that?”

“Sorry.”

I wanted to ask more, but I knew this would only get harder the longer I waited. “All right,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

Shireen nodded and extended her hand. I took it, feeling the touch of her skin—

* * *

Iwas back in the girls’ room in Richard’s mansion, but something was different. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, but somehow I knew that this memory was from the end of my time in Richard’s mansion, after I’d tried to rescue Catherine but before I’d escaped.

The mission to America had changed things for the four of us. In our first year we’d competed, but there had always been a vague sense that even if we might not like each other we were still on the same team. After the fight in the canyon things were different. Tobruk had always been dangerous, but killing Matthew had made him worse; it was as if there wasn’t anything holding him back anymore. Shireen was on edge, angrier. I hadn’t realised it at the time, but the same things that had gotten to me must have been bothering her too. Only Rachel had stayed the same. Right now she was sitting on the bed with her back against the wall, reading. It was daytime and light was streaming in through the open windows.

Shireen was in an armchair, her elbow on one of the armrests and her head propped up on her hand. She was studying an old clothbound book and frowning, and as I watched the frown kept getting deeper. “This is really messed up,” she said at last.

Rachel didn’t answer. “Rach?” Shireen said. “Have you read this?”

“Hmm?” Rachel said without looking up.

“Listen to this,” Shireen said. “It’s a study about mages who Harvested someone. Are you listening?”

“Uh-huh.”

“‘Mages in Category A appeared to complete the ritual successfully with no significant side effects. Mages in Category B displayed symptoms of mild psychological consequences. Mages in Category C displayed symptoms of moderate to severe psychological consequences. Mages in Category D were unavailable for study for reasons including: (a) subject location unknown, (b) subject unwilling to participate in study, (c) subject deceased in subsequent altercation before sufficient data could be obtained. It has been suggested that a significant fraction of mages who should have been assigned to Categories B and C may have been incorrectly assigned to Category A due to lack of relevant data . . .’” Shireen looked up. “Rach? Are you listening?”

“Yes.” Rachel looked up. “What?”

“This is important.”

“No, it’s not,” Rachel said. “We’re supposed to be learning how to do this, not what’s happened to other people.”

“Isn’t some of this stuff worrying you?” Shireen said. “‘Psychological consequences’?”

“That’s only if you do it wrong.”

“Look, this is starting to sound really freaky. Pulling someone else’s magic out and taking it for yourself? What does that do to them?”

Rachel shrugged. “I guess they can’t use magic anymore.”

“Then how is it none of these books say anything about what happens to them afterwards?”

“How should I know?” Rachel said in annoyance. “Are you going to help me with this or not?”

Shireen looked at Rachel, frowning. “Why is Richard getting us to learn this stuff?”

“Look,” Rachel said. “What’s the one thing we’ve learnt that mages care about? Power, right? Well, this is a way of getting it. Besides, if we don’t use it, everyone else is going to.”

Shireen frowned again but didn’t argue. Rachel went back to her reading and the two girls sat for a little while in silence. “Rach?” Shireen asked.

“Mm.”

“Have you ever thought about leaving?”

Rachel looked up in surprise. “You mean here?”

“Yeah.”

“Why would we want to?”

“Look, think about it,” Shireen said. “Do we actually like anyone in this mansion?”

Rachel shrugged. “Not really.”

“Then why are we living here?”

“We get training from Richard and we’ve got servants to do whatever we want,” Rachel said. “Anyway, it’s not like you expect to like the people you live with.” Rachel narrowed her eyes slightly. “Is this about Alex?”

“No,” Shireen said.

Rachel looked at her.

“Okay, maybe.”

Rachel shook her head. “I told you not to talk to him.”

“It’s not just Alex, okay?” Shireen said. “I just . . . Look, I don’t feel like this mansion is such a safe place anymore. And Tobruk is seriously starting to freak me out.”

“You’re the one who was screwing him.”

“Was,” Shireen said, glaring at Rachel. “Have you seen what he’s doing to that girl?”

“I told you about him, didn’t I?” Rachel said. “You didn’t listen.”

“Yeah, well, I’m listening now. How about we do something about it?”

“I’m not getting near Tobruk,” Rachel said with a shiver.

“So what?” Shireen said with an edge to her voice. “We sit around while he goes down to visit every night? This is fucked up.”

“Better her than me,” Rachel snapped. “She’s going to die anyway, what difference does it make?”

Shireen drew back, startled. “She’s not . . .”

“Oh, come on,” Rachel said impatiently. “You think Richard’s just going to let her go?”

Shireen looked away, and there was an awkward silence. “Rach, I’m serious,” Shireen said. “I feel like something bad is going to happen.”

“It is, just not to us.” Rachel put the book aside and turned to Shireen. “Look, we need to stick together. Tobruk’s just waiting for us to slip up. If we break Richard’s rules like Alex did, he can get us. But as long as we do what Richard says, Tobruk can’t do anything. Promise me you won’t do anything. I don’t want anything to happen to you too.”

Shireen didn’t meet Rachel’s eyes. “Promise,” Rachel insisted.

“All right,” Shireen said.

“Okay?”

“Okay,” Shireen said. But she still wasn’t looking at Rachel.

Rachel didn’t seem to notice. “Come on,” she said. “It’ll be just like that time with Mrs. Ellis. You remember that?”

Shireen gave a half-smile. “I was the one who came up with that.”

“I did all the work though. Anyway, it’s not for much longer.”

“What isn’t?”

“This,” Rachel said. “Being Richard’s apprentices.”

Shireen frowned. “How do you know?”

Rachel glanced at the door, then leant closer to Shireen, lowering her voice. “I don’t think Richard’s going to be around much longer.”

“Why not?”

“Last week, when I went into his study,” Rachel said, “he left some papers out on the desk, and there was a letter. I couldn’t see who he was sending it to but it was Richard’s writing and he was saying something about not being back in England for years. Maybe more.”

“But where’s he going?”

“Who cares?” Rachel said impatiently. “Don’t you see, this is why he picked us. Remember how everyone keeps saying how he’s never taken any apprentices before? This is why he did it now. He wants someone to leave in charge while he’s gone.”

“And that’d be us?”

“Why not? We’ve earned it. Once we’re Richard’s Chosen, this place is going to be ours. The other mages are going to have to respect us. We’ll be the ones in charge, not Richard.”

“And once he gets back?” Shireen said.

“It won’t matter.”

“I don’t know, Rach. I’m not sure we’re doing the right thing anymore.”

“We can’t back out now,” Rachel said. “Come on, just a little longer. Then it’s all going to be ours.”

Shireen looked back at Rachel and gave a halfhearted smile. The scene blurred and shifted, and—

* * *

Iwas in Richard’s study, thick carpet covering the floor and shelves lining the walls. The room was shadowed, the only light a low fire burning in the fireplace. Three people were inside, one behind the desk and two in front of it.

The first was Rachel, and she looked different from how I remembered her. For all the nine months I’d been imprisoned Rachel had avoided me, and I’d barely seen her. Now that I got a good look at her I was surprised at how drawn and harried she looked, as if she’d been on edge for far too long.

Next to Rachel was Tobruk, and unlike her he looked exactly as I remembered him, steady and confident. Becoming a Dark apprentice hadn’t changed Tobruk; it had just brought out what was already there. He stood with his arms folded, ignoring Rachel, all his attention on the man behind the desk.

That man was Richard, and even in the dream, seeing him again made me flinch. There was nothing intimidating about his appearance; he was average height with an average build, and looked completely ordinary in every way. He could blend right into a crowd without ever being noticed, at least until you heard him speak. But just seeing him terrified me and I was suddenly sure that dream or no dream, he knew I was there. If he’d turned to look at me I think I would have run.

But he didn’t; instead, he was speaking to Tobruk and Rachel. Even in the memory Richard’s voice was captivating, deep and commanding and utterly assured. No matter what he said, he always sounded natural and reasonable, and anyone who disagreed with him foolish and out of their depth. Arguing with Richard felt like swimming against the tide: no matter what you did you would be carried away, not because the water bore you any malice but because it was so much vaster and stronger. “. . . that we discussed,” he was saying. “Have they been resolved?”

“I found Bennet,” Tobruk said. He sounded confident. “He’s not going to give us any trouble.”

“I set up the wreaths,” Rachel said at the same time. Neither she nor Tobruk were looking at each other; both were acting as though the other wasn’t even in the room. “They’ll be ready.”

“Excellent,” Richard said. “I believe you are ready for your final tasks.”

Rachel and Tobruk did look at each other then: a quick glance with no friendship in it. “I have been strict these past weeks,” Richard said. “Our schedule has been tight and there have been threats you have not been aware of. Despite this, both of you have fulfilled your roles admirably and without complaint. It is time you learnt what you have been working towards.”

Richard looked towards the two apprentices expectantly, as if waiting for questions. I’d thought it would be Tobruk who’d speak first, but to my surprise Rachel beat him to it. “It’s to do with gate magic, isn’t it?”

Richard inclined his head. “Go on.”

“That book you had us read,” Rachel said. She was frowning, looking thoughtful. “It said that gate magic used to be able to do more. That the old gate spells couldn’t just move us between places on Earth, they could move between worlds.”

“Which is done today, after a fashion,” Richard said. “Modern gate magic can be used to access shadow and bubble realms—but both are very limited things. What if it were possible to open a gate not just to a small pocket reality, but to an entirely new world?”

“Can you do that?”

Richard raised his eyebrows. “What do you think?”

“I . . . guess,” Rachel said slowly. “I mean, gates just work on a similarity, it doesn’t matter how far apart they are . . .” She shook her head. “But wait. You need to know where you’re going.”

“Unless you have a gate stone.”

“Oh yeah.” Rachel frowned again. “Those work even if you don’t know where you’re going.”

“Because gate stones share a sympathetic link with the location they are keyed to.”

Tobruk was starting to look restless. “Who cares about this?”

“Soon I will be departing this reality through a worldgate,” Richard said. “When I do, your time as my apprentices will be at an end.”

The room was silent but for the crackle of the fire. Both Tobruk and Rachel were visibly taken aback; whatever they’d been expecting, it hadn’t been this. “You needn’t be surprised,” Richard said. “Your studies have progressed far. Both of you are strong enough now to stand without my protection.”

Rachel and Tobruk stood staring at Richard. “What are we supposed to do?” Rachel said at last, and for the first time she sounded unsure.

“Whatever you like,” Richard said with a smile. “Isn’t that the point?”

“Who gets to be your Chosen?” Tobruk said.

Richard nodded, as if he’d been expecting the question. “I will need someone to watch over this mansion while I am away and to be ready for my return. Should either of you become my Chosen, this will be your responsibility, along with managing the rest of my property and affairs. It is of course a voluntary position.”

Both Tobruk and Rachel waited, and there was a tension in the air. “Who—?” Rachel began.

“Come now,” Richard said, and he sounded almost kindly. “Did you really think that was how it was going to work? I’d pick one of you and dismiss the others? Once I am gone, I will have no further influence over this world for a significant time. To pretend I could simply appoint someone would be sheer hypocrisy. The only qualification that matters for the position of my Chosen is the strength to keep it. That is how it works—how it has always worked. The position cannot be given, only taken. If you are unable to hold it, it was never truly yours.”

Rachel started to turn to Tobruk, then stopped. Tobruk looked . . . pleased, and there was a kind of anticipation in his face that sent a chill down my spine: I remembered that look.

“There is, however, a more immediate issue,” Richard said. “It seems our last deception has thrown most of the Light mages off the trail, but not Lesandra. She wants the secrets of the worldgate, and she will be coming for it. Soon.”

“Here?” Rachel asked.

“Lesandra may be overconfident, but only to a point,” Richard said. “I do not expect her to assault me within my own mansion. However, while I am dealing with her, the two of you must watch Catherine Traviss.”

Tobruk frowned. “Why her?”

“Did you ever wonder why I sent you to America to bring her here?”

Tobruk shrugged.

“The Traviss family share some unique traits,” Richard said. “At some point in the past, one of their ancestors acquired an unusual type of interdimensional connection. It has manifested throughout the family line as an affinity for time and space magic but has the potential for much more. Her parents unfortunately proved unsuitable, but she has the ideal combination of attributes. Just as a gate stone can be used as a focus to travel to another location, she can be used as a key to travel to another world. Her nature will provide the link, her life energy the fuel.” Richard glanced between Rachel and Tobruk. “She is the key to this ritual. Without her, we have nothing. It is absolutely essential that she be kept under guard. On a more positive note, it appears that Lesandra has kept her findings a secret from the rest of the Council. I do not anticipate any other Light mages but her to become involved. Regardless, there are time factors outside her control and she will be forced to confront me within twenty-four hours. Until then, Catherine Traviss is your responsibility.”

“Lesandra had some apprentices, right?” Tobruk said. “Why don’t we take them out?”

“Securing Traviss is more important,” Richard said. “I will deal with Lesandra.”

“What about Shireen?” Rachel said.

“The same applies to her, of course,” Richard said. “Please pass on the message when you see her.”

Rachel hesitated. “And Alex?” Tobruk said with a glint in his eye.

“Your dealings with Alex are and have always been your own concern,” Richard said. “Until your time as my apprentices ends, all four of you are still candidates for the position of Chosen. However, let me make one thing very clear.” Richard looked from Rachel to Tobruk. “Your priority is to guard Catherine Traviss. Should your personal issues with Alex come in the way of that, I expect you to put them aside. Your dealings with each other are your own affair; your dealings with my property are not. Is that understood?”

“Yes,” Rachel said after a moment. Tobruk didn’t answer.

“Excellent.” Richard rose to his feet. “I will be out of contact for some time. The two of you are in charge of the mansion until I return.” He walked out of the room without looking back. Tobruk and Rachel were left alone in the study.

There was a long silence. At last Rachel stirred and turned to face Tobruk. “So who’s on first?”

“Huh?”

“We’re on guard duty, right?” Rachel didn’t try to hide the dislike in her voice. “You going first or second?”

Tobruk laughed. “Yeah, that’s not how this is going to work.”

Rachel frowned. “Richard said—”

“Richard said, Richard said,” Tobruk mimicked. “You’re going to stay here and be a good girl. I’m going to find Alex.”

“Shireen’s—”

“Shireen’s lost it.”

“I don’t have to do what you tell me.”

Tobruk had started to turn away, but as Rachel said that he stopped and looked at her. “What did you say?” His voice was suddenly soft and dangerous.

Rachel flinched but stood her ground. “I’m not—”

Tobruk moved very fast. All of a sudden Rachel was pressed back against the mantelpiece, eyes wide, with Tobruk looming over her. Rachel’s hand came up, light starting to glow around it, and Tobruk caught her wrist. “I fucking hate little rich girls like you,” Tobruk breathed into Rachel’s face. “You think you’re better than me? Well, guess what? Richard’s not going to be around to protect you anymore. And the second—the second—he’s out that door, you’d better be too. Because if you even think of staying . . .”

Rachel struggled, trying to break free, but Tobruk held her effortlessly with one hand, reaching in with the other. Then Rachel summoned her magic, a shield of water pressure flashing out from around her in the same instant that Tobruk called up his dark flame. Fire met water in a flash and a roar, and the room vanished in a cloud of steam.

The mist cleared in only seconds. Tobruk was standing in the middle of the room, shrouded in shadow, black flames licking at his arms and legs. Rachel was on the floor in the corner; her eyes were wide and I could feel the fear seeping from her. “You stupid bitch,” Tobruk said contemptuously. “You’re nothing. You hear me?” He took something from his pocket and held it out; it was black and crystalline, and it gleamed in the firelight. “Know what this is?”

Rachel stared back at him, frozen. “Harvesting crystal,” Tobruk said. “I’m going to find Alex and I’m going to Harvest him so I have his power too. You?” He grinned suddenly; it was wide and genuine and quite terrifying. “You I’ll keep around. I’m going to need a new slut when Richard knocks off the last one.”

“You can’t do that,” Rachel said, her voice high. “Richard won’t let you.”

“Richard doesn’t give a fuck,” Tobruk said. “I can do whatever I want to you. Richard told you all what it meant to be a Dark mage. None of you listened. I’m going to be Richard’s Chosen and if you ever talk back to me again”—Tobruk’s grin faded—“I’m going to fuck you up so bad you’ll be begging me to stop. You know what I did to Catherine? That was just fun. You . . .” Tobruk waved a finger. “You, it’s personal.” He looked at Rachel for a moment longer, his eyes burning into her, and then, like a mask snapping back, his grin returned. “Don’t go anywhere!” Tobruk turned and walked out.

Rachel was left alone in the room, staring after Tobruk. As the door swung closed behind him she curled up and hugged herself, shivering. She stayed like that for a long time before slowly picking herself up and starting towards the door.

* * *

The shift was faster this time, only a flicker, and when it steadied I was standing in a long, dimly lit stone room, with an archway at either end leading into darkness. Murals were carved into the stone: scenes of battles and quests, mages and their servants fighting strange and inhuman creatures, with lettering in odd runic script. To the side was something that looked like an altar, and four statues of armoured men stood in the corners, each carrying tall spears and wide round shields. I remembered this place; it had been the entryway to the lower basements. Rachel had once asked Richard what the murals meant and he’d told her it had been built by the mansion’s creators. We’d taken to calling it the chapel, but we’d avoided spending any time there. There was something eerie about the place, and the longer you stayed the more uncomfortable you got. The archway at one end led up to the ground floor, where I’d set off the trap to summon the nocturne. The archway on the other side led to the deeper basements and to the cells.

Rachel was sitting in the middle of the room. She was wearing the same clothes she’d had on for the confrontation with Tobruk and she was still shivering; the stone was unheated and cold. Apart from her the room was empty, and as I looked at her I felt an unexpected flash of pity. She looked lost and alone.

Footsteps echoed from the stairs, and Rachel was on her feet in an instant. Blue light flashed up around her hands as she summoned her shield and faced the archway, back slightly hunched. There was a flicker in the darkness, the glow of a fire spell. I saw Rachel’s muscles go tense and knew she was ready to fight or flee.

Then Shireen walked in, her spell winking out as she came into the dim light of the chapel, and the tension went out of Rachel in a slump. “It’s you,” she said, and closed her eyes, her shield vanishing. “Thank God.”

“Hi, Rach,” Shireen said. She sounded tired and her clothes were rumpled and worn, but there was something different about her; she looked alert, more focused, as if she’d finally made a decision. Something about it looked familiar, and as I watched her my memory clicked; this was after I’d met her at the old flats, when we’d spoken for the last time. I’d been readying myself to face Tobruk. Shireen had gone back to the mansion. Now at last I was seeing what had happened after.

“Where have you been?” Rachel said, hurrying towards her. “There’s been so much happening, Richard and Tobruk and . . . Where were you?”

“I’m sorry,” Shireen said. “I had some things to think about.” She paused. “I found Alex.”

Rachel had been about to say something else but stopped. “You did?”

Shireen nodded.

“What did you do?”

“We talked.” Shireen looked away. “About a lot of things.”

“Why didn’t you bring him back? We could have—” Rachel shook her head. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter anymore. Listen. Richard’s going away. I don’t know where, some kind of other world, but he’s going to be gone soon. Really soon. And he’s going to pick his Chosen. It’s just like we guessed, he wants someone to take over after he’s gone, but he’s not going to pick anyone, he’s going to leave it all to us. And Tobruk . . . Tobruk’s gone crazy. You didn’t meet him, did you? No, you would have said.”

“Rach,” Shireen said.

“We have to do something. I’m serious, he’s finally gone off the deep end. I was talking to him and . . .” Rachel shivered. “It’s just the two of us now. Richard’s not going to step in anymore. We can get rid of Tobruk, but—”

“Rach,” Shireen said.

Rachel paused. “What?”

“I’m not going to be Richard’s Chosen.”

Rachel looked at Shireen in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not doing it anymore,” Shireen said. “I’m not staying on as Richard’s apprentice. I’m not living in this mansion and I’m not watching anyone else get killed. I’m out.”

There was a long silence. Rachel stared at Shireen. “Why?” she said at last.

Shireen nodded towards the archway behind Rachel. “Who’s in the dungeons right now?”

“Just that girl.”

“Her name’s Catherine,” Shireen said, and her eyes didn’t leave Rachel’s. “What’s going to happen to her when Richard leaves?”

Rachel looked away.

“Come on, Rach.”

“The ritual needs her as a component,” Rachel said defensively. “It might not kill her.”

“Oh, come on,” Shireen said wearily. “‘She’s just going to die anyway’—remember? You said it, not me. Well, you were right. It took me a long time to figure that out, but you knew all along.”

“Fine,” Rachel said. “So what?”

“You wanted to know why?” Shireen said. “That’s why. I’m sick of this, Rach. I’m sick of getting sent on these missions and I’m sick of knowing that people are getting raped and tortured in the same building where I’m sleeping at night! And now I get sent out to bring Alex back so they can do it all over again?” Shireen shook her head. “Not anymore. I’m done.”

“Richard never told you to go after Alex.”

“No,” Shireen said. “But it was pretty obvious whose side we were supposed to be on, wasn’t it? We should never have signed up with him.”

“You were the one who wanted to sign up with him! This was your idea! You talked me into it!”

“And I was wrong!” Shireen shouted. “Okay? I was wrong to sign up with Richard, you were wrong to go along with it, Alex was wrong to join up after us, and Tobruk was—” Shireen paused, then shrugged. “Actually, come to think of it, this place fits Tobruk just fine. Guess he really did know what he was doing.”

“But why now?” Rachel said. “It’s— We’re nearly finished. It’s been two years and it’s almost over. Richard’s about to go away.” Her voice was pleading. “It’s only a week or two then it’ll all be done. It’s—it’s like you want to quit school just before the final exam. It’s just a little longer.”

Shireen looked back at Rachel steadily. “Rach,” she said. “The final exam is going to kill the girl in the cell behind you.”

“Can’t you just stay?” Rachel said. “You don’t have to do anything. We can be Richard’s Chosen. Once he’s gone we can do whatever we like.”

“There’s no ‘we.’ There never was.”

“What?”

“Think about it,” Shireen said. “How many Dark mages have we seen? Hundreds, right? How many of them had more than one Chosen?”

Rachel looked taken aback. “I don’t know.”

“Think. Think hard.”

“I don’t know. Some of them.”

“Like who?”

“That guy in Edinburgh. And there was that Traysia woman.”

“Okay, that’s two out of how many?” Shireen asked. “Two hundred? More? Now think about it. Did Richard ever say he wanted more than one Chosen? Did he say there was room for more than one of us? Or did we just assume that was what he must have meant?”

Rachel frowned. “What are you saying?”

“Ever since we’ve been here, what’s the one thing Richard’s kept telling us Dark mages are supposed to have?” Shireen said. “Strength. The strong rule, the weak serve. Can you really see anyone who believes that sharing?”

“We’ve been working together,” Rachel protested. “I know there’s been trouble, but we’re supposed to be on the same side.”

“Uh-huh,” Shireen said. “And that’s why Tobruk went psycho? More psycho than usual, anyway. Tell me something. Did Richard say anything before Tobruk went off the deep end? Like about his protection getting taken away?”

Rachel hesitated.

“This is how it was always going to end up, Rach,” Shireen said. “Richard doesn’t want four Chosen. He wants one Chosen. But he’s not going to pick for us. He wants us to fight it out until just one of us is left, because that’s the Dark way. The meanest and strongest and smartest one gets to be top of the heap. And you know what? We’ve been helping him do it.” Shireen shook her head. “Not anymore. You want me to stay? I’ve got a better idea. We leave.”

Rachel looked confused. “Leave?”

“Leave. Both of us, tonight.” Shireen tried to take Rachel’s hands but Rachel pulled back. “Out of this mansion. No more missions, no more deaths, no more prisoners. We don’t need Richard or Tobruk or any of them. It’ll be just you and me again.”

“And we leave all this to Tobruk?” Rachel demanded. “Just let him be Chosen?”

“Who cares who’s Chosen? It’s just a name! We don’t need anything Richard can give us.”

“And where would we go?”

“Anywhere! Some other mage, some other place, I don’t care. Anywhere but here.”

Rachel stared at Shireen for a second. “You really don’t get it, do you?”

Shireen frowned. “What?”

“How did you find Alex?” Rachel asked. “How’s Tobruk going to find Alex?”

“You know how,” Shireen said. “Tracers.”

“And?”

“And we asked the mages he’d spoken to—”

“And they told you where he’d gone.”

“Yeah . . .”

“So they helped you and not him,” Rachel said. “If we run away, that’s going to be us! The only thing keeping every other Dark mage from selling us out is Richard. As long as we’re with him, we’re safe. But as soon as we leave, that’s it! You think anyone cares about a Dark runaway? You think we haven’t made enough enemies? Everyone who hates us, everyone who wants us, they’re all going to be chasing us down!”

“So what’s your plan?” Shireen demanded. “Stay here and hope for the best?”

“Yes! It’s just a week! Why can’t you wait that long?”

“Because it’ll mean that Catherine dies.”

“So what?”

Shireen drew back a little, startled. Rachel was glaring at her. “Have you talked to them?” Shireen asked.

“Who?”

“Catherine,” Shireen said. “Alex. Everyone who’s passed through those cells. Have you ever looked at them and talked to them?”

“Why does that matter?”

“You haven’t, have you?”

“So?” Rachel snapped. “What, you think talking to them means you’ve learnt something special?”

“YES!” Shireen shouted. “When you actually meet someone who’s going to die because of what you’ve done, when you look into their eyes and listen to their voice, it makes you think about what you’re doing! And that’s why you haven’t done it! Deep down you know what you’re doing is fucked up, but as long as you don’t talk to her you can pretend it’s not real. But it is, and if you keep doing this you’ll be murdering her the same way Tobruk murdered her boyfriend.”

Rachel flinched but didn’t look away. “Why are you doing this?” She sounded hurt, betrayed. “I thought I could trust you.”

“You can trust me,” Shireen said. “But as long as we’re in this mansion we’re always going to belong to Richard.” She glanced around. “Where is he?”

“He’s gone after Lesandra,” Rachel said unwillingly. “But he’ll be . . .”

“Whatever,” Shireen said. “I’m not sticking around to see who wins.” She started walking towards the far end of the chapel.

“Wait! What are you doing?”

“What I should have done a long time ago. I’m getting out and I’m breaking Catherine out too.”

Rachel’s eyes went wide. “Are you crazy?” She ran around, blocking Shireen. “You can’t!”

“Can you think of a better time?” Shireen demanded. “Richard’s busy with Lesandra. We’re not going to get a better chance than this. We’ll be out of the country by the time he even figures out she’s gone.”

“He’ll come after us!”

“When’s he ever done anything like that himself?” Shireen asked. “Even when Alex tried to break Catherine out he didn’t lift a finger. He just let Tobruk handle it all for him.”

Rachel stared at Shireen for a long moment, then shook her head. “Wow. You really don’t understand him at all, do you?”

“What?”

“Richard’s let us do whatever we like because we’ve never threatened anything he really cares about,” Rachel said. “He doesn’t care if we mess up the mansion or fight each other. But he cares about this. I don’t know where he’s going or what he’s going to do once he gets there, but it’s really, really important to him. If he loses that girl you think he’s going to say, ‘Oh well, too bad, let’s go home’? He’s going to come after her with everything he’s got.”

“So we go to someone who’ll help.”

“No one’s going to help! They didn’t help Alex and they won’t help us!”

“Maybe they won’t,” Shireen said quietly. “But at least we’ll be doing something decent for once.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Rach, think about it,” Shireen said. “Remember how we always talked about how we’d be the heroes? How we’d change the world? Look at what you’re doing right now. We’re not the heroes. We’re the bad guys.”

“No, we’re not.”

“You’re keeping a girl in prison so Tobruk can use her for his fucked-up games until Richard gets around to sacrificing her for a ritual,” Shireen said. “Wake up, Rach! What does that sound like to you?”

“Everyone always tells us what we’re supposed to do,” Rachel snapped. “Maybe we’re allowed to be selfish for once.”

“We’ve never not been selfish! When have we ever used our magic for anyone else?”

“Well, why should we? What’s wrong with using it for what we want?”

“We said we were going to help girls with magic, remember?”

“Yes!” Rachel shouted. “Girls like us! The two of us! Not someone else!”

Shireen drew back in shock, staring at Rachel. “Everyone tries to use us,” Rachel said. “We always have to be afraid of people like Tobruk and I’m sick of it. I want to be the one everyone else is afraid of. I want to be Richard’s Chosen and own this mansion and have people be scared of me.”

“Rach, listen to yourself,” Shireen said in disbelief. “This isn’t you. Richard’s made you like this. If you just—”

“How would you know what’s really me?” Rachel snapped. “You decide stuff and you expect me to do it too. You never ask me what I want.”

Shireen looked taken aback. “I thought—”

“You always talk the most, you act like you’re in charge, you get all the attention.” Rachel looked like she couldn’t stop if she wanted to; all the years of frustration were pouring out. “Your magic’s stronger, you get everything first, it’s you, you, you, but the one thing I could count on was that you were always on my side. Now for once I want something and you don’t care! It’s still all about you. You change your mind and you just expect me to follow you. Well, I’m not doing it! Not this time! I want this and for once this is going to be about what I want!”

Shireen was staring at Rachel. “You always felt like that?” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you never asked!” Rachel shouted. “You just assumed I was going to do whatever you decided! I followed you to sign up with Richard but I’m not following you now.”

“How many times are you going to throw that at me?” Shireen shouted. “I know I was the one who talked you into coming here. I know it was a mistake. Now’s our chance to fix it.”

Rachel opened her mouth to give another angry reply, then something seemed to break. All of a sudden she just looked tired and miserable. “It’s too late.” Rachel sounded desperately unhappy, and just for an instant I wondered if this had been how she’d always felt. “Everything we’ve done . . . Who’s going to want an ex–Dark apprentice? We have to stick it through. It’s the only way we’re going to be safe.”

“We’re never going to be safe, Rach,” Shireen said gently. Her anger was gone too; she only looked sad. “And that’s our fault. I know you want me to stay and help you with Tobruk. But after Tobruk there’d be someone else and someone else. As long as we live as Dark mages there’ll always be another Tobruk. The only way to get away from them is to leave.”

Rachel hesitated, and for the first time I had the feeling she was really wavering. Shireen put her hands on Rachel’s shoulders, and this time Rachel didn’t push her away. “Listen to me,” Shireen said, looking straight into Rachel’s eyes. “We might have made bad choices, but we don’t have to keep making them. We can turn back, if we admit we were wrong and start fixing our mistakes. I can’t undo what we’ve done but I can help Catherine right now. And that’s what I’m going to do.” Shireen moved Rachel to the side and started walking towards the archway leading to the cells.

Rachel stared after her for a second, then fright leapt into her eyes. “No! Don’t!”

“It’s the only way, Rach.”

“You can’t do this!” Rachel’s voice rose, broke. “He’ll kill me! You’re supposed to be on my side!”

Shireen didn’t stop or turn; she was passing the altar. “Stop!” Rachel shouted. Her hand began to lift, blue-green light flickering around it. Shireen didn’t react. “Stop!” Shireen kept walking. “Stop!” And a thin blue-green ray flashed from Rachel’s hand, striking Shireen’s lower back and passing through into the archway beyond.

Shireen stumbled and stopped. She turned and looked at Rachel in complete surprise, then her legs gave out from underneath her and she crumpled to the stone.

Rachel stood frozen, her hand still raised. “I didn’t—” she began. “I didn’t mean to—”

Shireen stared at Rachel for a long moment, then a kind of realisation crept into her eyes and she leant her head back against the stone. “Oh,” she said quietly.

“Oh God, you’re bleeding.” Rachel looked around wildly. “Just stay there. I’ll get you something, I’ll—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Shireen said softly. She took a breath. “I guess . . . you get what you want after all.” Her eyes drifted closed.

“Shireen?” Rachel rushed to her side, then fell to her knees. “Wake up! Shireen! Shireen!”

chapter 11

When Richard walked in through the archway, Rachel was kneeling next to Shireen. Blood was pooled on the floor and smeared over Rachel’s arms and clothes; she’d taken off her top and wrapped it around Shireen’s middle. Rachel looked up at Richard with haunted eyes and he stopped and took in the scene. “Well,” he said at last. “It seems I’ve missed a few things.”

“Please . . .” Rachel’s voice was shaky. “I can’t stop the bleeding. She won’t . . .”

“Yes, yes. Let me have a look at her.” Richard walked forward and crouched by Shireen’s body. His suit was crumpled and covered in dust but his eyes were bright and his movements full of energy. He looked like he’d just come through a desperate battle and won. “Hmm, nasty wound. Disintegration?”

Rachel didn’t answer. “Well, it shouldn’t be much trouble,” Richard said, standing and dusting himself off. “There’s internal bleeding, but that’s easy enough to stop.”

Rachel stared at him. “You’re going to help her? But she—” She stopped.

“Tried to break into the cells. I know.”

“She won’t— I didn’t—”

Richard raised a hand. “Please don’t apologise, Rachel. Your show of loyalty is admirable. I appreciate how difficult this must have been for you.”

Rachel looked down at the floor. “So given the course of events, I think we can safely assume that Shireen has resigned her position,” Richard said. “Normally I would leave her to her fate, but I think in this case the decision should be yours. If you’d prefer her to be treated I will of course respect your wishes.” He paused. “Assuming that’s what you want.”

Rachel’s head came up. “What?”

“Your aim was quite precise,” Richard said in a conversational tone. “Exactly enough damage to incapacitate Shireen, but not enough to kill her. Some would call it accident. Personally, I believe you have more skill than that.” Richard reached into his pocket. “I could heal her, of course. But perhaps you’d prefer the use of this.” He opened his hand and I caught my breath. On Richard’s palm was a black crystal, a twin to the one Tobruk had shown Rachel.

Rachel stared at the crystal, a sort of dawning horror creeping across her face, then she shook her head violently. “No.”

“Are you sure?” Richard asked. “On some level, wasn’t this what you were considering? Why else would you have used the spell you did?”

“No.” Rachel kept shaking her head. “I can’t.”

Richard watched her for a moment, tilting his head, then closed his hand back over the crystal, hiding it from view. “As you wish,” he said, beginning to walk away. “I’ve never attempted to force you into anything, Rachel. Remember that. Threats and bullying may suffice for lesser men but a true mage must be willing and aware. I can offer suggestions, but the final decision is always yours. So it was for Alex and Shireen; so it is for you.”

Something was happening near the altar: the shadows seemed to be deepening, growing. Richard was walking in a slow circuit about the room, passing the ancient murals, while Rachel sat frozen, staring. “Perhaps we should consider the options,” Richard said. “I always find it helpful to talk these things through. We could stabilise Shireen, take her to Maria or some other life mage to have her healed. Of course, I doubt reviving Shireen would persuade her to respect your earlier decision. I suspect she would simply try to retrieve the Traviss girl again once she was recovered and, if she again chose a time when I was otherwise occupied, she might actually succeed.” Richard glanced back at Rachel. “If she did, I would hunt her down and kill her, along with any accomplices. My tolerance goes only so far.”

The darkness around the altar was taking shape. In the shadows I could make out something tall and thin, but neither Richard nor Rachel seemed to notice. “Of course, this leaves Tobruk out of the equation,” Richard said. “I believe his intention was to use his own crystal upon Alex. Should he succeed—and he seems quite confident that he will—then when he returns he will have Alex’s power in addition to his own. I imagine his first action will be to go looking for you and Shireen to settle some old scores. And given Shireen’s condition, it’s hard to imagine her offering much assistance.”

“You’re just going to let him?” Rachel said. She looked shocked. “You said—”

“Rachel,” Richard said, and his voice was almost gentle. “I appreciate the loyalty you have demonstrated. But I cannot be here to protect you forever. Sooner or later you must learn to stand alone. And to do so you’ll need strength of your own.”

“Shireen could help me.” Rachel’s voice was pleading. “We could do it together.”

“In terms of raw magical ability, perhaps,” Richard said. “But do you think she would want to? After tonight, when she looks at you, what do you think she’ll see?”

Rachel hesitated. “You’ve depended on Shireen too much, Rachel,” Richard said. “It’s weakened you. You could be so much more, but your reliance on her is holding you back. Now, you could heal Shireen. She might forgive you—or pretend to.” Richard turned to face Rachel, holding her with his gaze. “And it will all be back to how it used to be. You’ll be back in Shireen’s shadow, less noticed, less powerful, less appreciated, always second place in everything you do because no matter how hard you try there is someone at your side who can do it more easily. And perhaps she’ll let you have your way from time to time, but in the end she’ll always be more important than you are because that’s simply the way things are.” Richard began to walk towards Rachel, while she stared at him as though hypnotised. “Or you could take Shireen’s power for yourself. She’ll live on, in a way. But then . . . ah, things will be different. Instead of being the weaker one, you’ll be the stronger. Strong enough to stand on your own. You won’t have to be afraid of other mages—they will be the ones who fear you. You’ll be powerful enough to defeat Tobruk and anyone else who tries to take this mansion from you.” Richard stopped in front of Rachel, looking down at her. “This is your choice, Rachel. Everything you have done since becoming my apprentice has led you to this. Go back to your old life, the way it used to be—if you can. Or take what you want, and your place as my Chosen. The decision is yours.”

Richard held out his hand to Rachel, the black crystal in his palm. Rachel stared at it, frozen. Behind them, the shadow thing had taken form; the darkness around it made it hard to see but I could make out a shape that was humanoid yet distorted, unnaturally thin and stretched. As I watched the darkness started to drift towards Shireen’s body, and towards Rachel and Richard. I backed away.

Slowly, Rachel took the crystal from Richard’s hand. Richard took a step back and stood watching, hands behind his back. The darkness seeping from the altar reached his feet but shied away from touching him, flowing around him like water towards Rachel and Shireen. Rachel stared down at Shireen; she was pale from blood loss and quite still. Lying on the stone floor, she looked very small.

Then Rachel closed her fingers over the crystal and started the ritual.

I’ve never seen a Harvesting ritual, not in the flesh. In mage society it’s kind of the equivalent of murder; a lot of people talk about it, but not many have witnessed one. I don’t know how to perform it, and I don’t want to. Rachel was speaking lines in another language, the sounds harsh and guttural, and as she did the darkness seeping from the altar began to swirl around her. The shadow thing was there too and it was behind her now, leaning over her and Shireen, and for one fleeting moment I wondered whether it hadn’t really been there and this was all some trick of Elsewhere, or whether it had been there all along and it was because of Elsewhere that I was able to see it. The shadows around Rachel began to swirl faster, becoming a vortex, and her voice rose to a chant. I had one fleeting glimpse of her as she stood there, and there was something terrible in her face, desire and fear and horror all mingled together. As Rachel cried out the last words there was a thundering crack and Shireen’s back arched, her body spasming as something flickered from Shireen and into Rachel, too fast to see. And as it did the shadow thing behind Rachel plunged its hands and head down into her back, slipping inside her. Rachel threw back her head and screamed, and everything went black.

When the lights returned the shadows were gone. There was no trace of the seeping darkness or the nameless thing looming over Rachel. The room was empty except for Richard, Rachel, and Shireen. Shireen was lying with her head to one side, and somehow as I looked at her I knew she was gone.

Rachel was lying next to her, looking groggy. She opened her eyes to see Shireen’s body and jerked, scrabbling back on the stone.

“You are my apprentice no longer,” Richard said. He hadn’t moved throughout the ritual and still stood with his hands clasped behind his back. “What is your name?”

Rachel stared at Shireen’s body for a moment longer, then looked away. She came to her feet to face Richard, not letting her eyes rest on the body. “Deleo.” Her voice was shaky. “My name’s Deleo.”

I heard a noise from behind me and turned.

Rachel was standing there. Not the younger Rachel but the present one, the one I’d fought with and against last year, the one I’d met last night in the old brewery and who’d screamed at me to get out. She was looking straight at me and she could see me. She raised her hands and in a flash of pure terror I pulled myself away, trying to copy what Shireen had done, desperately trying to get out of Elsewhere because Rachel had seen me and she was coming—

* * *

Icame awake with a gasp, sitting up in the bed, heart hammering. I was in the room in the Royal National Hotel. The lights were off and the only light in the room was the ambient glow from the window looking out onto the courtyard. I should be safe, but my precognition was screaming at me and I could feel the aura of a spell, familiar and very close. I looked right.

Rachel was standing ten feet away, in the doorway to my hotel room. Sea-green light glowed about her and there was a look of death on her face.

I rolled off the bed as a green ray stabbed from Rachel’s hand, striking the bed and disintegrating it into flaring particles. I landed awkwardly, coming to my feet, Rachel shifted her aim, I dodged back the other way, and her second ray hit the window, causing it to disappear in a cloud of dust. Rachel was between me and the door but there was empty air behind me and before I could think about what I was doing I dived through the window as a third ray cut the air above me. There was a flagpole below and I slammed into it, got a grip with my hands just before I would have slid off, let go on the backswing to come down with both feet on a tiny ledge in the wall above the main doors, then bounced to fall the last ten feet to the concrete below. I hit with a jolt and rolled—pain flashed through my shoulder and knee but I could still run and I came to my feet in a dead sprint.

From above I heard a scream of fury and felt another spell; I followed my precognition and dodged right just as a green ray flashed over my shoulder and opened a hemisphere in the concrete ten feet wide with a hollow whuff. A second ray fell short behind me, and a third struck the hotel building as I put the concrete pillars of the main entrance between me and Rachel. She screamed in fury again, the sound fainter now, and I knew she wouldn’t stop coming. I’d seen the madness in Rachel’s eyes; I’d found her deepest, darkest secret and she was going to kill me for it.

I raced out into the main road, bending right. My heart was pounding, every bit of my body surging with adrenaline. A blue van was passing just ahead and I moved without thinking, bounding onto the hood of a parked car, bouncing up onto the roof, and leaping into the air. I hit the roof of the van with a thump and nearly slid off, my precognition giving me just enough warning to drop and cling to the smooth metal as the van accelerated southeast towards Russell Square. I’d been awake for less than thirty seconds.

Twisting my head to look back I could see the facing of the Royal National shrinking behind me. One or two people were staring in my direction but it was the early hours of the morning and the streets were nearly deserted. I couldn’t see Rachel but my precognition was still screaming danger danger danger, and as I looked ahead I felt the surge of another gate spell.

Gate magic isn’t meant to be used in combat. It’s too slow; the minute or so it takes to form a gate is just too long to be practical. You can speed it up, but almost no one does; the chance of something going wrong is so much higher that you’d have to be insane to take the risk.

Trouble was, Rachel was insane. And she didn’t care about risks.

I saw the green flash as Rachel appeared in a second-floor window ahead and to my left. With a flick of her fingers she vapourised the glass and then looked down, her eyes locking on to me as the van carried me towards her. Her hand came up, sea-green light intensifying, and I could feel the spell charging.

The van was going at maybe thirty miles an hour, but I didn’t even stop to think. I jumped off and for one terrifying moment I was free-falling at what felt like fatal speed. The ray hit while I was in midair, and I had a fleeting glimpse of the whole side of the van evaporating into dust, looking like some crazy sort of engineering diagram as the cross-section of the vehicle opened to the night. It slewed sideways and began to crash, and then I hit the road.

It hurt. Rolling, bumping, tumbling, feeling pain in every part of my body before fetching up against a parked car with a final thud. I was half dazed but I knew that I was still in Rachel’s line of sight and I managed to stagger to my feet and start running again just as the front half of the car disintegrated in a dust cloud behind me. A second later I was under an awning and out of Rachel’s vision; there was an alley to the right and before she could get in sight of me again I sprinted down it.

I ran and kept on running. I didn’t even think about turning to fight—it would be like trying to fight a tidal wave. If Rachel got a straight shot at me for even a second, she would snuff my life out like a candle in a storm. But no matter how powerful her disintegration magic was, it still needed a direct line of sight. As long as there was something between us she couldn’t hit me, and as long as I kept running fast enough it would stay that way. I kept turning corners, angling south towards Holborn, cutting across roads and through parks, always feeling Rachel behind me in my future sight. The sounds of the city were muted in the early morning, and the few people I passed turned to stare as I raced by. I hope none of them tried to stop Rachel; I didn’t have time to look and see.

I don’t know how long that chase went on; it felt like hours but was probably only minutes. I could so easily have died that night and in my mind I did, seeing future after future where Rachel’s rays struck me, my world vanishing in a green flash and a moment of terrible agony and darkness. But I survived, and looking back on it now, I think what saved me wasn’t my magic but my legs. Rachel’s water magic is very, very good at destroying things, but one thing it doesn’t give is mobility. She can gate, but trying to gate on top of a sprinting man is like trying to swat a housefly with a hammer. Rachel had to catch me before she could kill me and I could run harder and longer than she could. I kept weaving through the streets, switching directions randomly, always looking ahead.

I finally stopped running somewhere around Covent Garden. A theatre’s back door made a black gap in the wall, and I ducked inside it, my breath coming in ragged gasps. My mist cloak blended with the shadows, hiding my trembling. I was invisible . . . but that hadn’t stopped Rachel so far. I couldn’t see any trace of her in the futures ahead, but that didn’t reassure me; she’d found me in Elsewhere and jumped to me in the flesh. How had that even been possible? I couldn’t see any danger, but I didn’t want to stop. The rules that I’d thought would protect me hadn’t worked and even hiding didn’t feel safe anymore. The only thing I could think to do was to keep moving and I set off into the darkness.

I walked all through the night. I had a destination in mind to begin with but somewhere along the way I got lost and my sleep-fogged brain couldn’t think clearly enough to come up with a new one. I kept moving and searching, looking for danger, finding nothing but afraid to stop and rest. The stars wheeled overhead, the summer constellations dipping below the horizon, and the people I passed in the night became faceless blurs, threats to be avoided.

By the time the sky started to lighten in the east I was too tired to keep going. I was afraid to stop moving and afraid to sleep, but my limbs felt like lead and I was starting to get the weird light-headed feeling that comes with sleep deprivation. Going to Elsewhere doesn’t refresh you in the way that true sleep does; your body rests, but your mind doesn’t. The constant stress was draining my energy reserves and I was reaching my limits.

I didn’t know where in London I was anymore; I had the vague feeling I was south of the river but I’d gotten lost after crossing Waterloo Bridge. I’d passed hotels, but I didn’t want to use them; hotels had people, and people were dangerous. Instead I searched the short-term futures as I walked, looking for somewhere empty.

There was an old building down a narrow back street in the shadow of a red-and-brown tower block. It had been a pub once, but the sign was faded and the windows boarded up. Someone had smashed one of the boards around the back, and I used it to climb in. The ground floor was covered in bottles and plastic bags and old needles and rotting food, and it stank of piss and decay. I found a way up to the second-floor rooms; they were bare planks but at least they didn’t stink as badly. There were signs someone else had used the place—a lice-ridden mattress and some food wrappers—but it was empty now and that was all I cared about. I curled up in a corner and tried to rest.

It took me a long time. Even though I was exhausted, I couldn’t fall asleep; every time I was beginning to drift a noise would jerk me back to wakefulness, searching the future for danger. As long as I stayed awake I could keep watch, but as soon as I fell asleep again I wouldn’t be able to protect myself. Fear isn’t new to me, but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this kind of paranoia. Rachel shouldn’t have been able to find me. I’d been in a random room in a random hotel wearing my mist cloak, and everything I knew told me that I should have been safe. But I hadn’t been, and now I didn’t feel as though I was safe anywhere. The mist cloak felt warm and comfortable around me, softening the bare planks, but I couldn’t stop my mind worrying over what could happen next. The last two times I’d gone to sleep I’d woken up to near-death. I didn’t want to do it again.

But I’m not Anne and I can’t switch off feeling tired. In the end, exhaustion won out.

* * *

Ididn’t sleep well.

I used to have nightmares about my time in Richard’s mansion. Over the last year they’ve been getting better but sometimes they come back, and this was one of those times. I had dreams of being chased, running with leaden limbs but never being able to get away. I knew the people after me wanted revenge for what I’d done and the worst part was that I knew I deserved it. From time to time I’d drift half awake, vaguely aware that I should be watching for something, but I was too tired to remember what.

And then the nightmares passed and I was in a peaceful dream. I was in my shop, minding the counter. Luna was upstairs and there were customers passing through, and for the first time in days I felt safe.

Then I looked to one side and saw Shireen standing there, and suddenly I didn’t feel safe anymore. I threw up my hands. “No! Not again!”

“It’s okay,” Shireen said.

“I’m through with this! You hear me? Variam told me, right at the start. He asked what someone as crazy as Rachel would do if she found me sneaking around in her head. I shouldn’t have tried to spy on Rachel in the first place. It was fucking insane and I nearly died for it. I’m not doing it again, Shireen, you hear me? I’m done!”

Shireen didn’t look upset. She stepped over the rope to the magic items section and picked up a wand, turning it over in her hands. “I was shielding you while you were in her memories,” she said without looking. “I’ve had a lot of time to practice with Elsewhere. I was trying to hide your presence so she wouldn’t see you. Rachel must have become suspicious. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t think you could have warned me about that BEFORE?”

“I know.”

“Jesus.” I looked away. The customers were still in the shop, their conversation a gentle background murmur. Outside was the strange white glow of Elsewhere; at some point we’d left my dreams. I knew that I could go back if I wanted—Shireen couldn’t actually keep me in Elsewhere against my will—but I didn’t. There were things I wanted to know, and this time I knew the right questions to ask. “I know what you are now,” I said. “You told me when we first met, didn’t you? You told me you were a shadow. I didn’t know what you meant, but I should have figured it out from the start. Harvesting steals someone’s magic, but your magic’s part of you, isn’t it? You can’t take one without the other. When Rachel Harvested you, she wasn’t just taking your magic, she was taking you. And you’ve been living inside her head.”

Shireen was silent for a while. “At first I didn’t know what had happened,” she said at last. “I thought I’d died and gone to . . . I don’t know. The next life, maybe. I felt wrong, like there were bits of me missing. And there were new memories. I could remember things I’d done with Rachel, except when I remembered them I was looking at me, from the outside. And then I started to see other things. The present as well as the past. I could see what Rachel saw.” Shireen looked up at me. “And finally I found I could talk to her.”

I stared at Shireen. “She can see you, can’t she?”

Shireen nodded.

I covered my eyes. “Jesus.” I remembered my reunion with Rachel last year. She’d been talking to thin air, speaking to someone who didn’t answer. Now I knew who she’d been talking to. “So all these years she’s had you looking over her shoulder?” I shook my head. “She murdered her best friend and now she’s got her ghost following her around. No wonder she’s crazy . . .”

“It’s . . . worse than that,” Shireen said.

I stared at her. “How?”

“You saw something in Rachel’s memories, didn’t you?” Shireen said. “Something they couldn’t see.”

“That thing . . .” I remembered the spindly, inhuman form and had to hold back a shiver. “It’s real?”

“It’s real.”

“What is it?”

“Do you know what it feels like, being Harvested?” Shireen asked.

I shook my head.

“It feels like your soul’s being ripped away.” Shireen’s eyes were distant. “You can’t move and you can’t scream, but you can feel every bit of it. It takes minutes but it feels like years. I knew what was happening to me, and I knew it was Rachel who was doing it. And I hated her for it. She was my oldest friend and she was killing me, and I wanted her to suffer, hurt her as much as she was hurting me . . .” Shireen fell silent for a moment, staring past me. “There’s a vulnerability to Harvesting. When you open yourself to take in the person whose magic you’re absorbing, you open yourself to . . . other things. I called out, and something came. It passed into Rachel. I don’t know what it is and I don’t think it has a name. I know it doesn’t talk. I don’t think it can do anything to me. But it can do things to her.”

We stood in silence for a little while. “Are you really Shireen?” I said at last. “Or are you some sort of copy?”

“I don’t know,” Shireen said simply, and somehow she sounded very sad. “I can remember my life, but it’s patchy. Like old plaster flaking off a wall. Sometimes Rachel’s memories feel more real than mine. Maybe the real Shireen died and she’s gone away and I’m just an echo. Or maybe I am still Shireen, and I won’t die until Rachel does . . .” She looked up at me. “How would I know?”

I sighed, my anger draining away. “I guess you wouldn’t, would you?” I thought for a minute. “What happened after Rachel killed you?”

“At first Rachel was preparing for Tobruk to come back,” Shireen said. “She wanted to be Richard’s Chosen and she was going to fight him for it, kill him if she had to.”

“But Tobruk never came.”

“And in the end she figured out why. She didn’t believe it at first, but after they found the body even she couldn’t pretend. In a way the two of you were on the same side back then, though she didn’t see it like that . . . And then it was time for Richard to leave. And they brought out Catherine.”

I felt a sick sensation in the pit of my stomach. “Did Richard kill her?”

Shireen shook her head.

“Then is she—?”

“Rachel did,” Shireen said, looking at me steadily. “You remember the room that was being built at the end of the catacombs? That was what it was designed for. Catherine begged and pleaded but Rachel didn’t listen. She did the ritual and it worked just like Richard said. It drained the life from Catherine’s body and opened a gate, just for a few seconds. Richard went through it. The last thing he told her was to watch for his return.”

I stared down at the floor, feeling numb and hollow. So this was how it all ended. A part of me wanted to argue, tell Shireen that she must have made a mistake—but hadn’t I always known deep down that this was what must have happened? How likely was it that Catherine could have gotten away and survived for all these years without me or her brother or anyone else ever knowing? Will had been right after all. I had killed Catherine by capturing her—it had just taken a while for her to die. “Why did Rachel do it?” I said.

“Because she didn’t have any choice,” Shireen said with a sigh. “That was how she saw it. She’d wanted to be Richard’s Chosen, and she wanted it so badly she killed me for it. Once she’d done that . . . If she stopped being his apprentice and walked away, it would all have been for nothing. She would have killed me for nothing. It was like . . . as long as he was giving the orders, she could pretend it wasn’t really her fault. He gave her an excuse.”

“That’s bullshit! She always had a choice; she could have stopped!”

Shireen looked past me. When she spoke, her voice sounded different, as though she were reciting.

For mine own good,

All causes shall give way: I am in blood

Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more,

Returning were as tedious as go o’er . . .

I stared at her. “Where’s that from?”

“A play I once saw,” Shireen said. She looked at me. “Do you know why Rachel hates you so much?”

I shook my head.

“Because you did go back. You stopped being Richard’s apprentice and started a new life. Every time Rachel looks at you she knows that she could have done it all differently, that she did have a choice. And she hates you for it because deep down there’s a bit of her that wishes she’d done the same thing. You’re a living reminder of the one thing in her past that she’s most ashamed of and that no one could ever forgive, and the worst part is that she knows she didn’t have to do it and that it was all her own fault.”

“And then there’s you,” I said quietly. “She thought once she killed you it’d all be over, but she has to see you every day and be reminded of what she’s done. And on top of that she’s got this horror from God-knows-where in her head as well.” I shook my head. “Jesus.”

Shireen nodded and we stood for a while in silence. “All right,” I said at last. “What do you want, Shireen? You said that after I’d seen all of this, there was something you were going to ask from me. What is it?”

“I want you to help Rachel,” Shireen said. “Redeem her.”

I stared at Shireen. “You have got to be kidding me.”

Shireen shook her head.

“You want me to do what? Save her soul?”

“Something like that.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in that stuff?”

“When you’ve been a disembodied soul in someone else’s body for ten years it changes your attitudes a bit.”

“She killed you!”

“I still love her,” Shireen said simply. “She was my best friend and I never stopped caring about her, even after everything. I know what she did but you haven’t seen how much she’s suffered for it. Besides, if anyone’s got the right to decide whether she deserves to be forgiven, don’t you think it should be me?”

I couldn’t think of anything to say to that. “Will you help me?” Shireen asked.

“Shireen . . .” I dropped into my chair and covered my eyes, resting my head in one hand. “What do you expect me to do? You said it yourself, she hates me. And that was before she saw me spying on her. Now she’s moved me up to ‘kill on sight.’”

“I don’t think she’ll try to kill you,” Shireen said. “Not again.”

I stared at Shireen. “Are you serious?”

“She’s never actually tried to kill you before,” Shireen said. “Not really. The only reason she did this time was . . . well, she lost control a bit.”

“A bit?”

Shireen clasped her hands and gave me a hopeful look. “I’m pretty sure I can talk her around for next time.”

“Have you considered,” I said carefully, “that hanging around in Rachel’s head for ten years might have messed up your standards a little?”

“Maybe,” Shireen said. “But this is what I want. I’m not changing my mind on this one, Alex. If you want me to keep helping you, this is the price.”

I looked at Shireen for a long time. “You know there’s no guarantee she’s going to listen to me,” I said at last. “Or anyone. If she makes a decision I can’t stop her.”

“I know.”

I stayed silent for a little while then shook my head. “I can’t promise anything,” I said at last. “Not yet. I understand why you want this, but . . . Look, tell me something. How the hell did Rachel find me?”

“She’s always been able to,” Shireen said. “Didn’t you notice?”

I started to answer, then stopped. When I’d seen Rachel last year at the British Museum I’d been in the shadows wearing my mist cloak. Rachel’s two companions, Cinder and Khazad, hadn’t noticed a thing . . . but Rachel had. She hadn’t found me but it had been close, and every time since then that I’d spied on her the same thing had happened. “Why?” I said.

“Do you remember the first time you went to Elsewhere?” Shireen said. “The very first time?”

“Yeah.” It had been Richard who’d shown us how to do it. The four of us had travelled there together—me, Shireen, Tobruk, and Rachel. It had been a memorable trip.

“When you go to Elsewhere with another person, it leaves a connection,” Shireen said. “I think when Rachel Harvested me something happened that strengthened that somehow. She can sense you and you can sense her.”

“I’m not sure I can.”

“Last autumn, when you were working for Belthas,” Shireen said. “You found Rachel and Cinder just by walking around London. Didn’t you ever wonder why that worked?”

I hadn’t, not until Shireen mentioned it. “So she can find me through my mist cloak?”

“The cloak makes it harder,” Shireen said. “I think the reason she could do it was that you were actually in her memories. It intensified the connection, at least for a little while. She must have traced the link.”

“Then don’t take this personally,” I said, “but I’m never doing anything like that again.”

“I understand.”

We stood in silence for a while, listening to the buzz of conversation, then I shook my head, pulling my thoughts back to the present. “So all of this was for nothing. Catherine was dead all along and there’s nothing that’ll stop Will from coming after me.”

“You know the truth now.”

“And you couldn’t have just told me?” I looked at Shireen. “You knew what had happened to Catherine. You could have told me I was wasting my time.”

“You think learning how I died is a waste of time?” Shireen said quietly. She didn’t raise her voice, but her eyes sparked and something in them made me want to draw back. “You don’t think what happens to me and Rachel is important? I’ve helped you every time you’ve needed it. You think that’s all I’m here for, doing you favours and then disappearing when you don’t need me? I might be just a shadow but I’m not your slave. You don’t have the right to tell me what to do.”

I looked away, feeling a flash of shame. “I’m sorry,” I said at last. “That wasn’t what I meant. But Will and the Nightstalkers are still out there and they’re still after me. I know that for you this is the most important thing in the world, but you don’t have to worry about getting killed in your sleep.”

“This is more important than Will and the Nightstalkers,” Shireen said, and her voice was utterly certain. “They’re a short-term problem.”

“Short-term?”

“You’ve faced worse,” Shireen said. “So has Rachel. They’re not going to be around in the long term but she will be. You needed to know this, you needed to see it, so that you understood. And yes, it was dangerous, but I’m not sorry for doing it. It was worth the risk.”

Easy for you to say, I thought, but didn’t say it out loud. For the first time since meeting Shireen’s shade, I felt I was starting to understand her. She had her own priorities and to me they might seem crazy, but from her point of view they made sense and now that I had some idea of what they were I could deal with her. It wasn’t like it was the first time I’d had to work with someone with a skewed point of view . . . and somewhere at the back of my mind I couldn’t help but wonder if our points of view might not be so different after all. “Anything you can do to help?”

“I can’t fight for you,” Shireen said. “Not in your world. But there’s a place I can show you. You won’t enjoy it but it might help you find something you’ve been looking for for a long time.”

chapter 12

Icame awake to realise someone was talking. Just the knowledge that I wasn’t alone sent a spike of fear and adrenaline through my system, and in an instant I was fully alert. I could smell stale air and unwashed clothes, and from the shuffling of footsteps I could tell there was another person near me. Without moving any other part of my body, I opened my eyes.

There was a man standing a few feet away. He wore an ancient stained greatcoat over dirty torn clothes, and from his smell neither he nor his clothes had had a wash in a long time. Straggly grey hair framed bleary eyes and a face prematurely aged. “—you doing here?” he was saying. “Huh? What you doing here?”

I stared back at him, motionless. “This is mine,” he said. “You don’t get to sleep here, see? It’s mine. What you doing here?” When I didn’t answer he took a step forward, his voice gaining a little confidence. “My mates are coming back. They’re going to be angry. This is mine, see? You shouldn’t be here.” His manner was halfway between pleading and threatening, and when I still didn’t answer it began to edge towards threatening. “You know who I am? I know people, I do. No one messes with me.” He took another step, moving to poke me with his foot. “You—”

I caught his ankle with my left hand as my right came out from under my cloak in a flash of steel. Before the man could react I had my knife pressed against his leg, the point digging through his trousers towards the upper thigh, where the femoral artery runs close to the skin. He tried to jerk away but I clung on and he nearly fell backwards. “Hey man!” he said, his voice squeaking suddenly. “Why—”

I hissed at him, showing my teeth, and his eyes went wide in fear. He tried to pull away, but I dug the knife in deeper and he froze. I held his eyes for a slow count of five then let him go suddenly. He scrambled back to the door. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he said, trying to hold up his dignity. “This is mine, see? You shouldn’t . . .”

I stared at the man without blinking and he trailed off, then backed away into the shadows. I lay still, following his movement through the futures as he clattered his way down the stairs. Once I was satisfied he was gone I got up.

I’d slept through the day, and yellow-gold light was shining through the newspaper covering the grimy windows. For some reason the afternoon felt shadowed and dark, even through the sunlight; I tried peeling back the newspaper to get a better idea of the time, but the light stung my eyes. I drew back into the shadows, waiting for darkness.

I’d been out of contact and I knew I ought to be checking in, but I felt a strange reluctance to talk to anyone; it felt as though it could be dangerous. Miserable as it was, the abandoned pub was safe, and in the end I stayed there for hours, while the sun set and the sky turned from blue to purple to grey. Only after night had fallen did I leave, and even then it was only hunger that forced me from the building. There was a cluster of shops at the end of the road but I didn’t want to draw the attention of shopkeepers; the summer night was too busy and it made me nervous. Clusters of men and women passed by in the darkness, and it felt as though all of them were looking at me. It was too much and I turned down a small residential street, used my divination magic to find an empty house, and broke in through the back door.

Once I’d stolen a makeshift meal from the kitchen, I finally took out my phone. As soon as I placed it on the kitchen table and thumbed the button the screen lit up with a dozen messages. My mist cloak really messes up incoming signals—usually I don’t wear it long enough for it to matter, but by now I’d been wearing it for more than a day straight. Most of the messages were from Luna and Anne and at a glance they sounded worried, but I didn’t want to answer them. The last message was from Caldera and it asked me to call her back as soon as possible. I touched the screen to return the call and sat in one of the kitchen chairs, waiting. Caldera answered on the fourth ring.

One of the dubious privileges of being a diviner is never having to wait for bad news. Usually conversation is unpredictable—there’s too much randomness and free will to see more than a few seconds ahead. But when someone’s already decided what they’re going to tell you, then every possible conversation goes the same way. The only question is how long it’ll take to get to the point. “Verus,” Caldera said.

There was a new note in Caldera’s voice, one I hadn’t heard before. She sounded . . . subdued. “Feeling better?” I said.

“What? Oh.” Caldera brushed it off. “I’m fine. You?”

“I’m alive,” I said. I didn’t really want to talk. “So?”

Caldera didn’t answer. “You said you were taking this to the Council,” I said. “You said to stay out of it and keep my head down.”

“Yeah,” Caldera said after a pause. She didn’t sound happy, and in a sudden flash of insight I wondered how often she had to do this in her job. Give bad news and then walk away . . .

“So?”

“I filed my report yesterday. It had a full account of our encounter with Will and the Nightstalkers and their attack. I recommended the Nightstalkers be brought in for violation of the Concord.” She paused again. “I got the reply back this evening.”

I listened silently. “It’s been kicked upstairs,” Caldera said. “There’s a Council committee scheduled to look into it.”

“Did they give you a reason?”

“I had some questions about the decision,” Caldera said. From her tone of voice it sounded like it had been more than that. “They said . . .” She hesitated. “They’ve decided the Nightstalkers aren’t an immediate threat to the Council or to Light or independent mages.”

I was silent. “I see,” I said at last.

“I put in a request for a task force. I haven’t had an answer.”

“Weren’t you in the middle of investigating Richard when the Nightstalkers tried to kill you?” I said. “You know, the ones who ‘aren’t an immediate threat’?”

Caldera was silent for a moment. “I’ve been taken off the Richard Drakh case,” she said. “I’m on medical leave.”

“Medical leave.”

“I didn’t request it.”

“Thought you said you were fine.”

Caldera didn’t answer.

“Don’t suppose you know where these orders of yours come from, do you?” I said.

“I’m not authorised—”

“Don’t worry, I can guess. From the Council, right?”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Does it matter? It’s not like you were going to do anything about it.”

Caldera was silent again. I’d expected her to snap at me, but she didn’t. In a way it actually made it worse; I wanted her to get angry so I could yell at her. “There’s a mage on the Council called Levistus,” I said. “I don’t have any proof, but this is his style. No risk, no involvement. He never gets his hands dirty, he just gives the orders and stays at a distance.”

“I’m sorry,” Caldera said.

A part of me wanted to shout at Caldera, blame her for all the Council’s hypocrisies. Whoever had given Caldera those orders must have known that the Nightstalkers were out for blood. The Council had a thousand times the resources of Will’s group—they could crush them without even trying. But they weren’t going to, even after the Nightstalkers had blatantly violated the Concord, because the Council only enforced the Concord when it suited them.

But an older, wiser part of me knew that it wasn’t Caldera’s fault. And deep down, had I ever really expected anything different? The Council has never helped me before and I’d never really believed that they’d start now. If I was going to live through this it would be because of myself and my friends, and nobody else. “Forget it,” I said. “You have to follow your orders.”

“What are you going to do?” Caldera asked.

I thought about it for a second. “I don’t know,” I said at last. “Good-bye, Caldera.” I hung up before she could reply.

* * *

That night seemed to last a long time.

I didn’t have any appointments to keep and for now at least I’d lost my pursuers. I was free to go wherever I wanted—except that I couldn’t think of anywhere to go. For the first time in years, I didn’t know what to do.

Ever since Will had attacked me in the casino I’d been trying to figure out a way to end this. I’d tried talking to the Nightstalkers and I’d tried fighting them and I’d tried running from them. I’d tried searching Rachel’s memories for the truth, and I’d tried relying on Caldera to fix things for me. And every single one had been a failure. Things weren’t any better than they had been at the start—if anything they were worse. I’d nearly been killed half a dozen times, and the only reason I was still alive was that my friends had put themselves at risk to save me. Anne and Variam and Luna and Sonder had been in danger and were still in danger, and it was because of me.

I know I come off as arrogant sometimes. When you can see the future it’s easy to pretend you know everything, and to other people it probably looks like I do. But being able to see the future doesn’t make you any smarter or wiser than anyone else, and it doesn’t stop you making stupid mistakes. It lets you know what a problem is and how big the problem is, but it doesn’t give you the power to do anything about it. When it comes down to it, the reason I act all-knowing isn’t because I think I know everything. It’s because I know I don’t, and I’m desperately trying to stop my enemies from figuring that out. And if you keep up an act to fool other people, sometimes you end up fooling yourself as well.

But now I couldn’t pretend anymore. Everything I’d tried had been a failure, and I’d lost my confidence. If I tried to do something else, I felt like I’d just screw that up too. Worst of all, there was a nagging voice at the back of my head wondering whether this was what I deserved. Will had been right all along: I had killed his sister, it had just been Rachel who’d delivered the final blow. I knew I was leaving Anne and Luna and Variam in the dark, but I couldn’t face talking to them, not now. Instead I just walked, flitting from shadow to shadow through the London night. Eventually I realised where my feet were taking me.

* * *

The cemetery was in Camberwell, tucked away behind an old church with a faded sign. Black iron spike railings surrounded it from the outside, and trees were planted around the edges, giving it a sheltered, shut-in feel. The gates were locked and I had to climb them to get in.

The inside of the cemetery was quiet and empty. The nearest main road was two streets away and the trees had a muffling effect, silencing the area so that the loudest sounds were the echoes of my footsteps around the tombstones. I suppose most people would have found it creepy, but I’ve never really been scared of cemeteries. It’s living people I’m afraid of, not dead ones.

The headstone was small, and it took me a long time to find it amongst all the others. It had once been white, but wind and rain had darkened it to grey. Flicking on my flashlight, I crouched down in front of it. The inscription read:

CATHERINE HELENA TRAVISS

1984–2002

BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART,

FOR THEY SHALL SEE GOD

Two larger headstones were set a little way behind it. I didn’t read them: I knew who they were for. I sat cross-legged on the grass and stared at the small headstone. The cemetery was dark and silent, and any wind was kept out by the trees. I was alone with the dead.

Catherine’s body wasn’t here. Shireen had told me that. Rachel had been the one who’d killed her, and Rachel hadn’t been concerned about funeral rites . . . or maybe she just didn’t want anything left to remind her of what she’d done. She’d disintegrated the bodies and left the dust to blow away. But at some point someone had found out what had happened, learnt that Catherine was dead, and cared enough to leave a headstone, and I wondered who it had been. Will, maybe? But he would have been in America. Maybe some other relation—a cousin, an aunt or uncle. Everybody has someone who’ll miss them, even if it’s just to notice they’re gone.

“So this is where it ends,” I said. My voice sounded very loud in the quiet of the cemetery. “All this time, you were just waiting here . . . I wonder how many people still remember this grave? You must have had people who cared about you, but it’s been ten years. They’ll have gone on with their lives.” I was silent for a little while. “Maybe I’ll end up in a place like this someday. Just a little headstone, and a few people who’ll forget . . .”

A train passed by along the railway lines one street over, the rumble of its wheels echoing over the rooftops. “I’m sorry I screwed things up,” I said. “I wanted to save you, but the only person I saved was myself. I just ran and I didn’t go back. All this time I’ve been trying to forget what I did, but now your brother’s here and he’s trying to kill me for it. What do you want? If you were here, would you tell Will to go away and live his own life? Or would you tell him that he was right, and I deserve it . . . ?”

There was no sound but the wind in the trees. Shireen might have stayed on after her death—or at least some part of her had—but Catherine wasn’t Shireen. Wherever she’d gone, either she couldn’t hear me or she wasn’t answering.

I sat by the grave for a long time, then got to my feet and left, leaving the cemetery empty behind me.

* * *

My memories of the rest of that night are fuzzy. I know I kept moving, but I don’t remember where I went or how. Most of the other people in the city were asleep and the few I met on the streets seemed to blur past without seeing me. I didn’t know where I was going and wandered aimlessly through the London night. The streetlights hurt my eyes, and I found myself sticking to parks and back streets where I could merge with the shadows. I felt strange: hyped and on edge, yet thin and stretched. I felt tired but my movements were quick and I could sense the presence of the people nearby. It seemed to be getting easier and easier to hide from them.

By the time the sky started to brighten in the east, I was on Hampstead Heath. I don’t know how I ended up there but I guess it’s like they say: home is the place where when you have to go there, they have to take you in. I didn’t want to go down to talk to Arachne but the grey light of dawn was spreading across the sky and the thought of being caught in the morning sunlight made me flinch. I found the ravine that hid the entrance to Arachne’s lair and touched the spot on the root that signalled her. I don’t remember what I said, but she opened the door.

I was stumbling by the time I made it down into Arachne’s cave, weaving from side to side. Arachne was working on something blue and white, but as she saw me she stopped, turning her head towards me. “Alex?” she said, the clicking rustle of her mandibles an undertone to her words. “What’s happened to you?”

“Nothing,” I said, shielding my eyes. “Can you turn the lights down?” I didn’t remember Arachne’s lair being so bright, but the glare was making me squint.

Arachne stayed still. It was hard to tell but I had the feeling she was staring at me. “How long have you been wearing that?”

“What?”

“Alex.” Arachne’s voice was sharp and clear. “How long have you been wearing your cloak?”

“I don’t know?” The light was making it hard to concentrate. “I just need to rest until the sun goes down. I’ll be—”

“Take it off,” Arachne said.

“What?” I squinted at her. “Why?”

“Take off your cloak,” Arachne said, pronouncing each word carefully. “Now.”

It was a simple enough request but I felt reluctant. The cloak was the only thing keeping me hidden; without it I wasn’t safe. “Look, just—”

It’s easy to forget how fast Arachne can move. She’s the size of a station wagon and by all rights she should be slow, but she’s much, much faster than she looks and she can go from a standing start to full speed in the time it takes you to blink. I should have seen it coming but my precognition’s tuned to sense danger, not movement, and by the time I realised it wasn’t registering, Arachne was on top of me. Her two front legs caught the mist cloak and yanked it off me in a single precise movement.

Light stabbed into my eyes, burning through my brain, erasing everything in white fire. My skin seemed to ignite, flaring in sudden agony, and I couldn’t see or hear or feel. All I could feel was light burning into me, too bright, too—

* * *

When I came to my senses I was lying on one of Arachne’s sofas. I tried to open my eyes, and the light sent a flash of pain bouncing around inside my head. I winced and screwed my eyes shut again.

“Why were you still wearing your cloak?” Arachne asked. I could smell her herbal scent, and from the sound of it she was right next to me.

“Why shouldn’t I be?” I muttered. I felt groggy, but also more awake; it was as though something that had been making my thoughts fuzzy was gone.

“I warned you,” Arachne said, and her voice was sharp. “When I gave you that cloak, I told you to be sparing about when you used it. Did you forget?”

“It was ten years ago, okay?”

Arachne sighed. “I suppose for you that is a long time, isn’t it? I keep forgetting how short human memories are.”

I pulled myself upright and forced my eyes open. I had to shade them with my hand; everything was much too bright. “What happened?”

“Hold your hand up to the light,” Arachne said.

I had to squint but I did as Arachne said, and as my eyes cleared I frowned. My hand looked . . . weird. Too much of the light was getting through around my fingers; it was like my skin was almost translucent. It was eerie and I looked away. “What happened to me?”

“Mist cloaks aren’t meant for extended use,” Arachne said. “You were starting to fade.”

“But . . .” I felt confused. My mist cloak’s always been the one magic item I’ve completely trusted. “It’s trying to help me.” Somehow I was sure of that. “It keeps me safe.”

“Imbued items don’t have a sense of proportion,” Arachne said. “They’re alive, but they’re not human.” She lifted a foreleg and I looked to see the mist cloak neatly folded on the next sofa over. “The cloak does try to help you. Its purpose is to hide its bearer, and that’s what it does. And it does it so well that if you wear it long enough, then nobody will be able to find you. Not even you.”

I looked at the folded cloth, fading into the sofa, and couldn’t help but shiver. “What happens then?”

“No one knows,” Arachne said simply. “I imagine the cloak still keeps them safe. Somewhere.”

I put a hand to my head. “I can’t do anything right, can I?”

“Focus,” Arachne said. “You can feel sorry for yourself later. There’s someone here to see you.”

I looked up in surprise. “Who?”

A flicker in the futures made me turn my head. Standing in one of the tunnel mouths, hand resting on the rocky wall, was Variam.

* * *

“You don’t look so good,” Variam told me.

“That’s about how I feel.” Variam and I were sitting opposite each other while Arachne sewed quietly in the corner. The orb lights set into the walls of Arachne’s cave were soft and muted, but they were still enough to hurt my eyes if I looked directly at them, and I still had that weird disconnected feeling. I could feel the mist cloak’s presence, resting quietly on one of the sofas, and even now I had the urge to put it on and hide. I pushed it away with a shudder; I wasn’t going to feel comfortable touching that cloak for a long time. “What’s been happening while I’ve been gone?”

“Those adepts showed up while we were at Luna’s,” Variam said. “One of them can track people, right?”

“Is everyone okay?”

“There wasn’t a fight,” Variam said. “They just hid outside. Think they were trying to spy on us.”

“Anne spotted them?”

Variam nodded.

“The Chinese kid’s called Lee,” I said. “He can find people—anyone he’s met, probably. Did they show up the night before last, or yesterday?”

“Night before last.”

That would have been just after I’d started wearing my cloak. I’d lost the Nightstalkers at my shop and they hadn’t picked me up again. “They couldn’t track me, so they tracked you. I guess they were hoping I’d show up and they could ambush me . . . But they don’t know what Anne can do, or they wouldn’t have tried to hide like that. Are they still there?”

“Not since yesterday. We’ve been waiting in case they come back, but they haven’t shown up.”

“They’re waiting for Lee to find me again,” I said, half to myself. No reason for them not to—it had worked every time before. As long as I was in Arachne’s lair her wards would hide me but as soon as I stepped outside . . .

“So what’s the plan?” Variam asked.

“I don’t have one.”

“Seriously.”

Variam was looking at me expectantly. He’d changed into a black shirt and turban and looked ready and alert. “Vari, you know all the times in the past I’ve told you guys what to do?” I said. “Most of the time I’m making it up as I go along. I’m not as tough as you think I am. Right now I don’t know what to do.”

Variam frowned. “You haven’t got any ideas?”

“I’ve got lots,” I said. “The problem is that all of them are bad. You know what? You listen to them and tell me what you think.” I held up a finger. “Plan number one. I keep running and hiding. Will and the Nightstalkers keep chasing. I hope they give up or get themselves hurt and go away.”

Variam gave me a look.

“I told you it was a bad plan.” I held up a second finger. “Plan number two. I keep trying to talk some sense into Will. Settle this peacefully.”

“Won’t work,” Variam said.

“You said that before.”

“Because I saw him,” Variam said, and shrugged. “If I knew someone had done that to my brother, I wouldn’t listen either.”

“Anne thought there was a chance.”

“You destroyed his life,” Variam said. “That’s how he sees it, right? What are you possibly going to say to make it all better?”

I looked back at Vari for a second, then shrugged. “I wish you were wrong, but . . . yeah. That’s how it seems, isn’t it?”

“So?” Vari said.

“So plan number three,” I said. “The one you’re thinking of. I get you and Luna and Anne, we gear up and pick our ground, and we have a fight.”

Variam nodded.

“Say we do,” I said. “On our side we’d have me, you, Anne, and Luna. They’d have Will with his time magic, the American guy with his guns, Dhruv the life-drinker, and ground-fire girl. They’ve got at least two others, so figure they’ll fight too. Four against seven. You think we’d win?”

“Yeah, I do,” Variam said. “We’ve been talking it over and we’ve done the math. Luna’s good with that whip, and Anne and I have gone up against a lot worse. And you’re a frigging mage. They’re just adepts.”

“Okay,” I said. “So we kill them all, is that the plan? I shoot some, you burn some, Anne stops the heart of a couple more, and we throw the bodies in a pit somewhere?”

Variam looked taken aback. “Uh . . .”

“Your magic creates supernatural heat, Vari,” I said. “It doesn’t have a stun setting. If you hit someone full strength, it’s not going to knock them out, it’s going to kill them. Same with Luna. The more of her curse she puts into someone, the less likely they’re going to be walking out alive.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Variam said. “I’ve done this before. I can scale my spells back.”

“I know,” I said. “You can go for glancing hits, try to just scorch them. But now it’s not four against seven, it’s the four of us at half strength against their seven, and they won’t be holding back, not against me anyway. They’ll be trying to kill me. Would you be willing to do the same to them? Even knowing they’re not that different from you?”

Variam was silent. “You remember I told you how Anne got kidnapped by Sagash?” he said at last. “And I went to look for her?”

I nodded.

“It took a long time,” Variam said. “I had to look in a lot of places.” He looked at me. “Sometimes things get messy, you know? Someone starts something and there’s a guy in your way. And maybe you might have been friends if you’d had the chance, but you don’t have time to talk it over, do you?”

“But this is different,” I said. “I know you’re no coward, and neither is Luna. But you’re not murderers either. And Anne . . . you think she’s going to go along with a plan that involves killing anyone?” I leant forward. “I’ve thought about this a lot over the last few days. I’ve run the scenarios in my head and if it comes down to a fight between us and them, here’s what I think’s going to happen. Most of us and most of them will start out nonlethal. We won’t be fighting to kill. But Will will be, and so will Ja-Ja. And sooner or later something’ll go wrong. Someone’ll step in front of a bullet, or they’ll take a fire blast head-on, or Luna’s curse’ll hit someone the wrong way. Once that happens it won’t be just about me anymore, it’ll be about revenge. They’ll want blood for blood, and there won’t be any way to stop it.” I looked steadily at Variam. “Best case? Four or five of them end up dead and you and Luna have their blood on your hands. Worst case, they wipe us out. But the most likely way I see this ending is that they lose but they don’t go down alone. You three are good and so am I, but these guys aren’t pushovers either. They’re fast and they’re strong and they know how to work together. They haven’t been trying to kill the three of you so far, but as soon as the first one of them dies that’s all going to change. Would you want to win the fight if it meant Anne’s life? Or Luna’s, or yours? Maybe two out of three? Does that sound like a good deal to you?”

Variam didn’t answer. “We aren’t strong enough to be able to beat these guys without a good chance of them taking us with them,” I said. “And we definitely aren’t strong enough to take them down without hurting them. Your magic’s lethal, Luna’s magic is lethal, and the only weapons I’ve got that can take these guys down fast are lethal too. I’ve been trying to think of some way of finishing this that doesn’t end up with people dying and I can’t see it.”

“So what are you going to do?” Variam demanded. “Sit around? Okay, so the odds aren’t great. We’ve fought worse.”

“Because you didn’t have a choice,” I said. “But this time I’m making the choice. And if I lead you guys into this then one of two things will happen. Either you get killed, or you’ll be responsible for them getting killed. You’ll have their blood on your hands for the rest of your lives, and someday in the future someone else will wind up coming after you the way they’ve come after me.” I looked steadily at Variam. “I won’t do that, Vari. I’m not letting the three of you pay for my mistakes and I’m not letting you do the same things I did. Not for my sake.”

Variam stared back at me. I held his gaze, and in the end it was Variam who looked away. “Fine,” he said. He was trying to act annoyed but I knew I’d gotten through. “Great. So what, keep on hiding?”

I sat in silence. For all that I knew that Variam’s plan would end badly, he was right about one thing: I couldn’t hide forever. Sooner or later I’d have to face Will again.

For what felt like a long time now I’d had a quiet dark voice whispering at the back of my mind, telling me that running wasn’t going to work, that talking wasn’t going to work, that there was only one way this could end. Now at last I stopped resisting and listened.

What do you want?

I wanted to survive. For Will and the Nightstalkers to be gone. For Anne and Variam and Luna to be safe and not to have any sins on their conscience.

So, then.

I wasn’t strong enough to defeat them on my own.

Is it the first time?

It wasn’t the first time I’d gone up against enemies able to beat me in a straight fight. Belthas, Vitus, Onyx . . .

How did you survive?

Each time, I’d survived by making sure it hadn’t been a straight fight. Mostly, I’d done the same thing . . .

And suddenly the plan was laid out before me, as if it had been written down in a book and hidden away until it could just now be opened. It was simple and brutal and I’d had all the pieces I needed for days. But until now, I wouldn’t have been willing to do it. Maybe this was what I’d really been waiting for, the reason I’d been running from Will all this time. My old instincts hadn’t been gone; they’d just been buried, covered over with the habits and memories of happier times. Will and the Nightstalkers had cut through those, worn me down to the point where I was willing to do whatever it took to survive.

I looked up at Variam. “Will you help me?”

Variam nodded.

“I know you’ve been practising with gate magic,” I said. “Can you bring someone with you?”

Variam hesitated for a second. “. . . Yeah, I can do it. How fast?”

“Speed’s not an issue,” I said. “I’m going to need to get somewhere and I won’t be able to take a car or a train. Lee’ll be tracking me and if I’m out in the open they’ll home in on me before I get there.”

“Okay. Where to?”

I took out a notebook and wrote down the location, sketching out a map before tearing out the paper and handing it to Variam. “Here,” I said. “You’ll need to go there to study it so you can make a gate safely. Choose a staging point. More than one would be better.” I tapped my pen on the map, picking out two areas. “These probably have the most cover, but farther away is fine as long as you’re not too far from the building. Just don’t go inside.”

Variam frowned as he looked at the map. “I can do it but how’s this going to help?”

“If we’re lucky it won’t have to,” I said. “I’m going to have one last try at talking this out. Come back tomorrow. One way or another, it’ll be settled by then.”

* * *

When I want to find something out, I usually use my divination magic. On the other hand, I’ve been around long enough to learn that even though divination can theoretically find out anything, sometimes doing things the mundane way is more efficient. In this case I wanted to find out someone’s phone number. I don’t have the contacts or the resources to get that kind of information but I know people who do. I had to call in a favour, but it didn’t take long.

At the same time, I was watching the futures for danger. I wasn’t wearing my mist cloak anymore, and as soon as I stepped outside Arachne’s cave Lee would be able to pick me up again. I needed to know how fast he could do it and so I spent several hours path-walking, trying out one future after another.

As usual, there was good news and bad news. The good news was that Lee couldn’t instantly home in on me. It would take time, and the more I kept moving the slower it would be. I’d been paying close attention to that conversation I’d overheard between him and Dhruv and Captain America, and I was fairly sure his magic only gave him a direction, not a location. To narrow down the distance he’d have to triangulate from multiple points.

The bad news was that while it would take time, once the process started it was also more or less inevitable. As soon as he picked me up he could just keep on closing in, getting a more and more accurate fix with each attempt. I could delay it as long as I kept moving, but sooner or later he’d catch up. Worse, the Nightstalkers weren’t stupid. If they noticed I was moving in the direction of a place they’d been to before, they could take a guess and jump straight to it. That was how they’d tracked me down to my shop so quickly after the fight at Richard’s mansion.

And the last problem was that it wasn’t predictable. The trouble with divination magic is that it’s only one hundred percent reliable if you’re dealing with systems that are one hundred percent deterministic, which human beings aren’t. At any point Lee might change his mind and start searching for me in a different way, or have a sudden flash of brilliance and guess exactly where I was, and unless I was watching closely I’d have no way of knowing. On top of that I was about to do something guaranteed to get their attention.

Well, it wasn’t like this was more dangerous than anything else I’d done lately.

I waited until after dark, resting in Arachne’s cave as the hours dragged by. Arachne didn’t disturb me, leaving me to my thoughts; she didn’t ask what I was going to do but I think she had a good idea. Once the sun had set I went outside.

The Heath was quiet and peaceful in the summer night. Distant chatter and laughter drifted through the darkness, the last picnickers and dog walkers lingering in the warm weather. The air smelt of grass and pollen, and the stars of the Summer Triangle hung overhead, bright enough to shine through the orange glow of the city. The traffic from the main roads around the Heath was a steady rustle, not close enough to be loud but a constant noise in the background. I stood in the ravine next to the entrance to Arachne’s cave and dialled the number on my phone.

It rang for a while before picking up. “Hello?”

“Hi, Will,” I said.

It took only those two words for Will to recognise my voice. He was silent for a second, and when he spoke again he sounded sharp and alert. “What do you want?”

“I just want to talk.”

“Okay. Come by and we’ll have a chat.”

“I said talk,” I said. “If I wanted another fight I’d just wait for you guys to show up for another of your assassination attempts.”

The phone went briefly silent as I was speaking: Will had pressed the Mute button and I knew he was giving orders to find me. I started scanning the futures for danger, searching for the ones in which the Nightstalkers gated in. “Fine,” Will said. “Talk.”

Will was buying time, probably hoping to keep me on the line while Lee tracked me down. “I’m sorry for what happened to your sister,” I said. “I know what I did back then was wrong, and if I could take it back I would. But I can’t. And killing me isn’t going to bring her back.”

“This isn’t about bringing her back,” Will said. “You think I don’t know that? This is about making sure you don’t get to do it again.”

“I haven’t been doing it again!” I snapped. “I’m not a Dark mage anymore! You’re trying to kill me for something I don’t want to do!”

“Right, you’re a good guy now.” Will’s voice was sarcastic. “You think you get to walk away? You’ve had enough and now everyone should leave you alone?”

“Yes! I walked out of that life! I’m not asking for anything from anyone, I just want to be left alone! It’s been ten years, isn’t that long enough? Isn’t there some point where you stop being the person you used to be and it stops being right to blame them for what they’ve done?”

“No,” Will said. “I don’t care if you’ve been Mother Teresa. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been, you deserve to die.”

“Then how long does it take? Twenty years? Thirty? Fifty? You can’t keep blaming someone forever!”

“Bullshit,” Will said without sympathy. “You’re just trying to weasel out of it.”

I could feel the futures shifting and flickering and I knew Lee was searching for me. I couldn’t see him and the Nightstalkers arriving at my location . . . at least not yet. “This isn’t just about you and me,” I said. “Dhruv and the rest of the Nightstalkers—they’re your friends, right?”

“Like you even know what that means.”

“They follow your lead,” I said. “That makes you responsible for them. And if you keep leading them the way you’ve been going, then sooner or later you’re going to take them into a battle you can’t win. They’re going to die and it’ll be your fault.”

“You mages think you’re so much better than us,” Will said. “We always get told we’re not good enough and you know what? It’s bullshit. There’s nothing we can’t do if we work together. You aren’t the first Dark mage we’ve taken down and you won’t be the last.”

“And when you lose?” I demanded. “When you see your friends dying in front of you?”

“If they get hurt it’ll be the fault of whoever hurts them,” Will said. “You know what, Verus? I’ll make you a deal. Come here on your own. You’re so worried about people getting hurt? Stop hiding behind them. Come here and stand in front of me and take responsibility for what you’ve done.”

“So you can try and kill me again? No thanks.”

“That’s what I thought,” Will said contemptuously. “You’re a rat. Keep running. We’ll catch you.”

The futures shifted abruptly as something changed. I looked ahead and now I could see strands of danger. I couldn’t yet see a clear future in which the Nightstalkers homed in on me, but it was drawing closer. Whatever Lee had just done to track me down, it was working. “Listen to me, Will,” I said. “I’ve done a lot of things wrong in my life. But it’s my life and I’m not going to let you take it. If you come after me again I’m not going to hold back.”

“It doesn’t matter if you hold back or not,” Will said calmly. “We know what you can do. You can’t beat us, Verus. We’re better than you.”

I knew I was running out of time. I didn’t have the time to figure out exactly when Lee would get a fix on me, but I knew it had to be soon and I couldn’t risk talking any longer. “You called me a rat,” I said. “There’s a saying about what happens when you corner one. Don’t come after me again, Will. If you do you’ll pay in blood.” I hit the End button on the phone and moved back into the blackness of Arachne’s cave, hearing the rumble as it closed behind me. I stood there in the dark for a long time, searching the futures for any trace of pursuit, but nothing came.

* * *

Ididn’t sleep well that night. Even though I was still tired from the days on the run I couldn’t relax, and whenever I tried to clear my mind and rest I’d find myself thinking of what I’d seen in Elsewhere: Shireen’s body on the stone, Rachel’s face as she stood over her, the black shadow hanging behind. At last I gave up and rose from my bed. I’d still been using the small side cave that Arachne had prepared for me and I went down the tunnel to the main chamber, listening to my footsteps echo off the rock walls.

Arachne was there, working at one of her tables. It didn’t really surprise me that she was still up; Arachne doesn’t follow human sleep patterns and I never know when she’ll be around. Sometimes she’ll seem to be in her cave for weeks on end, and other times she’ll just disappear. I’ve never asked her where she goes—for all her hospitality, Arachne’s quite private—but I think it’s got something to do with the tunnels beneath her lair. “Hey,” I said as I walked in.

“Hello, Alex,” Arachne said without looking up. She was concentrating on something, working with all four front legs at once. I could feel magic radiating from it, complex and layered. “Can’t sleep?”

I shook my head, dropping onto one of the sofas. “Did that cache have the items you needed?” Arachne asked.

“Yeah. Thanks for holding on to them.”

“When will you be using them?”

“Tomorrow.”

“I see.”

“Will and the Nightstalkers aren’t going to stop,” I said. “I’ve checked.”

Arachne kept working. “Do you think I’m making a mistake?” I asked.

“You’ve always been good at surviving, Alex,” Arachne said. “I think the reason you’ve been so good at it is that you focused on it completely. You didn’t have any doubt or hesitation; you just did what you needed to stay alive. Now for the first time you’re wondering whether you deserve to stay alive. Before you can face your hunters again, you’ll have to decide how much your life is worth.”

I was silent. “Here,” Arachne said, shaking out what she was working on. “Come and take a look.”

I rose and walked over, looking curiously at the outfit on Arachne’s table. It looked like some kind of black-and-grey uniform with mesh layers. “What is it?”

“Armour.”

“Who’s it for?”

Arachne gave me a look. It’s hard to read a giant spider’s body language, but I had the feeling she was exasperated. “For someone able to see the future, you can be remarkably slow on the uptake.”

I blinked. “It’s for me?”

“The outer layer is a reactive mesh,” Arachne said, tapping the jacket with her left front leg. “It responds to impacts by stiffening to spread the force over a wider area, and it can adjust its angle to change a direct blow into a glancing one. Enough to turn a knife or a blade. It should resist most other low-velocity impacts, but once an attack gets fast enough it does become difficult for the mesh to react in time, and of course anything with enough penetration can still punch a hole. It doesn’t stop momentum either, so—”

“Whoa, whoa,” I said, raising my hands. “Look, I appreciate this, but I don’t want you to do all this work for nothing. You know how I feel about armour—if you wear anything that’s not really heavy, an elemental mage will just blast straight through it, and if you do wear something that heavy it slows you all the way down. For someone like me the best way not to get hurt is not to be there in the first place.”

“And how well did that work in the casino?”

I scowled.

“Your life is changing, Alex,” Arachne said. “I know you’ve always preferred to rely on evasion but things are different now. More and more you’re going to find yourself facing dangers that you can’t run from or hide from.” She tapped the jacket again. “You’re going to have to take risks. This will help you survive them.”

Dubiously I lifted the material a few inches, feeling its texture. “Well, it’s light enough,” I admitted. “Is this going to do anything against a battle-mage?”

“A direct hit?” Arachne said. “No. But against area-of-effect spells or glancing blows it’ll keep you alive against something that would kill an unarmoured human.”

“Bullets?”

“Lower-powered ones should be manageable. For higher-power shots it depends on the angle of impact. The mesh will try to reshape itself to curve projectiles but there’s only so much it can do.”

“This is an imbued item, isn’t it?” I asked. Now that I was close I could sense the presence from the suit. It felt incomplete, as if it wasn’t fully grown yet, but there was definitely something there.

“Yes, and on that subject, do make sure not to wear this at the same time as your mist cloak,” Arachne said. “They both have a protective purpose, but they do so in very different ways and the variation in mindset will cause problems. Also, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but imbued items can be . . . possessive about their bearers.”

“It’s okay,” I said, suppressing a shiver. “I’m not going to be using my mist cloak for a while.” I could still remember the weird stretched feeling, and it frightened me. The scariest part was that I hadn’t even really noticed what was happening. If Arachne hadn’t made me take it off, I didn’t know where I would have ended up, and I absolutely did not want to look into the future to find out. “Thanks for doing this for me.”

“Don’t you remember what I told you last year?” Spiders can’t really smile, but I had the feeling that was what Arachne was doing. “After what happened with Belthas? You have my help whenever you want it, Alex.” She tilted her head. “You don’t ask for enough, you know.”

“Old habits,” I said, and yawned. “You know, I’m feeling better. I think I’ll go to bed.”

“Good night.”

chapter 13

When I woke the next morning I felt alert and refreshed. Although a few parts of me ached, none of it was enough to slow me down, and I knew I was in good shape. I was as ready as I was going to be. It took me a minute to remember what I needed to be ready for, and once I did that killed my enthusiasm. I lay on the rocky floor with my eyes open, staring up at the ceiling.

There’s something weird about waking up the day of a battle. I knew that as soon as I left Arachne’s cave, I was going to walk into a confrontation that would end in blood. Death and violence were in my future . . . but as long as I stayed in bed or mooched around the tunnels, I’d be perfectly safe. I’ve run into this situation a few times as a diviner, and it’s always a bizarre feeling, violence and chaos alongside comfortable routine. It’s like having someone tell you that as soon as you step out of your front door he’s going to shoot you, but he’s not in any rush and he’d be happy to give you time to finish your breakfast and would it be more convenient if he came back tomorrow?

I couldn’t sense Arachne’s presence, and searching through the short-term futures I couldn’t find her in the tunnels. I found a different presence, though, something close, and I raised my head to see the armour Arachne had been making for me. It was finished, and it hung from the wall, waiting. I rose and walked to the suit, studying it.

When a mage takes up an imbued item for the first time, it’s a big thing. It’s not exactly an introduction, or an offer of partnership, or a challenge, although it’s got something in common with all of those. What it’s most like is a mutual test. The mage gets a sense of the item’s purpose, as well as its power and its sentience. In turn, the item sees the mage for who he truly is, maybe more clearly than any human could. If the item likes what it sees, it accepts you as its bearer, at least on a provisional basis. If it’s unimpressed, it’ll stay inert. If it really doesn’t like you . . . well, the less said about that the better.

I reached out and placed a hand on the black mesh of the chest armour, and as I did I felt the item’s presence strengthen. I could feel it, and I knew it could feel me, too. It was different from my mist cloak; the cloak was subtle, difficult to detect even if you were looking for it. This was forceful and active, and I could feel it probing at my mind. In reflex I shoved it back; I’ve had a few too many bad experiences with mental control over the last year or two. The presence receded but didn’t go away. There was a pause, as though both of us were waiting for the other to make the next move.

“I’m about to go into battle,” I said to the suit. “I don’t know how it’ll end, but I know how it’ll begin. I’m going to be outnumbered and probably outmatched as well.” I looked at the suit. “I don’t have any right to demand anything from you, but I’m asking for your help. If you decide to go with me it’ll be dangerous. Not just now, but in the future. Even if I survive this battle there’ll be others, and the odds aren’t likely to get better. I’m never really going to be safe . . . but it’s because I’m never going to be safe that I need the kind of defence you can give. I don’t know if there’s anything I could offer in return that you’d care about, but if there is, I will. Will you protect me?”

The suit rested silently on the wall, watching me.

* * *

Variam was sitting on one of the sofas in the central chamber. He looked up and did a double take. “What are you getting ready for, a war?”

“Something like that,” I said. The armour was lighter than I’d expected but it still felt strange. I’m not used to wearing anything with any real weight to it—most of my clothes are light and designed to let me move quickly—and in the new outfit my movements felt awkward. With each step I took, though, it got easier. I could feel the armour adapting itself to my movements, adjusting to my steps. Most of all, I could feel the item’s presence, like a passenger at the back of my mind. It takes time for an imbued item to decide whether to accept a bearer: throughout the battle to come, the suit would be watching me.

“I’ve never seen you carry a sword.”

“I don’t usually carry weapons, full stop.”

Variam looked at me curiously. “Why not?”

“Attitude, mostly,” I said. “If you carry a weapon it means that at some level you’re planning to use it. Leaving them behind reminds you that you’re supposed to be running first and fighting afterwards.”

Variam pointed at the sword at my belt. “So what’s with that?”

“Because right now I’m through with running,” I said. I nodded towards the entrance. “Ready?”

Variam rose and we began walking up the tunnel towards the surface. “Luna and Anne were asking about you,” Variam said.

“Are they okay?”

“It’s whether you’re okay that they’re worried about.”

I sighed. “Yeah. I guess I haven’t been doing that good a job of taking care of myself lately, have I?”

We left Arachne’s cave and sealed it behind us. It was midmorning and the sunlight was filtering down through a bank of grey-white cloud. The air was humid and a little oppressive but I could still hear the chatter and calls of people around us. “We clear?” Variam asked.

I scanned ahead. The futures of the nearby people on the park weren’t intersecting ours, at least not yet. “Clear.”

Variam got to work on his gate. It was messy and although he tried to hide it I could tell that having an audience was making him nervous. I waited patiently; nothing’s more annoying than having someone distracting you when you’re doing a difficult spell. On the third try the orange flame solidified into an oval of light and an image of trees and grass appeared through it. I stepped through quickly and Variam followed, letting it vanish behind him.

Richard’s mansion looked the same as it had when I’d arrived here three days ago. In fact it looked exactly the same, which was wrong; there should have been a big hole in the wall where Caldera had done her improvised building works. Looking down the grassy slope, I saw that the wall was smooth and unbroken again. Somebody fixed it, and I was pretty sure I knew who: Deleo. Although we could see down through the trees to the mansion, we were under tree cover and the branches would hide us from any viewers. Variam had chosen his spot well. “Well, we’re here,” Variam said, walking out behind me. “You going to tell me what the plan is?”

I told him.

“That’s it?” Variam asked.

“Pretty much.”

“That’s . . .” Variam was silent for a moment.

“What?”

“I don’t know. Efficient. Cold.”

“It’s what I do, Vari,” I said. “I can’t take things on head-to-head the way you can. I have to stack the odds in my favour first.”

“I know what you’re trying to do,” Variam said, and he was watching me. “You want to set this up so none of this is our fault, don’t you?”

“Have you ever killed anyone?”

Variam looked away. “I don’t think so,” he said after a pause.

“Heat of battle is one thing. Premeditated is worse.”

“We’d fight for you. Me and Anne and Luna.”

“I know. And that’s why I can’t let you do it. This is my responsibility and I’m the one who should pay for it.”

Variam didn’t answer. We stood under the trees, looking down over the grass towards the mansion. Birds were singing in the warm summer day, though the air was still muggy and close. “So what do we do now?” Variam said at last. “Wait for them to show up to kill us?”

“Me, not us. But yeah, that pretty much sums it up.”

“Are they on their way?”

“Not yet,” I said. I hadn’t stopped scanning the futures and I couldn’t see the Nightstalkers coming yet. “They’re probably having breakfast.”

Variam gave me a look. “Having breakfast.”

“I can’t make them go any faster,” I pointed out. “Right now Lee isn’t looking for me or he’d spot me. As soon as he does, the next thing he’ll do is check the direction and see that it’s pointing straight to this mansion. They’ve been here before so their gater will know the location. They’ll assemble and gear up, and as soon as they’re ready they’ll gate in.” I shrugged. “Figure ten to forty minutes, depending how good their prep time is.”

“This is so weird,” Variam said, shaking his head. “We’re just sitting here waiting for them to notice?”

“Welcome to being a diviner,” I said. “It’s a lot more passive than what you’re used to.” I cocked my head. “Ah.”

“Ah?” Variam said. “Ah, what?”

“Looks like Lee just spotted me. They’re coming.” The futures were shifting now, narrowing fast. Decisions make a distinctive pattern in divination magic; if someone genuinely hasn’t made up their mind about what they’re going to do, it’s obvious. This was nothing like that. Will and the Nightstalkers must have already worked out a plan for this situation, and they were acting on it. “Looks like twenty-five minutes,” I said. “Figure twenty to be safe.” I leant against an ash tree. “You going to meet that Keeper?”

Variam gave me a disbelieving look. “Is this really the time?”

“Can’t go inside yet,” I said. “So?”

Variam looked down at the grass. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I think you should,” I said.

“What about Anne?”

“You can’t protect her forever, Vari.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Variam muttered.

I frowned. “What?”

“Never mind,” Variam said. “I still don’t like the Keepers.”

“You’re not going to get any argument from me. But look at it this way. If decent people never join the Keepers, they’re never going to get any better, are they?”

“So what, I’m supposed to reform them?”

I grinned. “Maybe not. But . . . there’s a practical side to it, too. You’ve been worried about the Council causing trouble for you or Anne some day, right? Well, think about it. If you want to protect yourself from the Council, having a position in the Keepers would be a pretty good way to do it.”

Variam started to answer and then stopped. It was obvious that he hadn’t thought of that. “You think that’d work?”

“It’s worth a try.” I took another glance into the futures and straightened. “Time to go.”

“I’m staying,” Variam said.

“Vari—”

“You don’t want us killing anyone because of you,” Variam said. “I get it. But you’re still going to need a way out. So just in case things don’t go so smooth, I’ll be waiting out here. Okay?”

I looked back at Variam, then gave him a nod. “I’ll see you soon.”

* * *

As I walked down the hillside towards Richard’s mansion, I put Variam out of my mind. The timing of this was going to be tricky; too late and the Nightstalkers would overwhelm me, too early and I wouldn’t have them as a buffer. The futures were narrowing quickly, and I knew Will and the Nightstalkers would make their gate in minutes. The alarm ward on the front door waited quietly, at rest. I opened the front door, feeling the faint tingle as the ward triggered, and walked in.

As soon as I was inside I broke into a run. I’d already checked that the nocturne trap hadn’t been reset but I checked again as I ran down the corridor, just to be safe. It was gone, and I ran down the dark stairs, my diviner’s senses guiding me. The chapel was cold and pitch-black, and my footsteps echoed on the stone. I made what few preparations I had time for, then stood in the archway and waited.

As I stood in the darkness I checked my weapons. My 1911 rested in its holster, its weight an unfamiliar presence at my hip. I didn’t honestly expect it to do me any good, but with any luck the Nightstalkers wouldn’t know that. My combat knife sat next to it and my one-shots were distributed in pockets around the belt. I’d already laid out one of my forcewalls at the chapel exit at my feet, the gold discs placed so their wall would block the path between the chapel and the deeper basements. It was the same exit that Shireen had been trying to reach when Rachel had killed her.

On my left side was the weapon I’d brought in anticipation of Will. I’d deliberated a long time deciding what to use. Will’s speed made most ranged weapons useless; he was practically fast enough to dodge bullets and by the time I’d fired enough rounds to have any chance of a hit he’d have closed the range and gutted me. From my experience in the casino I knew Will liked to get up close, where he could use his gun and shortsword to deadly effect. The best counter to that would have been the battle-magic of an elemental mage—something powerful enough to blast a whole room, force him to hold range or be burnt to death. But I didn’t have that kind of power, and the one-shots I’d brought wouldn’t do more than slow him down. I’d toyed with the idea of some kind of staff or spear, something to hold him at arm’s length, but the tunnels below Richard’s mansion were too cramped for such a long weapon and I had the feeling Will was quick enough to just grab the haft and stab me.

In the end I’d settled on a jian: a Chinese one-handed sword, a little over two feet long. It had enough reach to give an advantage over Will’s shortsword but not so much that he could easily get inside my swing, and it was light enough to be useful at close quarters. I didn’t want to fight Will hand-to-hand if I could avoid it, but if there was one thing I’d learnt about him over the past few days it was that he was really hard to shake off. I wasn’t going to be caught unprepared this time.

And beneath the weapons was Arachne’s armour, its weight a constant reminder of why I was here. I could feel its presence, ready and eager. From above a distant sound echoed through the mansion and I knew the Nightstalkers had arrived. I folded my arms and waited.

I heard them first, cautious footsteps echoing through the darkness, then the first flickers of light appeared at the foot of the stairs. There was a murmur of voices and I knew they were hesitating; they didn’t want another nocturne set on them. A minute ticked by as I stood, tense, trying to stay calm. At last the futures shifted; someone had made a decision. The footsteps started up again and the flickers became the shifting beams of torches as the Nightstalkers descended into the dark. They reached the foot of the stairs and formed a defensive semicircle, and yellow-green light flared up as chemical lights were broken. I shielded my eyes as the lights were thrown outwards, illuminating the chapel in an eerie glow and throwing the murals and the altar into sharp relief.

In the yellow-green glow I saw the Nightstalkers. Gold-hair girl and Captain America were watching the flanks, with Ja-Ja behind in the shadows and Dhruv at the centre. Lee was at the back, along with the girl I’d seen once before; I didn’t know her name but I was sure she was their gater. At the front was Will. He’d been already looking across the chapel and he saw me almost instantly, standing in the shadows of the far archway. He began to stalk across the stone floor.

“Will, wait,” Dhruv said sharply, looking from side to side. “It might be a trap.”

“Then check it,” Will said, not taking his eyes off me.

The Nightstalkers advanced slowly, crossing the floor of the chapel. They didn’t bunch up but didn’t space out as much as they should have either. Their movements looked nervous, and in a sudden flash of insight I realised how I must appear in their eyes. They didn’t see me as an ordinary man with a few tricks who’d survived the last few encounters only through help and luck. They saw me as a mage, mysterious and powerful, someone who derailed trains and summoned monsters. I knew that together the seven of them could defeat me . . . but they didn’t know that. To them I was an unknown, standing alone against the seven of them and not running away, and they were afraid. So I stood still, held Will’s gaze, and waited.

The Nightstalkers came to a ragged halt thirty feet away, leaving Will out on his own in front of them. Sensing that he was alone he stopped and half-turned his head back towards them. “What are you waiting for?”

“This doesn’t feel right,” Dhruv said uneasily. “Why’s he just standing there?”

Will let out a breath in frustration, then drew a gun from under his jacket with lightning speed, aiming and firing in a fraction of a second. As he pulled the trigger I spoke the command word for the forcewall and the gold discs flared with energy. The roar of the gun was loud in the enclosed space, echoing and rolling around the stone walls, and several of the Nightstalkers flinched at the din, but to my ears the forcewall muffled the sound, sending the bullet tumbling harmlessly to the floor. The barrier blocked off the archway completely, separating me from the Nightstalkers. Now the chapel didn’t have two ways out, but only one.

“There,” Will said curtly as the echoes faded. He lowered the gun. “If he’s so tough, why’d he seal himself in?”

Captain America and Ja-Ja moved forward. Captain America had what looked like a submachine gun levelled at me; Ja-Ja had no weapon but for his lethal touch. Both watched me warily; forcewall or no forcewall, they’d obviously learnt to respect me. “How do we get through?” gold-hair girl asked from behind them.

“We can’t,” Dhruv said. “Not without bringing the roof down.”

“We could gate,” gold-hair girl said, nodding towards the English girl.

“No,” Will said. “We’re not taking the chance. Those walls don’t last long; we just have to wait.” He stared at me. “No train this time.”

From above, in the mansion, I sensed gate magic. The Nightstalkers didn’t notice. “Why isn’t he talking?” gold-hair girl asked.

“I don’t know,” Will said. “What’s up, Verus? Not going to tell us to go away?”

I shook my head.

“No more threats?”

“No,” I said simply.

Lee had turned and had been looking towards the stairs up to the mansion. “Uh,” he said. “Will?”

“Later,” Will said.

“Will.” Lee sounded nervous.

Will didn’t take his eyes off me. I could sense how badly he wanted to kill me, and I knew only the forcewall was stopping him from trying. “Whatever it is, it can wait.”

“Will, someone’s coming.”

A ripple went through the Nightstalkers and they traded nervous looks. I saw something flicker on Captain America’s face and on Dhruv’s, and I knew they’d just figured out the problem with their position. I had only one way out . . . but so did they.

“I warned you,” I told Will quietly.

Just for a moment I thought I saw something in Will’s eyes, then footsteps echoed from the stairs and he turned just as Cinder and Rachel stepped out into the chapel behind him.

The plan had always been very simple: get the two people who most wanted to kill me and put them next to each other. The layout of the chapel meant there was only one way into the deeper basement, and my forcewall was blocking it. Will needed to get past the wall to reach me, and Rachel needed to get past Will to reach the rest of the basement. As long as the wall held Rachel and Will would be forced to stay there.

I’d followed many different paths to this meeting, but I hadn’t been able to see beyond it. I didn’t know what would happen next or how this would play out. All I could do was wait for Will to act like Will, and for Rachel to act like Deleo.

Cinder and Rachel had come prepared. Cinder was wearing some kind of black-plated body armour I hadn’t seen him in before, and red light licked at his hands. His eyes roved, passing over each member of the Nightstalkers in turn, ready to strike. While Cinder was dressed for war, Rachel looked as though she’d stepped out of a masquerade. She wore opera gloves, a black feathered cape and dress, and an elongated mask in the shape of a beak that left only the lower half of her face bare, her skin pale against the black cloth. It should have looked silly but to me it only looked frightening. As she twitched her head left to right, she made me think of a human bird of prey, and I felt a tingle as her eyes locked onto me. “Alex,” she said, and her voice was cold.

I saw Will stiffen as he heard her voice. “You,” he breathed. “It’s you.”

Rachel ignored him and the beak of her mask turned as she surveyed the Nightstalkers. Her movements carried an aura of menace so strong it was almost tangible, and I saw some of the adepts flinch. “Is the Council sending children now?” Rachel asked softly.

“We’re not with the Council!” Will snapped.

“Will!” Dhruv whispered. He was looking between me, Rachel, and Cinder. “Really bad idea. Really bad idea!”

“Why should I?” Rachel said suddenly. Her head was turned and she was talking as if to thin air. Once I wouldn’t have understood what she was doing; now I did. Shireen? What are you saying . . . ?

“Will?” Captain America said quietly. His hand was by his side and I knew he was poised to pull a weapon. “Who is she?”

“No, I haven’t,” Rachel said.

“Kid,” Cinder said. He was watching Will steadily. “You get one warning. Get out.”

“I’ve never seen him before!” Rachel snapped.

“You’ve seen my sister!” Will shouted. “Catherine! Remember her?”

Rachel turned to Will in surprise; it was as though she’d forgotten he was there. “Who are you?”

“You killed my sister,” Will snarled. “Remember me now?”

Rachel looked at him curiously for a moment. “Not really.”

Will’s eyes flashed with insane rage. “You. Killed. My. Sister.”

“Who?”

“Catherine,” Will said slowly. I knew he had to be seething with fury but he kept his words clear. “She used to live here in this country. You wanted her magic so you hunted her down and killed her for it.”

Rachel thought about it, then shrugged. “Not ringing any bells, sorry.”

“You killed her right here in this mansion!”

“Doesn’t narrow it down much.”

Cinder gave Rachel a glance. “You killed more than one Catherine in this mansion?”

“Well, I might have done,” Rachel said in annoyance. “It’s not like I stop to ask their names.”

“No!” Will shouted. “I won’t let you forget who she even was! Her name was Catherine Traviss! Remember it!”

Rachel had been looking at Cinder, but as she heard the full name she froze. She stared at Will for a moment before turning to me. “Catherine Traviss,” she said slowly. “You wanted to know about her.” She shifted her gaze back to Will. “But then you’d have to be . . .” Her eyes went wide suddenly. “No. I don’t believe it.”

“Yeah,” Will snarled. “You remember now, don’t you?”

“It is you,” Rachel said softly. Suddenly she threw back her head and laughed. The noise was loud in the enclosed space, startling, and I flinched as Rachel looked back down, eyes shining. “Now I remember! The little brother. We thought we’d got all of you, but we didn’t, did we? You were the one that got away!”

“Del,” Cinder said, a note of warning in his voice. He hadn’t taken his eyes off the Nightstalkers and red light hovered at his hands.

Rachel laughed again. “I know, you don’t know. But don’t you see how perfect this is?” She extended her arms, looking between me and Will. “It’s like our own little reunion! We just need Tobruk and we’d have everyone!”

The Nightstalkers shifted uneasily. I knew what they were thinking—that Rachel was crazy. Except the scary thing was that Rachel didn’t sound crazy anymore, not to me. “For me?” Rachel asked the air curiously, then turned to Will. “Is that true?”

Will stared at Rachel. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Rachel’s laughter cut off as if with a knife, her smile vanishing. “You’re after me, aren’t you? That’s why you came.”

“No,” Dhruv said quickly.

“Shut up, Dhruv,” Will said, not taking his eyes off Rachel. “You thought you wouldn’t have to pay for what you did?”

“You don’t even know what that means, you stupid child.” Rachel’s voice was ice; she stalked towards Will, her eyes glittering in the darkness. The Nightstalkers stepped into a defensive stance, and I saw Cinder ready himself to cover her. “Yes, I killed your sister. I drained her life and turned her body to dust and she was too weak to stop me.” Rachel spread her hands and light flickered around them, sea-green energy seeping out of the darkness. “So what are you going to do about it, boy?”

“Will, this is a really bad idea,” Dhruv began.

“I said shut up,” Will said.

“Dhruv’s right,” Captain America said with a warning note in his voice. He glanced towards the English girl. “Get us out of here.”

“No!” Will snapped. “We can end this!”

The English girl hesitated, looking nervously between Will and Rachel. “This is the one you were telling us about? Rachel?”

Rachel’s right hand flicked up and a greenish ray stabbed from her hand. Will dodged in a blur of motion but it hadn’t been aimed at him. The ray struck the English girl and for one instant she was backlit in an eerie, lethal light, spine arching, face twisting in agony, mouth opening to scream. Then there was a flash and her body and clothes disintegrated into dust, a cloud of fine powder puffing out to swirl downwards towards the stone. The other six Nightstalkers stood frozen, and I stared at the dust that a moment ago had been the girl’s body. I hadn’t known her name, and now I never would.

Only Rachel didn’t turn to look. She hadn’t taken her eyes off Will, and now she spoke slowly and clearly. “Don’t call me Rachel.”

For a long moment everything was still.

Then everything happened at once. Will charged Rachel, his shortsword flickering into his hand, and Ja-Ja darted in by his side. Fire flashed from Cinder, forming a barrier and driving them back. Rachel shifted targets to gold-hair girl, light strengthening at her hand as she aimed another disintegration ray, but before she could get her spell off Captain America had pulled an assault rifle from nowhere and opened fire. The bullets glanced off Rachel’s green-blue shield, but Dhruv threw something into the air that looked like a metal fan. It twisted, opened out to form a disc, and slammed into Rachel’s shield like a saw blade; the shield bent and held but the impact made the ray go wide.

Everything was so fast it was hard to follow, like eight cats all fighting at once. Images caught in my mind, brief moments in the chaos: Captain America pulling a transparent riot shield and throwing it to Lee; Will sliding back to dodge a disintegration ray by inches; gold-hair girl’s ground fire meeting Cinder’s dark flame. The Nightstalkers were fighting with a berserk fury at the loss of their friend and for a moment Rachel and Cinder were on the defensive, two bears surrounded by a wolf pack.

Captain America pulled a grenade, hurled it. Dhruv’s magnetic field caught it in midair and sent it arrowing in, driving into Rachel’s water shield. Will and Ja-Ja jumped clear; Lee crouched behind his shield, and the others dived behind Lee just as the grenade went off. Rachel’s shield took the blast but not the momentum; the explosion lifted her off the floor and she hit the stone hard. Will and Ja-Ja charged but Cinder was ready, and a glowing dark-red sphere exploded in a roar and a flash of flame right in the middle of them. Cinder, Rachel, Will, and Ja-Ja were all caught in the blast, but Cinder and Rachel had shields. Will and Ja-Ja didn’t. Ja-Ja was thrown backwards, screaming in pain, one arm alight; Will’s speed left him only smouldering. Cinder sent another fireball streaking towards the rest of the Nightstalkers; Lee hunched his shoulders and crouched into his shield as the flash of searing heat rolled past them. “Will!” Dhruv shouted.

Will snatched one look back at the others, then at me. As Rachel came to her feet again he glanced back and forth, judging distances, then moved in a blur of motion. I saw the futures flash and change and knew it was time to leave. I turned and started to run down the corridor just as Rachel’s gaze locked onto Will and another green ray flashed out.

Will’s course had taken him between Rachel and me and as Rachel fired he slid aside. The ray missed him and the rest of the Nightstalkers and hit the forcewall separating us. The forcewall resisted for an instant but its energy was low; the ray overwhelmed the wall, the discs shorting out as it was wiped into nothingness. I was already gone, running through the darkness, only my diviner’s senses guiding me.

The tunnels under Richard’s mansion spread a long way, dark and cold and smelling of ancient stone. None had lamps; they’d been made for people who could conjure their own light. The rooms and corridors were like a maze but my feet knew the way and I took the turnings without breaking stride. Tobruk had hunted me through these tunnels over and over again all those years ago, playing with me like a cat with a mouse, and I’d memorised every twist and turn. Now his cruelty was keeping me alive. From behind I could hear shouts and knew the Nightstalkers were close on my heels. I didn’t know whether they were chasing me or fleeing Rachel; as long as Will was with them it made little difference.

As I reached the laboratory I heard running feet and knew Will was at my back. For all my preparations I’d still underestimated just how impossibly fast he could move. My next forcewall was at the entrance to the cell block on the other side of the lab—too far. I should have laid out a third one between them but it was too late now. As I ran the laboratory lit up in a yellow glow from a chemical light behind me, revealing long benches, dusty ironwork, and a ritual circle. From behind I heard Will’s footsteps stutter and I ducked left as the crash of a handgun echoed around the stone walls, bullets zipping overhead.

As long as they could see me, the Nightstalkers could use their numbers to bring me down. I caught up a condenser from a pocket and crushed it. For one instant I glimpsed Will, standing in the entrance aiming his gun one-handed, then mist rushed out and I was blind. I was already dropping behind the benches and as Will opened fire again his shots passed through the empty air where he’d last seen me. The crash of gunfire and the whine of ricocheting bullets faded into the sounds of reloading and running footsteps. “Will!” someone shouted. I recognised Dhruv.

“He’s there!” Will shouted. “Take him out first!”

The natural thing for me to do would have been to keep running and put the mist between me and my pursuers. Instead I held still, mist swirling around me, all my attention on the futures ahead. “Do you see him?” Will called, and from the sound of his voice I knew he was circling.

“We don’t have time!” Dhruv shouted. From behind I heard the muffled whump of a fire blast. “Find us a way out!”

“No!” Will snarled. “Ja-Ja, with me!” Running footsteps converged on me.

I paused for two seconds, watching the futures narrow. Will would come around the bench to my left, Ja-Ja to my right. If I struck from ambush I could take one . . . but not the other, and I’d give away my position. I ducked under the bench and saw dark shadows slip by as Will and Ja-Ja passed, missing me.

Shouts and curses echoed around the laboratory. Will and Ja-Ja blundered in the mist, their powers useless without sight. Looking through the futures, I saw what I’d been searching for. Will was shouting something, trying to rally the Nightstalkers to flush me out. I waited, counting off the seconds, then moved towards Ja-Ja, deliberately making enough noise to be heard.

Ja-Ja heard me and spun, his hand flashing out with the speed of a striking snake. I leant back and let the strike breeze past, then stepped away. “He’s here!” Ja-Ja shouted, but amidst the yells no one heard. Ja-Ja kept coming after me, the lethal magic of his touch hovering ready, and I let him push me to the edge of the cloud and out of it. As soon as I emerged from the mist I ducked left.

Ja-Ja followed me out half a second later and stopped. I’d led Ja-Ja in a circle back towards the entrance by which I’d arrived—and face to face with Rachel and Cinder, who’d just finished fighting their way in. Cinder’s attention was turned towards the rest of the Nightstalkers, trading fire with Dhruv and Captain America, but Rachel had been looking straight towards me as I’d stepped out and she faced Ja-Ja from less than thirty feet away. Ja-Ja saw Rachel just an instant too late and I saw a brief expression of terrified realisation flash across his face before the green ray of Rachel’s disintegration magic hit him in the chest.

The effect was faster this time. Ja-Ja’s body seemed to flicker for a second and then simply puffed into dust, life converted to death in an instant. Without missing a beat Rachel sent a matching beam at me but I was already moving, stepping back into the blanket of mist as the ray went wide. From beginning to end I’d been out of the mist cloud for less than three seconds. Two down.

I backed off through the mist as screams and gunfire echoed around me. The Nightstalkers were still trying to fight, but the tide had turned; by leading Ja-Ja into the mist, Will had split the Nightstalkers’ focus between the Dark mages and me. If the Nightstalkers had fallen back and fought defensively they might have been able to hold Rachel and Cinder off, but they hadn’t. Will’s aggression might have worked against me, but against Cinder and Rachel it was the worst possible thing he could have done.

Fire and disintegration beams slashed into the Nightstalkers, scattering their formation. Ancient beakers and bottles exploded into shards of glass, and clouds of smoke and steam covered the laboratory. A blast from Cinder sent Lee stumbling aside, beating at the flames licking up his arm. Dhruv stepped up to fill the gap, face pale, his metal disc rotating vertically to block a gout of flame from Cinder as gold-hair girl sent ground fire back. Cinder kept up the stream of flame for a second then changed the spell; the fire narrowed, intensified, as if being focused through a lens, becoming a white-hot beam only an inch or two wide. The beam cut through Dhruv’s disc, the metal flashing red-yellow-white as it liquefied, molten drops splashing to the floor before the beam sawed through Dhruv’s arm and into his side. Dhruv had time for one scream, then his body caught fire from the inside out and he became a flaming torch, thrashing and falling.

The Nightstalkers broke and ran. Will was still shouting, but no one was listening anymore. I caught a glimpse of Captain America and Lee sprinting for the exit leading to the duelling hall; gold-hair girl was running for the tunnel mouth in which I’d placed my forcewall. Will saw that he was the only one still fighting, jumped out of the way of another disintegration ray, and sprinted after gold-hair girl, rapidly outpacing her.

I’d had a couple of seconds’ head start and was already running for the exit that Will and the girl had chosen. In the smoke and chaos they didn’t realise it was me and for one bizarre moment we were running together. I made it through the archway first, with Will right behind. Before gold-hair girl could follow I shouted the command word. The forcewall snapped up and gold-hair girl slammed into the invisible barrier, staggering back with a bloody nose. Will whirled, looking to see where she’d gone.

Gold-hair girl was left alone in the laboratory, cut off by the forcewall. The heavy tread of booted feet sounded from behind her, and she turned.

Cinder came out of the smoke, a hulking silhouette outlined in red flame, eyes shadowed in the darkness. He looked like a demon of the underworld and gold-hair girl shied away, sending a blast of ground fire at him. The flame raced towards Cinder, engulfed him in a roaring blaze. For an instant he was hidden, then he strode out with fire licking at his legs and clothes. He hadn’t even slowed down. Gold-hair girl threw up her hands. “Wait, don’t! Please!”

Cinder kept advancing. Gold-hair girl backed away until her back came up against the forcewall. “No, please! I don’t want to fight you! I’m not with them!” Her voice was high and terrified. Cinder kept coming. “I can tell you things! About the others, why they were looking—” Cinder came to a stop fifteen feet away; red light sprang up at his hand and he lifted it to point at the girl, a dull red orb forming at his palm. Her voice rose to a scream. “Wait! Don’t you want to know why we’re here?”

The orb sprang from Cinder’s hand and exploded against her, the force of the blast slamming her torn and burning body against the forcewall before letting it drop. “No,” Cinder said to the corpse, then turned and vanished into the smoke.

“Bev!” Will shouted.

Will had his back to me, silhouetted against the lights and fire of the laboratory. Without hesitating I drew my gun and fired. Some sound or sixth sense warned him just in time and he threw himself sideways, moving in a blur of motion faster than I could adjust my aim. Will fired back and I stepped down a side passage as the deafening crash echoed down the narrow corridors. Yellow light flared as Will cracked another light and charged after me.

I fired and moved, leading Will deeper into the tunnels, away from help. The sounds of battle from behind faded away, drowned in the roar of gunfire. I watched the futures, counting off the shots in Will’s gun.

Will’s gun clicked empty and I stepped out into the corridor, trying to line up a shot, but Will flicked out his shortsword and charged. I fired, missed, and had to drop the gun and draw my own sword as Will came in low. Blades clashed and Will was driven back.

“Just you and me,” I said.

“You bastard,” Will said. He was breathing fast and his eyes were wild in the yellow light. “I’ll kill you!”

“So far the only ones you’ve managed to kill are your friends.”

Will screamed in fury and lunged, stabbing for my throat. His blade was only a flicker in the darkness, but my jian outranged his shortsword and again he was forced back. “You did this!” he shouted. “They’re dead because of you!”

“Because you led them here,” I said coldly. “Was it worth it? All of them dead for your revenge?”

“This was your fault! You set this up!”

“Of course I set this up,” I said, putting as much contempt into my voice as I could. “What did you think I’d do, wait for you to kill me? Were you really that arrogant? I thought I’d have to work to lure you here, but you walked right in. Though I guess you had some cannon fodder in case it went wrong—”

Will went berserk, going for me with everything he had. I’d been trying to make him angry, and it had worked too well. I put a gash on his arm on the way in, then he slammed into me and we both went down, rolling and stabbing with lethal intent. My longer blade was a disadvantage now and I dropped it to catch Will’s wrist, twisting his sword aside. He managed to get on top of me and rained down blows with his free hand, bruising my face. On the fifth or sixth punch I managed to kick him off and rolled away, snatching up my sword as I came to my feet. Will got me in the back before I could turn and I staggered, but I could still move and my own blade slashed him as I spun, forcing him away yet again.

We stared at each other in the yellow light, just outside strike range, probing for a weakness. My lower back was aching where Will had stabbed me but I couldn’t feel any blood and I didn’t let anything show. Will attacked again and I gave ground, backing down the corridor.

Will had pushed me all the way into the cell block, the featureless stone rooms on either side of the corridor standing silent and empty. I knew this place like the back of my hand and didn’t need to look around—and it was just as well, because I couldn’t spare a second to do it. I was a better swordsman than Will but his impossible speed made it hard for me to press the advantage; every time I tried to exploit an opening he’d dodge aside. But for all his speed I could see his attacks coming, and whenever he tried to close the range he found my blade waiting for him. The stone walls echoed with the clash of metal on metal and the scuff of footsteps.

Back and forth the battle went, and neither of us could gain an edge. We were too closely matched, his speed and my precognition cancelling each other out. Twice Will tried grabbing for my sword but got only a cut hand for his trouble. I’d opened up half a dozen cuts and slashes on Will but he didn’t slow down; he was running on high-octane hatred and the pain was just spurring him on. Again and again I manoeuvred into position for a killing blow, and every time he would slide back just out of range, making me overextend. I didn’t talk and neither did he; we couldn’t spare the breath.

This couldn’t go on forever. I was getting tired, feeling the first traces of real fear. If I kept fighting I might win . . . but I might lose, too. You don’t live long if you keep staking your life on coin flips. I needed an edge.

I felt in better shape than Will looked. He’d landed two or three glancing hits, but I didn’t feel any wounds, not even on my back. But Will had stabbed me; I ought to have been—

My armour. As soon as I thought of it I remembered its presence again, watchful and protective. It had blended with my movements so completely that I’d forgotten I was wearing it. I’m not used to being protected in a fight—usually I can’t afford to get hit. But now I could.

But Will didn’t know that. In the darkness and confusion he couldn’t be sure I was protected, or how well. And he hated me so badly that he didn’t care; he’d do anything to hurt me, no matter the risk . . .

The plan flashed through my mind in an instant, and I turned and ran. Will was after me in an instant but I was already dodging left into my old cell, the one place in this mansion that I knew better than anywhere else. As Will caught up I turned, my sword deliberately out of position, leaving my lower body vulnerable. Will didn’t hesitate, going in for another low lunge, and this time I didn’t block. Instead I struck, matching his all-out attack with my own.

Will’s sword rammed into my stomach in the same move he’d used to cripple me in the casino. It felt like being kicked by a horse, but as the point of the sword drove into my gut the armour hardened into a rigid plate, spreading the impact over my lower body. Pain flashed through me and I stumbled, but the spell-woven cloth held.

At the same instant my jian hit Will, and he didn’t have any armour. The blade sank into his abdomen with a sensation exactly like cutting into meat with a kitchen knife. Will staggered, tried to back up, and I twisted the blade as he pulled off it, tearing the wound open.

Will righted himself. He didn’t look in pain or angry; he just looked surprised, as though he hadn’t quite caught up to what was happening. Still he attacked, but he wasn’t as fast now. I parried the first two strikes, then knocked his sword aside and skewered his thigh, tearing through the big muscle and leaving him nearly unable to move. Still Will fought on, blood dripping on the stone. A little voice told me to stop; I didn’t listen to it. One more pass, then I closed and rammed my sword through Will’s gut, and this time I put it all the way through. Only then did Will fall.

Will lay in his own blood, gasping, his face a hideous colour in the yellow light. “Are you happy?” I snarled down at him. “Is this what you wanted?”

Will tried to bring his sword around and I kicked it out of his hand, then pointed my sword down at him. Blood dripped from the tip, the blade trembling slightly. “Was it worth it? Your friends, dead. You, dead. All for your stupid revenge! Was it worth it?”

“You—” Will gasped. “You think you’ve won?”

“Won?” My voice rose to a shout. I’d been keeping this bottled up for so very long and I was close to snapping. “I never wanted this! Ten years I’ve had Catherine’s death weighing me down! Ten years! I was starting to forget, I was almost happy, then you brought it all back! Why couldn’t you just let me be?”

“You don’t—” Will struggled for breath. “You don’t deserve it. You’re a murderer.”

That was where I finally lost it. “Shut up!” I screamed. I kicked Will, making him double over. “This is your fault! Not mine! You made me do this! I never wanted to hurt any of you! All I wanted was to be left alone!”

Will was on his side but I couldn’t stop screaming at him, all the pain and hatred and anguish boiling to the surface. I spend so much time keeping my self-control but I couldn’t keep it now. “None of this had to happen! I kept trying to talk to you, all you had to do was stop trying to kill me and listen! That was it! Just listen! Now I’m a murderer again; I got Catherine killed and now I’ve killed her brother too! I promised I’d never be this person again, but you made me do it and I hate you for it!”

Will’s eyes were hazy with pain and dark blood was pooling around his body. I knew he was dying but somehow he found the strength to laugh. “You’ll never change. Never get away—”

“Why not? Why can’t I start a new life? Haven’t I’ve paid enough?”

“Never enough—” Will drew a gasping breath. “Isn’t over.”

“It is over! The Nightstalkers are dead! They followed you here and they died for it!”

“There’ll be more.” Will’s voice was trailing off, but he managed to get the words out. “After today . . . they’ll come for you . . .”

“No!” I screamed at Will. “I don’t believe this! How many times are you going to keep coming? How many of you am I going to have to kill before you leave me alone?”

Will didn’t answer, and as I looked at him I realised he never would. His eyes had glazed and as I watched, the slow rise and fall of his chest stopped.

I stared down at his body for a long time, then turned and began, very slowly, to retrace my steps.

* * *

By the time I made it back to the laboratory the battle was over. Smoke hung in the air, but the fires had been starved to nothing and only smouldering patches marked where the flames had raged. The nauseating stench of burnt flesh filled the air, thick and sweet and horrible.

Captain America was propped up against one of the benches, his face pale from blood loss. His leg was gone at the knee; an open first-aid kit lay next to him and he’d managed to put a tourniquet on. It didn’t look like he was going any further.

I could have finished him but just the thought of killing anyone else made me want to throw up. The adrenaline rush from my battle with Will had worn off and I was bone-tired and sick, drained of emotion. I tapped the point of the jian against the stone, the noise echoing in the silence.

Captain America’s head snapped up and he peered through the smoke at me. His eyes were hazy and his movements sluggish and I knew he had to be in shock, but even so, looking through the futures I saw him pull out a gun and level it at me. “Please don’t,” I said wearily.

Captain America hesitated and we stared at each other for a long moment, then I saw the futures of violence thin and slip away. “Where’s Will?”

I didn’t answer but looked at him steadily. Captain America’s eyes flickered from me down to the jian. Will’s blood was still on the blade.

“Lee?” I said.

“Gone,” Captain America said. His voice was weak, but he held his head up. “You’re not catching him.”

“I never wanted to catch any of you.”

The tread of heavy feet echoed from one of the side corridors. I thought about dodging back and hiding but I was too tired. I stood my ground and waited.

Cinder came out of the darkness, massive and steady. A red glow hovered at his shoulder but he didn’t have any attack magic active, not yet. His eyes registered me, then turned to settle on Captain America. Cinder came to a stop, looking at the adept, and the message was clear. Take your shot.

Captain America stared back at him. He didn’t draw a weapon and he didn’t look away. After a few seconds Cinder glanced at me. “Verus.”

“Where’s Deleo?”

Cinder tilted his head, as if deciding whether to answer. “Gate chamber.” He studied me. “But they weren’t here for that, were they?”

I was silent.

“They wanted you,” Cinder said. “You led them here. Got us to handle them. Sneaky.” He studied me, then shrugged and nodded towards the exit. “You better go.”

I glanced at Captain America. “What are you going to do with him?”

Cinder looked at me steadily. “Not your business.”

I hesitated.

“Don’t try anything, Verus,” Cinder said. “Been a long day and fighting you is just a pain in the balls. I’m not in the mood.”

I looked Cinder up and down, then turned back to the boy I’d thought of as Captain America. “Your name’s Kyle, right?”

Captain America—Kyle—looked at me. “Yeah.”

“For what it’s worth,” I said, “I never had anything against you.” I turned and crossed the laboratory, my steps heavy. I skirted Kyle just in case he tried a last desperate attack, but nothing came. He and Cinder watched me go.

I walked down the tunnel in the darkness and through the chapel. The pile of dust had been scattered in the battle and there was no trace that anyone had been left there. I didn’t hear any sound from behind. I could have stopped to spy on Kyle and Cinder, see what Cinder was going to do, but the thought of staying here any longer filled me with nausea. As I trudged up the steps to the mansion’s ground floor I pulled out my phone and dialled. Variam picked up almost instantly. “Alex?”

“It’s over,” I said. I felt utterly drained, so much that it was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other. “I’m coming up.”

“Gate’s ready when you are,” Variam said.

I hung up and started the long walk back to where Variam was waiting to take me home.

chapter 14

It was a few days later.

I stood under the trees of the South London cemetery. The sky was overcast, low clouds forming a thick blanket that held in the heat, and the weather was close and humid and tiring. I held still, the tree obscuring my silhouette enough to make me easy to miss, and watched the people gathered around the new grave in the far corner. It wasn’t a large crowd—less than a dozen—and the priest was reading from a small leather-bound book. I couldn’t make out what he was saying and I didn’t want to get close enough to hear. Up ahead, through the legs of the crowd, I could see Catherine’s grave, her parents’ tombstones just behind. A new grave marker had been added next to hers, of the same size and shape.

I’ve never been to many funerals, though God knows I’ve been involved often enough in what causes them. When someone bites it in my line of work it tends not to get advertised, either because no one wants the publicity, because there isn’t enough left to bury, or both. It had been a long time since I’d been to one, and I hadn’t really known what to expect. Few had shown up. Either Will’s lifestyle had left him without many friends, or they just hadn’t wanted to come. Those who had were either young—his age—or sixty or more.

You’d think there’d be something more dramatic about the passing of someone from this world to the next, but I guess by the time the funeral comes it’s all done. All that’s left is to go through with the ritual. So I stood alone and watched, and the priest read through the ceremony and the guests listened in silence, until eventually it was done and the small crowd began to disperse, people splitting up in twos and threes. Maybe it was my imagination but they seemed to move a little more briskly as they walked away, as if they were returning to the world of the living and leaving their brush with death behind. None came in my direction, for which I was glad. I stayed in the shadows and let them pass by in the sun, going back to their lives.

There was one person, though, whom I couldn’t hide from. I’d seen him in the crowd, standing next to a girl I didn’t recognise, and I knew he’d seen me. It was what he did, after all. I didn’t make a move towards him and as the crowd broke up I expected him to disappear, but instead he said something to the girl and walked towards me. He stopped just outside the shade of the tree, as if afraid to come out of the light.

Lee looked very different from when I’d first seen him. It had been less than ten days since we’d first met on the roof of my flat and he’d aged harshly in that brief time. There was a haunted look in his eyes now, and in his funeral clothes he looked less youthful, more careworn. It’s one thing to see someone forced to grow up; it’s something else to make it happen. Lee didn’t speak at first and neither did I. We looked at each other for a while. “Why are you here?” Lee said at last.

“Not for you, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“You killed them,” Lee said. I expected him to be angry but he just sounded bitter and tired. “Those two might have done it but you were the one who set it up.”

“You shouldn’t have tried to kill me first.”

“It was Will who wanted you dead. Not us.”

“Then why’d you follow him?”

Lee was silent. “You know, everyone’s been talking as though this was just between me and Will,” I said. “You know what I think? The one who really made all this happen was you.”

Lee stared at me. “What? I just—”

“You just find people. Like I just found Will’s sister.” I looked at Lee. “I saw how Dhruv and Will treated you. Your magic isn’t for combat so they acted like you were less important. But you were the one who was really driving everything. Everywhere the Nightstalkers went, they went because you pointed them there.”

“I just did what he told me to.”

“Why? Because it’s not your place to question orders?” I shook my head. “You could have stopped this anytime. All you had to do was say no.”

“And you didn’t have to get them all killed,” Lee said bitterly.

“Maybe you’re right,” I said wearily. “So what are you going to do, Lee? The same thing as Will? Go away and nurse your hatred until you can gather more people and do it all over again? Is that how it works? Revenge for revenge, over and over until everyone’s dead? When does it stop?”

I held Lee’s gaze and we matched stares. For a moment I saw anger flickering behind his eyes and then it faded, becoming something sadder, harder to recognise. “If I were Deleo, I’d just kill you,” I said. “But I want to believe that it doesn’t have to end that way. That something better can come out of all this.” I shrugged. “I guess it’s up to you whether I’m right.”

I turned and walked away, heading for the cemetery gates. Lee watched me go.

* * *

The police tape around my shop was gone but the sign on the door said CLOSED. I’d had the talk with the police, and it had been exactly as unpleasant as I’d been expecting. They couldn’t really charge me with anything—it’s not illegal under U.K. law to get your house blown up, at least not yet—but you didn’t exactly have to be a genius to know something was going on. They questioned me for a long time, and only after it became clear that I wasn’t going to tell them anything did they finally give up in disgust. From the Council I’d heard only silence.

Inside, my shop and flat were quiet. Variam had moved out; the room he’d been living in had been one of the ones hit by the bomb and in any case he’d had a new offer. While I was being interrogated by the police Variam had gone to meet Dr. Shirland’s Keeper, and things must have gone well because Variam had sent me a message saying he’d been accepted on probation. As part of the deal he’d moved into apprentice accommodation. I hadn’t met the Keeper in question but I was curious as to what he’d said at their meeting. Either he’d been very persuasive, or Vari was just getting less suspicious.

Luna had gone back to her classes. She’d probably been the least affected out of all of us, and when I’d spoken to her yesterday she’d told me that none of the other apprentices seemed to have heard what had happened. It wouldn’t last—sooner or later, word would get around. The only one whom I hadn’t seen was Anne. I’d met Luna and Variam at Arachne’s cave and told them the story, but Anne hadn’t been there and I hadn’t seen her since. But looking through the futures, I saw that Anne was upstairs in the guest room and her door was open. I climbed the stairs to the landing, knowing that she’d have seen me coming. As I reached the doorway I slowed and stopped.

Anne doesn’t have many possessions but in the months she’s stayed with me she’s managed to take the little guest room and leave a definite impression of her personality. There had been potted plants by the window and clothes neatly folded on the chair, and a smell of leaves and flowers. Now the plants were gone, the ornaments were gone, and the last of the clothes were packed in a suitcase lying open on the bed. “You’re leaving?” I said in surprise. It wasn’t the most brilliant comment but I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Anne was silent for a moment. She was standing with a pullover in her arms; as I watched she tucked it carefully into the suitcase. “I didn’t think you’d be back this soon.”

I looked at Anne. She didn’t meet my eyes but kept packing her clothes. “Where are you going?”

“Sonder’s found me somewhere,” Anne said. “I can stay there a little while.”

I noticed that she didn’t tell me where. “Why?”

Anne paused, not looking at me. “Vari told me what happened.”

I had a hollow, sinking feeling. Somewhere at the back of my mind I’d known this was coming. “You killed them,” Anne said, her voice flat.

“Technically I only killed one of them.”

Anne looked up at me, anger flashing in her eyes. “Setting them up to be murdered by Dark mages isn’t any better! You promised you weren’t going to kill them!”

“I tried,” I snapped. “Okay? I tried talking and I tried running and I tried calling the Council. You think I wanted it to end like this?”

“You could have found another way.”

“What other way? What was I supposed to do that would stop seven magically gifted assassins? I don’t have that kind of power, Anne! I can’t walk through bullets and knock people out with a touch. The only way I could beat Will and his friends was to call in help.”

“We would have helped you! But not to do something like this!”

“And that was why I called in Cinder and Rachel. Because they’re killers and you aren’t. Because Will wanted revenge on Rachel as well. This was always going to happen—I just made sure it happened first.”

“How can you talk about them like that?” Anne looked like she was about to cry. “They’re people, not things! How could you just let them die?”

“Because they were trying to kill me!” I snarled. “Because I survive and that’s what I do! I don’t want to fight but if it has to be me or them I’m going to make damn sure I’m the one still alive on the other side. That’s why I’m still here! Why are you so surprised? It’s not like it’s the first time!”

Anne stared at me. “What?”

“Remember last year?” I said. “When those gunmen came after you? When you were dying in that flat and I went to deal with them, what did you think I was doing? I didn’t hear you complaining when you got away alive!”

“That was different!”

“Why? Because they were after you, not me?”

Anne jerked back at that. “How can you be like this?”

“What kind of person did you think I was?” I demanded. “I told you the truth about what I used to be. How the hell could you listen to that and still have any illusions about the kind of man I am?”

“Because I thought you were different now!” Anne shouted. “I thought you were better than me!”

I stared at Anne in disbelief. “Where the hell did you get that idea?”

Anne looked away, her hair hiding her face. “Anne, I’ve never thought I was better than any of you,” I said. “Why do you think I tried to keep the three of you out of it? If someone had to take the weight, better it should be me . . .”

“You shouldn’t have,” Anne said. Her voice was muffled and I knew she was crying. She shut the suitcase and picked it up, then walked towards the door, head down, aiming to pass me.

“You’re just going to walk out?” I demanded. “That’s it?” Anne didn’t lift her head or stop, and as she moved to go by me I felt a sudden surge of fury. I slammed my hand into the wall, blocking her path. “No!” I snapped at her. “At least tell me! You owe me that much!”

Anne flinched back, an instinctive, frightened move. She looked up at me with a tear-streaked face, so close I could smell her. There was something in her eyes I didn’t understand, a complex mix of emotions, but one thing I was sure of was that she was afraid, and my anger disappeared in a sick, miserable feeling. Anne shouldn’t be afraid of me. Standing close like this, she was the one who was threatening. Her life magic was far more dangerous than mine . . . but she wouldn’t use it as a weapon, not like this. That was why I’d always felt safe around her; I’d known I could trust her.

But she didn’t trust me. Not anymore.

I let my arm drop and stepped away. Anne walked past me onto the landing. For a moment she hesitated and I saw the futures flicker as if she wanted to say something, and then she bowed her head and started down the stairs. I watched her go until she disappeared below the landing. The sound of her footsteps crossing the floor drifted up from below, then the shop door closed and I was alone.

* * *

With everyone gone my flat felt empty, and I wandered aimlessly through the rooms. My bedroom was still missing a roof; the rubble had been cleared but I hadn’t arranged for repairs. I needed to start the work of rebuilding my flat but I couldn’t muster the energy. The living room had been emptied of furniture and I couldn’t help but remember it as it had been, full of games and talk and laughter. It felt like a long time ago, and now the room seemed gloomy and bare.

I fixed myself a meal in the kitchen. It seemed to take a long time and when I was done it tasted bland. I couldn’t help comparing it to Anne’s cooking. I washed up and went back to the living room. I had work I should be doing, but I couldn’t make myself care. The conversations with Lee and with Anne kept going round and round in my head and my flat felt lonely and depressing. At last I gave up and headed to Hampstead Heath.

* * *

Ifound Arachne in her cave, sitting at rest. For once she wasn’t working on any clothes and she greeted me as if it were just another day. Walking into her cavern didn’t exactly make me feel happy, but at least the empty feeling didn’t get any worse.

“Well, the armour worked perfectly,” I said after we’d finished with the small talk. I felt listless but didn’t want to show it. “I think it’s accepted me, too.” I looked at Arachne. “Did you know it was going to . . . ?”

“Imbued items make their own choice,” Arachne said. “But I knew what it was looking for. You aren’t wearing it?”

“I’ve gotten a bit edgy about these things lately.”

“The armour will be safe,” Arachne said. “I designed it with that in mind. It’ll grow with you too, as long as you spend enough time with it.” She tilted her head at me. “But that isn’t what’s bothering you.”

I was silent. “Anne’s gone,” I said finally. “I’m not sure she’s ever coming back.” I told Arachne the story, not leaving anything out.

Arachne sat thoughtfully for a little while once I was finished. “With regard to the adepts,” she said at last, “how do you feel about what you’ve done?”

“How do I feel?” I sighed. “Right now . . . Mostly, just empty. I feel like to do what I did to Will and the Nightstalkers, I had to kill a bit of myself. All these years I’ve tried to prove to myself that I’m not the same person as I was back then, and it’s like it was all for nothing. I wish it had ended some other way but it’s not like I’ve got anyone else to blame, is it? And . . . I don’t want to admit it, but there’s a part of me that doesn’t regret it one bit. That thinks that they hurt me, they tried to kill me, they deserved everything they got. And then there’s a bit of me that’s afraid feeling that way means that I really am a monster. That I can kill a bunch of kids and be glad they’re dead.” I was silent for a moment. “I’ve driven Anne away and probably Sonder too. They’re probably the two most good mages I know, and they’re both gone. What does that say about me?”

“You’re afraid of becoming like Richard,” Arachne said. “That you’re following his path, just as Tobruk and Rachel were.”

I smiled slightly. “You always get right to the heart of it, don’t you?”

“I am a little older than you, you know.” Arachne’s opaque eyes studied me. “Would you like some advice?”

I nodded.

“Well then.” Arachne settled back into a more comfortable position, rearranging her eight legs. “First, though it may be little consolation at this moment, I don’t believe there was very much else you could have done. As soon as these adepts made the decision to pursue you, someone’s death was inevitable; the only question was whose. I don’t think there were any truly good solutions to this problem. Only bad and less bad.”

“I keep thinking about what Anne said, whether there was some other way. Knockout magic, some sort of trick . . .”

“Perhaps. But perhaps not. And even if you could have disarmed them, what would you have done afterwards? It’s not as though you could have kept them prisoner. You aren’t invincible, Alex. They nearly killed you once, and the longer you hesitated the better the chance they would have finished the job. And personally, I prefer having you alive.”

“Thanks.”

“Second.” Arachne lifted a leg. “Because you did genuinely try to resolve this peacefully, and because you resorted to lethal force only at the last extreme of defending your own life, I think you will eventually be able to live with what you’ve done. You’ll never be happy about it and you will feel the weight of it for a long, long time but you will survive, as you have survived before.”

I was silent. “Third,” Arachne said. “It seems to me that much of the reason for your unhappiness is not just because of how you see your actions, but how you believe they are seen by others. Particularly by your friends.”

I nodded.

“In which case you can take some consolation in knowing that the worst is over. You’ve shown Anne and Variam and Luna and Sonder the darkest side of your nature and what you are most ashamed of in your past. No matter how painful it may have been they know the worst of you now, and they can come to terms with it themselves. If they choose to accept you, knowing what they do, then your friendship will be stronger for it, and nothing else you do is likely to test it for a long time.”

“If.”

“If,” Arachne agreed. “But that decision is theirs, not yours.”

I nodded again. “Fourth,” Arachne said. “As I’m sure you know, the news of how you dealt with the Nightstalkers will spread. It may seem to you as though your sins are being paraded but, once the excitement has died away, you may find that the effect on your reputation has been helpful.”

“Helpful?”

“You know how magical society works, Alex,” Arachne said soberly. “Being known as a ruthless, dangerous man willing to kill those who threaten him has its benefits. After seeing what happened to the Nightstalkers, anyone else thinking of coming after you is going to hesitate.”

“Or they’ll just bring more firepower.”

“Perhaps—but this should at least scare away the little fish, and I don’t think you’ll be similarly challenged for some time. And it might work to Luna’s benefit too. You’ve told me before about your worries that the further she goes with her training, the more problems she’ll face for being an adept. Well, after this story spreads, I think it’s considerably less likely that anyone will choose to make an issue of it.”

“So—what? If I’m a killer, I might as well enjoy the perks of the job?”

“Fifth,” Arachne said, “and most important. You’re afraid of becoming like Richard.”

I sat up and nodded.

“In which case I would suggest that the very fact that you are afraid of that is good evidence that you are not like Richard. As long as you are afraid of becoming like him, as long as you consciously choose not to be like him, then you never truly will. It is our choices that define us. Richard understood that. He could suggest and he could tempt, but he knew the final decision was always yours.”

“And the things I’ve done?”

“Not everything you’ve done has been dark, Alex.” Arachne lifted her legs, as though ticking points off. “You chose to help Luna in the hunt for the fateweaver, when you could have hidden yourself away and been safe. You saved me at the risk of your own life when confronting Belthas. You protected Anne and Variam when they were in danger at Fountain Reach. Even in dealing with the Nightstalkers you were acting in your friends’ interests. You took the risks and the responsibility upon yourself. If you’ve done things to be ashamed of, you’ve done things to be proud of as well.”

“Do you think it balances out?”

“Would I have stayed with you all this time if I didn’t?” Spiders can’t really smile, but Arachne sounded as if that was what she was doing. “Although . . . if it concerns you so much, why not do something about it?”

I looked at Arachne curiously. “Like what?”

“If you’re worried that your good deeds are outweighed by your bad ones, why not do more of them? You’ve spent a long time trying not to be like Richard. Perhaps it’s time you started considering what sort of person you do want to be.” Arachne rose. “Think it over.”

* * *

That evening found me back home, sketching the first notes and plans for what would eventually be a new set of blueprints for my flat. I wasn’t going to simply rebuild it—the Nightstalkers’ little demolition exercise had done a good job of exposing the weaknesses in my home defences and I had several upgrades in mind. A flicker in the futures caught my attention, and a moment later I heard the sound of the shop door being unlocked below. I looked up, then went downstairs.

Luna and Variam were just switching on the lights in the shop. “Vari?” I said in surprise. He was dressed in a hand-me-down set of formal robes that almost fit him but not quite. In a weird sort of way he looked like the mage equivalent of someone who’d just come home from the office. “I thought you were in Scotland?”

“I was,” Variam said cheerfully. “Knocked off early. I can gate now, remember?”

“Haven’t you moved out?”

“Well, yeah, but I can still visit, right?”

“We figured you could use some company,” Luna said. “Unless you want to be left alone?”

I looked between the two of them and smiled. “Come on up.”

They came up, and the three of us spent the evening together. We all had stories to tell: Variam of his first few days as a Light apprentice, and Luna of what had happened while I was gone. We cooked dinner together, and after Luna and Variam had caused the expected culinary disaster we spent another half hour deciding where to order takeaway. It wasn’t the same, but it wasn’t so bad.

* * *

Idreamed that night.

I saw Rachel—or perhaps I was Rachel. She was walking across a grassy ridge in the starlight, and in some strange way I both watched her from outside and at the same time felt and moved as she did. The sky was clear with no moon and the only light was from the stars, yet I recognised the silhouette of Richard’s mansion, a black shadow in the darkness. The sight filled me with a strange mix of emotions, familiar and alien: fear, anticipation, a distant sadness. As Rachel neared the front door she spoke a word and the door swung open, for she’d crafted these wards and they obeyed her commands.

Through the corridor, down the stairs, and into the darkness, a sphere of sea-green light forming to light the way. The glow backlit Rachel’s face strangely; she wore no mask this time, and in the greenish light her features were beautiful but cold, with little trace of feeling or warmth. Through the chapel, and now Rachel’s path curved to skirt a patch of floor. To me it looked the same as any other but to Rachel’s eyes it was the place in which Shireen had died, and a trace of her blood still stained the stone. Just for a moment I felt another presence in the ancient shrine, and I thought I heard an echo of footsteps behind us.

Through the corridors and the laboratory, past the cells and through the labyrinth. The signs of the battle still scarred the benches but the bodies were gone. Maybe the dust and ashes in the corners might have been a part of them once but no one would be able to tell, not anymore. Still Rachel walked on, her feet picking out the paths as though she’d walked them a hundred times before, until at last she came to the room at the very end of the labyrinth, the final one to have been completed all those years ago.

The room was smooth and circular, pillars supporting the ceiling, all illuminated in the green light of Rachel’s spell. At the centre of the room was a wide dais. Three black hemispheres protruded from the stone, forming a triangle. Rachel stopped a little way from the dais and waited.

Time passed. Rachel waited, paced. Twice she looked towards the exit, as though on the verge of leaving, but each time she stayed. Suddenly she snapped her head around and an instant later I felt what she did: a slow surge of magical power, growing stronger.

With a faint hiss black energy erupted from the dais, dark lightning crackling to join the three hemispheres in a triangle. At the centre of the triangle the air darkened, a black oval appearing in midair. Rachel stood stiff, as though paralysed. The black oval grew, stretched. For a moment it was almost transparent and there was the hint of something visible on the other side, then a man was stepping through, alighting on the dais. His feet touched the stone and the black lightning snapped off, the portal vanishing into nothingness. The man was ordinary-looking in every way; but for his entrance no one would have looked at him twice.

Rachel moved first, bowing her head. A complex mixture of emotions flickered across her face and were gone. “Master.”

“Deleo,” Richard said with a smile. “It’s good to be back.”

And I woke with a gasp, heart pounding in my chest.