Bound

chapter 7

“So what are you going to do?” Anne asked.

It was the next day, and Anne and I were out on the slope of a hill in Wales. Cold winds blew across the hilltop above, but the valley we were in gave us shelter from the worst of the gusts. White clouds were scattered across a blue sky, and from our vantage point we could see the clouds’ shadows below, the high winds sending them gliding across fields and hedges faster than a man could run.

“I spoke to Talisid last night,” I said. “He’s pretty sure that they’re a pair of mages called Lightbringer and Zilean. Officially, they’re aligned with the Guardian and Crusader factions and work as Keeper auxiliaries. Unofficially, they’re part of the Crusaders’ black-ops squad. He didn’t know whether they were involved in what happened to Morden’s last couple of aides, but after yesterday, I think it’s a safe bet that the answer’s yes.”

“But Talisid’s with the Guardians,” Anne said. “Can’t he stop them?”

I shrugged. “I’m not optimistic.”

“But you’re working for him!”

“Which is a secret,” I said. “And if Talisid tells everyone in the Guardians about that, then Morden and Richard will find out about fifteen minutes later, and then what do you think’ll happen?”

We were sitting on a flat-topped granite rock halfway up the hillside. I was wearing a T-shirt, my jumper lying on the grass and sweat cooling on my skin. Anne sat cross-legged on the rock itself. The wind still carried the bite of the Welsh winter, but Anne didn’t seem to feel the cold.

“Are you going to report it to Rain?” Anne asked.

“What’s the point?” I said. “I can’t even get a new desk delivered without the order getting lost in the files. Lightbringer and Zilean will just deny it, the investigation will get bogged down in paperwork, and by the time it finally starts they’ll have had more than long enough to scrub any evidence. And all the time that’s going on, the Crusaders will be busy spinning it as another example of the evil, manipulative Dark mages taking advantage of their position in the Council to make false accusations against honourable Keepers who are just doing their job.”

“So what are you going to do? Just wait for them to try again?”

“That, and keep a better lookout next time.”

Anne let out an angry breath and looked away.

I leant back against the rock. “So how’s your job as a Council healer?”

“You’ve got to be joking,” Anne said. “They won’t let me treat so much as a paper cut.”

“I thought they’d authorised you.”

“Turns out they only certified me for emergency healing, and only if I’m on duty. Except that they’re never short of emergency healers except in a war, so they never have to put me on duty, so they don’t. Ninety-five percent of what they do is physiology adjustments and treatments for basic stuff, and they won’t let me touch that. And do you know the worst part? They won’t let me do anything else either. I tried to start up my clinic again, and they told me I wasn’t allowed! I’m not allowed to do any kind of healing without a licence, which you need to jump through so many hoops to get that it’ll take me a year at least, and that’s if they sign off on it at all. So I just go in every day, and I sit at my desk and do nothing, waiting for someone to call. I was more useful working in the supermarket.”

“Sounds familiar,” I said, and stood. “Okay, I’m ready to go again.”

| | | | | | | | |

I used to think of myself as pretty fit. My magic type means I have to rely on my body more than most mages, and so I’ve got a motive to stay in shape and strong. But when you’ve got a tool as useful as divination, it’s easy to fall into the trap of over-relying on it, and that climb last month had come as a wake-up call.

It all came down to that conversation with Arachne. I needed to be stronger, and while being in shape probably wouldn’t make all that big a difference in the grand scheme of things, it was a good place to start. I was never going to be as strong as Caldera or as tough as Morden, and no reflexes can match the speed of a time mage or an air mage. But I could narrow the edge, and that was what I was trying to do.

With a little help.

I ran a circuit around the hill, following a sheep track through the grass. One third of the way around the hillside the grass broke up into a field of boulders, great hulks of granite half buried in the ground, and I ran up the side of one and started jumping from one to the other, trying not to let my feet touch the grass. The second-last jump was a little farther than I could safely reach and I felt a twinge of pain as my feet slammed into it. I hopped off the last boulder and kept going.

Two thirds of the way around was a ruined stone cottage. Its tiny front porch was the only flat piece of ground on the hillside, and I dropped down to do calisthenics. Push-ups, sit-ups, squats, pull-ups using what was left of the roof, then I went down into a plank, resting on my forearms and toes, keeping my body straight. I held the position as long as I could, my muscles trembling, until at last my arms and abdominals gave out and I collapsed gasping to the ground. I stayed down for a few seconds, catching my breath, then pulled myself up.

My lungs were burning by the time I made it back to Anne. “Thirty seconds faster,” she said, checking her watch. “Did you do fewer sets?”

“No,” I managed to get out, sucking in deep breaths. The cold air felt like an ice pack. “Same.”

Anne hopped off the rock and laid a hand on my chest. Green light glowed, and I felt warmth flowing through me, taking away the pain. The burning in my lungs faded first, followed by the soreness in my muscles, and then all of it was gone and I felt fresh and active and full of energy, as though I could run for miles. I was also starving.

“Looks good,” Anne said. “You had a slight sprain in your knee, by the way.”

“Should I go again?”

“You could, but I think that’s enough for the day.”

“Good,” I said. “Then I’m going to eat everything in that pack.”

I’d brought along a packed lunch, and given my experience with the effects of Anne’s spells, I’d made it big enough for about four people. One chicken wrap, two beef sandwiches, an apple, three bananas, a couple of cereal bars, a mini-cheese, and a salami later, I was feeling human again. “Is this what you feel like all the time?” I asked Anne.

“Only when I’m doing heavy work,” Anne said. Anne might be thin, but she eats enough for two or three normal people. It’s one of the side effects of life magic—life spells, especially healing, use a lot of energy, and the easiest way to supply it is from the body’s natural energy reserves.

Right now, though, I was thinking less about food and more about Anne. She was leaning back on the rock, gazing down over the valley as she ate, and I found myself noticing how the wind ruffled her hair, remembering the feel of her hands on my chest. It wasn’t the first time either, and since we’d started training, it had become harder and harder to ignore. A part of me didn’t want to ignore it, and I felt a flash of guilt. Right now Anne was in almost as much danger as me, and it was mostly my fault. Taking advantage of the fact that we’d been thrown together felt wrong . . .

I cast about for something to distract me. “Something I was wondering,” I said. “When I was in that fight yesterday, I took a hit from a lightning spell. The reason electricity has the effect that it does on the body is that it’s running along the parts that conduct electricity anyway, right? Like the nerves?”

Anne hesitated. “Partly.”

“So could you do something so that electrical shocks wouldn’t affect me?” I said. “Changing the layout of my body so that it grounds safely, or . . .”

I trailed off; Anne was shaking her head. “That’s not how it works.”

“I’ve heard of weirder alterations than that.”

Anne sighed. “Okay, rephrase: there are other mages who’d do it. It’s not how I work.”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s not what I do,” Anne said. “I heal bodies and I help them. I don’t modify them. I know it seems like my spells do a lot, but they don’t, not really. I don’t do anything that your body can’t do on its own.”

“I don’t think saving someone from death really counts.”

“Yes, it does,” Anne said. “Your body can recover from almost anything. The reason people die from injury isn’t because their bodies can’t fix it; it’s because they get overloaded. When I heal someone, all I do is apply a little first aid, then I channel extra energy to their body’s regeneration and guide it to make sure it heals cleanly. Your body knows how to fix itself. All it needs is a little help.”

“Okay, but what about what you’ve been doing with me? I mean, we’ve only been at this a few weeks, and already I went through two fights yesterday without getting out of breath. Even when I was training every day, I wasn’t this fit.”

“Do you know why exercise makes you fitter?”

“Uh . . . not exactly.”

“When you stress your muscles, you create micro-tears in the tissue,” Anne said. “Your body reads that and overcompensates, building the muscle back so that it’ll be stronger next time. Cardiorespiratory is the same. You strain the system and your heart enlarges, your arteries spread out and develop so that they can pump more blood and oxygen. Normally you have to take a day or two off to let your body rebuild, but if I’m here I can give your body a boost so that you’re ready to go again right away. So you can do one workout with me and get five times as much effect as you would from doing it on your own.”

“And five times as much muscle pain.”

Anne smiled. “No such thing as something for nothing. But the point is, I’m not actually doing anything that your body couldn’t do already. You could get this strong and this fit on your own, the way athletes do. It would just take you longer.”

I thought about it. “So what about the major modifications, then? Electrical shielding, bone claws . . .”

“That’s completely different. You’ve got a blueprint in your body that’s the working model for your cells—that’s how your body knows what to build and replace. To make those kind of changes, you have to actually redraw the blueprint. I’ve seen much worse things than claws. Gills, extra organs, extra limbs . . . They’re a really bad idea.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re working against your body’s design,” Anne said. “Say you want claws. Okay, so you grow some out of keratin and set them in the fingers, that’s easy enough. Then to make them retractable, you need a muscle to flex them. Except that your finger doesn’t have enough space for those muscles, so you’re going to need to enlarge it. You’re going to have to put in new nerves too, and the person is going to have to learn to use them from scratch, the way a baby does. Then on top of that, now the nerves and blood vessels to the fingers are being overstressed, because they’re having to support twice as much activity as they were designed to, and so you’ll have to modify them too, and that modification means you have to do more modifications, and so on. It’s never just one thing. Everything in your body is connected, and everything has a knock-on effect on everything else. And that’s just for a small change. The really big changes, the person has to keep coming back to get more treatments and checkups, over and over again to make sure that nothing’s going wrong. That’s why shapeshifters can’t really transform anyone except themselves. It takes so much maintenance to keep everything working right that if they did it to someone else, they’d have to stay with them twenty-four hours a day. And you don’t want to know about the side effects.”

“So, I’m guessing you don’t like the idea.”

“I don’t like the idea of modifications at all,” Anne said. “I mean, if someone’s seriously disabled, that’s one thing, but people who are perfectly healthy? Your body is fine the way it is. Why do you want to change it so badly?”

I made a noncommittal noise and Anne flashed me an apologetic smile. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to complain. I just don’t feel as though I’m doing enough.”

“You’re helping me.”

Anne paused. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“What makes someone effective in a fight?”

I looked at Anne in surprise. “As in, what qualities?”

“More or less.”

“If we’re just working off what makes someone more dangerous . . .” I stopped and thought for a second, then shrugged. “Most important is aggression and willingness to hurt the other person. Second most important is willingness to be hurt yourself. Third would be skill and knowledge, fourth would be strength and power.”

“Only fourth?”

“Who’s scarier?” I said. “A tough, six-foot, two-hundred-pound man who’s trying to steal your phone, feels guilty about it, and doesn’t want anyone to actually get hurt? Or a five-foot-nothing, one-hundred-pound woman who’s never been in a fight in her life but who honestly believes that you stole her baby?”

Anne nodded. “Why is skill above it?”

“That’s more of a judgement call,” I said. “If you’re outclassed enough in terms of power then it doesn’t matter how much skill you have. But most of the time knowing what to do’s more important than brute strength. The dumb muscle types usually end up getting into fights they can’t win.” I looked at Anne curiously. “Why are you asking?”

“Well,” Anne said. “If I’m going to be your physical trainer, do you think you could teach me how to fight?”

“Seriously?”

“I’ve never actually learnt,” Anne said. “I can run fast, but I don’t really know how to hit people or use weapons.”

“Uh . . .”

“Is there something wrong?”

“Well, I could do it,” I said. “It’s just . . . isn’t it kind of pointless? You picking up a weapon is like a soldier using a machine gun to bash someone over the head.”

“Only if the machine gun works,” Anne said. “What if I’m fighting a construct, or someone with a life shield? Anyway, you have a bunch of guns and you still end up hitting people.”

“My guns are a lot less versatile than your magic, but I get your point. Okay. Figure out the two or three things that you most want to focus on, and we’ll work from there. What made you start thinking about this now?”

“I suppose I just don’t like feeling useless.”

I laughed. “You think you’re useless? You’ve got more raw power than any of us, except maybe Vari.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Haven’t you noticed how every time we get into a fight, anyone who knows you’re there and knows what you can do goes for you first? It’s not me or Luna or Vari they’re scared of, it’s you. You’re the most dangerous out of us by a long way.”

“Oh,” Anne said. “Okay.” She paused. “Then why did you trick me and leave me behind when you went back to London to fight Levistus’s men two months ago?”

Oh. That went very quickly from good to bad. “Ah . . .” I said. “I was sort of hoping you’d forgotten about that.”

Anne just looked at me.

“Right.” I tried to think of an argument and couldn’t. For being a diviner, I’d sure managed to walk into a lot of traps in the past twenty-four hours.

“Well?”

“Um,” I said. “I was trying to keep you safe.”

“You were going into a fight.”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t you just say that I was the most dangerous out of us?”

I felt cornered. “Yes . . .”

“Then why?”

I let out a breath. “Because I wasn’t going in there expecting to win.”

“I would have come,” Anne said. “Vari would have come. Maybe with us both—”

“No,” I said. “This was Levistus’s A-team we were going up against. He could have kept throwing in bodies until he buried us under them. We’ve always known this, right from the start. If we go up against the Council directly, there’s only one way it’s going to end.”

“But you didn’t say any of that,” Anne said. “You lied to me.”

“Technically I didn’t actually . . .”

Anne looked at me.

“Okay, fine,” I said. “Yes, I did, because I knew you wouldn’t let me go if you knew. I didn’t want you to die and I didn’t want Luna to die and that was the only way I could think of to keep you both alive.”

“Why does that matter to you so much?”

“Why wouldn’t it?”

“I’m not saying it shouldn’t,” Anne said. “But there’s trust, and then there’s ‘take a bullet for someone.’”

“You’ve all put yourself in danger for me more than once.”

“Yes,” Anne said. “Because we’re a team. We protect each other.”

“I know, but . . .” I ran a hand through my hair. “Look, all of this stuff with Richard and Levistus, it all comes back to me. If it hadn’t been for me, none of you would have ever heard of them, and if you had, it’d be as names in the paper that you never expected to meet. I’m the reason that all this crap is happening.”

“We know about you and Richard,” Anne said. “We’re on board with it.”

“Seem to remember you were a little later about doing that than the others.”

Anne gave me a look.

“Okay, okay,” I said. “Sorry.”

“Did you think about what would happen afterwards?” Anne said.

“You mean after I was . . .”

“Yes.”

“Not very much,” I admitted. “I guess I figured I was allowed to slack off a little on that one seeing as how I wasn’t going to be around to do anything about it.”

“Luna and Vari and I would still have had enemies,” Anne said. “Except that you wouldn’t have been around to help.”

“I think you could have made it.”

“I didn’t mean the physical side.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“You saw how Luna was last month,” Anne said. “That was just because she thought you’d been forced into being Morden’s aide. How do you think she would have dealt with it if she found out you’d died because of her?”

I stopped. “Oh.”

Anne looked at me, waiting for an answer.

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“And what about me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you know how many people I’ve known over my life who’ve had something happen to them?” Anne said. “Dead, or worse? Luna’s got a curse on her. But before I met her, I was starting to think that maybe I was the one with the curse. Literally everything good that’s happened in my and Vari’s lives over the past three years has been connected to you and Luna. Do you know what it’d feel like if it ended with you committing suicide?”

“At least you’d be alive.”

“But it wouldn’t have been our choice,” Anne said. “If you’d gone through with your plan, you’d have taken that away.”

I sighed. “I know.”

“Then why did you do it?”

I sat in silence for a few seconds before answering that one. The wind blew across the hillside, and it was cold on my bare arms, but I didn’t reach for my jumper. “Because everyone’s got their limits,” I said at last. “The one thing they just won’t do.”

“So what’s yours?”

I shrugged. “Loyalty, I suppose. I don’t have many friends. I won’t do anything that feels like betraying that.”

“No matter what?”

I nodded.

Anne sat there, looking at me. “So . . . what if the same thing happens again?” she asked. “To me, or Luna, or Vari? Would you do the same?”

I thought briefly about dodging the question. But there was no point, not really, and the last time I’d made a promise to Anne that I couldn’t keep, it hadn’t turned out well. “Yes,” I said. “I know that’s not what you want to hear. But . . .” I shrugged again. “Sorry.”

Anne was quiet. I thought for a moment she was going to say more, but she didn’t. We sat there for a while, watching the sun and the shadows, until at last we rose to pick up our things and turn for home.

| | | | | | | | |

We’d just crested the hillside up above my house, about to go down the slope to the bridge, when something in the futures caught my eye. I signalled to Anne and she stopped, instantly on guard. “What’s wrong?” she said, her eyes flicking across the valley.

“Hold still.”

Anne stood still and silent. I looked ahead, following the future in which I walked down the slope, over the bridge, along the path and through the gate towards the—

A green flash, one moment of searing pain, then darkness. I snapped back to the present, shuddering slightly. Feeling yourself die is an experience you never get completely used to. “We’ve got trouble.”

“Someone’s waiting for us?”

I nodded. “They’re not going to be firing warning shots either.”

“Let me guess,” Anne said. “Those two Light mages?”

“I wish,” I said. Light mages are bad, but at least they’re predictable. “Rachel.”

Anne frowned. “But you haven’t seen her—”

“For months, yeah. Apparently she missed me.” I raised my eyebrows. “Suppose I should count my blessings. It’s a lot easier to spot her out here.”

“Wonderful,” Anne sighed. “Are we running?”

I hesitated. It was definitely the sensible choice. Rachel is both fast and deadly, and even with Anne at my side, I didn’t like our chances if it came to a fight. Anne can heal a lot of things, but being turned into a pile of dust isn’t one of them.

But I also remembered what Shireen had told me. If I needed to get Rachel on my side, then sooner or later I was going to have to talk to her, and this was the best chance I’d had in a long time. Gating away might keep us safe, but not forever . . . and one of the things I’d been learning the hard way this year was that running away wasn’t always enough. Besides, it wasn’t just Shireen. There was also the deal I’d struck with Cinder.

Cinder . . .

I looked at Anne. “I’m going to make a call.”

| | | | | | | | |

Anne was still with me when I came down the slope and over the bridge. We’d argued and I’d tried to convince her to stay behind, but Anne had told me that she was coming with my agreement or without it. I’d given in, on the condition that she stay in cover. Though I was pretty sure she wouldn’t be the primary target in any case.

I got to the garden wall and stopped. The stone was only three feet high but enough to block a disintegrate spell if worst came to worst. My front door was closed, and Rachel was inside. If I kept going up the path, she’d fling the door open and attack.

A minute passed, two. The futures didn’t change. I glanced sideways at Anne and saw her slight nod; Rachel was still there. Four minutes.

The door opened.

Rachel is around the same height as Luna, or maybe a little taller. She has blonde hair which she’d let grow out since the last time I’d seen her, and she was dressed in black. Something about her clothes looked a little dishevelled, as though she’d been in the middle of something else and run out without getting ready, but what really worried me was the black domino mask on her face. That mask seems to have some kind of effect on Rachel’s personalities, and it’s rarely good news for anyone else.

“You know,” I said, “this used to be a private house.”

Rachel stared at me.

“I mean, it’s one thing to invite someone over,” I said. “But since Christmas I’ve had the Keepers, then Morden, and now you. I’m starting to think that repairing that lock was a complete waste of time.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” Rachel said.

“Yeah, well, tell that to the people who burned down my shop.”

“How stupid are you?”

I didn’t answer. “You shouldn’t have come back,” Rachel said. “You should have stayed in that shop selling crystal balls.”

“You know what?” I said. “I was happy doing exactly that. Guess who made sure I couldn’t? The same guy you’re taking orders from right now. So if you want to know why Morden brought me back, why don’t you ask him?”

Rachel stiffened at that, and I knew that shot had got through. Rachel is Richard’s Chosen, and that meant she was supposed to be one short step below Richard himself. Now, as far as I could tell, it was Morden and Vihaela who were closest to Richard. Rachel had been pushed down in the hierarchy, and she didn’t like it.

“I was the one who waited for him,” Rachel said. Her voice was starting to rise, and I could sense the futures of violence drawing nearer. “Me! Year after year after year, and what did you do? Nothing.” Rachel was ignoring Anne completely; her eyes were locked onto me. “Then he calls you in, and he doesn’t even talk to me. He doesn’t even talk to me! Were you planning it?”

“Planning what?”

“You were always his favourite.” Rachel stared at me. “I do all the work, then you take the credit. That was what was really going on with those adepts, wasn’t it? You wanted my place as Chosen.”

“Jesus.” I shook my head. “You really are insane.”

“Tell me!”

“Of course I didn’t!” I snapped. “You seriously think I wanted to go back to Richard? Stay as his fucking Chosen. It’s not worth what you paid for it.”

It didn’t work. The futures in which Rachel attacked were coming closer and closer. With one finger I pressed a button on my phone.

“You want to be Chosen,” Rachel said. It was as though she hadn’t even heard what I’d said. “That’s what this is for.”

And the futures shifted in the way I’d been hoping. I breathed a silent sigh of relief. “Yeah, well, it’s not me you should be trying to convince,” I said. “It’s him.” And I nodded to the side of the house.

Rachel stared back at me, and then the sound of a heavy footfall made her blink and break her concentration. She turned to look just as Cinder stepped into view.

“Wait,” Rachel said. She looked at Cinder, then at me, then back at Cinder again, blinking. “Wait.”

“Del,” Cinder said in his rumbling voice. He was wearing a windbreaker, his big hands stuffed into the pockets, and the breeze was blowing his hair.

“You shouldn’t be—” Rachel began, then stopped. “Wait. She’s not here. That’s why she’s not here. You’re here, so—”

“Del,” Cinder said.

“What?”

“Take it off.”

Rachel blinked. “Why?”

“Take it off,” Cinder repeated.

“I don’t want to,” Rachel said. All of a sudden she sounded like a child.

“Take it off, Del.”

“He deserves it,” Rachel pleaded. “It’d make everything so much easier.”

“You know what Richard said.”

Slowly, unwillingly, Rachel reached up. Her fingers worked at the ties of her mask, hesitated, then undid them. The silk mask slid from her face and she looked up at us, blinking in the light.

Next to me, I could feel Anne looking at Rachel in fascination. Rachel is quite beautiful without her mask, in a diamondlike way: finely carved, but hard. Rachel looked from me to Cinder. All the futures in which she attacked had vanished. She didn’t seem to know what to do.

Cinder shifted slightly. It was only a small movement, but it made me realise that he’d been ready for a fight. He glanced at me. “We’re okay,” I told him.

Cinder nodded. “We need to talk.”

I glanced at Rachel. “With her,” Cinder said.

“Got anywhere in mind?” I asked.

“Not here.”

I looked at Anne, then back at Cinder. “Well,” I said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m still hungry.”

| | | | | | | | |

“Seriously?” Anne said.

I shrugged. “He picked it.”

“You didn’t exactly complain.”

“Problem?” Cinder asked.

“I’m fine with it,” I said.

We were sitting at a four-person table, Anne and me on one side and Cinder and Rachel on the other. The restaurant was a McDonald’s, a drive-through next to the intersection of two A-roads in some town I’d never been to before. Cinder had brought us here through a gate to a nearby wood, whereupon we’d walked five minutes, tapped our orders into the machines, and sat down.

“There has got to be somewhere better to eat,” Anne said.

“You’re the one saying I need to eat enough to keep my strength up.”

“If you want to go to a hamburger restaurant, why not pick a decent one?”

“Some of the food here isn’t bad,” I said.

“Like what?”

“Fries,” Cinder said.

I pointed at Cinder. “What he said.”

“They’re just oil-fried potatoes doused in about ten different chemicals.”

“Yes, but they’re thin oil-fried potatoes. Do you know how hard it is to find decent-quality thin fries in the U.K.?”

“These are not decent-quality.”

Cinder snorted and Anne looked at him. “What?”

Cinder nodded at Rachel. “You sound like her.”

There was something surreal about sitting here with the two Dark mages. So far, no one had paid us any particular attention. Fast-food restaurants get a pretty wide mix of customers, and compared to the men in workmen’s clothing by the far window, the bunch of construction workers in their high-vis jackets at the counter, and the two women with a pram sitting a few tables over, we didn’t look especially out of place. We obviously weren’t locals, but someone taking a casual glance would probably have pegged us as tourists or travellers.

Rachel hadn’t said a word since our conversation outside the house, and she didn’t react to our looks now, staring out of the window at the cars flashing past on the road. Without her mask she was a very different person; less forceful, more withdrawn. There was no more violence in the futures, and the deadly menace to her manner was gone. I could tell that Anne sensed it too, or she wouldn’t have been talking as she was.

“Where does she like to go to eat?” Anne asked once it was clear that Rachel wasn’t going to answer.

“Fancy places,” Cinder said.

“Like where?” I asked.

Rachel spoke without looking at me. “How long are you idiots going to keep talking about food?”

I looked at Cinder and raised my eyebrows. Cinder looked back at me without expression.

I was saved from having to answer the question by the waitress, who came with our trays, set them down on the table with a clatter, and walked away. It’s unusual for a McDonald’s to have table service. Maybe that was why Cinder liked this one in particular.

I’d been hoping Cinder would break the ice and give me something to work with, but it seemed as though he was expecting me to do it myself. “So,” I said to Rachel. “I’m getting the impression you’re not happy.”

Rachel gave me a look which I’d become quite familiar with from the times over the past few years where we’d had a peaceful conversation, which come to think of it could probably be counted on the fingers of one hand. The look said that if I was going to say something this stupid, she wasn’t going to bother answering.

“Want to talk about it?” I asked.

“No.”

“Going to be kind of hard to work this out if you’re just going to stare at me.”

Rachel raised her eyes to meet mine, and there was a flat, emotionless look to them. “You want to work this out?” she said. “Fine. I kill you. I get to shut you up, and you get your way out. That was what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

“That’s not really my ideal solution.”

“I don’t care.” Rachel looked at Cinder. “This is a waste of time.”

I paused. Anne was staying quiet, presumably figuring that anything she said to Rachel would only make things worse. She was probably right, and right now, and what I was doing wasn’t working either. I remembered a conversation I’d had with Morden long ago. “What do you want?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rachel said.

“You work for Richard,” I said. “And now, apparently, for Morden. I’m guessing it’s not because you don’t have anything better to do with your time.”

Rachel looked coldly at me.

“So why do you do it?”

Rachel turned to Cinder. Cinder shrugged, as if to say it was a fair question. “I mean, with us, it’s not exactly complicated,” I said. “We’re under duress. Given the choice, we’d be as far away from all of you as we possibly could.”

“Sounds perfect.”

“Thanks,” I said. “You, on the other hand? You’re a volunteer. I mean, how long did you guard that mansion for? Maintaining the alarms, watching to see when they were triggered. Then when they pinged, you’d gate over to kill every living thing you could find. You kept that up for how long, nine years?”

“Ten.”

“Ten,” I said. “That’s serious dedication.”

Rachel stared at me.

“Seems to me you’d need some pretty powerful motivation to stick it out that long.”

“So?”

“So why’d you do it?”

“Because I’m Richard’s Chosen,” Rachel said. “Something you wouldn’t understand.”

“For how long?”

“What?”

“How long are you going to stay his Chosen?”

“None of your business.”

“Most new Dark mages leave their masters within three, maybe four years,” I said. “Some leave as soon as they have their name. But you? You’ve been Richard’s Chosen for twelve and a half years. There are mages out there who’d train three Chosen in that time. So I have to wonder. What is it you’re getting that’s worth so much that you’re willing to spend your entire adult life doing nothing else?”

Rachel was silent. “I mean, there’s power,” I said. “Influence. Respect. You get all that from Richard, no question there. But here’s the thing. It seems to me that you’re pretty powerful on your own.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “You think Richard’s going to be running the country in a few years, and he’ll reward you for your loyalty. That about right?”

Rachel looked at me, sharp and suspicious. “It’s not exactly a secret,” I said.

“And who’s going to stop him?” Rachel said. “You?”

“I doubt it,” I said. “But let’s say he does win. Let’s say he becomes the new dark lord of Britain, with the power of life and death over everyone in the country, and he has to choose someone to stand one step below him and rule in his name. Why would he choose you?”

“I’m his Chosen,” Rachel said, a little too quickly.

“Except when he came back, the one he chose for his partner was Morden.”

“That’s different,” Rachel said. “Anyway, Morden has influence on the Council. It’s politics.”

“And Vihaela?” I said.

Rachel had no answer to that. While Rachel, Morden, and I had all known Richard for a very long time, Vihaela, relatively speaking, was the new kid on the block. I didn’t know much about Vihaela’s relationship with Richard and I didn’t know how he’d convinced her to work for him, but I did know that it had been Vihaela who’d been brought into Richard’s inner circle while Rachel had stayed where she was. “And now there’s us,” I continued. “Anne and me, working for Morden, just like you. Kind of sounds like we’re on the same level, doesn’t it?”

“For now.”

“Until what?” I said harshly. “Until you kill me? For once in your life, stop trying to murder your way out of problems and think. If you’d managed to get me today, what do you think would have happened next? Richard wasn’t happy with that shot you took at me back in January, was he? He made it pretty clear that his plans involved us alive. How do you think he’s going to react when he finds out that the diviner he went to all the trouble to press-gang is a pile of dust?”

“He doesn’t need you!” Rachel snapped.

“And you think he couldn’t find a dozen Dark mages to take your place?”

“I was the one who waited for him,” Rachel said. “I was the one he trusted to guard the mansion.”

“Great, so you’re his housekeeper.”

Rachel’s eyes flared and for a moment I was afraid I’d pushed her too far, but I finally had her listening to me and I couldn’t afford to play it safe. “You want to know why Richard picked Morden and Vihaela and not you?” I said. “Because they’ve got self-control. Richard’s playing in the big leagues now. He needs people he can trust not to do stupid shit like assassinating someone he’s explicitly ordered to be kept alive. You think killing me will make your problems go away?”

“Maybe it’d be worth it.” Rachel’s voice was savage. “Just to not have to look at your smirking face.”

I could sense violence very close now, and I tensed. Rachel was only a few feet away, staring at me over the table and her untouched meal. If she struck, I’d have to react very fast. I could sense Anne at my side, sitting very still, and I knew she’d read Rachel’s body language.

Then Cinder’s big hand closed over Rachel’s. “Del,” Cinder said. He’d been silent while Rachel and I had talked, but now he was turned towards her.

Rachel jerked at Cinder’s hand. “Let go of me!”

“You know what he said,” Cinder said in his rumbling voice.

Rachel pulled again and this time Cinder let her go. Rachel rubbed her right hand with her left, glaring at Cinder, but the moment was gone. “That hurt.”

Cinder didn’t answer and Rachel got to her feet. “I’m done talking to you,” she said, then paused and made herself a liar. “You’re wrong. He can’t replace me.”

“Maybe he can’t,” I said. “But you might want to think about what that means. If you can’t be replaced, you can’t be promoted.”

Rachel turned and walked out. I watched her go, checking the futures to make sure she wouldn’t turn and blow up the whole restaurant. I wouldn’t have put it past her.

Beside me, I felt Anne let out a breath. “That was . . . not a fun experience.” She looked at Cinder. “Is she usually like this?”

“No,” Cinder said curtly, and stood. “We’re done. Verus.” He walked out, following Rachel.

I kept checking until I was certain they were both gone, then gave a long sigh and leant my head back, closing my eyes. “Jesus.” I felt as though I’d just gone through a fight.

“You told me she was crazy, but I didn’t think . . .” Anne shook her head. “Do you think she listened?”

“Maybe,” I said. Rachel had given away more than she realised. She might still be Richard’s Chosen, but she wasn’t bound to him so tightly anymore. There were cracks in the wall now, and I had the feeling that there might be a way to split them open, if I could only find it. But that was a problem for another day. I shook my head and rose. “Let’s get out of here.”