Hidden

Chapter 3

When I woke up the next morning it was raining. It wasn’t a passing shower but a steady drumbeat of water, the kind of rain that settles in, puts its feet up, and makes it clear that it’s not going to leave. Water poured from the gutters above and spattered on the street, and cars rolled slowly through the sheets of falling raindrops, their wipers flicking back and forth. The clouds were heavy and grey with a look of permanency to them, and I was probably going to have to leave the lights on all day.

I opened the shop but business was slow; the inhabitants of London didn’t seem in the mood for shopping and I couldn’t really blame them. The day wore on and morning turned into afternoon, but neither the weather nor the attendance improved, and when Luna finally dropped by I gave up and closed early to do inventory.

“Okay,” Luna said. “The next one’s a teacup.”

“What colour?”

“Cream.”

“You mean white?”

“Not all of us have sixteen-colour vision, you know. It’s got a picture of a sailing boat on the side.”

“Got it,” I said, tapping the notebook. “It’s a water magic focus.”

My shop’s called the Arcana Emporium, and if you live in London and want a magic item then it’s the place to go. Most of the items I sell aren’t actually magical, but then most of my customers don’t know the difference. I do have a collection of genuine magical items in the roped-off area in the right corner, but I try to avoid selling them to anyone who doesn’t know what they’re doing because quite frankly it’s dangerous and someone could get hurt. The downside to this is that the magic-item shelves get kind of crowded. When the stacks get high enough to start causing landslides, I go through the piles and try to match the items with the notes I scrawled when I got them. This time I’d pulled in Luna to help, partly so she could get some practice at identification and partly because if you’ve got a boring job you might as well have some company.

“What does it do?” Luna asked.

“When you pour any liquid inside, it changes the flavour over the next five minutes.”

“Sounds pretty useful.”

“Yeah, except the guy who made it had really specific tastes. His favourite seasoning was chilli sauce, so if you put anything in there, then after a few minutes that’s what it tastes of. Chilli-sauce-flavoured tea, chilli-sauce-flavoured beer, chilli-sauce-flavoured milk, chilli-sauce-flavoured apple juice—”

“I get it,” Luna said with a shudder. “Storage?”

“Storage. Unless I find someone who really likes chilli sauce.”

Luna craned her neck down. “The next one’s a book. It doesn’t have a label.”

“Colour?”

“Teal.”

“Why can’t you just say blue or green like a normal person?” I flipped through the notebook. “What’s inside?”

“Hang on . . .” There was a rustling sound. “Okay, what’s next?”

“What about the book?”

“What book?”

“The one which is apparently teal, whatever that means. What’s inside?”

“Uh . . .” Luna paused. “What were we doing?”

“Looking at the book.”

“What book?”

I looked up in exasperation. “Will you stop being a smart-arse?”

“Look, it kind of helps if you tell me what you want.”

I started to answer, then frowned. “Hang on a second. Take a look at that book on the shelf.”

“That one?”

“Yeah, that one. Open it and tell me what you see.”

Luna picked up the clothbound book, the silver mist of her curse folding around it, and this time I watched closely. She opened the book, glanced briefly at the first page, then her eyes unfocused and she closed it and replaced it on the shelf before turning to me. “Hm? What?”

“What was in that book?”

“What book?” Luna stopped and frowned. “Wait—didn’t I just say that?”

Empirical testing confirmed what I suspected: the book had some kind of mind or enchantment effect, causing anyone who opened it to replace the book and forget about it. The pages seemed blank, but it was hard to concentrate long enough to be sure. “Huh,” I said eventually. “I wonder what’s powering it?”

“Am I some sort of guinea pig here?” Luna asked sceptically. “Is that why I’m the one picking these things up and you’re over there going through the records?”

“Risk builds character.”

“Last month you said people trying to kill you builds character.”

“So think what a wonderful person you’re growing up to be. Anyway, you need the practice.”

Luna muttered something under her breath which I didn’t try too hard to hear and reached for the next thing along. “Okay, next one’s . . . a little figure of a cat.”

“Can you tell what it is?”

“Kind of . . . It feels like it’s something for talking. Communicating? Does it let you talk to cats?”

“Not bad,” I said. That had been right on target. “It’s a summoning focus. Toss it over and I’ll show you.”

Luna slid the figurine across the desk and I picked it up. It was made of alabaster, and I traced a finger across the smooth surface to the cat’s chest and tapped it. “See this point? When you channel your magic there, it sends out a call to the nearest feline within range of about the right size and draws it to you.”

“So it summons a housecat?”

“As long as there’s one around.”

“That sounds cool. So what, you can get it to spy on people and stuff?”

“No, it acts like a normal cat. It checks to see if you’ve brought it anything to eat, and if not it buggers off.”

Luna gave me a look. “You know, I think I’m starting to see why no one uses these things.”

“It works on dogs as well, if that helps.”

“I’ll pass. So . . . ?”

“So?”

“How’d the meeting with Anne go?”

“I asked if she wanted my help, she said no.” I stuck the figurine into my pocket. “Several times. By the way, you might have mentioned that Anne specifically asked you not to bring me in on this.”

“If I’d told you that you wouldn’t have gone.”

I glared at Luna.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry.” I’ve developed a fine ear for Luna’s apologies over the last couple of years, and this was one of her I’m-not-sorry-but-I’ll-pretend-to-be varieties. “So what did you do?”

“I left.”

Luna paused. “That was it?”

“For the purposes of what you’re talking about, yes. And because I know you’re going to ask: Yes, we talked about other things and no, none of it made her even the slightest bit inclined to come back. What were you expecting me to do, anyway?”

Luna scratched her hair. “I don’t know. I just thought you might be able to talk her into it.”

“You have a really inflated opinion of what I can do.”

“I’ve seen you talk to Dark mages who want to kill you, and you get them doing what you want inside five minutes.”

“Okay,” I said. “There’s a bit of a difference there. Tricking people who want to hurt or manipulate me? Something I’m good at. Getting people to like and trust me? Something I’m bad at. Even if I could, I’m running out of motivation to do it.”

Luna frowned. “Why?”

“Because Anne’s made it beyond clear that she’s not interested and it’s getting to the point where carrying on is starting to feel like harassing her.”

“So what should we do?”

“Nothing. I’m not Anne’s master. She’s an adult and it’s her decision.”

“It’s a stupid decision,” Luna said angrily. “I don’t care if it’s up to her, she’s my best friend. I don’t want something to happen just because you two had a fight!”

I sighed. “Look, I know this hasn’t turned out well, but sometimes relationships just end. Maybe you’ll get back in contact someday and maybe you won’t, but forcing it doesn’t help.”

Luna looked back at me, her face stubborn and set. “I’m calling her again,” she told me, and walked out the back door. There was a bang and I heard her feet racing up the stairs. I rolled my eyes and went back to inventory.

Luna stayed in her room for the rest of the day—strictly speaking it’s not “her” room, but it’s the only spare bedroom and now that Anne and Variam don’t live here anymore she’s the only one who uses it. I was less than halfway through the items by the time the sun had set, and was just debating whether to put in a couple more hours or leave it to another day when Luna reappeared in the doorway. “Can you get through to Anne?” she asked.

“I have no idea.”

“Check.”

I wanted to tell Luna to go away, but something in her voice made me glance at her, and the look in her eyes changed my mind. I took out my phone and studied it. “She’s not going to answer.”

“She hasn’t been picking up all day.”

“So maybe she left her phone off.”

“She never leaves her phone off, and if she does she always calls back. Even if she doesn’t want to talk she leaves a message.”

I opened my mouth, but Luna cut me off. “Look, I’ve talked to Anne more than you have. The only times I’ve ever seen her do something like this is when something’s wrong. I want to go and check up on her.”

I looked at the pile of uninventoried items. “Can it wait?”

“No,” Luna said. “I’m worried and I’m going to her flat. Coming?”

“Why should I come?”

“Because I think something’s happened to her,” Luna said. “And if I’m right, then it’ll be dangerous. You’re my master so you’re supposed to protect me, and the only way you can do that is if you come too.”

“How about I just order you not to go?”

“I only have to follow your orders when I’m acting as your apprentice. You can’t order me not to visit my friends.”

“You just said it might be dangerous and that you’d need my help.”

“So you agree it’s dangerous?”

“No! There’s no reason to believe it’s dangerous!”

“Well, in that case, you shouldn’t mind me going, should you? You know, to the place you just agreed might be dangerous. And if I do just decide to go, you can’t actually stop me. So you can let me go off on my own to something you’re supposed to be protecting me from, or you can come too.” Luna looked at me expectantly. “Up to you.”

I stared at her.

“You are the most annoying apprentice I’ve ever met,” I told Luna fifteen minutes later.

We were in a taxi heading south, the rain drumming on the roof as the wipers swept back and forth across the windscreen. Other cars swooshed past, their lights turning them into luminous ghosts though the curtain of water. The taxi driver, a heavyset man with close-cropped black hair, had taken one look as we got in and wisely elected to keep his mouth shut.

“You can shout at me afterwards,” Luna said. She was in the backseat and looking out at the rain.

“Why did I get stuck with you? Everyone else gets apprentices who do as they’re told.”

“Right, like you did?”

We would have kept arguing, but the presence of the taxi driver put a lid on how much we could say and the argument tailed off into silence, which was probably for the best. Luna kept staring out the window as we crossed London.

The weather hadn’t improved by the time we reached Honor Oak. I paid the driver and watched the taxi disappear into the rain. “So now what?” Luna asked. She’d brought along a big golf umbrella and was quite dry. The umbrella was more than big enough to share, except that her curse meant that I couldn’t get close enough and had to stand out in the rain getting wet instead, which seemed highly unfair.

“Wait out here and watch the door,” I said shortly. The weather wasn’t improving my mood. “I’ll check her flat and then we’ll go.” I headed for the building without waiting for an answer.

Once I was inside, I shook water out of my hair and started upstairs. I hadn’t path-walked to see what would happen when I knocked on the door—it’s a hassle to do it while your movements are under the control of a driver and quite frankly it hadn’t been worth the effort. I tried it now and found to my absolute lack of surprise that Anne wasn’t going to answer.

I wanted to walk away, but I knew Luna would just do something even more annoying if I didn’t do a proper check. I climbed the stairs to Anne’s flat. There weren’t any would-be patients this time. I knelt on the concrete landing, put my ear to the wooden door, took out my phone and called Anne’s number, then let out my breath and listened.

After a moment, I heard the faint sounds of Anne’s ringtone through the wood. Apparently she hadn’t changed it since last year. It rang, then went to voice mail. I redialled and got the same result. Looking through the futures I could tell she wasn’t going to answer.

I looked to see what would happen if I just kicked the door down. Nothing. She definitely wasn’t in.

So why had she left her phone?

It probably didn’t mean anything, but it was enough to make me stick around. I glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then took out my picks and got to work on the door. It wasn’t a particularly good lock and after only a few minutes it clicked open. I stepped though and shut the door behind me. Anne really needed better security in this place.

The flat was pitch-black and I stood for a minute in the darkness, letting my eyes adjust. There was no sound in the present and no movement in the future. I took out a torch and clicked it on; the entry corridor was bare and so was the room I’d been in before. I moved deeper into the flat. The bathroom was neat and clean and empty, bottles stacked by the shower and on the glass shelf above the sink. In the kitchen, dishes and cooking pans for a meal for one had been washed and were sitting in the rack by the sink. Flashing my light over them, I saw that they were dry.

Still nothing definite. If Anne suddenly showed up (which so far, I had no reason to believe wouldn’t happen) then I’d have serious trouble explaining what I was doing here. All the same, something felt off—I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was, but something was making me feel uneasy and I’ve learnt to listen to those instincts. The only room I hadn’t checked was the bedroom, and the door was ajar. I slipped the sleeve of my coat down over my hand so that it covered my fingers, then pushed it open.

Anne’s bedroom was small, sized for only one person, with a window that would have given a view over the nature reserve if the curtains hadn’t been drawn. It smelt of some fragrance I couldn’t place but which made me think of flowers. Again, most of the room was neat and tidy—closed cupboard, clean desk, clothes folded on a chair—except for two things. The first thing was that the bed wasn’t made. The bedclothes had been pulled off and were lying in a trampled heap half on and half off the floor.

The second thing was that the bedside table had been knocked over.

I crouched beside it, careful not to touch anything. The contents of the table had been scattered across the carpet and the wooden planks. In the middle of the mess was Anne’s phone; it had been charging and the power lead was still plugged in, tethering it to the wall socket. There’d been a glass on the table and it had shattered when it had hit the floor, leaving a spray of shards all the way to the wall. They glinted in the light of my torch; as I studied them I saw that several had been crushed, as though from footsteps. Spread throughout the broken glass were the remaining contents of the table: a bedside lamp, small plastic jars of face cream, cotton buds, a set of keys, a hairbrush, nail polish, hand lotion . . . a wallet. Looking into the futures in which I opened it, I saw money and a bank card.

If Anne was going out, why would she leave her phone and her keys and her wallet?

I wasn’t just uneasy now, I was worried. I quickly checked the rest of the room. The window was closed and locked from the inside and didn’t show any signs of tampering. I’d already seen that the front door had been locked and unforced. As far as I can see, there weren’t any other ways in.

What had happened here?

I saw that my phone was going to ring; it was Luna. I took it out and answered before it could sound. “I’m inside.”

“Someone just went into the building,” Luna said. Her voice was sharp and tense. “I couldn’t get a good look but think it was a woman. Too big to be Anne.”

“Okay. Stay where you are and text if anyone follows.” I set my phone to silent and dropped it into my pocket, already scanning ahead to see if the person Luna had spotted was coming here.

They were, and they were close: less than thirty seconds out. The bedroom was the worst place for me to be: too small, only one exit, and if the new visitor was here for the same reason I was then it would be the place they’d search most closely. I switched off my torch and moved back to the entry room, relying on my diviner’s senses to navigate. I could hear footsteps approaching the door. They’d be opening it with a key . . . how did they have a key? The room didn’t have many hiding places, so I stepped behind the door. Even if they switched the light on, I’d be out of sight.

The key turned in the lock and the door swung open. Skimming through the futures I could see violence—were they going to detect me? What did I need to do to stay hidden? Heavy footfalls approached. Every future held confrontation or combat, there didn’t seem to be any way of avoiding—they knew I was there. In fact, they knew exactly where I was and they were coming for me.

So much for the subtle approach.

The footsteps entered the room, passing me by on the other side of the open door. They checked and turned, and I knew my mystery guest was about to yank the door open and pull me out. Screw that. I kicked the door into them as they reached for it and followed it out with a double-handed shove.

I caught her (it was definitely a her) by surprise, but she was big and tough and I didn’t push her back far. It was still pitch-black and I tried to slip past, picking out the futures in which I found the gap, but she moved to block me and that future winked out. She tried a grab; I ducked and heard her arm swoosh over my head as I hit her in the gut, left and right. I’d used an open-palm strike and it was just as well; her body felt like rock and if I’d punched I probably would have broken my knuckles. She aimed a knee at my head that would have knocked me out if it had connected; I half-blocked it and while I was still staggering from that she grabbed me and did her level best to slam me into the floor.

The two of us struggled in the darkness, twisting and stumbling. The woman was strong, really strong, and I could feel magic radiating from her limbs and body. I knew I wasn’t going to win a wrestling match, and I abruptly stopped resisting and went with the throw, rolling backwards on the carpet, bristles digging into my neck and skin as I came over and back to my feet. The movement had reversed the hold and now I had her arm twisted around, but even with the leverage I couldn’t force her down and she slammed me into the door, sending pain stabbing through my back. I stomped on the side of her knee, making her stagger, then yanked an item from my belt and stabbed her with it.

The focus was a thin sliver of metal, and if there had been any light it would have looked silver. Its tip was blunt but as it struck it discharged the energy stored inside it, sending it flashing out and though her body. The magic radiating from her suddenly vanished.

Knocking out the woman’s defensive spells accomplished what hitting her hadn’t. She swore and let go, jumping back out of range. I took one step towards the doorway, then paused. In my mage’s sight I could see the brownish glow of earth magic as the woman recast her spells, rebuilding her defences. The pattern was familiar . . . “Caldera?”

Caldera had been about to advance again, but now she stopped. “Who are you?”

“Who am I? What the hell are you doing?”

“This is private property,” Caldera said sharply. “Identify yourself.”

“I’m not talking to you in the dark. Switch the damn light on.”

There was a suspicious silence, then Caldera moved to the wall and light flooded the room with a click. We stood and blinked at each other for a moment. “Verus?” Caldera said in disbelief.

“What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?”

“I asked first.”

“This isn’t a bloody playground,” Caldera said in annoyance. “You’re on Council property.”

Caldera is thirty or so, with a round face and red cheeks. She’s half a foot shorter than me and a lot wider, with a body that’s heavy with fat and muscle, and she’s a Council Keeper of the Order of the Star, which in magical terms is something like a cross between political investigator and military police. Caldera’s on the “military police” end of the scale, but I’ve worked with her a few times over the past year. I wouldn’t say we’re friends, but she’s always kept her word and I’d trust her more than any other Keeper I can think of. Whether she felt the same way about me was another question, although given the circumstances it looked as though I might be about to find out.

“I don’t know about the Council property part,” I said, “but I do know that a friend of mine lives here.” Stretching the truth twice in one sentence, but Caldera probably didn’t know that . . . “You have any idea where she’s gone?”

“When did you last see her?”

Just last night, we were having an argument alone in the woods right before she disappeared . . . Yeah, that was going to get a great reaction. “Why are you asking?” I said, then raised my hands. “Okay, okay, look. There’s a mage living here by the name of Anne Walker, as I’m guessing you already know or you wouldn’t be here. My apprentice has been trying to call her all day and she hasn’t been picking up, so I headed over to see if she was all right.”

“Then what was the idea of picking a fight with me?”

“You started it.”

“You’re a suspect at a potential crime scene,” Caldera said. I noticed she said you’re instead of you were. “You make a habit of attacking Keepers on official business?”

“For all I knew, you were a subject at a potential crime scene. And if you’re acting in your capacity as a Keeper, maybe you should announce that first. Seriously, this is what, the second time you’ve had a go at throwing me around? Were you disappointed you didn’t get a good enough fight the first try?”

Caldera made an exasperated noise. “I don’t have time to argue with you. Let me do my job, all right?”

“There’s something I’d better show you first,” I said, becoming serious. “If you’re here for the same reason I am, you’re going to want to take a look at this.”

Once in Anne’s bedroom, Caldera made a beeline for the overturned table and crouched next to it, frowning. “Did you touch anything?”

“No.”

Caldera twisted her neck to stare at me. “You sure?”

“This is how it looked when I got here.”

Caldera grunted and turned back to the scattered debris. I stayed quiet and didn’t bug her. “I’m going to make a call,” she said at last, rising to her feet. “You stay here. If you do a runner I’ll arrest you. Clear?”

“The threats don’t help, you know,” I said mildly. “Yes, you’re clear.”

Caldera went out into the entry corridor and I promptly started looking into the futures to eavesdrop. A brisk contest of stealth and perception took place between hypothetical future me and hypothetical future Caldera, which ended with me able to pick out odd words of her half of the conversation. She was telling someone to come here and to hurry. I took the opportunity to send Luna a message updating her on what was going on.

“Right,” Caldera said once she’d finished, dropping her phone into her pocket as she reentered the bedroom. “When did you last see Miss Walker? And don’t dodge the question this time.”

Apparently my earlier evasion hadn’t been all that subtle. I’d had time to think about how to answer and had decided to go with the truth—it’s easier to remember and you don’t have to worry so much about being caught out. “Last night,” I began, and gave Caldera a short account of the evening, accurate as far as it went but with the more personal details edited out.

“. . . and that was the last time I saw her,” I finished.

“Has anybody else you know had any contact with her since then?”

“No. I told you, we haven’t heard anything else.”

Caldera grunted and I knew she’d be checking up on that later. “Okay, I’ve answered your questions,” I said. “Now why are you here?”

“This is Council property.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Sorry. Classified.”

I studied Caldera and folded my arms.

Caldera glanced around. “You need to clear the area. There’ll be someone—”

“Keepers from the Order of the Star don’t get sent on property inspections,” I said. “You’d only be here if there was something involving the Concord of the Council.” I looked at Caldera thoughtfully. “I’m guessing something triggered a flag. Maybe a report . . . or some kind of alarm? Otherwise you wouldn’t have assumed I was a suspect.”

Caldera looked back at me without expression. “But your remit is the Concord,” I said. “Anne’s not a recognised mage or an apprentice of one. You shouldn’t have any reason to be here . . . unless someone from the Council specifically asked you to . . .” I started scanning through the futures. Who was Caldera waiting for?

“You can go now,” Caldera said.

The future I was looking for came into focus and I snapped my fingers. “Sonder.” I pointed at Caldera. “He’s the reason you’re here. And you’re waiting for him to show up so he can look back to see what happened.” I paused. “So do you still need me to go? I’m pretty sure I already know anything I’d learn from seeing Sonder show up, but if it’s important . . .”

Caldera sighed. “Goddamn it. Do you have any idea how annoying you are?”

That was more or less what I’d said to Luna. Maybe I was teaching her bad habits. “Look, I’m sorry about the fight. If I’d known it was you—”

“You know what?” Caldera said. “I’m going to do what I ought to do more often. I’m making you someone else’s problem.”

We stood in silence for a little while. My chest and hands still ached a little from the scuffle. “So, you practice judo?” I asked. “That felt like a hip throw.”

“Just the techniques,” Caldera said. “I don’t have a belt.” She eyed me. “What was that thing you hit me with?”

“Dispelling focus.”

“You get into fights with mages that often?”

“It’s meant more for constructs. Just out of curiosity, how much of that strength of yours is muscle and how much is magic?”

“Drop by the gym some day and find out.”

I grinned at her. “Is that a challenge?”

Caldera’s phone rang and she moved off again to answer it. I took the opportunity to send Luna another message, telling her where to run into Sonder. He was only a few minutes out, and it didn’t take long before I heard his voice and Luna’s echoing up the stairs.

Sonder is a Light mage with messy hair and glasses, twenty-two years old but still with a teenager’s awkwardness. He’s actually younger than Luna, Anne, and Variam, but he’s a journeyman mage while they’re still apprentices, despite the fact that all three could probably take him in a fight. (In theory, your rank in the Light Council is a reflection of your skill as a mage, but in practice good connections count for a lot more than ability, which I suppose isn’t very different from most jobs.)

Sonder and I used to get on pretty well, at least until last year. Anne wasn’t the only mage who’d had a problem with what I’d done to the Nightstalkers; Sonder really isn’t comfortable with violence, and his finding out how I’d dealt with the adepts last summer had pretty much killed our friendship. I’d made a few attempts to get back in touch with him and we’d met once or twice, but there had been a distance in his manner which hadn’t been there before. I wasn’t expecting this conversation to go well.

Sonder entered Anne’s flat and stopped as he saw me. “Why are you here?”

I sighed. When you’re dealing with people who aren’t going to be happy to see you, being able to see the future isn’t as much fun as you’d think. “Is everyone going to say that?”

Sonder turned to Caldera. “What’s he doing here?”

Caldera finished her call and started typing into her phone instead, giving Sonder a shrug. “He says same reason as you.”

Luna stuck her head in around the door. “Something wrong?”

Sonder turned distractedly from her to Caldera. “Can’t you get rid of him?”

“It’s your investigation,” Caldera told Sonder without looking up.

I blinked. Sonder’s investigation?

“I don’t think you should be here,” Sonder told me.

“Not this again,” I said. “Look, I’ve just spent half an hour telling the story to Caldera. Are you here because of Anne or not?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then you need to check the bedroom. I think something’s happened to her and whatever it is, it’s a lot more important than arguing with me. If you look back and there’s nothing to see, then great, you can interrogate me afterwards. But if something has happened, then we’re wasting time we probably don’t have.”

“Sonder?” Luna said. “What’s the problem?”

Sonder hesitated. It was obvious he didn’t want me around, but he was rational enough to realise that what I was saying made sense. And there was another factor, which had been behind my reason to send Luna after him; Sonder’s had a not-very-subtle crush on Luna for years, and he had to be aware that starting a fight with me in front of her wouldn’t end well.

“All right,” Sonder said at last with poor grace. He started past me.

“The bedroom’s—” I began as Sonder passed.

“I know where it is.”

I watched Sonder go, then turned to Caldera, who’d been observing the whole thing with undisguised amusement. “Why is it that whenever I actually try to help someone I never get any credit for it?”

“Now you know what every day of my job’s like,” Caldera said. “Quit whining, you’ve got it easy.”

“What’s the problem?” Luna asked.

“Don’t ask. Did Sonder tell you why he was here?”

“Yeah, he said there was an alarm triggered last night.” Luna looked worried. “Some kind of passive sensor. Where’s Anne?”

“Sonder’ll know what happened soon enough.” I knew that if I walked into the bedroom right now I’d see him staring into space, lost in the trance of his timesight. I looked at Caldera. “How did you get involved?”

“How do you think?”

“Look, it’s not that I’m not grateful for having you around,” I said. “But given that Anne isn’t covered by the Concord, why are you here?”

Caldera paused for a moment. “Why are you here?”

“Because I’m worried about Anne,” I said. “Luna thinks something might have happened, and I think she’s right.” Not to mention that I was looking into the future to see what Sonder was going to tell us, and the signs were looking worse and worse.

“That’s the only reason?” Caldera said. “No vigilantes chasing you this time? You doing this just to save your own neck?”

“No.”

Caldera studied me for a long moment and I looked back at her, holding her gaze. “My boss said the same thing you did,” she said at last. “That it wasn’t a Concord matter.”

“And?”

“And Sonder pointed out that the last person known to have attacked Miss Walker was someone who very definitely does come under our jurisdiction. A mage named Crystal who’s a wanted fugitive.”

“Ah,” I said. Crystal is a mind magic user and an ex–Light mage who came to the Council’s attention a year and a half ago when she made use of her abilities and position to kidnap several Light apprentices, all of whom ended up murdered in a particularly horrific way. The Council might not care much about non-Light apprentices, but that is very definitely not the case when it comes to their own apprentices, and they’d gone after Crystal in a fury. She’d managed to evade capture so far, but she was still on the Council’s most-wanted list and even the off chance of finding her would be enough to get the Keeper orders very interested. “And if investigating that should happen to mean helping Anne . . . ?”

“Well, that’s just the way it goes, isn’t it?”

I gave Caldera a half smile, but it faded quickly. Sonder might have just made that argument to enlist Caldera’s help, but the more I thought about it, the more plausible it sounded. The last in the series of apprentices that Crystal had kidnapped back then had been Anne, and Crystal hadn’t picked her at random—she’d been researching a method of magical immortality, and she’d come to believe that by taking Anne’s life she could extend her own. We’d stopped Crystal before she could complete her ritual . . . but nothing was stopping her from trying again.

Over the last hour my priorities had shifted. Step by step, the evidence for what had happened to Anne had gotten worse and worse, and my earlier worries about coming across as pushy seemed very childish now. If it really had been Crystal, we might already be too late.

Luna looked bleak, and I knew she was thinking the same thing. Caldera seemed less anxious, but in an unpleasant sort of way this was probably something she was used to. The Order of the Star are the ones amongst the Keepers who deal with crimes involving Dark mages; kidnap and murder are old hat as far as they’re concerned. No one broke the silence, and I was left alone with my thoughts, waiting for Sonder to return.

When Sonder came back, the news was bad enough that he didn’t put up even a token protest about me listening in.

Time magic falls into two branches: direct manipulation of the flow of time, such as accelerating or slowing the timestream, and perception of past events. Sonder’s competent at the first, but it’s timesight he’s really good at. By using his magic he can look back into the past of his current location, perceiving what happened at an earlier point in time. He can only see what his ordinary senses would, but it’s still an incredibly powerful tool for investigation. The more recent the event, the easier it is to view, which meant that for Sonder, seeing what had happened last night was very, very simple.

Anne had been kidnapped. Her attackers had gated into the living room, walked into her bedroom as she slept, and hit her with a bolt of lightning before she’d even woken up. There had been two of them, both mages, and Sonder hadn’t been able to identify either. Caldera questioned Sonder meticulously for descriptions, but as they’d both worn ski masks there was little Sonder had been able to see. Both were male, one light-skinned and one dark, but beyond that all he could give were vague guesses as to height and weight. Anne had apparently been knocked out by the second lightning blast, and while one of them went back to recast the gateway the other had heaved her up with a view to dragging her through.

But that was where things had gone wrong.

I hadn’t known everything that Sonder was going to say—conversations are hard to predict, and while you can get a general impression if you concentrate it’s usually easier just to wait for them to tell it to you—but I’d known the news was bad. As he kept talking, though, something made me look up. Sonder was acting as though the news was bad, but there was more. “It was here,” Sonder said, pointing to a spot in the middle of the room. “That one had just opened a gate and he was about to carry Anne through.”

“Then what happened?” Caldera asked.

“There was a green flash and this guy just dropped. He was—”

“Which guy?” Caldera said.

“The one carrying Anne.”

“I thought she wasn’t awake?”

“That was what I thought too,” Sonder said excitedly. “Anyway, he goes down just here and she falls on top of him, but the gate’s still up. I think he must have been using a focus with a safety buffer, because I don’t think he could have kept concentration with—”

“Forget about the focus,” Caldera said. “What happened next?”

“Anne gets up here and the other guy comes out of the bedroom.” Sonder pointed back towards the door. “I think the one on the ground was half stunned, but he hit Anne with another spell, death magic I think—it hurt her but it didn’t stop her. The other one aimed another lightning bolt, but she jumped back through the gateway . . .” Sonder shifted position, squinting as if trying to see something.

“And then?” Caldera prompted.

Sonder stared at her. “It closed.”

“What closed? The gate?”

Sonder nodded uncertainly. “The cutoff must have triggered.”

“So she ended up on the other side of the gate, and the two of them were left back here?”

“Where did the gate go?” Luna asked.

“Hang on a second,” Sonder said, frowning. He shifted position, peering from side to side, while I made myself stay still. I wanted to tell him to hurry up, but I knew that would just make things worse.

“The gate’s black,” Sonder said at last.

“So what, somewhere dark?” Caldera said.

“No, if it were just dark I’d be able to see reflected light from the room. I think it’s masked.”

“No signature?”

“No.”

Caldera frowned, thinking. “So these two were left behind? What did they do?”

According to Sonder they’d started arguing. It had taken them a couple of minutes to finish blaming each other and follow her, reopening the same gate and disappearing through. Caldera started cross-questioning Sonder, picking through their conversation for clues, but my thoughts were elsewhere.

It was still bad news, but at least whoever Anne’s attackers were, they weren’t having it all their own way. They’d underestimated her, and she’d managed to turn the tables on them and get away though the gate . . . but where? If the gate had been masked, then Sonder wouldn’t be able to see where it led, no matter how long he tried. That meant the only clue we had was the people who’d created it. Where would two hostile mages want to take a kidnapped and unconscious life apprentice?

I didn’t know, but I didn’t think it was going to be anywhere pleasant.

Sonder and Caldera were winding down, and Sonder belatedly seemed to realise that I was there. “We need to find her,” he told me. The tone of his voice made it clear that the we wasn’t meant to be inclusive.

“Us as well,” I said.

Sonder hesitated. I knew he was about to object, but that future faded out as he reconsidered. He looked at Caldera.

“I’m not crazy about it,” Caldera said. “But we’re not exactly overstaffed.”

“All right,” Sonder said reluctantly. He braced himself and turned to me. “But I’m in charge, not you. You have to follow my orders.”

I kept my face carefully straight. “Okay.”

Sonder gave me a suspicious look, then Caldera told him she was going to start gathering the materials for a tracer spell and he got distracted. I arranged with Caldera to meet tomorrow and left with Luna before Sonder could change his mind.

“Who were they?” Luna said once we were out of the flat. “Why would they want to go after Anne?”

“Until we get something more concrete, there’s no point guessing. Have you talked to Vari?”

“Yeah, I just got a text. He hasn’t heard from her.”

I grimaced, even though it had been what I was expecting. “She left her phone back there,” Luna said. “Maybe that’s why she hasn’t called?”

“It’s been nearly a full day,” I said. “She should have been able to figure out a way to get in touch . . .” I shook my head. “I want you to find Vari. Tell him everything and make sure he’s there tomorrow. We’re going to need all the help we can get, and he knows Anne better than anyone.”

Luna nodded. “What are you going to do?”

“Dig up whatever I can find. We need to move fast.”

By the time I got back to my flat it was late. I spent an hour or two calling around and checking my contacts. None of them had seen Anne, which wasn’t surprising—as far as they were concerned, she was just another apprentice. I put the word out that I was in the market for news on Anne’s whereabouts and got a few promises to look into it, but I didn’t hold out much hope. If any of them found her, it’d be pure luck.

The ugly thing was that what had just happened to Anne wasn’t all that unusual. Young people in the magical world go missing a lot, and the reasons are rarely good. If you have a master, you’re relatively safe—you have rights under the Concord, and (more importantly) there’s someone who’ll care if you go missing and who’s powerful enough to do something about it. But if you’re an adept or a novice mage on your own, then you’re in very real danger. The disappearance rate of unattached adepts and mages in the teenage bracket is worryingly high, and while some of those disappearances are benign (abandoning their magic, choosing to stay away from the magical community, signing up as apprentice to a secretive mage), most aren’t. It used to be that young and inexperienced mages were the favourite prey of nonhuman magical predators. Nowadays that particular spot on the food chain has been taken over by human magical predators, and being the same species doesn’t make them any less cruel.

Luna had asked why a mage would go after Anne; there were a lot of answers to that question and none were good. Some mages like taking slaves, Dark mages in particular. The more able and powerful the slave, the more prestige they bring, and young and attractive ones are favoured. There are mages like Crystal who prefer human subjects for their experiments, and since those experiments generally involve magic, magic-using subjects are correspondingly valuable. Some mages target others for Harvesting, turning their victims into fuel sources. And then there are other reasons, running the gamut from the brutal and logical to the totally incomprehensible. In the end, all the reasons come down to the same thing: because they want to, and because they can.

Enslavement, imprisonment, experiment, death . . . it wasn’t a happy picture. For all I knew Anne’s fate was being decided right now, and I couldn’t think of a single thing to do about it. Divination is great for finding people, but only if you know where to look; trying to find a specific person by walking down random futures has about the same chance of working as trying to get someone’s phone number by dialling random digits. Without something to go on, there wasn’t much I could do.

The only plan I could think of that had a chance of working was to use Elsewhere, the half-real place somewhere between dreams and thoughts that I’ve used before. If you know someone well enough, you can touch their dreams through Elsewhere, talk to them across worlds. It’s a dangerous place and I’ve tried to avoid it in the past year—too many narrow escapes—but right now it was the best chance I had. I undressed, switched off the lights, and lay in bed staring up at the ceiling, searching through the futures to see if a visit to Elsewhere would find Anne.

It didn’t work. I lay awake in bed for a long time, searching back and forth through the hours of the night, but every time I came up dry. Either Anne wasn’t asleep, or there was some other reason I couldn’t reach her. At last exhaustion caught up with me and I fell into restless dreams where I was lost in an endless maze of corridors, trying to reach someone whom I could hear calling but who never seemed to come any closer. There was somebody following me but I couldn’t see who it was, and every time I turned on them their footsteps would fade into silence and I was left alone.