Hidden

Chapter 6

We gated through a couple of staging points, then returned to my shop. I’d already told Luna to stay the night, and Variam ended up staying as well; given the amount of trouble I’d stirred up, I had the feeling that it might be a good idea to take a few extra precautions for a while.

I tried raising Sonder on the communicator but couldn’t reach him. Synchronous communicators are supposed to have an unlimited range but the smaller ones don’t work that way in practice; apparently there are some engineering problems that haven’t been worked out. From looking into the futures in which I called them, I could tell Sonder and Caldera were at least still able to answer their phones. I couldn’t really think of anything I could do that wouldn’t risk making matters worse, and in any case I had the feeling it might be a good idea to give Caldera a bit of time to cool off, so I left Sonder a message asking to meet tomorrow. I checked the building defences, spent a while looking into the future for attacks, then once I was reasonably sure no one was going to try to assassinate us during the night I left Luna and Variam to argue over who was going to get dinner and went to bed.

Even then, I didn’t sleep. I could feel Elsewhere hanging somewhere between waking and dreams, and again I probed the futures in which I travelled there, searching for Anne. Again I couldn’t see any trace of her . . . but then I couldn’t see much trace of anything else, either. My magic is unreliable when it comes to Elsewhere. I’ve always been much better at physical divination than mental; it’s easy for me to see what’ll happen to my body, less so my mind. I’m not sure whether it’s because my talents lean that way or because mental divination is just more difficult. Whatever the reason, the pathways in which I visited Elsewhere felt like shifting sand, and I only felt blurred impressions before they closed off again.

I could just go to Elsewhere anyway. I could see what I’d find, try to find a way into Anne’s dreams . . . but I had the feeling that was a bad idea. My instincts were telling me that something very nasty could be waiting inside, and over the years I’ve learnt to listen to those feelings. Elsewhere is not a safe place, and I’ve pushed my luck there enough times. I didn’t want to risk it again.

I was still worrying over it when exhaustion caught up with me and I fell asleep.

I woke early and lay in bed for a few minutes looking out of my window at the sunrise, watching the light creep across the chimneys. When I was fully awake I headed for the bathroom and spent a while re-dyeing my hair. I’d never realised just how much work colouring is. When my hair was somewhere close to its natural shade I emerged into the kitchen.

Luna was sitting at the table, going through messages on her phone. “Morning,” she said without looking up. “Sonder says he wants us to meet at his flat in an hour.”

“Good.” I put the kettle on and started making toast. I wasn’t hungry—I don’t eat much when I’m worried—but fuel is fuel.

“Anything from Elsewhere?”

I shook my head, leaning against the counter. “I can’t see if she’s there, and I’m afraid to go poking around without a path to follow.” There aren’t many people I would have admitted the last part to, but I’ve come to trust Luna over the past two years. She’s one of the few people I’ve been to Elsewhere with, and she knows exactly how scary it can be.

“Why can’t you find her?” Luna said. “You found me.”

“Just because it works with one person doesn’t mean it’ll work with another.”

“Then why not her?”

I took the toast out from under the grill and began spreading butter on it. “Maybe she isn’t asleep when I’m trying to do it,” I said at last. “Anne can stay awake for days if she has to. Or maybe she is asleep and I just can’t reach her. Because I don’t know her well enough, because she doesn’t trust me enough, because there isn’t enough of a connection for us to find each other . . .”

I took the food to the table and sat down. Luna was silent and I knew she’d figured out the third possible reason, the one I hadn’t said out loud. You have to be alive to sleep. I finished my breakfast in silence, and Luna didn’t speak again. Eventually Variam appeared and we headed to Sonder’s flat.

The meeting went a lot less smoothly than the last one.

Things kicked off with both Sonder and Caldera chewing me out. I’d expected it and pursued my normal strategy for dealing with angry people in a position of authority: avoid a confrontation, don’t commit to anything, and wait. Caldera gave up after only a few halfhearted threats. I think underneath the posturing, she was a bit embarrassed that I’d had to help Sonder out. More surprising was that Sonder actually seemed more angry about the whole thing than Caldera was.

“We told you not to come!” Sonder said for the third time. He was standing in front of his whiteboard, glaring at me.

“Strictly speaking, you said you didn’t need us,” I said, leaning back against the wall. I didn’t bring up how he’d needed bailing out within ten minutes of getting through the front door.

“You knew what I meant!”

“Well, I didn’t exactly. I mean, you did make it clear that you weren’t expecting to need any extra help, but we never discussed what we were going to do if extra information came up that changed the situation.”

“There wasn’t any extra information!”

“Sonder,” Caldera said from where she was sitting. “Let’s move on.”

“Yeah,” Luna said. To begin with she’d found it hilarious that Sonder and Caldera were reprimanding me, but the joke had obviously gotten old. “What about those apprentices? What did they say?”

The mention of Sagash’s apprentices was enough to get Sonder’s attention. “They . . .” Sonder hesitated. “It wasn’t any good.”

“Did they do it or not?”

“I don’t think so.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, they didn’t talk about Anne.”

“They recognised her name,” Luna said.

“Okay, they knew who she was, but I don’t think they knew anything else.”

“What else did they say?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Sonder said. “Something about a third apprentice—some other girl. It wasn’t Anne.”

“That was it?” I asked. “That was all you could see in the whole conversation?”

“There wasn’t anything else,” Sonder said in annoyance. “Anyway, you were distracting me.”

I held back my retort, feeling frustrated. Normally when it comes to timesight, Sonder’ll tell you everything you could possibly want to know—the hard part is getting him to shut up. He’d picked a hell of a time to start being uninformative.

“What about Sagash?” Variam asked Caldera. “You spoke to him, right?”

“Sagash claims he hasn’t had any contact with Anne since she left his apprenticeship,” Caldera said.

“Is he lying?”

“I’m not a mind mage,” Caldera said. “I was asking in my capacity as a Keeper. If Sagash did have Anne, he could have just told me. There’s nothing more I could do without a Council order.”

“Maybe there was something else he was covering up,” Luna said.

“He’s a Dark mage, of course there’s something he’s covering up. But there’s no evidence that it’s what we’re looking for.”

“Jagadev?” I asked.

“Stonewalled.”

“What about Crystal?” Sonder said.

“I got the latest report from the Crystal team this morning,” Caldera said. “I’ll read it more thoroughly later, but the short version is there aren’t any leads connecting her to Anne.”

“Can’t we just give up on Crystal already?” Variam said.

I had to hold back a sigh. The whole reason I’d explained where Sonder was coming from to Vari yesterday was so that he wouldn’t push Sonder about Crystal. Vari’s a good guy to have at your back in a fight, but he’s not a great listener.

“Crystal was responsible for the deaths of four Light apprentices over several months without anyone suspecting her,” Sonder said. “We wouldn’t expect to see any evidence that it was her, not easily.”

“Let’s go back to Sagash’s apprentices,” I said, looking at Caldera. “Luna found out a bit about them, but I guess you’ve got their files?”

“We’re not Big Brother,” Caldera said. “We don’t have files on every mage in the country.”

I looked at her with eyebrows raised.

“I know a little bit of common knowledge about them,” Caldera said with a scowl. “Sagash has three apprentices—Darren Smith, Yun Ji-yeong, and Samuel Taylor. First two are living family, third is an elementalist. The two boys have been his apprentices for at least one year, the girl at least six months, but those are lowball estimates.”

Luna stirred. “Wait. Elemental and living?” She looked at Sonder. “Wasn’t that what you saw when Anne was kidnapped?”

“Not exactly . . .”

“You said lightning and death magic.” Luna looked around. “Doesn’t that fit?”

“We don’t know that. They could—”

“They’re both guys,” Luna interrupted, and started ticking off points on her fingers. “They’re the right height and weight and skin colour. Their magic types match. They’ve got a connection to Sagash. Isn’t this making kind of a pattern here?”

“They said it wasn’t them.”

“And there’s no way they could possibly be lying?”

“But they . . .”

The argument went on. Variam and Luna were convinced that it had to be Sagash and his apprentices, while Sonder held out stubbornly. At last Caldera spoke up. “Enough. This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

And this is where she tells us what to do again, I thought.

“Sagash’s apprentices should be the focus of the investigation,” Caldera said, then raised a hand when Sonder started to object. “I know it’s not conclusive but so far they’re the closest match to our suspects and we don’t have any other active leads.” She looked around. “Variam, you’re with me—we’re going to try and track them down. Sonder, I’ll send you the Crystal report. Maybe you can get something out of it that I missed. Luna, Alex, you’re on standby. Once we find those apprentices I’ll call you in.” She gave me a look. “Ordering you to stay out of trouble doesn’t seem to work very well, so I’m going to keep you where I can keep an eye on you instead. Do you think you can manage not to start any wars with Dark mages while I’m gone?”

“I’ll do my best,” I said with a straight face.

The meeting broke up, Caldera and Variam heading out. Luna and I were following when Sonder broke in. “Luna? Can I speak to you privately, please?”

Luna gave him a curious look. “Okay . . .”

Sonder gave me a pointed look. I shrugged. “I’ll wait for you outside.”

I went out of Sonder’s flat and down to the first-floor landing. It was carpeted and well heated, and I looked out the window to see a carefully cultivated area of grass and bushes. The buildings were a doughnut-block design, with a small park at the centre where some children were playing, supervised by an equal number of adults. The buildings muffled the noise from the streets outside and it all looked very peaceful. I’ve always felt that Sonder’s flat suits him pretty well—well off and sheltered. I could have eavesdropped on him and Luna easily enough but didn’t.

After five minutes or so I started to hear raised voices. The volume rose, then cut off and there were rapid footsteps. Sonder’s door opened and Luna appeared; she shut it with a bang and walked quickly down the stairs. The silvery mist of her curse was lashing and twisting around her, reaching out to twice its normal length. I leant back into the wall and she pulled the tendrils in as she passed, then let them expand again as soon as she was out of range of me. “Didn’t go well?” I said.

Luna gave me a look from the landing below and kept going. I started to follow her down, keeping a careful distance. Luna’s become much better at controlling her curse, but there’s no point tempting fate. “What was that about?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Seriously?” Luna didn’t answer, and I shook my head. “Maybe not, but it sounds like I’d better.”

“He wanted me to leave you and be a Council apprentice instead.”

I stopped. “He did what?”

Luna had reached the front door; I was halfway down the last flight of stairs. “Told you you wouldn’t like it,” Luna said.

“What did you say?”

“I told him to get lost, what do you think?”

I stared at Luna. “Okay, screw this,” I said after a few seconds. I turned and started back up the stairs.

“Alex . . .” Luna said warningly.

“We’re just going to talk,” I called over my shoulder as I disappeared from her view.

When I reached Sonder’s flat I didn’t use the bell but banged on the door with my fist. I kept banging until Sonder yelled, “All right, all right!” and opened it. As soon as he did I pushed past into his living room.

Sonder followed, looking peevish. “Would you mind—?”

“Okay, Sonder,” I said, turning on him. “I am officially out of patience. Not wanting me around, I can put up with. Your whining last night—that was just annoying. But this? This is over the line.”

“What?”

“You know exactly what!”

“It’s not your business what Luna does,” Sonder said.

I took a deep breath, trying to control my temper. Sonder was still young; he couldn’t be expected to know how insulting it was to headhunt another mage’s apprentice . . . actually, screw that, he’d grown up as a Light apprentice and he had to know exactly how insulting it was. “If you have a problem with Luna being my apprentice, you bring it to me,” I said. “You do not go behind my back. Clear?”

“Well, what if the problem is you?”

“And what exactly do you mean by that?”

“Maybe if you actually cared about her you wouldn’t be teaching her at all,” Sonder said. “You’d be finding someone else.”

“Not that it’s any of your business,” I said, “but finding chance mage teachers isn’t easy. Especially not with Luna’s curse.”

“I don’t mean that! I don’t want you teaching her to be the same kind of person you are!”

My anger vanished and I looked at Sonder. He was glaring at me; he’d obviously been working himself up to this. “Okay,” I said, holding quite still. “Now we’re getting to it. What exactly is your problem with me?”

“What do you think?”

“I think I can guess, but why don’t you tell me?”

“Remember back when we went after Belthas?” Sonder said. “Two years ago with that Dark mage, Cinder? Up on the mountain, we were trying to find a way in to Belthas past his security men.”

I paused. “Okay.”

“Then before that. When we went to that factory, and that man followed us there?”

This wasn’t how I’d expected the conversation to go—I’d been expecting a repeat of the argument with Anne. “Yeah . . .”

“And before that. When Griff tried to get the fateweaver. Remember that?”

“Are you going somewhere with—?”

“I’m not finished. Those three men that tried to kill Anne, while we were investigating those disappearances running up to the White Stone? Remember them?”

“Yes, I remember them. What are you getting at?”

“Why don’t you tell me what they’ve all got in common?”

“I don’t know. What have they got in common?”

“They’re all dead.”

Sonder was glaring at me. “What’s your point?” I said.

“You know last year, when I found out you’d killed all those adepts?” Sonder said. “It really shook me up. I couldn’t believe you’d do something like that. And then I started going back and thinking about it, and you know what hit me? It wasn’t anything new. Every time you’ve gotten into something like this, every time someone goes after you, they end up dead. You killed those adepts because that’s what you do.”

“Okay, wait a second.” I was starting to get angry again. “Pretty much every single one of those guys you just listed was trying to kill me at the time. What exactly do you think I should have done?”

“That’s what you said back on the mountain. You said it was self-defence, that there was no other way. You made it sound really convincing, but that’s always your line, isn’t it? It’s never your fault.”

“I don’t care whose fault it is,” I said tightly. “It’s about surviving.”

“Well, you know what?” Sonder said. “There are lots of Light mages around in Britain who’ve survived pretty well. And you know what they haven’t done? They haven’t killed anyone. Most people don’t; that’s why we have laws against murder! It’s just you who can’t seem to go a whole year without killing someone. Maybe it’s not about surviving or self-defence, or because there’s no other way. Maybe it’s you.”

I rocked back slightly, feeling a stab of fear. “I see,” I said, once I’d gotten myself just barely under control. “And you’ve felt this way for how long?”

“It’s not just me,” Sonder said. “People in the Council are talking about you. The longer Luna stays with you, the harder it’ll be for her to find anyone else. If you really want to help her, you should find her another teacher.”

I looked back at Sonder and counted silently to ten, forcing myself back to calm. “Thank you for your honesty,” I said at last, my voice cold. “Allow me to retort. I’m quite sure you’re right—your friends on the Council don’t kill, not personally. They have people to do that for them. But the orders they pass down cause more deaths than I ever will. I would also note that you didn’t seem terribly bothered about my methods when it was your life on the line. Remember that little episode with Griff? If I hadn’t dealt with him and Onyx, exactly what do you think your chances would have been of getting out of that bubble alive?”

“You didn’t have to kill him! You could have found some other way!”

“It’s easy to say there’s another way when you’re not the one who has to find it.” Sonder started to answer and I spoke over him, my voice hard. “Shut up, Sonder. You had your say, now it’s my turn. I’d also like to point out that while you might not like the way I do things, the times in the past that you or Anne or Luna have been in trouble I’ve done a pretty good job of helping them. So you might want to ask yourself what’s more important to you: helping Anne, or your issues with me?”

Sonder stared at me. I turned to leave.

“Anne thinks the same thing, you know,” Sonder said just as I was turning the handle. I didn’t answer, and I banged the door behind me exactly as Luna had.

I went home, but I had trouble concentrating. Sonder’s words kept going around my head; I was angry at how unfair he was being, and afraid that he might be right. It was distracting me from trying to find Anne . . . not that there was much I could do in the first place, and that wasn’t making me feel any better either.

Novices and adepts think a diviner can find out anything, and I usually let them believe it—a slightly exaggerated reputation never hurts—but it just doesn’t work that way. Most “finding” uses of divination come down to a very long string of if-then conditions. You come up with an avenue of investigation, then you test it. If you don’t have anywhere to start, then divination just amounts to wild guessing, with about the same odds of success . . . and that was a problem because time was running out. I used to know an independent mage who specialised in missing-persons cases, and he told me about something he called the seventy-two-hour rule: if you don’t find someone within seventy-two hours, then odds are you won’t find them at all. Anne had been missing for nearly sixty.

I needed to do something, but I wasn’t sure what. Until Caldera got back in touch, there wasn’t much I could do to help with the search.

Every few minutes I found my thoughts drifting back to Sonder, coming up with more things to say, justifications, arguments. Then I found it blending into my feelings about Anne, imagining that I was arguing with her instead. I wanted to talk to one of them or both of them, try to explain, work something out. But Anne wasn’t there and Sonder wouldn’t listen, and I knew it was a stupid thing to do anyway. Anne and Sonder weren’t the problem, not really. The problem was . . .

My heart sank as I realised where the train of thought was heading. Yeah. That’s who I actually need to talk to, isn’t it?

I looked into the future to see whether Caldera was going to call soon, half-hoping for an excuse to stay home. She wasn’t and I set out.

For the second time in four days, I was back at the Institute of Education.

I was in the basement atrium, standing against one of the pillars. The lecture had just ended and students were streaming out, shouting and talking and checking their phones. None of them paid any attention to me. I searched their faces as they went past, boys and girls all with their school bags and middle-class clothes. They looked so young, and there was something dismaying about the thought. I was only ten years older than they were, less for the mature students, but it felt as though I had nothing in common with them at all.

Watching the sea of students—children—pulled my thoughts away, associations from point to point. Crowds of teenagers, faces, classrooms. It reminded me of childhood, and they weren’t good memories. Things were never really good at home when I was young, even before the divorce, and they were worse at school. I’d been an introverted kid, intelligent and sensitive and socially clumsy. Bad combination if you go to a British state school. I once read an article which made the argument that modern Western schools have a good deal in common with modern prisons, and I’ve always thought it was pretty accurate. With both schools and prisons, the ones running the system have a very simple set of priorities for their inmates: they want them to stay on the premises, they want them to stay healthy and watered and fed, and they want them not to be gratuitously violent in a way that’ll draw public attention. Beyond that, they don’t really care. There are plenty of teachers who do their best to help, but they’re swimming upstream and most of the time the kids end up creating their own society. It’s ruthless and cruel, and it is not fun to be at the bottom of it.

When my magic started developing, it only made things worse. Universal magic is the hardest of all the families for humans to use—it’s too abstract, too alien. When you’re a novice diviner your power comes in flashes; sometimes you just catch a glimpse of possibilities and sometimes you see all of them, every future at once, crashing into your mind like an ocean trying to fill a water bowl. It didn’t send me crazy, not quite, but I wasn’t exactly stable either and the fact that I had no idea what was happening to me didn’t help. Maybe if I’d had someone to talk to I might have tried to explain it, but there wasn’t anyone left by then, not really. My dad had lost custody, I didn’t get on with my mother, and my near-psychotic episodes had cut off the few friendships I’d had.

So I learnt to control my power. I learnt to focus my mind, block out the futures I didn’t want to see, direct my perception instead of taking in everything. I learnt to select futures, search out along those not-quite-visible strands of possibility, shut them off when it was too much and I needed time to recover. And I did it alone, because I had to. And it worked.

It didn’t make me any happier. My crude ability to see the future didn’t make me any friends—the opposite, if anything. I had knowledge, but there wasn’t anything I could do with it. I was left just as isolated, hating the people who’d ostracised me. Until one cold autumn day when Richard had stepped onto the schoolyard where I was standing, promising me everything I’d secretly wanted if I’d follow him and call him master. And I’d said yes.

Movement from inside the hall broke me out of my reverie. Nearly all of the students had disappeared up the stairs; only a few stragglers were left, one or two of them giving me curious glances now that I was the only person standing still in the atrium. A buzz of conversation from inside grew louder, then tailed off. A man appeared at the doors, white-haired, lecture notes tucked under one arm. He spotted me two steps into the room and came to a stop.

“Hey, Dad,” I said.

The inner courtyard of the Institute of Education was cold. It had been a long winter—we’d had flurries of snow as recently as a couple of weeks ago, even though it was April. My father and I sat on one of the benches, the cold of the wood creeping through my clothes. Students passed by in ones and twos, coats closed against the chill wind.

“I didn’t know you’d moved here,” I said.

“Here?” My father looked at me, confused.

“The Institute.”

“What? Oh, no, I’m still at UCL.”

I found myself watching my father out of the corner of my eye. His hair seemed a little thinner and the lines on his face deeper since the last time I’d seen him, his posture a little more stooped. Did he look older, or was I just noticing it now? His voice sounded frail, and watching him gave me a strange feeling. For mages, age isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s the opposite—white hair is a sign that they’ve lived long enough to be dangerous. My father didn’t look dangerous. He looked apologetic.

“Teaching?” I said.

“Yes, the usual courses. This is just a part of the spring schedule. Eight lectures.”

“Cool.”

We sat in silence. A few more students walked by.

“So, congratulations on making professor,” I said.

“Thank you. I mean, it’s not confirmed yet, but . . .”

“Yeah.”

Another pause.

“How are things working out with the shop?” my father asked.

“Oh, fine. Business as usual.” I paused. “I’m taking a few days off because a friend of mine got partially abducted by some people who probably want to hurt or kill her, so we’re trying to track her down before they do.”

My father twisted around to look at me. I looked back.

“Are you . . . Could you say that again?”

“Friend abducted, trying to find her.”

“Isn’t that a job for the police?”

“We’re working with a . . .” I tried to think of how to describe Caldera in nonmagical terms. “With a branch of the police. Not sure how long we’ll have their support, though.”

“How do you mean?”

“They might pull their people off the case.” Of which the odds were two in three and climbing, assuming we were weighing the suspects equally. “If they do we’ll have to finish things on our own.”

My father was silent for a little while. “You’re planning to take matters into your own hands.”

I didn’t answer.

“Will there be trouble?”

“Possibly.” Probably.

“I’d thought . . .” My father paused. “The last time, you said you were trying to put this sort of thing behind you.”

“Yeah, well, it turns out trying to put the past behind you doesn’t work too well when the past doesn’t cooperate.”

“I’m . . . I have to say, I’m not comfortable with you doing this.” My father clasped his hands, elbows resting on knees. “It sounds too close to what you were doing with that man you were involved with, Richard.”

I felt a flare of anger. How do parents always know how to get under your skin? “It’s nothing to do with Richard,” I said levelly. “I’m trying to help someone.”

“You ought to leave it to the authorities.”

“The authorities are overworked, their freedom of action is limited, and they don’t care very much about this person in the first place.”

“I know these situations are frustrating, but breaking the law just makes things worse, even if you are trying to help. These rules are in place for a reason. There’s no guarantee that trying to interfere will make things any better, and even if you do, you’re setting a bad precedent.”

“How can you believe this with what you teach?” I asked. I pointed down through the flagstones, towards the lecture hall. “European history is one very long study in conflict, violence, and rule-breaking.”

“Haven’t we advanced beyond that? There’s no excuse for resolving our disagreements with violence anymore.”

“What exactly do you think the police and military do?”

“Look,” my father said. “We’ve had this discussion before. I’m just worried that you’re working up to something.”

“Mostly just what I told you,” I said. “Well, plus last year a bunch of teenagers tried to assassinate me so I killed them all, but that’s not important right now.”

My father frowned. “You’re not serious.”

I sighed. “I was kidding.” No, I wasn’t.

“I think that joke’s in rather poor taste.”

I looked at my father with a hopeless feeling. What was I doing here? I couldn’t talk to him about my life, what I’d done to survive. Out of morbid curiosity, I looked to see what his reaction would be if I did tell him the truth about last year, and almost immediately wished I hadn’t. Shock, disbelief, horror. It’d leave him devastated.

“Sorry,” I said. Another awkward silence.

“I . . . know things haven’t always been easy for you,” my father said. “I’ve always regretted not being there when you were younger. And I know we’ve had our disagreements. Is there, well . . . anything you’d like to tell me?”

I looked back at him. Anything I’d like to tell you . . . how about that everything you taught me was wrong? Your pacifism didn’t help when I was getting bullied for years on end. Didn’t help when my mother divorced you and got custody. If you hadn’t been so weak, maybe I wouldn’t have jumped at the first offer that let me think I could be strong . . .

“No,” I said. “I’m fine.”

“All right.”

My phone vibrated. Looking into the future in which I checked it, I saw that it was Caldera. News. “I’d better go,” I said, standing.

My father rose with me. “Ah. You know, you’re welcome to visit for dinner sometime.”

A whole evening of this? The thought made me flinch. “Yeah,” I said. “I’ll be in touch.”

“Well, good-bye.” My father paused. “Be careful.”

“I will.” At least that was close to true.

My father walked back to the Institute, and I watched him go. To my eyes, he looked thin and frail. As he reached the doors I shook my head and turned away, heading north with long strides, taking out my phone and dialling a number.

Caldera answered on the second ring. “Alex?”

“It’s me.”

“We’ve got an address for one of Sagash’s apprentices.” Caldera’s voice was curt. “Meet there as soon as possible. Be ready for trouble.”

“I’ll be there in forty minutes.”

Caldera hung up and I dropped my phone back into my pocket. I was still pissed off, and I knew why. It had been my father’s implication that I was going back to how I’d been with Richard. It was too close to what Sonder had said, and the unfairness of it made me angry. It was so black-and-white, their world. Either you were a sheep or you were a wolf. You didn’t use violence or you were a thug. Nothing in between.

Well, screw them both. I wasn’t going to be like my father, but I wasn’t going to be like Richard either. I was going to help Anne no matter what they thought.

“Are they going to stand there all day or what?” Variam asked.

We were on a council estate in Tufnell Park. My divination magic had found us an empty flat with a good view, and we were inside the cramped upper bedroom, looking out the window. The interior of the flat was dusty and cold, with old magazines scattered across the floor; whoever lived here hadn’t been home for a long time. Through the window we could see a courtyard of pebble-set concrete, with more flats rising opposite. Caldera and Sonder were on the upper walkway fifty feet across, heads bent over the door of flat number 229. According to Caldera, that flat was the residence of one Darren Smith, Sagash’s apprentice. The sky was overcast and grey, and wind whined past outside.

“Maybe they’re knocking on the door and saying they have a warrant,” I said.

“Then shouldn’t we be over there?”

“Caldera wants us around for backup,” I said. And to keep an eye on us. “Sonder doesn’t want us around at all. I guess this is the compromise.”

Opposite, the door opened and Caldera walked inside. Sonder started to follow, but Caldera made a gesture and Sonder hung back. “Four of us for one Dark apprentice who isn’t even there,” Variam muttered. “This is such a waste of time.” He gave me a look. “Why are you wearing that armour anyway?”

“Not everyone gets to have your fancy elemental shields, you know.” The armour I was wearing was an imbued item Arachne had made for me: a close-woven mesh with reinforcing plates. It’s black and grey and not particularly bulky, but it’s still not the best thing to wear for blending into a crowd, which was why I’d covered it with a greatcoat. I could feel its presence, protective and watchful, but it matched my movements so well that it was easy to forget it was there. “And if there was one thing I learnt last year, it was that it’s a lot better to have armour and not need it than to need it and not have it.”

Variam fell silent and I went back to looking into the future, searching for the telltale signs of combat. I’d already confirmed that no one was in the flat, but a common trick mages use is to set up silent alarms in places they want protected. The intruder breaks in and has just enough time to relax before a prepared and pissed-off mage gates in on top of them.

If something like that did happen, then Caldera and Sonder’s chances would be a lot better if they had advance warning, which from this distance was a lot harder for me to give. Yet despite that, Sonder still didn’t want me around, which bothered me more than I liked to admit.

Minutes passed. Sonder had followed Caldera into the flat and shut the door behind them. With no direct physical or visual link I couldn’t easily path-walk to their location, so I switched my focus to the futures of the communication channel, trusting Caldera to stay in touch. If anything happened she should be able to send me a message.

Probably.

It wasn’t a good sign that I was saying probably about something like that.

“Did you turn up anything?” I asked Variam.

“If I had, you think I’d be here?”

We sat in silence a little while longer. “Why do you care so much about protecting Anne?” I said at last.

Variam shot me a look. “This really the time?”

“Maybe not, but I’ve asked you that question a few times now and you always find some reason not to answer.”

Variam didn’t reply. “You said something last year which stuck in my head,” I said. “You said taking care of Anne was your job. I know the two of you grew up together. But the way you act towards her . . .” I looked at Variam. “Has it got something to do with Sagash? Is that why you’re so convinced it’s him? I know you don’t want to talk about it but if there’s any way it could help . . . now might be the time.”

Variam stood for a minute in silence. I didn’t disturb him, watching the futures flicking back and forth: I knew he was making his decision. Slowly the futures firmed and settled. “If I tell you this, you can’t tell anyone else,” Variam said at last. “Not Luna, not Arachne, definitely not Anne. No one.” He stared at me. “You got it?”

I nodded.

“Swear.”

“I won’t tell anyone else without your permission. You have my word.”

“When Anne got taken by Sagash that first time, I went looking for her,” Variam said. “You know how hard it is to find someone when you don’t have anywhere to start?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t know anything. Didn’t know where to look, didn’t know what to ask. Took months before I even figured out how the Light and Dark thing worked. I tried adepts, independents, the Council. They didn’t know, they didn’t care.” Variam looked up through the window towards the light behind the clouds. “Then one day I heard something. About a creature that could answer any question you asked it. The Fire Dragon.”

I looked at Variam sharply.

“You know what it’s like, meeting a dragon?” Variam was still staring out at the sky. “It was . . . light. Blackness. Flame. I . . . saw a movie about astronomy once, back in school. There were pictures of the sun, solar flares. You saw them and they looked like little flickers of fire, except each one was bigger than the planet. That was what it felt like. Like you were trying to see something on a scale you just didn’t work on. I don’t know where we were or how long it lasted, but when I was done I was just back again.”

“What did it tell you?” I asked quietly.

“It didn’t talk. It was more like . . . visions. I saw what I’d come to ask, and I saw the answers. Other things, too . . .” Variam trailed off for a second, then shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. But some of it was about Anne, and that bit I did understand. I saw Sagash, and I knew she was with him. And I knew if I didn’t get her away, then something would happen to her.”

“Something?”

“Sagash wasn’t going to kill her. She was going to be turned into something. She’d stop being who she was, and become something else. It felt like she was . . . falling into darkness. She’d still be there, but I got the feeling it might be better if she wasn’t.” Variam looked at me. “You get what it means? That would happen if she stayed with Sagash. It didn’t say which time. As long as he’s still out there . . .”

“Does Anne know?”

Variam shook his head again. “I thought about telling her, but . . . I never knew how it was going to happen, you know? I mean, back when I met you and Luna, I thought maybe you’d be the ones who’d pull her back to Sagash.”

I snorted.

“Yeah, you can laugh, but it might have been. How’re you supposed to stop something when you don’t know how it’ll happen? I even thought about going after Sagash, but it’s dumb. Just because he won’t kill Anne doesn’t mean he won’t kill me.”

“Did you think about asking her?”

“No,” Variam said. “Because that vision I got? I was never sure whether it was something that happened to her or something she decided.”

Variam fell silent again, and this time he didn’t go on. The vision Variam was talking about sounded vague, but I didn’t think that was his fault. I met a dragon once too—or at least I think I did—and trying to remember it gives me the same weird disjointed feeling, like you’re trying to visualise something that doesn’t work in human terms. There are stories of mages going searching for dragons as Variam had, looking for secrets or wisdom or prophecy. Sometimes they can be found, sometimes not, but I’ve never heard of them being wrong. If Variam had received that vision, it was worrying.

But I couldn’t see anything useful to do about it, and if we couldn’t find Anne, then it didn’t matter anyway. I went back to searching the futures and saw a strengthening branch of forks heading our way. “They’re coming out,” I said.

Opposite to us, the door to Darren’s flat opened and Sonder and Caldera emerged, locking it behind them. They headed our way along the walkway, disappearing from sight. I walked into the hall of “our” flat and opened the door to let them in, shivering briefly in the gust of cold air. “Anything?” I asked once we were all inside.

“Ask him,” Caldera said with a nod to Sonder. Her manner had been different since we’d met at the flats, though I couldn’t put my finger on exactly how.

Variam looked at Sonder. “So?”

“It’s his flat, but there’s nothing about Anne,” Sonder said.

“Then what was the point of coming here?”

“He still uses it. There might be—”

“What’s going on?” I murmured to Caldera.

“Shh,” Caldera said. She was watching Sonder.

I frowned. For some reason Caldera wasn’t taking command, as though she were waiting for something.

“Then we should be going there,” Variam was saying.

“It’s not Sagash, all right?” Sonder said in annoyance.

“Sonder,” I said slowly. “If it’s not Sagash, and you’re sure it’s not Sagash, what are we doing here? I thought you were sure it was Crystal.”

“It is Crystal!”

“Then why are we searching this flat?” Something wasn’t adding up. “What’s Crystal got to do with Sagash’s apprentices?”

“She’s still the most likely one to be behind this,” Sonder argued. “You know how good she was at using people; maybe she was the one who got them to do it. It would fit with everything—”

“Fuck Crystal,” Variam said. “I don’t think you care about finding Anne at all.”

“Well, I haven’t seen you doing—”

The argument started up again, along predictable lines. Usually this was the point at which Caldera would step in, but glancing at her I saw she was still just watching. She still seemed to be waiting—

I stopped as my brain caught up with something I’d heard. “Wait,” I said to Sonder. “What did you just say?”

Sonder broke off arguing with Variam. “What?”

“About Crystal being behind it.”

“I said that if it was Sagash’s apprentices, maybe it was Crystal who got them to do it in the first place.”

“No,” I said slowly. “You said, ‘Maybe she was the one who got them to do it.’”

“Yeah, if it really was them,” Sonder said. He looked annoyed. “I don’t think it was, I’m just saying that even if that was true, it still might have been her.”

I stared at Sonder. “You didn’t say ‘if.’”

Variam was looking at me curiously. “Yes, I did,” Sonder said.

“Why did you come here in the first place?” I asked Sonder. “You’re supposed to be in charge, not Caldera. If you were really so sure that Sagash’s apprentices had nothing to do with this, you shouldn’t have been wasting time using your timesight on that flat.”

“Well—” Sonder hesitated. “I didn’t think so. You did.”

I looked at Sonder for a long moment, flicking through futures. Divination isn’t much use in normal conversations—too many ways for things to go. But if you know the right questions to ask . . .

“It was them, wasn’t it?” I said. “The ones who took Anne were Sagash’s two apprentices, Darren and Sam. You’ve known since last night. When you listened to their conversations after they’d met Luna, you found out that they were the ones who did it. You’ve been keeping it from us.”

Variam had been looking at me; now he turned to stare at Sonder. There was a silent question in his eyes.

Lying well takes practice. An amateur can pull off a lie as long as no one’s looking for it, but as soon as they get cross-questioned they go to pieces. A professional, on the other hand, can manage interrogation just fine—they submerge themselves in the lie so well that they actually believe it themselves. There are subtle signs which you can look for, but a good liar never makes it obvious.

Sonder wasn’t a good liar.

Variam’s face darkened. Orange-red light sprang up at his hands, licking outwards. “You cowardly little—” he began, his voice soft as he took a step towards Sonder. Sonder flinched back.

Then Caldera was there, putting her arm between Variam and Sonder. “Variam,” she said, and the note of command was back in her voice. “Stand down.” Her eyes stayed locked on Sonder. “Explain.”

“Uh . . .” Sonder began. He looked as though he’d rather be absolutely anywhere else.

“So that’s the truth,” I said quietly.

“I was going to tell you!”

“Shut up, Verus,” Caldera said. “Explain.”

“Look, I wasn’t sure,” Sonder began. “I mean, they said some things last night, but it could have meant anything . . .”

I shook my head in disgust. I should have seen this coming. The biggest problem with the information magic of a universal mage is that no one else can perceive it. Council trials which rely on timesight will use multiple time mages, all of whom give testimony independently. But Sonder had never lied about it before, and it just hadn’t occurred to me that he might start now.

“You want her to stay with Sagash?” Variam said. His voice was soft, but fiery light was still flickering at his hands and I wouldn’t have liked to be Sonder if Caldera weren’t there. “That what it is?”

“It’s not that!” Sonder looked angry. I didn’t think he understood just how close Variam was to snapping. “You can’t do anything about it anyway!”

Variam took a slow breath in, then out. He looked as though he was fighting to keep himself under control, and barely succeeding. “Why?” Caldera said.

“Because she’s in Sagash’s shadow realm!”

Variam went still. “So that was where that gate led,” I said quietly. “And that’s why you haven’t been telling us. Because a Keeper investigation can’t go there without some kind of link to Crystal.”

“There is one,” Sonder insisted. He looked between us. “I know there is.”

No one answered. “Variam, wait in the hall,” Caldera said. “We’re going back to the station.”

Variam left without a word. I noticed that Caldera’s eyes followed him; Sonder might have missed how close that had been, but Caldera hadn’t. “Look, this can still work,” Sonder began.

Caldera waited for Variam to disappear, then shook her head at Sonder. “Come off it.” She started to turn away. “My report’s due.”

“Wait! You could tell them—”

Caldera shot Sonder a withering look, and Sonder stopped. “Really?” Caldera said. “Really? You think I’ll tell a lie that stupid? You found out Anne’s with Sagash. That’s the truth and that’s what I’ll report. I’ll ask to follow up too, I owe you that much. But I already know what they’re going to say.” She paused. “You really fucked this up, Sonder.” Caldera walked out into the hall. I heard her footsteps merge with Variam’s and a second later the front door opened and closed.

Sonder and I were left alone in the flat and I studied him, thinking. Now that I knew what he’d really seen, everything was fitting together. “Well,” I said at last. “That could have gone better.”

Sonder glared at me through his glasses but didn’t answer. “She knew you were hiding something,” I said. “I guess you don’t get to be a Keeper without being pretty good at knowing when you’re being lied to.”

“Oh, shut up.”

I shrugged. “At least now we know where she is.”

“Yeah, that’s great! We know she’s in some impenetrable fortress we can’t find! That’s really helpful, isn’t it?”

“Variam got her out once already.”

“And then what? Sagash hasn’t done anything wrong! If we go after him we’ll be the ones breaking the Concord!”

“Gosh.” I raised my eyebrows. “Breaking the Concord. Couldn’t have that.”

Sonder glared at me. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? You think this proves you were right.”

“Do you really think I’m that petty?” I shook my head. “This isn’t about you.”

Sonder let out a breath and sagged. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, and all of a sudden he just sounded tired. “None of it.” He walked out.

I watched him go, then turned to look thoughtfully back out of the window.

“So what do we do now?” Variam said over the phone.

It was some time later—long enough for Variam’s temper to have cooled, though there was still an edge to his voice. “That’s what we’re going to decide,” I said. “You free to talk?”

“Yeah, Caldera’s in with the captain.”

“I can’t believe Sonder would pull something like this,” Luna said over the phone line. She sounded almost as pissed off as Variam. Between this and what had happened in the morning, I was pretty sure whatever slim hopes Sonder might have had in Luna’s direction were going to have to be taken out the back and shot.

I was still in the flat, Variam was at the Keeper station in Marylebone, and Luna was in Islington where she’d been unsuccessfully chasing leads. “We’re still better off than we were this morning,” I said. “At least now we know where to go.”

“Yeah, except we’re also down from five to three,” Luna said. “We’ve lost Caldera, right?”

“She told me to take off and report back to Scotland for tomorrow,” Variam said.

“I think that’s a yes,” I said. “Okay, Vari, you’re the only one who’s been into Sagash’s shadow realm. Let’s hear about it.”

“Giant freaky castle,” Variam said. “Looks like it’s on an island just off the coastline . . . not really, though, I don’t think the boundary goes that far. It’s really big. Anne tried hiding there a few times, managed to stay out of sight for a while. Problem was the shadows. They’re some kind of construct, Sagash mass-produces the things. They’re not that tough, but no matter how many you burn there’s always more.”

“How do you get in?” I asked.

“That’s the tricky part. The whole castle’s warded with a gate lock—the only place you can gate in and out is from the front courtyard, and even then you need an access key.”

“Don’t suppose you’ve got one?”

“Yep.”

“What?” Luna said. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Does it still work?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“I’m guessing you’ve tried.”

“Yesterday.”

“Wasn’t that right after Caldera told you not to try to contact Sagash?” Luna asked, briefly diverted.

“Screw Caldera.”

“So after you and Anne did your prison break, Sagash changed the locks,” I said. “Okay, our first problem is how to get in.”

“Sonder said Sagash’s apprentices were using a focus,” Luna said. “Sagash must have given them copies of the new access keys.”

“So we find them,” Variam said.

“Agreed,” I said. “But when we do, we’re not going to start a fight.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because the first thing I’m going to do is ask if we can buy or trade Anne back.”

“What?”

“What’s the alternative, storm the castle? Okay, we could probably get in. But launching a frontal assault on Sagash plus his apprentices plus an army of constructs plus whatever the hell else he’s got up his sleeve is not my idea of a good plan.”

“We did it before!”

“Somehow I doubt you managed it by marching up to the front door and blasting your way in.”

“Anne’s not a thing!”

“To Dark mages that’s exactly what she is, a commodity. Look, shut up a second and listen. I don’t honestly expect this to work, but as long as there’s any chance it’s worth trying. I know it’s not very heroic, but it’s practical.”

“What’s the backup plan?” Luna asked.

“We steal an access key and sneak in, but I don’t like that plan for a whole lot of reasons. Number one is that if Sagash is the one behind this, then he’s got to be expecting Vari to try some sort of rescue attempt, because that’s what he did last time. If I were Sagash, I’d put enough security in that shadow realm to turn it into a death trap.”

“That doesn’t do us much good if we can’t get an access key in the first place.”

“So, backup backup plan. Luna, I want you to go find Arachne. I don’t know much about gate wards but she does, and if there’s a way into this fortress of Sagash’s, there’s a good chance she’ll know some way to find it. Vari, if you can still do it safely, see what else you can find about Sagash’s apprentices, especially the other two. See if you can get anything that’d let us track them down, or find out where they might have hidden something like an access key. They can’t live in a shadow realm twenty-four-seven.”

“Got it,” Variam said.

“What about you?” Luna asked.

“I’m going to keep staking out the flat. Let’s see if Mr. Darren Smith makes a visit.”

I stayed in that flat for half the day. From time to time Variam or Luna would call to give me an update, and we’d share information. I left Sonder a message but didn’t get a reply.

I searched the futures for any trace of Sagash’s apprentices but found nothing. There was little to do but look out of the window and watch the movement on the estate. As the hours slipped by and afternoon wore into evening, the place grew more active. A trickle of school-age kids began to filter in, passing through the corridors and heading for the football courts. Women and men climbed the stairs carrying their shopping; they disappeared inside their flats and windows lit up. A group of teenagers took up places down in the courtyard, leaning against the pillars and smoking and eyeing passersby. One flat door on the second floor opened and a big German shepherd was let out; he trotted confidently down the row of flats to the stairs and disappeared down into the lower levels.

It was twilight when a ripple in the futures ahead caught my attention. Someone was going to open the door to Darren’s flat. I backtracked to see who it was, and . . . Well hello, guy-I-saw-last-night. Fancy meeting you here. I slipped out the door and into the cold evening air and started down the walkway.

I’d had lots of time to think while I’d been waiting, and the best plans I could come up with were still “negotiate” and “steal the key.” I’d wavered between the two, but in the end I’d decided to go with “negotiate.” The “steal” plan would more or less require me to use my mist cloak, an imbued item I keep stored back at my flat that is very good at hiding me. In fact, it’s so good at hiding me that the last time I used it I nearly turned into a wraith, and I did not want to use it again if I could help it. The most likely place for Darren to be keeping the access key was on his person, and I couldn’t see any way of taking it off him without getting into a fight, which I didn’t want to do for a variety of reasons, not least was that it’d mean attacking the apprentice of a recognised mage. That would mean I’d be the one breaking the Concord, which could quite possibly lead to the Keepers of Caldera’s order going after me. No matter how bad our odds might be of getting to Anne, that would make them worse. My best chance was that Darren would be willing to cut a deal. I turned into the stairwell, waited forty seconds, then came out, turning towards Darren’s flat.

Darren was on the walkway about to reach his flat, and he spotted me instantly. He was fit and tough-looking, with dark skin and curly black hair cut close to his skull. He didn’t move but watched as I approached, his eyes hard and alert. I kept my motions smooth and my hands visible, and didn’t make any sudden movements. The kids in the courtyard below were still in view; this wasn’t the place for a fight . . . unless someone got jumpy.

We came to a halt outside Darren’s flat, facing each other on the concrete walkway. A cold wind blew through the railings, and voices echoed up from the corridors below. “Darren Smith?” I asked.

“Fuck off,” Darren said. His hands were slightly apart from his sides, and he was watching me like a hawk.

“I’d like to discuss some business with you. It involves you and your colleague Sam Taylor.”

“Never heard of him.”

“It’s about a girl you’ve had some dealings with recently,” I said. “By the name of Anne Walker.” I paused. “Or if you’d prefer not to talk to me, I could take it up with Sagash.” Fingers crossed . . .

Darren stared at me. I felt the futures shift and flicker and knew he was deciding what to do. One future grew and eclipsed the others, becoming real; Darren turned half away from me, still watching me in his peripheral vision, and unlocked the door to his flat. “Inside,” he said curtly, and went in. I followed.

The flat was the same design as the one I’d been using: five rooms with narrow windows looking down onto the inner flats of the council estate. I shut the door behind me without being asked and followed Darren into the living room. He’d switched the lights on as he’d come in, suggesting his magical senses weren’t good enough for him to consider darkness an advantage. Once inside the living room he stripped off his coat and tossed it onto the sofa before turning to face me. Up close he looked tough, with flat eyes. Not that experienced, maybe, but you don’t need to be experienced to be dangerous. “Who are you supposed to be?”

“Nobody important,” I said. “I’m representing someone who’s interested in the welfare of Anne Walker. I understand you may be able to help my client with that.” Presenting yourself as an agent rather than a principal has its drawbacks, but it does help discourage your opponent from being too trigger happy.

“Don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“Of course you don’t,” I said. “Let’s put this another way. I think you were at the audience last night?”

Darren didn’t answer. “I’m sure you saw what happened,” I went on. “Miss Walker’s disappearance has caused . . . disruption. We’d be interested in resolving this with as little fuss as possible.”

“Yeah? So who’s this guy?”

“Some individuals who value their privacy,” I said. “They also want Miss Walker back—alive and in good condition. That’s not negotiable.”

I felt Darren tense slightly, and the futures of violence loomed larger. “On the other hand,” I said, “they aren’t unreasonable. They’d be willing to compensate you for her safe return.”

Darren looked at me for a long moment, and I felt the futures shift and swirl. “You a mage?”

Divination spells can’t generally be detected by magesight. My armour’s a different story, but the greatcoat I was wearing was long enough to cover it and there was a good chance that Darren wouldn’t be able to see any magical auras when he looked at me. “Does it matter?”

“How come you’re talking to me?”

“Because you’re the one who did the job,” I said. “Look, I don’t see any need for your name to come into this, as long as we can work this out. Why should someone like Anne Walker matter to you, anyway? You can have any other girl. Just not this one.”

Darren studied me. “Sounds like you haven’t told anyone else.”

Uh-oh. I kept still. “Don’t get stupid.”

“Oh, you think I’m stupid? Yeah, I guess you do, Verus.” Darren tilted his head. “You think I didn’t know?”

Shit, shit, shit. The futures were still branching, but now all of them looked bad. “Who I am doesn’t matter.” I kept my voice calm. “You—”

“I think it matters,” Darren said, and my heart sank as I saw the way he was standing. “I think it matters a lot. See, the way I heard it, you’re a rogue. Council doesn’t like you, Dark mages don’t like you . . . You know what I think? I don’t think there’s a bunch of mages behind you. You’re all on your own.” He took a step forward, squaring his stance.

I held quite still, flicking through the possible futures. Violence, violence, excessive violence, really excessive violence . . . New plan.

“You’re supposed to be pretty good, right?” Darren cocked his head. I felt magic beginning to build, and black light flickered at his hands. “Let’s see how you do against the real thing.”

I held still a moment longer, then my composure broke. “Okay, okay!” My voice cracked, became high and wavering. “It wasn’t my idea!”

Darren stared at me. I drew back, raising my hands. “I didn’t want to do this! I don’t even know her, it’s nothing to do with me. Just let me go, okay? I’ll do anything you want!”

“That was it?” Darren said, staring. “That’s the best you got?”

“It’s not me, I didn’t want to get involved, they made me. I just wanted—”

“Shut up,” Darren said. He raised his voice. “I said shut up! Jesus, this is pathetic.”

“No, you’re going to kill me, I know you are—oh God, please don’t, I’ll do anything.” I dropped to one knee, my hands out, pleading. “Please, I’ll do anything you say, just don’t kill me, it’s not my fault—”

“Will you shut the fuck up already?”

“Please don’t kill me, please, I’m begging you—”

“This is just fucking embarrassing.” Darren looked at me in disgust. “I thought you were supposed to be tough.”

I kept begging and pleading. “What a waste of time,” Darren muttered. He’d dropped his spell, and now he walked forward to give me a kick. “Get—”

Interesting bit of trivia: most men will instinctively shield their groin against a kick, but not against a punch. A rising leg registers as a threat, but a dropping hand doesn’t. Another bit of trivia: you can lunge really hard from one knee.

My fist slammed into Darren’s crotch with my weight behind it, and he doubled over, his eyes bugging out. I surged to my feet and caught Darren’s kicking leg on the way up, lifting it up and over his head. He tumbled over; he was clearly in agony but a black shield flickered into life around him just as my heel came down.

Against a veteran Dark mage, none of this would have worked. They wouldn’t have let their guard down so easily in the first place, and their shield would have been strong enough to hold off the blows. Too bad for Darren that he wasn’t a veteran. I stomped on Darren while he was still down and nauseated, slamming my foot down onto him again and again in short, brutal, rib-breaking kicks. The shield took the worst of the impact and the death energy stung my ankles but it wasn’t enough to hold them off, and the rain of blows thudding into his body kept Darren stunned and off-balance, unable to counterattack. A kick landed in his kidney and he convulsed, his shield winking out. I yanked a slim silver needle from one pocket and stabbed it into his thigh. Green light flickered and I saw the spell flash through Darren’s body. He jerked, then his eyes rolled up and he went limp.

I straightened, heart racing. Check surroundings, check the futures . . . no threats, everything was clear. I looked down at Darren and saw that he was out cold. “Well, shit,” I said to no one in particular.

The focus I’d just used was a nerve scrambler; it disrupted signals to a living brain. Enough to keep someone out for a few minutes but no more—I had to move fast. I rolled Darren onto his back; there was blood on his face from where one of my kicks had cut his forehead, but I ignored it and started going through his pockets, tossing out the contents. Money, keys, wallet, phone . . .

“Well, hello there,” I murmured. The object was a fluted rod eight inches long, ringed at either end, and it radiated magic. I know a gate stone when I see one. I looked through the futures in which I activated it and . . . yes, this was it.

Now what was I going to do about its owner?

I looked down at Darren, flicking quickly through possibilities. Keeping him restrained was not an option. My scrambler was discharged, and I didn’t have anything else that’d keep him unconscious. Anne would have been able to do it easily . . . why do you always need a mage’s abilities when they’re not there?

(For the record, no, at no point did I consider just killing him, and I suppose some of you are wondering why. Point one: killing the apprentice of a recognised mage would violate the Concord and would give Sagash full grounds to demand that the Keepers arrest me. Point two: it would escalate things and cut off any possibility of negotiation with Sagash, which was still a viable way of resolving this even if it was getting less likely by the minute. Point three: What the hell is wrong with you? You seriously think I want to be responsible for more dead kids? Jesus.)

I could take the focus and find the others, but as soon as Darren woke up he’d miss it and raise the alarm. They’d put a guard on the shadow realm’s entrance . . . assuming they hadn’t done that already . . .

. . . why not take a look and see?

I quickly looked through the futures in which I tried the gate stone; some failed unpredictably, making the path unstable, but by piecing them together I managed to get a vague impression of what was waiting for me. I ignored details, looking for encounters or danger, and couldn’t sense either. No security—that was strange. That couldn’t last.

On the other hand, the front door was open now . . .

When in doubt, attack. I grabbed Darren’s phone and pocketed it, then started channelling my magic into the rod, using it as a focus. As I did I pulled out my own phone and speed-dialled Luna’s number. It went to voice mail and I dialled again. This time she picked up.

“Hey, Alex—” Luna began.

I lost my grip on the gate spell and it fizzled out. “Listen closely,” I said as I recast it. “I found Darren, we fought, he lost. He’s unconscious and waking up in three minutes. I’m going to use his focus to get into Sagash’s shadow realm. I’ll be out of contact once I do.”

“You—wait! Can’t I—”

“No time.” A black shape wavered, starting to form in midair, then the spell fizzled again and it winked out. “Damn it! Not now!”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Darren was starting to stir and I was out of time. I tried the focus yet again, and this time I put everything I had into it. “Keep working on finding a way to break into that shadow realm. Watch your back, stop Vari from starting any wars, and do what you can to keep Sonder and Caldera on side. We’re going to need help before this is over.”

“Goddamn it,” Luna said, and I heard her sigh. “Fine, understood. Just for the record, you are not allowed to complain about me doing dangerous stuff ever again.”

The gate spell caught and a black oval appeared in midair, a dark contrast to the drab living room. No light came through the warded gate, but the still air rippled and a breeze touched my face, carrying with it the smell of the sea and ancient stone. “Gate’s open,” I said. “Going through. Good luck.”

“You’re the one who needs it. Be careful.”

I stepped through the gate and into Sagash’s shadow realm.