Fallen

chapter 14

Two minutes later, I was in the air and soaring. The lights of London had disappeared behind us, and the English countryside was opening up ahead, glowing lines marking the roads and sparkling orange webs the towns. Starbreeze rode the winds at lightning speed, spiralling as she went for the sheer fun of it.

So wait, Luna said. Sal Sarque isn’t in the War Rooms?

He’s got a command centre in that island fortress of his, I said. Whenever there’s a major op, he runs it from there. Means he can funnel all the intel through him and choose what does and doesn’t get reported to the Council.

Island fortress. Sounds great.

The Midlands were racing below us; a city swept past to our left that might have been Leeds. We passed an airliner, its lights blinking white-red-green, there and gone in a flash. I’m not storming it single-handed, I said. I’m going to slip in while the two groups are busy fighting. This is the biggest and most important attack that Richard’s launched, which means Anne’s going to be at the spearhead. I just need to catch up.

Don’t you want to take someone?

I am. Just not someone I care about.

While I’d been talking, we’d passed over the coastline and swept out over the sea. Starbreeze veered from side to side, dodging clouds before zipping right through a big one. My vision greyed out; when we emerged on the other side, I could make out a few black spots in the distance, visible against the moonlit waters.

I checked the futures quickly, remembering my mental map. Sal Sarque’s island was at the south end of a small chain. There, I said to Starbreeze. Angle that way.

Starbreeze came down in a shallow dive, losing height until she was skimming the waves. The smell of salt water surrounded me, the moonlight a bright reflection off to the right and its light casting a white glow over each wave. Up ahead the island was getting bigger fast. Very fast. Not too close, I said to Starbreeze. We need to circle around, find a safe place to set—

Boring. I want to see!

No, wait, don’t—

We pulled up just in front of the cliffs and sped upwards at lightning speed, shooting out past the cliff edge and up into the sky right above the south end of the island.

It gave us a great view of the battle.

Sal Sarque’s fortress was built on and around a rock outcropping at the island’s southern end, and it was under attack. Flashes of coloured light sparkled on the fortress walls and roof and in the rocks nearby. The fortress itself was squat and massive, the walls thick and heavy with covered guard towers, and emplacements on the top were hurling fire into the darkness below.

Ooh, Starbreeze said in fascination. Pretty. She angled in for a closer look.

Pull back! Starbreeze! Back!

Why? Starbreeze asked. She’d drifted close enough that I could pick out movement on the roof.

They have anti-air, that’s why!

What’s anti-air?

A bolt of energy lit the night, joining the rooftop with Starbreeze’s position. I shoved frantically at the futures and made it miss by a hair, the heat scorching my airborne body as Starbreeze veered away. That!

Oh, okay. Starbreeze didn’t seem particularly worried. She swept down and right, putting a ridgeline between us and the fortress. Didn’t look scary.

Maybe not to you! Held aloft by Starbreeze, I had no way of dodging. It would have vaporised me.

Well, you’re going to die really soon anyway.

Which was jarring to hear. I think of Starbreeze as my friend, and she is my friend, as much as she can be. But she’s also very far away from being human. Right now she was helping me, and as far as I could tell, she was going to keep helping me—right up until I died, at which point she’d promptly forget me the same way she’s forgotten the countless other mortals she’s known. When she said I was going to die “really soon,” she could mean tomorrow or in fifty years. To Starbreeze, there’s not much difference.

Starbreeze dived into a small ravine and turned me solid again. My shoes scraped on rock and I shifted to keep my balance. I could hear the sounds of battle from over the ridge, the stammer of machine gun fire mixing with the whoom of fire spells. “Can you wait here? A lift would—”

“Boring,” Starbreeze announced. “Want to see the lights.” She sped up into the night sky and was gone.

“Or I could walk,” I said to the rocks. I took out the gate stone that I’d taken from Meredith’s house, and channelled. From over the ridge, I could hear the sounds of battle. The gate opened and I stepped through.

Meredith’s street in Buenos Aires felt weirdly quiet and calm. The gate stone came out into her back garden; night had fallen here as well, and the lights were on in her windows. I took out my phone and dialled her number.

No answer.

I frowned, took out the focus I’d picked up yesterday—a small rod of black metal—and channelled through it.

Magic sparked, and I heard a faint clatter from inside the house. A minute later, Meredith appeared at the back doorway, looking rattled. “You didn’t have to do that!”

“Yes, I did. Get moving, we’re on a schedule.”

Meredith approached the gate uncertainly. She’d changed her outfit, though it still didn’t look particularly practical. “Where is that?”

“British Isles.” I stepped through and beckoned.

Meredith hesitated. “I’m not sure . . .”

“You’ll be in and out in less than an hour.”

“You’re not going to ask for anything else?”

“Do this and I’ll be out of your life forever.” I smiled slightly. “Unless you’d rather I stuck around.”

Meredith didn’t look convinced, but she stepped through the gate. I let it close behind her and started up the rocks towards the ridgeline.

“I can’t see,” Meredith complained.

I sighed inwardly. This would have been so much easier if I could have brought Luna instead. I took Meredith’s hand and started leading her. “Follow in my footsteps,” I told her. “The ground’s solid, so just concentrate on keeping your balance.”

“What’s that noise from over that mountain?”

“That’s not a mountain. That’s a ridge.”

“You know what I mean. It sounds like a battle.”

“That’s because it is.”

“Alex!” Meredith tried to stop; I kept my grip on her hand and she was dragged along. “You didn’t say anything about a battle!”

“Yeah, well, they didn’t ask my permission. Relax, I’m not expecting you to win it.”

We reached the edge of the ridgeline and again Meredith tried to stop. The bulk of Sal Sarque’s fortress loomed before us, lit up by the flashes of spells and weapon fire. The machine gun fire was still going, but it seemed to be coming from the other side of the fortress. At least one thing was going our way.

“Wait, we’re going down there? We can’t—Alex! Stop!”

I was already picking us a path down the slope towards the walls. No immediate danger flashed up in the futures; it might be premature, but it looked as though we might be able to make it all the way there without running into anyone. Some possibilities of contact flickered and I adjusted our course to steer away. “Keep your voice down.”

“We’re going to be killed!”

“No, we’re not.”

“What happens if they see us?”

“They won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’m a diviner and that’s what I do.”

“I don’t like this. Please can we go back?”

I wondered if Richard had to deal with stuff like this from his followers. It was giving me a new appreciation for what he had to put up with.

The battle was still raging by the time we reached the walls. There’d been fighting on this side too, but it had apparently moved away, though not without casualties; we’d passed several bodies in the darkness. I was scanning through the futures, looking for ways to gain entry. The main gate was on the far side and moving around would take too long. Maybe another entrance . . . There. I changed direction and started walking.

Meredith tripped on the rocks and I held her as she caught her balance. “Where are we going?” she whispered. The looming shadow of the walls felt a lot more menacing up close.

“Back door,” I said quietly. I could feel the futures I needed; reaching out with the fateweaver, I picked the one I wanted and began feeding it. “We’re going to have to talk our way past a few people. Back me up.”

The futures settled, and I moved up against the wall and waited. I couldn’t make out the line of the door, but I knew where it was. Thirty seconds later it opened, light spilling from the crack. The muzzle of a handgun appeared, followed by a young man, peering out cautiously.

I snatched the gun out of the man’s hand, caught his arm as he tried to punch me, twisted it behind his back, and pushed through the doorway into the fortress before he’d finished his shout. The door led into a guardroom. Half a dozen men were scattered around, ranging in age from teenage years to thirties. They were armed but raggedly equipped; they had the look of Richard’s adepts, which was confirmed when fire lit up around the hands of one at the back and another created a force blade. The rest levelled guns.

“I’m here to see Richard Drakh,” I said. I pushed the guy I’d been holding away; he took a few steps, stumbling, then turned on me. “Where is he?”

“Whose side are you on?” the man with the force blade said. He was light-skinned, standing in a combat stance with his left hand holding a shield; the force blade was a long triangle, stretching from his right hand and narrowing to a point. He was staring at me suspiciously, but he wasn’t attacking yet.

“My side.” I ejected the round from the gun, took out the magazine, then tossed the weapon without looking at the man I’d taken it from. He caught it in surprise. The other adepts exchanged glances. “And I’m here to see Richard.”

Meredith was hanging behind me in the doorway. “I don’t know who you are,” the force adept began, “but—”

“Wait,” another adept said. “That’s Verus.”

“The one Deleo said—”

“Yeah, that one.”

I saw the force adept’s eyes shift. The futures of violence leapt closer and I knew I had seconds before they’d start shooting. I met his gaze and spoke clearly and calmly. “I have killed twenty-eight normals, adepts, and mages in the past two days. Come at me with that force blade, and you’ll make twenty-nine.”

The adept hesitated, his futures wavering between life and death. I pushed at them, but the fateweaver wasn’t mind control; it couldn’t override a direct choice.

Then a wave of emotion rippled through me, fear and horror and nameless dread. I pushed it off with an effort of will, but it had been aimed at the adepts, not at me. Several went pale and one dropped his gun with a clatter, backing up to the wall. The force adept flinched, taking a step back.

“Deleo gave you those orders for her own reasons,” I said. “You weren’t expected to survive them. I’ll ask again. Where’s Richard?”

“I don’t know.” Fear showed in the force adept’s eyes; his voice shook. “He was heading for the control room.”

“Good enough.” I beckoned to Meredith and walked through the room. No one stopped us. Only when we were through the far doorway and walking down the corridor on the other side did I breathe a little easier.

“Good job on that spell,” I told Meredith once we were out of earshot.

Meredith didn’t look happy at the praise. “Why do you want to find Drakh of all people?”

“Because he made me an offer. Now stay quiet while I focus.”

The fortress interior was stone and metal, brutally practical. The thick walls muffled sound, but even so I could hear gunfire. As the futures branched ahead, forking and dividing, I saw danger in every direction, but no sign of Richard.

But the only reason for Richard to be here was to come after Sal Sarque, and Sarque would be at the control room at the centre. “This way,” I said, heading for a set of stairs.

We climbed to the first floor. The corridor at the top had been fortified; a junction had been turned into something like a bunker, with blast shields and weapon racks. It hadn’t done the defenders any good. The remains of several constructs were scattered around, along with outlines of black dust.

“They’re fighting all around us,” Meredith said. She was looking nervously from side to side at the walls. “If the Keepers see us—”

“They’ve got their hands full,” I said. There was a battle going on on the ground floor below us at this very moment. But the corridor we were in was empty, and I was pretty sure I knew why. We were following the same route that Richard and Anne had taken, and they’d blasted their way through anyone who’d tried to stop them. Right now, the path to the control centre was undefended.

Of course, just because a route’s undefended doesn’t mean it’s going to stay that way.

Running footsteps sounded from a side passage up ahead. “We’ve got a speed bump,” I said. “I’ll handle it.”

“Wait, a speed bump? What kind—?”

The footsteps grew louder, and a Keeper came running into our corridor just ahead of us, skidding to a halt as she saw us. It was Caldera, dressed in her working clothes and webbing belt with the dust and sweat of combat on her. “I’ve found them,” Caldera said into her communicator. “Moving to engage.” She started towards us. “Verus, you’re under arrest. Stay where you are.”

I came to a halt, picking out possible futures and identifying candidates. One jumped out and I started feeding it, watching it grow. Force mage. That’ll do.

Caldera came to a halt twenty feet away. Her eyes flicked to Meredith, who took a half step back behind me. “And Meredith Blake,” Caldera said. “You’re wanted for questioning as well.”

“You’re in my way,” I told Caldera.

“You’re here with Richard?” Caldera said. “Because if—”

“I don’t have time for you right now.”

Caldera planted herself. “Looking for a rematch?”

“I don’t have to. There’s a Dark force mage one level below you who’s a really bad shot.”

Caldera frowned. “What’s that—?”

The force blast tore out the floor under Caldera, destroying a section of corridor about ten feet wide. With a rumble the flooring collapsed, sending Caldera tumbling down in an avalanche of concrete and stone. I saw Caldera’s hands fly up, earth magic reinforcing her as she fell, then she was gone.

I walked around the hole in the floor. Dust clouds obscured the view down, but I could hear shouts and the sounds of combat. “Keep up,” I said over my shoulder.

“This is crazy!” Meredith whispered. “They’re going to be after us!”

A chunk of concrete came flying up through the hole in the floor, shattering against the ceiling and raining fist-sized chunks of stone onto the other side of the hole. “Like I said, they’ve got their hands full.” I’d already plotted out the rest of our course. We were clear all the way to the control centre.

Admittedly, part of the reason we had a clear route was because right now, that route was a dead end. The corridor went through two right-angle turns and then ended in what was apparently a mirrored wall, slightly convex.

“We can’t get through that,” Meredith said nervously, looking over her shoulder. “That’s a stasis sphere.”

“More likely a barrier,” I said absently. I could feel the time magic radiating from the “mirror.” There’s no way to see how deep a stasis effect goes, but putting a stasis effect on yourself makes no sense as a defence against any kind of prolonged attack. I finished checking the futures and nodded. The wards on the fortress would bar standard gates, but they were less effective against the dreamstone, and the stasis spell had weakened the wards immediately around it. With the fateweaver’s help, I could push through. “Okay, showtime. Once we’re inside, there’ll be no more talk. You remember what you have to do?”

“Yes . . .”

“Are you going to do it?”

“All right.”

I looked at Meredith. That had been too easy. “You’re afraid of them.”

“Of course I’m afraid of them! They’re going to kill me as soon as they see me!”

“You don’t need to be seen.” I walked closer to Meredith, forcing her to tilt her head back to meet my eyes. “Last year at the Tiger’s Palace, Deleo tried to disintegrate you. You remember what she said right before she did it?”

Meredith didn’t answer.

“There are two ways in which I’m different from Deleo,” I told Meredith. “The first is that I won’t ask you to do anything you aren’t capable of. If I give you an order, it means I know it can work, and I’m using my power to make sure it will work.” I paused to make sure that Meredith was listening. “The second way I’m different from Deleo? I’m a lot faster to write off losses. Do you need a demonstration of that?”

“No,” Meredith said quietly.

I nodded. “Let’s do it.”

I reached out through the dreamstone and opened up a gate to Elsewhere, then took Meredith’s hand and led her unresisting through it. I don’t think she recognised what it was. She certainly didn’t have time to look around or notice the trails of light coming from her skin before I opened a second gateway and took us back into the real world.

The control centre of Sal Sarque’s fortress was a two-storey room, with a raised gantry running around the second level. We’d arrived on the upper level, and my feet hadn’t even touched the floor before I knew we weren’t alone. I silently motioned Meredith to a position where she’d be able to look down into the room by craning her neck; her eyes were wide with fear but she nodded. Then I strode out onto the gantry.

The floor of the control centre held desks filled with computer equipment. The far wall was covered with flat-screen monitors, most of them blacked out or showing static. There was only one entrance, a pair of thick steel double doors at ground level.

I’d come in at the aftermath of a battle. Bodies lay unmoving around overturned swivel chairs and broken desks. Some were still recognisable; others were scatterings of black dust, only the magical residue giving away that they’d once been human. There had been casualties on both sides, but from the positioning, most of them had probably been Council.

Six people were still alive and upright: four from Richard’s side, and two from the defenders’. Richard was standing close to the entrance. He’d glanced up as I appeared, registering my appearance with no sign of surprise, then turned back to what he’d been looking at before. By his side was Anne. The jinn formed a flickering black aura about her, looming up and behind her like a vast shadow. Behind them was Crystal, hanging back where she could watch everyone, and a little ahead of Richard to the other side was Rachel.

Facing them was Sal Sarque. The Senior Council member had been backed up nearly to the far wall, but he looked uninjured, and he was holding a remote control of some kind above his head. Hiding behind him was Solace, eyes darting left to right as she tried to look for a way out. Sal Sarque was standing in plain view—he didn’t even have a shield up—but none of Richard’s cabal were making a move to attack.

Several pairs of eyes glanced at me as I appeared on the gantry, though most of them flicked right back again. Only two people kept their eyes on me. Rachel, and Anne.

For just an instant I hesitated. This was way, way too many enemies together in one place, and my old instincts—the ones that had kept me alive for so long—were shouting at me to back off and leave them to it. But then I shook the feeling off and walked forward to rest one hand on the railing. “I’m sorry,” I said, pitching my voice to carry. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Calling in more?” Sal Sarque shouted. “Bring them on!”

“Oh, Richard didn’t call me,” I said. I walked down the gantry, feeling Rachel’s and Anne’s eyes follow me. “I just decided we should talk.”

“If you wanted a discussion,” Richard said, not taking his eyes off Sal Sarque, “you could have chosen a more convenient time.”

“What can I say?” I came to a stop at the corner of the room, just above the stairs. “You’re a hard man to track down.”

I’d moved in this direction for a reason. Meredith was still hidden back in the alcove, and I needed to draw as much attention from her as I could. Crystal and Anne would be able to tell that there was someone there, but there was a good chance they wouldn’t know who.

“I’m afraid we’re a little busy at the moment. Could you wait?”

I made an openhanded gesture. “Go right ahead.”

“He’s going to interfere,” Rachel told Anne. Her eyes flicked to Sal Sarque, then back to me. “Kill him.”

“I don’t take orders from you,” Anne told her.

“Neither of you will attempt to kill him without my express instructions,” Richard said calmly. “As I was saying, Sarque, your position is lost. It is time you came to terms.”

Sal Sarque laughed. He looked keyed-up, ready to die any second. “You’re the one who’s fucked, Drakh. Every Light mage in the country is on their way here right now.”

“Most of your combat forces are committed to the assault on Arcadia,” Richard said. “I expect they’ll be successful, but Morden and Vihaela will slow them down significantly. Your remaining reserves are currently attacking this fortress from the outside . . .” Richard paused for a moment. “. . . and losing. By the time reinforcements arrive, the battle for this fortress will be over.”

“Bullshit.”

“Why do you think I’m still talking to you?”

“’Cause of this.” Sal Sarque gestured with the remote. His eyes flicked to me. “And as for you, Verus, you piece of shit, after today every last member of the Council will be hunting you down.”

I just looked at him. “As opposed to the last few days?”

“Now they know you’re working with Drakh, your last few days are going to look easy.”

“I wasn’t working with Drakh, you fucking idiot,” I told Sal Sarque. “I was one of the only members of the Council giving him any effective opposition. And I would have been happy to keep doing that, if you and Levistus had just been willing to work with me. But you had your heads so far up your collective arses that it apparently never occurred to any of you that making an enemy of me might be a bad idea.”

“You were always the enemy,” Sarque said.

“Always a Dark mage?” I shrugged. “Probably. But becoming your enemy was all you.”

“Just kill him,” Rachel said again. “He’s lying.”

“Glass houses, Rachel,” I said. “By the way, did you ever pass on my message to Richard?”

“I’m sure these are all fascinating conversations,” Richard said, “but I would appreciate it if you could table them until Sarque and I have addressed the matter at hand.”

“Yeah, come on, Drakh,” Sarque said invitingly. “Try it. I’ll blow you and your pet monster into dust.”

So how’s things? I said through the dreamstone to Dark Anne.

How do you think? Dark Anne said in annoyance. We took out the small fry but Sarque’s claiming he’s going to blow the place sky-high if we make a move. Make yourself useful and tell us if he’s bluffing.

I’d already checked the futures in which I attacked. If Sarque pressed the button that his thumb was resting on right now, the entire control centre would be torn apart by demolition charges. The fateweaver could protect me from a lot of things, but fifty tons of concrete collapsing on my head wasn’t one of them.

He’s not bluffing, I told her.

Well, that’s just frigging wonderful.

“As I have already said,” Richard told Sarque, “your death is not a requirement. That goes also for your aide.” He nodded towards Solace. “I would much rather have you alive than crushed in the remnants of your fortress.”

“Yeah, I bet you would.”

“I am not going to torture you,” Richard said. “You will be kept in custody with a view to trading you back to the Council in some sort of exchange.”

“Bullshit.”

“This war isn’t going to last forever, Sarque. I have no intention of wiping the Council out to the last man. I’d rather come to a mutual agreement. To that end, you are far more useful to me as a bargaining chip than as a corpse.”

Crystal still hadn’t spoken or looked at me. She was watching Richard, and something told me that she was in telepathic contact with him. She was probably eavesdropping on my conversation with Anne too. Can you kill Sarque before he pushes that button? I asked Dark Anne.

Maybe.

Think about doing it and I’ll check the futures.

“Yeah, nice offer,” Sal Sarque said. “I’ll make you a better one. You come over here and we see how many of you we can kill.”

Dark Anne was doing as I’d asked, and I watched as the futures branched, her attacks overlapping within a narrow band as she tried to disarm Sarque. In a very few futures, she was able to beat him to the draw. The rest ended in a bang.

“Is this how you want your time on the Council to end?” Richard asked. “Blowing yourself up in a useless gesture?”

“I get to take you and your cabal with me. Sounds good to me.”

“Maybe we should—” Solace began nervously.

“Shut up,” Sal Sarque said.

I’d kept my mental link with Dark Anne open. Can you reach Sarque’s finger muscles with a spell?

Not faster than he can push that button.

“Well,” Richard said. “It appears we are at an impasse.”

The futures in which the bomb went off were growing. Richard didn’t seem inclined to break the stalemate, but Rachel was another story. I needed more time.

Okay, let’s kill two birds with one stone. “So since we’re waiting around anyway,” I said to Richard, “how about a chat?”

Richard raised an eyebrow at me. “Now?”

I shrugged. “Well, you don’t seem like you’re going to be killing Sarque in the next five minutes.” Come on, Richard. You always seemed to know the next move. Play along.

Richard paused very briefly, then nodded. “Very well.”

“Great,” I said. “I’d like to change my answer to that last offer of yours. I’d like to join your organisation as your fourth-in-command.”

“No!” Rachel shouted.

Richard waved a hand down. He was keeping Sarque in his peripheral vision, but seemed focused on me. “That’s quite a specific request,” he said. “But I seem to recall you already turned down that offer.”

Okay, this is the best I can come up with, Dark Anne told me. How’s it look?

Looking at the futures, I could see that she’d prepared some kind of spell that would attack Sarque’s nervous system. No good. You need to be about half a second faster. “I’ve reevaluated my priorities,” I told Richard.

“I’m curious as to how,” Richard said. “You gave me quite an emphatic explanation as to why you were unwilling to cooperate.”

“I knew you were a traitor!” Solace shouted at me.

“You and your boss have been trying to drive me off the Council ever since I joined,” I told Solace. “Congratulations, you’ve succeeded.” I turned back to Richard. “Well, that’s kind of the thing. If you remember, my big sticking point wasn’t so much to do with you, it was to do with her.” I nodded towards Anne. “I don’t have any remaining loyalty to the Council. I didn’t have much before, and Sarque and his friends have managed to destroy what little was left. But I am still loyal to Anne. And as far as I can see, the way things are now, the only way I can stay with her involves working with you.”

“I seem to recall you also had issues with my methods.”

All the time that we were talking, I was exploring futures, trying to find an angle of attack on Sal Sarque. None of them were working. The best chance came from distracting him in some way, letting Anne get a shot on him before he could react, but Sal Sarque was too old and wily to drop his guard. For all his age, he was fast, and I couldn’t find any avenue that would draw his attention away from Anne reliably enough.

I was on the wrong track. Sal Sarque was the strongest link in the chain. What about the explosives themselves? I changed my focus, looking for futures in which the bomb failed.

“Well, that’s where the change of priorities comes in,” I told Richard. “The more time I’ve had to think about our last conversation, the more I’ve come to see your point. You have been the one bailing me out of trouble. And a lot of the time, it has been because I was insufficiently ruthless. So, as of a couple of days ago, I’ve started following your advice. So far it’s been working out.”

“Why fourth-in-command?”

“Well, I assume you, Morden, and Vihaela are numbers one through three. I wouldn’t want to make waves.”

“Did you just break into my home for a job interview?” Sal Sarque demanded.

“More or less,” I told him. There. It was possible for Sal Sarque to push that button and for the explosives to not go off. The future was a ghost, a zero percent chance, but it could happen if certain prerequisites were met. I started feeding it, the faint spark growing brighter.

“Why are we even talking to him?” Rachel said angrily. “He’s had enough chances.”

“She has a valid point,” Richard said.

I shrugged. “Things change. My attitudes have changed. So have my abilities. I suspect you’ve had long enough to figure that out for yourself by now.”

He’s getting antsy, Dark Anne told me.

Hold off, I said.

You keep this up, he’s going to push that button just for the hell of it.

I said hold off. Get ready for a strike, but don’t launch it.

“Unfortunately, trust is an issue,” Richard said. “As you just admitted to Sarque, you’ve been opposing me for a long time.”

“Not very effectively.”

“I hope you’re not trying to use incompetence as an excuse.”

“We could do it the old-fashioned way,” I said. “Trial by combat. Why not Rachel? You might find it interesting to see how your last two apprentices measure up.”

“Fascinating though that would be,” Richard said, “as I said, the issue is trust. I’m afraid I’ll need something more than words.”

All the time I’d been talking, I’d been applying pressure through the fateweaver, trying to force the future in which the detonation failed. It wasn’t easy—modern explosives are well designed—but any mechanical system has points of failure, and it only needs one link in the chain to break. All of a sudden, something gave and the future in which the explosives failed to go off sprang into possibility. Eyeballing it, I put it at around a five percent chance. I kept pushing.

“Fair enough,” I said. “How about I help you out with your current problem, then? I’ll get rid of Sarque, you give me probationary status.”

“No!” Rachel said.

“What makes you think we need the help?” Richard said.

Ten percent. “You did say the issue was trust.”

Richard studied me for a long moment. “Very well.”

I turned to Sal Sarque. “Sorry, Sarque. Well, actually, I’m not sorry at all. I’d say it was nothing personal, but it really is.”

Sal Sarque looked at me contemptuously. “Go ahead and try.”

Fifteen percent, twenty. “Before I do, there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask,” I said. “You remember those two Crusader black-ops types from a couple of years ago? Zilean and Lightbringer? They tried to kidnap and torture me, and they did kidnap and torture Anne. Flayed her alive trying to get her to talk.”

“So?”

“Was it you who gave the order?”

“Don’t answer him,” Solace said.

Sal Sarque didn’t bother to respond to her. “Why should I tell you?” he asked me.

Forty percent. The probability curve was speeding up as the electronics came closer to failure. “In three minutes, either you’ll be dead or I will be,” I said. “So why not?”

“Because you’re a piece of shit,” Sal Sarque said. “I’ve been fighting Dark mages my whole life, and I knew what you were the minute I saw you. You were always one of them. You want to know who gave the order? Fuck you, that’s who. You can die never knowing.”

Seventy percent. Now instead of feeding the future in which the explosives didn’t work, I was suppressing ones in which they did. “Oh well,” I said. “I guess I’ll just ask Levistus.”

“And you’re going to do what? Divine him to death?” Sarque gave a short, ugly laugh. “Enough talk.”

Eighty percent, eighty-five. I stood looking at Sarque, focusing on the fateweaver. It was easy now, like pushing a boulder that’s already started rolling. Ninety percent. Ninety-five. “You’re right,” I said. “That’s enough talk.” Ninety-eight, ninety-nine . . . one hundred. “Anne, the bomb’s disarmed. You can kill him now.”

Anne struck instantly. Black death flashed out in a howling wave.

Sarque pushed the button and nothing happened. He hesitated an instant.

It was too long. Sarque was strong, and I already knew from watching the futures that he could fight, but against someone like Anne there was no room for error. He threw up a shield of fire and force. Anne’s spell tore straight through it and stripped the clothes from his skin and the skin from his muscles, his body changing colours as layer after layer was torn away, flesh and veins and tendons dissolving into black dust.

It was over in less than a second. Where Sal Sarque had stood was an upright skeleton, only traces of flesh hanging off the bones. Black energy swirled around Anne’s hand as she held the skeleton up by sheer force of will, then she let her hand drop and the bones collapsed with a clatter. The skull bounced and rolled, coming to rest under a swivel chair, eye sockets staring up at the ceiling.

Richard, Rachel, Crystal, and Anne looked at the remains. Then, as one, they all turned to me. As they did, I reached out through the dreamstone to Meredith. Now.

In the shadows off to my right, Meredith began her spell.

The pattern in the control room had shifted. Before, it had been a triangle, with Sarque, Richard, and me as the three points. Now the three had become two. Richard and his three companions on one side, and me alone at the other. Solace cowered against the far wall, ignored by everyone.

A rush of adrenaline filled me. Everything I’d done for the past few days had been for this, to bring these people together in one place. Richard, studying me from the front of his group, calm and inscrutable; Rachel, her eyes glittering with hate; Anne, aloof and contemptuous but compelled to obey. For a moment I saw them not as people but as playing pieces, moving into the endgame.

“That other mage is still there,” Crystal told Richard.

“I am aware.”

Crystal nodded towards me. “Get rid of him?”

“I’m shocked that you’re suggesting going back on your word, Crystal,” I said. “Really.” I looked at Richard. “So?”

As I spoke, I reached out delicately with the dreamstone, but this time to Rachel. I brushed against her mind and had to steel myself not to pull away. Her thoughts were jagged, discordant, like walking on broken glass. But overlaid on her mind was something else, like a voice whispering in her ear.

. . . going to say yes. Meredith’s magic wasn’t quite a voice and wasn’t quite words. It was more like a stream of thoughts, shifting and flowing, and to Rachel, they would feel like her thoughts. Missed the chance. Should have killed him. Now it’s too late.

“Strictly speaking, it was Anne who handled him, rather than you,” Richard said.

“What, you wanted me to shoot him through the head myself? You taught us to use the tools available.”

“I suppose I did.” Richard studied me a moment longer, then nodded. “Very well.”

“No!” Rachel shouted.

“This is not a final commitment,” Richard told Rachel.

“I agree with her,” Crystal said sharply. “It’s too risky.”

. . . he wants Verus. Meredith’s whispers were steady, relentless. Always did. You were the substitute. Now he can have him. Verus and Anne, together. Won’t need anyone. Won’t need you . . .

This was why I’d brought Meredith. No other type of mage would have been able to do this, not under Richard’s nose. But Meredith was an enchantress, and the one great trump card of charm magic is that it’s undetectable. Only Crystal would have a chance of figuring out what was happening, and even then she’d have to be looking directly at Rachel’s thoughts.

“It’s not your decision, Crystal,” Richard said, turning back to me. While he was still looking away, I met Rachel’s gaze and smiled.

Rachel snapped. Her face twisted in rage, and a green beam stabbed towards me.

My precognition gave me no warning—Rachel had made the decision and acted in a split second—but you don’t need a warning if you’re the one pushing the buttons. I leant aside, the ray missing my chest by inches and turning a section of wall behind me to dust.

Anne moved in a green-black flash. There was a crack of energy and Rachel went flying, her shield half broken. She hit the floor rolling and Anne took a step, hand raised to finish her off.

“Enough!” Richard shouted. His left hand came out of his pocket, glowing with black-purple light; Anne’s back arched and she went rigid. A thin line of darkness darted from his other hand, hitting the floor right in front of Rachel’s face.

Rachel froze and suddenly everyone was still. Anne stood like a statue, head tilted and her back curved into a bow, muscles trembling as she held the pose. Her eyes glittered with anger, but she didn’t speak. Crystal hadn’t moved; I hadn’t moved. The five of us stood, watching one another.

“None of you are killing each other unless and until I tell you to,” Richard said in a voice of iron. His eyes swept across the four of us. “Is that clear?”

One by one, the others dropped their gaze, though Anne had a dangerous look in her eyes. Rachel flinched as Richard looked at her. Through the dreamstone, I could still hear Meredith’s whispers: . . . took you out in one move, she’s all he needs, all he’s wanted. Replaced. All been for nothing, all of it . . .

Richard’s gaze reached me and I looked back at him, my expression calm. We stared at each other for a long moment.

“Your request is accepted,” Richard told me at last. “Provisionally. You will accompany us to be questioned. Any signs of deception will result in an immediate response. Is that clear?”

I could see deep purple light glowing from between Richard’s fingers: the dreamstone. I didn’t let my eyes rest on it. “Clear.”

“Don’t,” Rachel said.

Both Richard and I turned to look at her. Rachel was on her knees, staring up at Richard, and all of a sudden she looked like a different person. The cold menace was gone: it was as if the years had fallen away and she was a young girl again, lost and vulnerable. “Don’t do this,” Rachel said. “Please.”

Richard frowned. “We’ve discussed this, Deleo.”

“Not him. I’ll work with anyone else. But not him.”

A flicker of annoyance crossed Richard’s face. He didn’t like having to do this, especially in front of witnesses. “You know what is at stake,” Richard told her.

. . . doesn’t need you, he’ll say no, has to say yes, all because of her, say yes, say yes . . .

“I’m your Chosen,” Rachel said. She sounded like she had to force out the words. “It should be me.”

. . . could have been Shireen, now it’s Anne, the stone, her and the stone . . .

“Which means you follow my orders,” Richard said. He turned away from her. “We’ll discuss this later.”

I saw Rachel’s face fall in despair. And as it did, Meredith’s spell sharpened to a point.

He can’t do it if he loses Anne.

Crystal looked towards Rachel, starting to frown. “There’s something—”

Rachel’s face changed. Green light flashed out.

It was what I’d been waiting for. I threw all my strength behind the fateweaver, aiming for the future I needed. Richard had been looking away; at Crystal’s words, he twisted sharply. His left hand, still holding the dreamstone, came across.

The futures intersected. Rachel’s spell hit the dreamstone. There was a brilliant flash and Richard’s dreamstone, the one that Anne had brought out of the deep shadow realm two years ago and that was controlling the jinn right now, disintegrated into dust.

For a moment, everyone froze. Richard stared down at his empty hand. The last particles of the dreamstone were trickling from between his fingers. Then he looked at Rachel, and for the first time that I could remember, his face twisted in rage. “You stupid, stupid little—”

Then Anne spoke. It was only a single word but it echoed in stereo, Anne’s soft voice mixed with something deeper and darker, filled with a furious triumph.

“FREE!”

And everything happened at once.

Solace launched a spell and Crystal started some mind effect of her own, but Anne was faster. The control room flashed dead black as she cut loose. Richard twisted out of the way, a translucent shield coming up, but Anne hadn’t been aiming at him: she’d been aiming at Crystal, and she beat Crystal to the draw. A hurricane of death roared through the room and wiped Crystal from existence. Crystal didn’t even last long enough to be stripped to the bone the way Sarque had been: before that annihilating wave she simply . . . ceased. And that quickly, there were four instead of five.

Richard and Rachel turned on Anne, reflected light flashing from the walls, light green to dark green to black. I drew my gun and fired on Solace, who ran for cover, a water shield flaring around her as she threw spells up at the gantry. Everyone fought everyone, the movements too fast to see. Disintegration blasts blew holes in the walls, and black energy from the jinn tore apart desks as though they were tissue.

At such a pace, the fight couldn’t last long. A spell from Anne that would have turned Richard into dust missed by a hair, exploding a bank of computers and starting an electrical fire. Richard’s counterstrike was something complex I didn’t recognise, but whatever it was, it made Anne stagger. She crossed the room with a jump, landing near to Solace. Anne looked at her, a disintegration ray from Rachel glancing off her shield. “Oh hey. Didn’t you send those guys to my flat?”

Panic flashed across Solace’s face. “No! I wasn’t even his aide back then!”

Anne shrugged. “Well, you can die anyway.”

Solace dived for cover, sliding behind a desk just a hair ahead of Anne’s death spell. With her concentration broken, her shield wavered; I pushed with the fateweaver, aimed with my 1911, fired. The bullet found a chink in the shield and blew Solace’s brains into a red mist.

“Kill-stealer,” Anne called at me, then whirled to face Richard. He’d been coming up behind her, but Anne met him with a storm of magical death. Richard fell back to cover, and Anne jumped lightly thirty feet into the air, landing on the far gantry. “Well, got to run,” she shouted across at me. “Catch you later.”

“Wait!” I called back at her, but Anne was already running, flitting into the shadows.

A control console blew out in a shower of sparks. I’d lost track of Rachel in the fighting, and the only people left in the room were me and Richard. We stared at each other across the burning room. The electrical fires were spreading and the air was filling with a haze.

“You have no idea what you have done.” Richard’s voice was tight; he’d regained his self-control, but anger was clear on his face.

I looked back at Richard. There was a surge of magic from somewhere against the far wall, and from outside, I felt the stasis barrier go down. In only minutes, reinforcements were going to come pouring in, and whether they were on Richard’s side or Sal Sarque’s, I didn’t want to meet them.

I turned and ran. Futures flickered in which I had to dodge an attack, but Richard didn’t take the shot. Starbreeze, I called out through the dreamstone. Pickup for two.

Ooh, Starbreeze said with interest. That was you?

Meredith was hiding in an alcove; she flinched as she saw me. “We’re leaving,” I told her.

“Leaving where? There are—”

I silenced her with a motion. Anne. Where are you?

There was no answer, but I had a sense of distant laughter. I cursed; I could try to chase her, but Richard was in the way and reinforcements were coming fast. Besides, I wasn’t sure what I’d do if I caught up.

Then Starbreeze was there. Meredith gave a yelp as she was turned into air; I ground my teeth and surrendered to it. Starbreeze shot out down the corridors at blinding speed. I had a confused impression of faces turning up to look at us, then we were out into the night air and soaring, rising up and up into the sky.

The moon was above us, the island below. Sal Sarque’s fortress shrank as we climbed and began angling west. There was no more fire coming from the rooftop: the survivors seemed to be disengaging. In only seconds we were above the cloud cover, and the fortress vanished from sight.

Starbreeze got bored a few minutes into the journey back, and dropped us in some godforsaken spot in the highlands of Scotland. She was obviously done with being a ferry service. I’d have to be sparing asking her for lifts in the future.

The gate stone took Meredith and me back to her garden, the air changing from the chill of Scotland to the warmth of Argentina. I let out a breath and closed my eyes as the gate closed, feeling a little of the tension go out of my muscles.

I opened my eyes to see that Meredith was watching me. “Well?” she said. “I did it, didn’t I?”

“You did.” I smiled slightly. “You know, it’s interesting.”

“What is?”

“Back when I met you, I used to get lifts from Starbreeze all the time,” I told her. “I only stopped when you betrayed me to Belthas and I had to blow up my calling focus getting away. But because you did that, it forced me to stop relying on her, which meant all of my enemies got used to the idea that I couldn’t rely on her. And so when I finally figured out a way to call her again, Richard and Caldera and Onyx weren’t prepared for it at all. If it hadn’t been for you, I never could have used her so effectively now. Funny how things work out.”

Meredith didn’t answer. It was hard to make out her expression in the shadows, but it didn’t look like she thought it was very funny at all.

“Give me your hand,” I ordered, walking towards her. Meredith hesitated, then lifted her right arm, shrinking back slightly as I took her hand and pulled up her sleeve. The light of the house windows revealed the black metal of the death bracelet, the same one that Selene had been wearing. I took the focus from my pocket, touched it to the metal, and channelled. The bracelet clicked open and fell to the grass below.

Meredith tried to pull away but I didn’t let go. “Tell me something,” I said. “If I’d acted this way back when we’d first met, would you still have betrayed me?”

Meredith held very still. I felt the futures flicker. “I didn’t—”

“The truth, Meredith.”

Meredith flinched. “No,” she said at last, quietly.

“Good,” I said, and leant in close to her. Meredith looked up at me, only inches away, and I could see the fear in her beautiful dark eyes. “Now one last question. More than anything else, what do you want from me right now?”

I saw Meredith struggle to keep herself under control. She’d never been brave: she could fight if she had to, but only if she was afraid of something worse. I was close enough to smell her perfume, feel the pulse beating at her wrist, and as I looked at her I noticed that under her makeup, there were wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. Time hadn’t changed Meredith as it had me, but she hadn’t escaped it.

“I want . . .” Meredith took a breath, swallowed. “I want you to leave me alone.”

I looked down into Meredith’s eyes for a long moment, then smiled slightly. “Suits me.” I let go of her wrist. “Go away, Meredith. Go back to your house and your boyfriends and your life in the sun. But make sure I don’t catch you working for my enemies again.”

Meredith fled, opening the French windows and stepping inside before closing them. She gave me a last quick glance from behind the glass, then pulled the blinds closed, disappearing from view.

I looked at the house for a moment longer, feeling as though a very old piece of unfinished business had just come to an end. Then I picked up the bracelet and walked away into the night.