Bound

chapter 4

FEBRUARY

January turned into February, and while things didn’t get better, they didn’t immediately get any worse.

I went back to the War Rooms the next day, and again the day after that. The pattern was irregular—sometimes Morden wouldn’t visit for several days in a row—but every time he did I’d be summoned, and every time things would turn out the same way. The Council would meet in the Star Chamber, I’d be left outside in the anteroom, and I’d barely have the chance to sit before someone was walking up to the booth. The procession was endless, from Council aides to Keepers to file clerks, and every single one of them wanted something. At first, I was completely out of my depth. I’d spent more than enough time dealing with the Light Council from the outside, but I’d never before had to handle things from the inside, and it wasn’t the same at all. It felt like being thrown into the middle of some insanely complicated game which had been running for years, with rules no one would explain, played by people who’d known each other their entire lives. Everything had a meaning, and not always the one you’d expect.

I quickly learnt who to watch out for. Most of the aides proved to have pretty similar attitudes to Ictis and Julia, the mages who’d approached me on the first day. They didn’t like me and they didn’t trust me, but they weren’t going to pick a fight. Jarnaff, on the other hand, was going to be trouble. He’d been telling the truth about being aide to Sal Sarque, and after a little digging, I was pretty sure that he’d been telling the truth about the other part too. Morden’s last two aides had been made to disappear, and although no one said it out loud, there was a consensus that the Crusaders, or some other people with ties to Jarnaff or Sarque, had abducted them, interrogated them, then disposed of what was left. And since Morden was a Dark mage, the protests were muted at best.

I saw some familiar faces too. Lyle showed up on the second day and we had a short, awkward conversation. I saw Lyle’s boss, as well, Undaaris, and stared daggers at him while Undaaris pretended not to see. But that was nothing compared to what I felt for Levistus’s aide, Barrayar. I saw him just once, and this time it was my turn to pretend not to notice. I doubt he was fooled. Barrayar knew I had to hold a grudge, but I was pretty sure he didn’t know just how deeply I hated him. Just a glimpse of his face was enough to throw me into a cold fury, and I had to control myself to stop my muscles from clenching. You’ll pay for this, I promised. Your master won’t live forever. Neither will you.

Oddly enough, it was the uglier sides of the Light world that most helped to accustom me to it. I’d spent my apprenticeship surrounded by Dark mages and the promise of violence, and as days turned into weeks I began to realise that the Council wasn’t really so different. The weapons might be more indirect, but the stakes were the same. Everyone wanted to be king of the hill.

On the positive side, Anne seemed to be doing okay. The Light mages in the healer corps didn’t like her any more than the Council aides liked me, but that kind of treatment’s nothing new to Anne, and at least there were no signs that she was in immediate danger. Each evening after we both got home, we’d catch each other up on our days. Sometimes Variam would come too, but usually it was just the two of us, alone in Wales in the long dark winter evening.

Luna didn’t contact me at all. I called and messaged but received no answer.

| | | | | | | | |

My position at the War Rooms might be hard, but at least I was making headway. The Keepers were another story.

I went to Keeper HQ the day after my meeting with Talisid. I’d half-expected to be arrested, but apparently the message had been passed down that I was off the wanted list. The man on security at the front desk seemed to take a long time checking my authorisation, but at last he let me in.

I climbed the stairs to the corridor with the office I’d shared with Caldera, but the door was locked. I rattled the handle, then let it drop.

“It’s not being used,” a voice said from behind me.

I turned to see Rain, a captain in the Order of the Star and Caldera’s boss. “News travels fast,” I said. I’d been about to ask how Rain had known I’d arrived, before remembering that delay at the front desk. Apparently it hadn’t just been because my card was out of date.

“Could say that,” Rain said. He’s tall and straight-backed with very dark skin, and one of the few Keepers I halfway trust. “Your signet.”

I looked down. The object in Rain’s hand was a small plaque, metal on leather with coloured gold and silver. The image showed a pair of eagles, wings and talons raised, flanking a tall flame. Above the flame was a single star.

“It’s not going to bite,” Rain said.

“Sorry,” I said. It was strange. I’ve spent so long with the Council as my enemy. Now I was one of their agents, a Keeper of the Flame. I took the signet and felt a faint tingle of magic from the metal.

“Normally there’d be a little more ceremony,” Rain said. “But, well, nothing about this has exactly been normal. Welcome to the Order of the Star.”

“Thanks,” I said. I felt awkward and didn’t know why.

“Go down to the quartermaster’s as soon as you have the chance and have it registered,” Rain said. He handed me a key. “Here.”

“For the office?”

“You’ll be on your own for now.”

“Where’s Caldera?”

“She’s got a new partner.”

“Oh,” I said. I suppose it shouldn’t have been a surprise.

“Usually when a new Keeper’s brought in, we assign them someone more experienced to show them the ropes. Unfortunately this whole thing’s caught us a bit off guard. I don’t have anyone to give you just yet.”

“Okay.”

“That’s about it,” Rain said. “Any questions?”

“Yeah,” I said. “What do you want me working on?”

“That hasn’t been settled.”

“What do you mean?”

Rain hesitated, and I had the sudden impression that he was uncomfortable. “Haven’t really fit you into the duty roster yet. Bit sudden. When we have an assignment, we’ll call you.”

“Okay.”

Rain started to leave, then paused. “Glad to have you back.” He walked away.

I watched Rain go, then tried the key in the door. Inside was the same office in which I’d spent a good part of last year. The big desk in the centre of the room which Caldera had used was empty, dust and old coffee stains marking the wood. My desk was up against the wall, and that was empty too. I wondered briefly where my stuff had gone, until I realised that it must have been taken as evidence.

I walked around the room. Two windows at the back looked down onto the London street, and I stood for a moment looking at the traffic crawl across the road below. I started to sit before realising that the chair had been taken too, so I sat on Caldera’s desk and looked around. So now I’m a Keeper.

It didn’t feel like an achievement. It just felt lonely. I went looking for my stuff.

| | | | | | | | |

Back when Anne and Variam lived in my flat in Camden, Luna used to come over a lot, and one of the things they’d do was watch videos on my old laptop. Variam always wanted action movies, but since Luna and Anne outnumbered him they usually ended up watching animated shows about girls in Japanese high schools. The shows Luna picked tended to be upbeat with a lot of romance, but the ones Anne chose weren’t so cheerful, and more than once I remembered watching episodes where the other girls would bully the main character. They wouldn’t beat her up or confront her, but they’d do things like ignore her when she talked, spread rumours behind her back, and hide her stuff.

After I’d been a Keeper for a week, I knew exactly how the main characters in those shows had felt.

The first hint of how things were going to go came with Caldera. I spotted her on the second day, down at the end of a corridor, and she immediately turned the other way. Coatl, her new partner, was with her, and he looked at me and hesitated, but Caldera said something and he turned away as well with an apologetic look. By the time I caught up to where they’d been, they were gone.

Okay, I thought. I guess that answers the question about whether she’s still angry. I decided to give her some more time.

Except it wasn’t just Caldera. I’d never exactly been popular with the rest of the Order of the Star, but then I’d never expected to be. Keepers are cops, and cops tend to have an attitude of default suspicion towards outsiders. Still, I’d worked at it, and by last autumn I’d reached the point where I was accepted, if not liked.

I wasn’t accepted anymore. It had been Morden who’d appointed me as a Keeper, and now the rest of the Keepers hated my guts. Conversations would stop as I came near, and the Keepers would watch me in silence until I was out of earshot, at which point the conversations would start up again. When I tried talking to them, they’d tell me in so many words to go away. The e-mails I sent went unanswered, or I’d receive “out of office” replies from mages whom I’d seen in the building less than an hour ago.

It wasn’t even just the Keepers. The Council employs a whole bureaucracy of adepts and clued-in sensitives who work under the Light mages to do the lower-level work. I was a Keeper now, which meant that the admin personnel at HQ were supposed to do as I told them . . . in theory. In practice, every time I asked for something, there was some reason why it couldn’t be done. Getting my signet bonded took me the best part of a day. The quartermaster didn’t answer my calls: when I tried to call him he was out to lunch, when I came back after lunch he referred me to the issue desk, when I went to the issue desk they told me I’d have to get it authorised at the War Rooms, and so on. When I tried to get the contents of my old desk back, I was told they’d been sent to the evidence processing facility at Southampton. I gated there to be told that the records weren’t on file and they couldn’t help me. What if I went in and found it myself? No, you aren’t authorised to do that. The warden? He’s in a meeting. No, we don’t know when he’ll be back. Everyone I wanted to see was busy, and every question got the same blank-faced response. Even the post took two days to reach my desk.

When I’d joined the Keepers as an auxiliary, the way I’d made headway had been with work. It’s a lot harder to ignore someone if you’re doing a job with them, and so I waited for Rain to hand me some cases. I was a little nervous about handling an investigation without Caldera, but I’d been watching her work for more than a year, and I figured I’d give it my best shot. I waited to see what Rain would send me.

And waited.

When the call didn’t come, I went to Rain. He told me that before I could be assigned to a detail and put on the duty roster, it’d have to be cleared by one of the directors. I asked how long that would take and was told that he didn’t know. I asked if he could just set me some cases anyway, and he told me that he wasn’t authorised to do that. He told me he’d call me as soon as he heard anything.

I went back to my desk and stared at the phone. Rain didn’t call.

| | | | | | | | |

Variam walked into the office on a cold, rainy afternoon in February. “Jeez,” he said, looking at me. “You look like your dog just died.”

I looked up from the computer screen in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“Landis has a meeting.” Variam came around and peered down at the computer screen. “Is that the procedure manual?”

“Procedure and tactics,” I said. It was the Order of the Star’s operations manual, containing their official doctrine for all possible situations.

“Any good?”

“Not really.”

“Then why are you reading it?”

“Because I’ve got nothing else to do and the Order of the Star is too paranoid to allow an internet connection.”

Variam sat down on the desk. He didn’t need to clear himself a space; it was nearly bare. “I thought you guys were supposed to be busy.”

In answer I turned my monitor towards Variam. “This is my e-mail.” I clicked a couple of filters. “These are all the e-mails this week personally addressed to me.”

Variam squinted at the blank white box on the screen. “Why isn’t it showing?”

“Because there isn’t anything to show.”

“Why not?”

“Because no one wants to bloody talk to me. Every single Keeper on the Order of the Star’s duty roster is overloaded with casework. They’re just apparently not overloaded enough to be willing to bring me in on it. I’ve asked them right to their faces if they need help, but they tell me no, they’re fine.”

“Why?”

I lifted my hands in the air. “Bloody-mindedness? Morden forced them to put me on the team, so now they’re going out of their way to keep me on the bench just to show him that he can’t tell them what to do?” I shook my head. “Back when I was younger, I thought it’d be great to be a Keeper. I didn’t think it’d be like this.”

Variam shrugged. “You get used to it.”

I looked curiously at Variam. “Was it like this when you joined?”

“Pretty much,” Variam said. “You know Light mages, they’re all about pedigree. Who you trained under, which school, how many years with the Council. They weren’t that impressed with mine.”

“What changed their mind?”

“Landis doesn’t care, and he’s the one who matters. And the Order of the Shield’s more easygoing that way. As long as you can pull your weight, they’re okay with it.”

“Maybe I should have tried to get a job there,” I muttered.

Variam frowned. “What’s up with you?”

“You mean apart from everything else?”

“Not that,” Variam said. “Back last year you were always working on something. Now you’re just sitting around.”

“I suppose.”

“Well, stop it,” Variam said. He sounded annoyed. “You and Anne have got this shit with Richard, Luna’s a basket case, and Morden’s planning God knows what. We need you doing something useful, not sitting on your arse.”

I looked at Variam, startled. Variam seemed about to say more, then paused, touched a hand to his ear, and said, “On my way,” to the empty air before looking back at me. “Landis wants me. Look, I’ll see if he can do anything. But come up with something, okay?”

“. . . Okay.”

Variam left. I stared after him, still a little nonplussed. I really wasn’t used to Variam telling me to get my shit together. He’d never acted like this back when he was living above my shop . . .

My shop, I thought. That’s it, isn’t it? Up until a month and a half ago, I’d spent the best part of each week running the Arcana Emporium, my little magic shop in Camden. It hadn’t been a big business and it didn’t make much money, but it had been one of the few places in Britain and Ireland where people who didn’t know much about the magical world could come to buy materials, get an item identified, or simply talk to someone who didn’t think they were crazy. For some of my customers, I might have been the first person they’d ever met who could hear their story and not think they were crazy. I’d taught newbies about magical society, introduced novices to potential teachers, and warned adepts of the people and places that they should stay away from. It hadn’t been glamorous, but it had meant something, and no matter how exasperating my customers had sometimes been, I knew I was making a difference.

Here with the Keepers, I wasn’t making a difference. I was an inconvenient and rather embarrassing addition to the roster, to be stuck on a shelf and forgotten about.

But Variam was right; I was wasting time. I got up and headed for the door. Time to visit an old friend.

| | | | | | | | |

I’d made it to Hampstead Heath and all the way to the little ravine, and was just about to call Arachne when I stopped. The entrance to Arachne’s lair is hidden in the roots of an oak tree, the tree stretching up above the earthen wall. I’d visited the spot so many times that I hardly noticed it, but something was different this time, and as I looked more closely I saw that the entrance had been damaged. Some of the roots had been cut, and others were missing. I stepped closer and traced a finger along where one of the roots ended abruptly. It had scarred over, but even so, the cut felt unnaturally smooth. Force blade?

I looked ahead and saw that Arachne was going to answer. Still, it gave me an uneasy feeling. I pressed the spot on the roots and leant in to talk.

| | | | | | | | |

“So what happened to your front door?” I asked Arachne.

“Some mages and I had a difference of opinion,” Arachne said. We’d spent a long time saying our hellos, and now I was settled comfortably on one of the sofas, with Arachne crouched in front of me, her front legs on either side of me so that she could look down at me with her eight eyes from only a few feet away. Just like smaller spiders, Arachne’s shortsighted, and for lengthy conversations she likes to be close enough to feel the vibrations of my movement and voice.

“What kind of difference of opinion?”

“They wanted to come in,” Arachne said. “I preferred that they stayed outside. I eventually brought them around to my point of view.”

“In other words, they tried to blast their way in and couldn’t?”

“More or less.”

I frowned. “Are you okay?”

“Perfectly,” Arachne said. “Oh, and I’m sorry about not answering the last time you called. I had to take a few security measures.”

“I’m just glad they worked,” I said. I’d tried to visit Arachne several times after getting back and received no answer. It wasn’t the first time that Arachne had disappeared, but it had still left me worried. It had been a relief when I’d looked ahead today and found she’d be home. “Were they from the Council?”

“They claimed to be,” Arachne said. It’s a little hard to tell with Arachne’s voice, but I thought I could detect a dry tone. “I declined to open the front door and view their identification.”

“Wait. Were they looking for me?” Over Christmas, I’d had a few people try an ambush here on the Heath. I’d seen it off without too much trouble, but it had bothered me. If people could connect me to Arachne . . .

“That may have been part of their motivations.”

“Arachne!” I sat up. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Well, for one thing, you weren’t in the best position to help.”

I stared at Arachne, and my expression must have been obvious, because she touched a foreleg gently to my shoulder. “It wasn’t because of you, Alex. Remember, I have a history too. A much longer one than yours.”

I made an unhappy noise. I really didn’t like the idea that Arachne might be in danger because of me.

“If they hadn’t come on that pretext, they would have come on another,” Arachne said firmly. “Now. Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”

I looked around at the chamber we were sitting in. Arachne’s cavern is huge and it’s a riot of colour, dresses and furniture and cloth blending together into a giant chaotic rainbow. I’d had a lot of conversations with Arachne here over the years, some of them small ones and some of them big ones. This was going to be a big one.

“I need to decide what to do,” I said.

“Concerning the Keepers?”

“No,” I said slowly. I tried to figure out how to say it. “I mean, yes, I’ll have to deal with that. And Luna, and Rachel, and everything else. It’s just . . . Those are all important, but they’re reactive. I deal with them, but once I’ve dealt with them, then all that does is make the problem go away. It doesn’t make things any better.”

“And what would make things better?”

“That’s what I need to find out.” I looked up at Arachne. “Right now I’m fighting Levistus and Richard, and I’m losing. Part of it’s because they’ve got better cards than me, but that’s not all of it. It’s that they’ve got a plan. They’re always playing the long game, looking to next month, next year. Meanwhile I just wait around until some sort of crisis happens, then I scramble to fix it. It’s like they’re shooting holes in a boat, and I’m running up and down trying to plug the leaks. Sooner or later there’ll be too many holes, or one of the bullets will hit me, and that’ll be it.”

“So what do you need?”

“I need a win condition,” I said. “Something that’ll put me in a position where they have to react to me. You remember what you told me back at Christmas? You said I had three options.”

“Align yourself with a greater power,” Arachne said. “Become a greater power. Or die.”

I nodded.

“So?”

“Right now I’m being forced to align,” I said. “There are two factions who care enough to recruit me. Richard, and the Council. They both want me playing for their team.”

“Are you going to?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because both choices suck,” I said. “I already learnt my lesson about working for Richard. And long term, the Council are almost as bad. They’re letting me stay there for now, but it’s just a matter of time before they have another try at sticking the knife in.”

“And Talisid?”

“He wants me as an agent, but he’s not going to be able to do much when things go wrong.”

“You have some allies,” Arachne said.

“And I’ll keep finding more. But it’s not going to be enough.”

“So what conclusion have you reached?”

“I’m not going to lie down and die,” I said quietly. “That only leaves one choice. Make myself powerful enough to be on a level with people like Morden and Vihaela. But there’s a problem.”

“How to do it?”

“How to do it. Every mage in Britain wants more power, whether they’re Light or Dark. Hell, half the problems I’ve had over the last five years come down to some asshole wanting a bigger stick than the next guy. Levistus and Morden and Belthas and who knows who else. They all want it, and so do all the others, and that means that all the low-hanging fruit was picked a really long time ago. But if I don’t try to get the same thing that they want—and succeed at it, where they failed—then I’m screwed. And that’s bad news, because I don’t see how I can succeed. I know what I need, and I don’t think I can get it.” I leant back against the sofa, staring at the bolts of cloth.

“I think,” Arachne said after a pause, “you may be selling yourself short.”

I looked at Arachne curiously. “How?”

“Your reasoning is correct,” Arachne said. “You do need more personal power. But I think you have more channels available than you realise.”

“Just because I’m a Keeper and Morden’s aide, that doesn’t mean . . .”

“I don’t mean exploiting your position,” Arachne said. “Yes, yes, that’s how the Council do it. And some Dark mages too. But as you said, you’re stepping in late. Influence and politics are the Council’s game, and they’re better at it than you are. You should be looking at your own advantages.”

“Like what?”

“Three that I believe you should focus on,” Arachne said. “First, your allies. You may not have many friends in high places, but what you do have is breadth. You are one of the few mages in this country who can count Dark mages, Light mages, independents, adepts, and magical creatures among their friends. Make use of it. Don’t be afraid to ask for their help, and don’t wait too long.”

I thought about it. “Second is your skill with items,” Arachne said. “You probably have as much proficiency with magical items of all varieties as any mage in Britain.”

“Yeah, but if I could use the same spells as other mages I wouldn’t need to rely on items.”

“Don’t underestimate the power that imbued items can bring.”

My spirits had been starting to lift, but at Arachne’s last words they sank again. “Oh, come on,” I said. “There isn’t an apprentice in Britain who hasn’t dreamed of getting his hands on an imbued item and lucking into huge unearned rewards just from picking it up. It’s like winning the lottery: it happens just often enough to make clueless people keep on playing it. All the useful imbued items are either claimed or they’ve got some horrible curse or agenda just waiting for someone dumb enough to pick them up. Usually both.”

“You may have the potential to circumvent those problems.”

“Yeah, I’ve kind of tried that already,” I said. “Didn’t go too well.” I had access to at least two imbued items of the kind Arachne was talking about. There was the fateweaver, able to guide and shape destiny, and the monkey’s paw, able to grant wishes. One was in a locked bubble realm to which Luna held the key; the other was hidden away where I’d stowed it. I could get my hands on either of the two in less than three hours, and both had the power to make all of my problems go away with a snap of my fingers.

Except that the power was the item’s power, not mine. That’s the thing with imbued items that most mages don’t get. Imbued items don’t do what you want, they do what they want. Both of those items had a history of taking bearers who’d made the mistake of trying to use them, and eating them alive. Maybe literally, in the case of the monkey’s paw—I still didn’t know exactly what had happened to Martin. “All the ones I can think of that could do anything like that, using them’d be a death sentence.” A thought struck me. “Unless you could make one? Like my armour, or . . . ?”

“No,” Arachne said. “Oh, I could make you a weapon, but it wouldn’t be enough. And any protective item I made would have its own problems. Imbued items can be possessive; you learnt that lesson, I think. And I could direct you to other items, but I doubt they’d be any more powerful than the ones you’re familiar with. No, what I had in mind was something different, and to do with your third advantage. Your knowledge of Elsewhere.”

I looked at Arachne in surprise. “But everyone knows about Elsewhere.”

“Your Light mages are taught about Elsewhere,” Arachne said dryly.

“Don’t most of them use it?”

“If I had to make a personal estimate,” Arachne said, “I would guess that less than half of Light mages visit it even once. And less than half of those return for a second try. The number who use it frequently enough to build up any real proficiency? Perhaps one in twenty. Light mages like environments that are controlled and predictable, and that is something that Elsewhere is most definitely not.”

I thought about it. Now that I actually tried to remember, it occurred to me that I’d hardly ever heard Light mages talk about going to Elsewhere. Lots of warnings; not many eyewitness accounts. Nearly everything I’d learnt about the place had come from firsthand experience or from books.

But I still didn’t see what Arachne was getting at. “What’s that got to do with items?”

“How do you think imbued items influence their bearers?”

“I don’t—” I looked at Arachne sharply. “It’s something to do with that?”

“Did you ever wonder how you were able to survive wielding that fateweaver four years ago?” Arachne answered. “Abithriax had been subverting and possessing mages before you were even born. You used the fateweaver, let him in—and yet you were able to drive him away. Oh, you had help, but even so, he should have been able to overcome you easily. Then the next year, when you drew too deeply on the mist cloak, the same thing happened. It took hold of you, but again you survived. You retained enough of yourself to come here, to me. Did you think about how you did that?”

“Honestly?” I admitted. “No.”

Arachne watched me, waiting for an answer. “So you’re saying . . . what?” I said. “I can handle items that other people can’t?”

“Travelling Elsewhere and making use of imbued items require similar qualities,” Arachne said. “First and foremost is self-knowledge. Understanding who you are and what you can do. Recognising when you are being influenced. Knowing when to walk away.”

“Doesn’t seem like that much.”

“You’d be surprised.”

I shrugged. “I can buy that it helps, but it doesn’t seem like it’s enough either. I mean, yeah, I survived going up against Abithriax, but that was all. As soon as he started losing, he just pulled back into the fateweaver.”

“Yes,” Arachne said. “If you picked up the fateweaver now, you would be able to fight off Abithriax easily. But as you say, you would only be able to fight him off. He couldn’t defeat you, but neither could you defeat him. And training wouldn’t help. It’s a matter of the tools available to you.”

“I know, but that’s what I’ve got,” I said. “I’m a diviner, not a mind mage.”

“Which is why I think you should look to better tools.”

I looked at Arachne. “You sound like you’ve got something in mind.”

“There is a type of magical item known as a dreamstone,” Arachne said. “It allows a bearer to touch Elsewhere more directly, and more deeply. In Elsewhere, you can reach someone else’s dreams, but with a dreamstone you can make that connection while awake.”

“Someone else’s dreams,” I said. “Or to an imbued item? Link to it the same way it links to me?”

“It wouldn’t make the item serve you,” Arachne said. “But it would put you on an even footing.”

I frowned. It could open up opportunities, but I had the feeling there was a problem. “What’s the catch?”

“Dreamstones are very rare,” Arachne said. “They form only in certain shadow realms in extremely unusual conditions, and once formed, they must be shaped. The process takes decades, and those who own such an item tend not to advertise. Finding one will be difficult.”

“But I’m guessing that you wouldn’t be suggesting this if you had any easier plans.”

“Easier, yes,” Arachne said. “Better, no.”

I thought about it, but only briefly. I trust Arachne, and if she thought this was the best plan, then I was willing to give it a try. “So any idea where I could find one of these things?”

“No,” Arachne said. “As you know, items like this come onto the market very rarely. Keep your eyes open, and I’ll do the same. In the meantime, I suggest you do what you can on other fronts. And be ready. If an opportunity does develop, you may have to move fast.”

| | | | | | | | |

I was still thinking about Arachne’s words when I left. I walked out through the tunnel mouth, then turned and watched the roots and earth fold back together with a rustling sound. Now that I knew what to look for, it was easy to make out the marks where the attack had failed.

I started walking south, climbing up out of the ravine and in a direction that would take me towards the ponds at the feet of the hills, and as I did I thought about what to do next. Technically, I was supposed to be back in Keeper HQ, but right now I didn’t feel like wasting any more time sitting behind an empty desk. I needed to be expanding, developing my options. Arachne’s suggestion of a dreamstone was a new long-term avenue to work on. I had something in mind involving Anne for another. For the third . . .

Suddenly I knew where I needed to go. I changed course, heading towards the road.