Chosen

Chapter 12

I came awake to realise someone was talking. Just the knowledge that I wasn’t alone sent a spike of fear and adrenaline through my system, and in an instant I was fully alert. I could smell stale air and unwashed clothes, and from the shuffling of footsteps I could tell there was another person near me. Without moving any other part of my body, I opened my eyes.

There was a man standing a few feet away. He wore an ancient stained greatcoat over dirty torn clothes, and from his smell neither he nor his clothes had had a wash in a long time. Straggly grey hair framed bleary eyes and a face prematurely aged. “—you doing here?” he was saying. “Huh? What you doing here?”

I stared back at him, motionless. “This is mine,” he said. “You don’t get to sleep here, see? It’s mine. What you doing here?” When I didn’t answer he took a step forward, his voice gaining a little confidence. “My mates are coming back. They’re going to be angry. This is mine, see? You shouldn’t be here.” His manner was halfway between pleading and threatening, and when I still didn’t answer it began to edge towards threatening. “You know who I am? I know people, I do. No one messes with me.” He took another step, moving to poke me with his foot. “You—”

I caught his ankle with my left hand as my right came out from under my cloak in a flash of steel. Before the man could react I had my knife pressed against his leg, the point digging through his trousers towards the upper thigh, where the femoral artery runs close to the skin. He tried to jerk away but I clung on and he nearly fell backwards. “Hey man!” he said, his voice squeaking suddenly. “Why—”

I hissed at him, showing my teeth, and his eyes went wide in fear. He tried to pull away, but I dug the knife in deeper and he froze. I held his eyes for a slow count of five then let him go suddenly. He scrambled back to the door. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he said, trying to hold up his dignity. “This is mine, see? You shouldn’t . . .”

I stared at the man without blinking and he trailed off, then backed away into the shadows. I lay still, following his movement through the futures as he clattered his way down the stairs. Once I was satisfied he was gone I got up.

I’d slept through the day, and yellow-gold light was shining through the newspaper covering the grimy windows. For some reason the afternoon felt shadowed and dark, even through the sunlight; I tried peeling back the newspaper to get a better idea of the time, but the light stung my eyes. I drew back into the shadows, waiting for darkness.

I’d been out of contact and I knew I ought to be checking in, but I felt a strange reluctance to talk to anyone; it felt as though it could be dangerous. Miserable as it was, the abandoned pub was safe, and in the end I stayed there for hours, while the sun set and the sky turned from blue to purple to grey. Only after night had fallen did I leave, and even then it was only hunger that forced me from the building. There was a cluster of shops at the end of the road but I didn’t want to draw the attention of shopkeepers; the summer night was too busy and it made me nervous. Clusters of men and women passed by in the darkness, and it felt as though all of them were looking at me. It was too much and I turned down a small residential street, used my divination magic to find an empty house, and broke in through the back door.

Once I’d stolen a makeshift meal from the kitchen, I finally took out my phone. As soon as I placed it on the kitchen table and thumbed the button the screen lit up with a dozen messages. My mist cloak really messes up incoming signals—usually I don’t wear it long enough for it to matter, but by now I’d been wearing it for more than a day straight. Most of the messages were from Luna and Anne and at a glance they sounded worried, but I didn’t want to answer them. The last message was from Caldera and it asked me to call her back as soon as possible. I touched the screen to return the call and sat in one of the kitchen chairs, waiting. Caldera answered on the fourth ring.

One of the dubious privileges of being a diviner is never having to wait for bad news. Usually conversation is unpredictable—there’s too much randomness and free will to see more than a few seconds ahead. But when someone’s already decided what they’re going to tell you, then every possible conversation goes the same way. The only question is how long it’ll take to get to the point. “Verus,” Caldera said.

There was a new note in Caldera’s voice, one I hadn’t heard before. She sounded . . . subdued. “Feeling better?” I said.

“What? Oh.” Caldera brushed it off. “I’m fine. You?”

“I’m alive,” I said. I didn’t really want to talk. “So?”

Caldera didn’t answer. “You said you were taking this to the Council,” I said. “You said to stay out of it and keep my head down.”

“Yeah,” Caldera said after a pause. She didn’t sound happy, and in a sudden flash of insight I wondered how often she had to do this in her job. Give bad news and then walk away . . .

“So?”

“I filed my report yesterday. It had a full account of our encounter with Will and the Nightstalkers and their attack. I recommended the Nightstalkers be brought in for violation of the Concord.” She paused again. “I got the reply back this evening.”

I listened silently. “It’s been kicked upstairs,” Caldera said. “There’s a Council committee scheduled to look into it.”

“Did they give you a reason?”

“I had some questions about the decision,” Caldera said. From her tone of voice it sounded like it had been more than that. “They said . . .” She hesitated. “They’ve decided the Nightstalkers aren’t an immediate threat to the Council or to Light or independent mages.”

I was silent. “I see,” I said at last.

“I put in a request for a task force. I haven’t had an answer.”

“Weren’t you in the middle of investigating Richard when the Nightstalkers tried to kill you?” I said. “You know, the ones who ‘aren’t an immediate threat’?”

Caldera was silent for a moment. “I’ve been taken off the Richard Drakh case,” she said. “I’m on medical leave.”

“Medical leave.”

“I didn’t request it.”

“Thought you said you were fine.”

Caldera didn’t answer.

“Don’t suppose you know where these orders of yours come from, do you?” I said.

“I’m not authorised—”

“Don’t worry, I can guess. From the Council, right?”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Does it matter? It’s not like you were going to do anything about it.”

Caldera was silent again. I’d expected her to snap at me, but she didn’t. In a way it actually made it worse; I wanted her to get angry so I could yell at her. “There’s a mage on the Council called Levistus,” I said. “I don’t have any proof, but this is his style. No risk, no involvement. He never gets his hands dirty, he just gives the orders and stays at a distance.”

“I’m sorry,” Caldera said.

A part of me wanted to shout at Caldera, blame her for all the Council’s hypocrisies. Whoever had given Caldera those orders must have known that the Nightstalkers were out for blood. The Council had a thousand times the resources of Will’s group—they could crush them without even trying. But they weren’t going to, even after the Nightstalkers had blatantly violated the Concord, because the Council only enforced the Concord when it suited them.

But an older, wiser part of me knew that it wasn’t Caldera’s fault. And deep down, had I ever really expected anything different? The Council has never helped me before and I’d never really believed that they’d start now. If I was going to live through this it would be because of myself and my friends, and nobody else. “Forget it,” I said. “You have to follow your orders.”

“What are you going to do?” Caldera asked.

I thought about it for a second. “I don’t know,” I said at last. “Good-bye, Caldera.” I hung up before she could reply.

That night seemed to last a long time.

I didn’t have any appointments to keep and for now at least I’d lost my pursuers. I was free to go wherever I wanted—except that I couldn’t think of anywhere to go. For the first time in years, I didn’t know what to do.

Ever since Will had attacked me in the casino I’d been trying to figure out a way to end this. I’d tried talking to the Nightstalkers and I’d tried fighting them and I’d tried running from them. I’d tried searching Rachel’s memories for the truth, and I’d tried relying on Caldera to fix things for me. And every single one had been a failure. Things weren’t any better than they had been at the start—if anything they were worse. I’d nearly been killed half a dozen times, and the only reason I was still alive was that my friends had put themselves at risk to save me. Anne and Variam and Luna and Sonder had been in danger and were still in danger, and it was because of me.

I know I come off as arrogant sometimes. When you can see the future it’s easy to pretend you know everything, and to other people it probably looks like I do. But being able to see the future doesn’t make you any smarter or wiser than anyone else, and it doesn’t stop you making stupid mistakes. It lets you know what a problem is and how big the problem is, but it doesn’t give you the power to do anything about it. When it comes down to it, the reason I act all-knowing isn’t because I think I know everything. It’s because I know I don’t, and I’m desperately trying to stop my enemies from figuring that out. And if you keep up an act to fool other people, sometimes you end up fooling yourself as well.

But now I couldn’t pretend anymore. Everything I’d tried had been a failure, and I’d lost my confidence. If I tried to do something else, I felt like I’d just screw that up too. Worst of all, there was a nagging voice at the back of my head wondering whether this was what I deserved. Will had been right all along: I had killed his sister, it had just been Rachel who’d delivered the final blow. I knew I was leaving Anne and Luna and Variam in the dark, but I couldn’t face talking to them, not now. Instead I just walked, flitting from shadow to shadow through the London night. Eventually I realised where my feet were taking me.

The cemetery was in Camberwell, tucked away behind an old church with a faded sign. Black iron spike railings surrounded it from the outside, and trees were planted around the edges, giving it a sheltered, shut-in feel. The gates were locked and I had to climb them to get in.

The inside of the cemetery was quiet and empty. The nearest main road was two streets away and the trees had a muffling effect, silencing the area so that the loudest sounds were the echoes of my footsteps around the tombstones. I suppose most people would have found it creepy, but I’ve never really been scared of cemeteries. It’s living people I’m afraid of, not dead ones.

The headstone was small, and it took me a long time to find it amongst all the others. It had once been white, but wind and rain had darkened it to grey. Flicking on my flashlight, I crouched down in front of it. The inscription read:

CATHERINE HELENA TRAVISS

1984–2002

BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART,

FOR THEY SHALL SEE GOD

Two larger headstones were set a little way behind it. I didn’t read them: I knew who they were for. I sat cross-legged on the grass and stared at the small headstone. The cemetery was dark and silent, and any wind was kept out by the trees. I was alone with the dead.

Catherine’s body wasn’t here. Shireen had told me that. Rachel had been the one who’d killed her, and Rachel hadn’t been concerned about funeral rites . . . or maybe she just didn’t want anything left to remind her of what she’d done. She’d disintegrated the bodies and left the dust to blow away. But at some point someone had found out what had happened, learnt that Catherine was dead, and cared enough to leave a headstone, and I wondered who it had been. Will, maybe? But he would have been in America. Maybe some other relation—a cousin, an aunt or uncle. Everybody has someone who’ll miss them, even if it’s just to notice they’re gone.

“So this is where it ends,” I said. My voice sounded very loud in the quiet of the cemetery. “All this time, you were just waiting here . . . I wonder how many people still remember this grave? You must have had people who cared about you, but it’s been ten years. They’ll have gone on with their lives.” I was silent for a little while. “Maybe I’ll end up in a place like this someday. Just a little headstone, and a few people who’ll forget . . .”

A train passed by along the railway lines one street over, the rumble of its wheels echoing over the rooftops. “I’m sorry I screwed things up,” I said. “I wanted to save you, but the only person I saved was myself. I just ran and I didn’t go back. All this time I’ve been trying to forget what I did, but now your brother’s here and he’s trying to kill me for it. What do you want? If you were here, would you tell Will to go away and live his own life? Or would you tell him that he was right, and I deserve it . . . ?”

There was no sound but the wind in the trees. Shireen might have stayed on after her death—or at least some part of her had—but Catherine wasn’t Shireen. Wherever she’d gone, either she couldn’t hear me or she wasn’t answering.

I sat by the grave for a long time, then got to my feet and left, leaving the cemetery empty behind me.

My memories of the rest of that night are fuzzy. I know I kept moving, but I don’t remember where I went or how. Most of the other people in the city were asleep and the few I met on the streets seemed to blur past without seeing me. I didn’t know where I was going and wandered aimlessly through the London night. The streetlights hurt my eyes, and I found myself sticking to parks and back streets where I could merge with the shadows. I felt strange: hyped and on edge, yet thin and stretched. I felt tired but my movements were quick and I could sense the presence of the people nearby. It seemed to be getting easier and easier to hide from them.

By the time the sky started to brighten in the east, I was on Hampstead Heath. I don’t know how I ended up there but I guess it’s like they say: home is the place where when you have to go there, they have to take you in. I didn’t want to go down to talk to Arachne but the grey light of dawn was spreading across the sky and the thought of being caught in the morning sunlight made me flinch. I found the ravine that hid the entrance to Arachne’s lair and touched the spot on the root that signalled her. I don’t remember what I said, but she opened the door.

I was stumbling by the time I made it down into Arachne’s cave, weaving from side to side. Arachne was working on something blue and white, but as she saw me she stopped, turning her head towards me. “Alex?” she said, the clicking rustle of her mandibles an undertone to her words. “What’s happened to you?”

“Nothing,” I said, shielding my eyes. “Can you turn the lights down?” I didn’t remember Arachne’s lair being so bright, but the glare was making me squint.

Arachne stayed still. It was hard to tell but I had the feeling she was staring at me. “How long have you been wearing that?”

“What?”

“Alex.” Arachne’s voice was sharp and clear. “How long have you been wearing your cloak?”

“I don’t know?” The light was making it hard to concentrate. “I just need to rest until the sun goes down. I’ll be—”

“Take it off,” Arachne said.

“What?” I squinted at her. “Why?”

“Take off your cloak,” Arachne said, pronouncing each word carefully. “Now.”

It was a simple enough request but I felt reluctant. The cloak was the only thing keeping me hidden; without it I wasn’t safe. “Look, just—”

It’s easy to forget how fast Arachne can move. She’s the size of a station wagon and by all rights she should be slow, but she’s much, much faster than she looks and she can go from a standing start to full speed in the time it takes you to blink. I should have seen it coming but my precognition’s tuned to sense danger, not movement, and by the time I realised it wasn’t registering, Arachne was on top of me. Her two front legs caught the mist cloak and yanked it off me in a single precise movement.

Light stabbed into my eyes, burning through my brain, erasing everything in white fire. My skin seemed to ignite, flaring in sudden agony, and I couldn’t see or hear or feel. All I could feel was light burning into me, too bright, too—

When I came to my senses I was lying on one of Arachne’s sofas. I tried to open my eyes, and the light sent a flash of pain bouncing around inside my head. I winced and screwed my eyes shut again.

“Why were you still wearing your cloak?” Arachne asked. I could smell her herbal scent, and from the sound of it she was right next to me.

“Why shouldn’t I be?” I muttered. I felt groggy, but also more awake; it was as though something that had been making my thoughts fuzzy was gone.

“I warned you,” Arachne said, and her voice was sharp. “When I gave you that cloak, I told you to be sparing about when you used it. Did you forget?”

“It was ten years ago, okay?”

Arachne sighed. “I suppose for you that is a long time, isn’t it? I keep forgetting how short human memories are.”

I pulled myself upright and forced my eyes open. I had to shade them with my hand; everything was much too bright. “What happened?”

“Hold your hand up to the light,” Arachne said.

I had to squint but I did as Arachne said, and as my eyes cleared I frowned. My hand looked . . . weird. Too much of the light was getting through around my fingers; it was like my skin was almost translucent. It was eerie and I looked away. “What happened to me?”

“Mist cloaks aren’t meant for extended use,” Arachne said. “You were starting to fade.”

“But . . .” I felt confused. My mist cloak’s always been the one magic item I’ve completely trusted. “It’s trying to help me.” Somehow I was sure of that. “It keeps me safe.”

“Imbued items don’t have a sense of proportion,” Arachne said. “They’re alive, but they’re not human.” She lifted a foreleg and I looked to see the mist cloak neatly folded on the next sofa over. “The cloak does try to help you. Its purpose is to hide its bearer, and that’s what it does. And it does it so well that if you wear it long enough, then nobody will be able to find you. Not even you.”

I looked at the folded cloth, fading into the sofa, and couldn’t help but shiver. “What happens then?”

“No one knows,” Arachne said simply. “I imagine the cloak still keeps them safe. Somewhere.”

I put a hand to my head. “I can’t do anything right, can I?”

“Focus,” Arachne said. “You can feel sorry for yourself later. There’s someone here to see you.”

I looked up in surprise. “Who?”

A flicker in the futures made me turn my head. Standing in one of the tunnel mouths, hand resting on the rocky wall, was Variam.

“You don’t look so good,” Variam told me.

“That’s about how I feel.” Variam and I were sitting opposite each other while Arachne sewed quietly in the corner. The orb lights set into the walls of Arachne’s cave were soft and muted, but they were still enough to hurt my eyes if I looked directly at them, and I still had that weird disconnected feeling. I could feel the mist cloak’s presence, resting quietly on one of the sofas, and even now I had the urge to put it on and hide. I pushed it away with a shudder; I wasn’t going to feel comfortable touching that cloak for a long time. “What’s been happening while I’ve been gone?”

“Those adepts showed up while we were at Luna’s,” Variam said. “One of them can track people, right?”

“Is everyone okay?”

“There wasn’t a fight,” Variam said. “They just hid outside. Think they were trying to spy on us.”

“Anne spotted them?”

Variam nodded.

“The Chinese kid’s called Lee,” I said. “He can find people—anyone he’s met, probably. Did they show up the night before last, or yesterday?”

“Night before last.”

That would have been just after I’d started wearing my cloak. I’d lost the Nightstalkers at my shop and they hadn’t picked me up again. “They couldn’t track me, so they tracked you. I guess they were hoping I’d show up and they could ambush me . . . But they don’t know what Anne can do, or they wouldn’t have tried to hide like that. Are they still there?”

“Not since yesterday. We’ve been waiting in case they come back, but they haven’t shown up.”

“They’re waiting for Lee to find me again,” I said, half to myself. No reason for them not to—it had worked every time before. As long as I was in Arachne’s lair her wards would hide me but as soon as I stepped outside . . .

“So what’s the plan?” Variam asked.

“I don’t have one.”

“Seriously.”

Variam was looking at me expectantly. He’d changed into a black shirt and turban and looked ready and alert. “Vari, you know all the times in the past I’ve told you guys what to do?” I said. “Most of the time I’m making it up as I go along. I’m not as tough as you think I am. Right now I don’t know what to do.”

Variam frowned. “You haven’t got any ideas?”

“I’ve got lots,” I said. “The problem is that all of them are bad. You know what? You listen to them and tell me what you think.” I held up a finger. “Plan number one. I keep running and hiding. Will and the Nightstalkers keep chasing. I hope they give up or get themselves hurt and go away.”

Variam gave me a look.

“I told you it was a bad plan.” I held up a second finger. “Plan number two. I keep trying to talk some sense into Will. Settle this peacefully.”

“Won’t work,” Variam said.

“You said that before.”

“Because I saw him,” Variam said, and shrugged. “If I knew someone had done that to my brother, I wouldn’t listen either.”

“Anne thought there was a chance.”

“You destroyed his life,” Variam said. “That’s how he sees it, right? What are you possibly going to say to make it all better?”

I looked back at Vari for a second, then shrugged. “I wish you were wrong, but . . . yeah. That’s how it seems, isn’t it?”

“So?” Vari said.

“So plan number three,” I said. “The one you’re thinking of. I get you and Luna and Anne, we gear up and pick our ground, and we have a fight.”

Variam nodded.

“Say we do,” I said. “On our side we’d have me, you, Anne, and Luna. They’d have Will with his time magic, the American guy with his guns, Dhruv the life-drinker, and ground-fire girl. They’ve got at least two others, so figure they’ll fight too. Four against seven. You think we’d win?”

“Yeah, I do,” Variam said. “We’ve been talking it over and we’ve done the math. Luna’s good with that whip, and Anne and I have gone up against a lot worse. And you’re a frigging mage. They’re just adepts.”

“Okay,” I said. “So we kill them all, is that the plan? I shoot some, you burn some, Anne stops the heart of a couple more, and we throw the bodies in a pit somewhere?”

Variam looked taken aback. “Uh . . .”

“Your magic creates supernatural heat, Vari,” I said. “It doesn’t have a stun setting. If you hit someone full strength, it’s not going to knock them out, it’s going to kill them. Same with Luna. The more of her curse she puts into someone, the less likely they’re going to be walking out alive.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Variam said. “I’ve done this before. I can scale my spells back.”

“I know,” I said. “You can go for glancing hits, try to just scorch them. But now it’s not four against seven, it’s the four of us at half strength against their seven, and they won’t be holding back, not against me anyway. They’ll be trying to kill me. Would you be willing to do the same to them? Even knowing they’re not that different from you?”

Variam was silent. “You remember I told you how Anne got kidnapped by Sagash?” he said at last. “And I went to look for her?”

I nodded.

“It took a long time,” Variam said. “I had to look in a lot of places.” He looked at me. “Sometimes things get messy, you know? Someone starts something and there’s a guy in your way. And maybe you might have been friends if you’d had the chance, but you don’t have time to talk it over, do you?”

“But this is different,” I said. “I know you’re no coward, and neither is Luna. But you’re not murderers either. And Anne . . . you think she’s going to go along with a plan that involves killing anyone?” I leant forward. “I’ve thought about this a lot over the last few days. I’ve run the scenarios in my head and if it comes down to a fight between us and them, here’s what I think’s going to happen. Most of us and most of them will start out nonlethal. We won’t be fighting to kill. But Will will be, and so will Ja-Ja. And sooner or later something’ll go wrong. Someone’ll step in front of a bullet, or they’ll take a fire blast head-on, or Luna’s curse’ll hit someone the wrong way. Once that happens it won’t be just about me anymore, it’ll be about revenge. They’ll want blood for blood, and there won’t be any way to stop it.” I looked steadily at Variam. “Best case? Four or five of them end up dead and you and Luna have their blood on your hands. Worst case, they wipe us out. But the most likely way I see this ending is that they lose but they don’t go down alone. You three are good and so am I, but these guys aren’t pushovers either. They’re fast and they’re strong and they know how to work together. They haven’t been trying to kill the three of you so far, but as soon as the first one of them dies that’s all going to change. Would you want to win the fight if it meant Anne’s life? Or Luna’s, or yours? Maybe two out of three? Does that sound like a good deal to you?”

Variam didn’t answer. “We aren’t strong enough to be able to beat these guys without a good chance of them taking us with them,” I said. “And we definitely aren’t strong enough to take them down without hurting them. Your magic’s lethal, Luna’s magic is lethal, and the only weapons I’ve got that can take these guys down fast are lethal too. I’ve been trying to think of some way of finishing this that doesn’t end up with people dying and I can’t see it.”

“So what are you going to do?” Variam demanded. “Sit around? Okay, so the odds aren’t great. We’ve fought worse.”

“Because you didn’t have a choice,” I said. “But this time I’m making the choice. And if I lead you guys into this then one of two things will happen. Either you get killed, or you’ll be responsible for them getting killed. You’ll have their blood on your hands for the rest of your lives, and someday in the future someone else will wind up coming after you the way they’ve come after me.” I looked steadily at Variam. “I won’t do that, Vari. I’m not letting the three of you pay for my mistakes and I’m not letting you do the same things I did. Not for my sake.”

Variam stared back at me. I held his gaze, and in the end it was Variam who looked away. “Fine,” he said. He was trying to act annoyed but I knew I’d gotten through. “Great. So what, keep on hiding?”

I sat in silence. For all that I knew that Variam’s plan would end badly, he was right about one thing: I couldn’t hide forever. Sooner or later I’d have to face Will again.

For what felt like a long time now I’d had a quiet dark voice whispering at the back of my mind, telling me that running wasn’t going to work, that talking wasn’t going to work, that there was only one way this could end. Now at last I stopped resisting and listened.

What do you want?

I wanted to survive. For Will and the Nightstalkers to be gone. For Anne and Variam and Luna to be safe and not to have any sins on their conscience.

So, then.

I wasn’t strong enough to defeat them on my own.

Is it the first time?

It wasn’t the first time I’d gone up against enemies able to beat me in a straight fight. Belthas, Vitus, Onyx . . .

How did you survive?

Each time, I’d survived by making sure it hadn’t been a straight fight. Mostly, I’d done the same thing . . .

And suddenly the plan was laid out before me, as if it had been written down in a book and hidden away until it could just now be opened. It was simple and brutal and I’d had all the pieces I needed for days. But until now, I wouldn’t have been willing to do it. Maybe this was what I’d really been waiting for, the reason I’d been running from Will all this time. My old instincts hadn’t been gone; they’d just been buried, covered over with the habits and memories of happier times. Will and the Nightstalkers had cut through those, worn me down to the point where I was willing to do whatever it took to survive.

I looked up at Variam. “Will you help me?”

Variam nodded.

“I know you’ve been practising with gate magic,” I said. “Can you bring someone with you?”

Variam hesitated for a second. “. . . Yeah, I can do it. How fast?”

“Speed’s not an issue,” I said. “I’m going to need to get somewhere and I won’t be able to take a car or a train. Lee’ll be tracking me and if I’m out in the open they’ll home in on me before I get there.”

“Okay. Where to?”

I took out a notebook and wrote down the location, sketching out a map before tearing out the paper and handing it to Variam. “Here,” I said. “You’ll need to go there to study it so you can make a gate safely. Choose a staging point. More than one would be better.” I tapped my pen on the map, picking out two areas. “These probably have the most cover, but farther away is fine as long as you’re not too far from the building. Just don’t go inside.”

Variam frowned as he looked at the map. “I can do it but how’s this going to help?”

“If we’re lucky it won’t have to,” I said. “I’m going to have one last try at talking this out. Come back tomorrow. One way or another, it’ll be settled by then.”

When I want to find something out, I usually use my divination magic. On the other hand, I’ve been around long enough to learn that even though divination can theoretically find out anything, sometimes doing things the mundane way is more efficient. In this case I wanted to find out someone’s phone number. I don’t have the contacts or the resources to get that kind of information but I know people who do. I had to call in a favour, but it didn’t take long.

At the same time, I was watching the futures for danger. I wasn’t wearing my mist cloak anymore, and as soon as I stepped outside Arachne’s cave Lee would be able to pick me up again. I needed to know how fast he could do it and so I spent several hours path-walking, trying out one future after another.

As usual, there was good news and bad news. The good news was that Lee couldn’t instantly home in on me. It would take time, and the more I kept moving the slower it would be. I’d been paying close attention to that conversation I’d overheard between him and Dhruv and Captain America, and I was fairly sure his magic only gave him a direction, not a location. To narrow down the distance he’d have to triangulate from multiple points.

The bad news was that while it would take time, once the process started it was also more or less inevitable. As soon as he picked me up he could just keep on closing in, getting a more and more accurate fix with each attempt. I could delay it as long as I kept moving, but sooner or later he’d catch up. Worse, the Nightstalkers weren’t stupid. If they noticed I was moving in the direction of a place they’d been to before, they could take a guess and jump straight to it. That was how they’d tracked me down to my shop so quickly after the fight at Richard’s mansion.

And the last problem was that it wasn’t predictable. The trouble with divination magic is that it’s only one hundred percent reliable if you’re dealing with systems that are one hundred percent deterministic, which human beings aren’t. At any point Lee might change his mind and start searching for me in a different way, or have a sudden flash of brilliance and guess exactly where I was, and unless I was watching closely I’d have no way of knowing. On top of that I was about to do something guaranteed to get their attention.

Well, it wasn’t like this was more dangerous than anything else I’d done lately.

I waited until after dark, resting in Arachne’s cave as the hours dragged by. Arachne didn’t disturb me, leaving me to my thoughts; she didn’t ask what I was going to do but I think she had a good idea. Once the sun had set I went outside.

The Heath was quiet and peaceful in the summer night. Distant chatter and laughter drifted through the darkness, the last picnickers and dog walkers lingering in the warm weather. The air smelt of grass and pollen, and the stars of the Summer Triangle hung overhead, bright enough to shine through the orange glow of the city. The traffic from the main roads around the Heath was a steady rustle, not close enough to be loud but a constant noise in the background. I stood in the ravine next to the entrance to Arachne’s cave and dialled the number on my phone.

It rang for a while before picking up. “Hello?”

“Hi, Will,” I said.

It took only those two words for Will to recognise my voice. He was silent for a second, and when he spoke again he sounded sharp and alert. “What do you want?”

“I just want to talk.”

“Okay. Come by and we’ll have a chat.”

“I said talk,” I said. “If I wanted another fight I’d just wait for you guys to show up for another of your assassination attempts.”

The phone went briefly silent as I was speaking: Will had pressed the Mute button and I knew he was giving orders to find me. I started scanning the futures for danger, searching for the ones in which the Nightstalkers gated in. “Fine,” Will said. “Talk.”

Will was buying time, probably hoping to keep me on the line while Lee tracked me down. “I’m sorry for what happened to your sister,” I said. “I know what I did back then was wrong, and if I could take it back I would. But I can’t. And killing me isn’t going to bring her back.”

“This isn’t about bringing her back,” Will said. “You think I don’t know that? This is about making sure you don’t get to do it again.”

“I haven’t been doing it again!” I snapped. “I’m not a Dark mage anymore! You’re trying to kill me for something I don’t want to do!”

“Right, you’re a good guy now.” Will’s voice was sarcastic. “You think you get to walk away? You’ve had enough and now everyone should leave you alone?”

“Yes! I walked out of that life! I’m not asking for anything from anyone, I just want to be left alone! It’s been ten years, isn’t that long enough? Isn’t there some point where you stop being the person you used to be and it stops being right to blame them for what they’ve done?”

“No,” Will said. “I don’t care if you’ve been Mother Teresa. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been, you deserve to die.”

“Then how long does it take? Twenty years? Thirty? Fifty? You can’t keep blaming someone forever!”

“Bullshit,” Will said without sympathy. “You’re just trying to weasel out of it.”

I could feel the futures shifting and flickering and I knew Lee was searching for me. I couldn’t see him and the Nightstalkers arriving at my location . . . at least not yet. “This isn’t just about you and me,” I said. “Dhruv and the rest of the Nightstalkers—they’re your friends, right?”

“Like you even know what that means.”

“They follow your lead,” I said. “That makes you responsible for them. And if you keep leading them the way you’ve been going, then sooner or later you’re going to take them into a battle you can’t win. They’re going to die and it’ll be your fault.”

“You mages think you’re so much better than us,” Will said. “We always get told we’re not good enough and you know what? It’s bullshit. There’s nothing we can’t do if we work together. You aren’t the first Dark mage we’ve taken down and you won’t be the last.”

“And when you lose?” I demanded. “When you see your friends dying in front of you?”

“If they get hurt it’ll be the fault of whoever hurts them,” Will said. “You know what, Verus? I’ll make you a deal. Come here on your own. You’re so worried about people getting hurt? Stop hiding behind them. Come here and stand in front of me and take responsibility for what you’ve done.”

“So you can try and kill me again? No thanks.”

“That’s what I thought,” Will said contemptuously. “You’re a rat. Keep running. We’ll catch you.”

The futures shifted abruptly as something changed. I looked ahead and now I could see strands of danger. I couldn’t yet see a clear future in which the Nightstalkers homed in on me, but it was drawing closer. Whatever Lee had just done to track me down, it was working. “Listen to me, Will,” I said. “I’ve done a lot of things wrong in my life. But it’s my life and I’m not going to let you take it. If you come after me again I’m not going to hold back.”

“It doesn’t matter if you hold back or not,” Will said calmly. “We know what you can do. You can’t beat us, Verus. We’re better than you.”

I knew I was running out of time. I didn’t have the time to figure out exactly when Lee would get a fix on me, but I knew it had to be soon and I couldn’t risk talking any longer. “You called me a rat,” I said. “There’s a saying about what happens when you corner one. Don’t come after me again, Will. If you do you’ll pay in blood.” I hit the End button on the phone and moved back into the blackness of Arachne’s cave, hearing the rumble as it closed behind me. I stood there in the dark for a long time, searching the futures for any trace of pursuit, but nothing came.

I didn’t sleep well that night. Even though I was still tired from the days on the run I couldn’t relax, and whenever I tried to clear my mind and rest I’d find myself thinking of what I’d seen in Elsewhere: Shireen’s body on the stone, Rachel’s face as she stood over her, the black shadow hanging behind. At last I gave up and rose from my bed. I’d still been using the small side cave that Arachne had prepared for me and I went down the tunnel to the main chamber, listening to my footsteps echo off the rock walls.

Arachne was there, working at one of her tables. It didn’t really surprise me that she was still up; Arachne doesn’t follow human sleep patterns and I never know when she’ll be around. Sometimes she’ll seem to be in her cave for weeks on end, and other times she’ll just disappear. I’ve never asked her where she goes—for all her hospitality, Arachne’s quite private—but I think it’s got something to do with the tunnels beneath her lair. “Hey,” I said as I walked in.

“Hello, Alex,” Arachne said without looking up. She was concentrating on something, working with all four front legs at once. I could feel magic radiating from it, complex and layered. “Can’t sleep?”

I shook my head, dropping onto one of the sofas. “Did that cache have the items you needed?” Arachne asked.

“Yeah. Thanks for holding on to them.”

“When will you be using them?”

“Tomorrow.”

“I see.”

“Will and the Nightstalkers aren’t going to stop,” I said. “I’ve checked.”

Arachne kept working. “Do you think I’m making a mistake?” I asked.

“You’ve always been good at surviving, Alex,” Arachne said. “I think the reason you’ve been so good at it is that you focused on it completely. You didn’t have any doubt or hesitation; you just did what you needed to stay alive. Now for the first time you’re wondering whether you deserve to stay alive. Before you can face your hunters again, you’ll have to decide how much your life is worth.”

I was silent. “Here,” Arachne said, shaking out what she was working on. “Come and take a look.”

I rose and walked over, looking curiously at the outfit on Arachne’s table. It looked like some kind of black-and-grey uniform with mesh layers. “What is it?”

“Armour.”

“Who’s it for?”

Arachne gave me a look. It’s hard to read a giant spider’s body language, but I had the feeling she was exasperated. “For someone able to see the future, you can be remarkably slow on the uptake.”

I blinked. “It’s for me?”

“The outer layer is a reactive mesh,” Arachne said, tapping the jacket with her left front leg. “It responds to impacts by stiffening to spread the force over a wider area, and it can adjust its angle to change a direct blow into a glancing one. Enough to turn a knife or a blade. It should resist most other low-velocity impacts, but once an attack gets fast enough it does become difficult for the mesh to react in time, and of course anything with enough penetration can still punch a hole. It doesn’t stop momentum either, so—”

“Whoa, whoa,” I said, raising my hands. “Look, I appreciate this, but I don’t want you to do all this work for nothing. You know how I feel about armour—if you wear anything that’s not really heavy, an elemental mage will just blast straight through it, and if you do wear something that heavy it slows you all the way down. For someone like me the best way not to get hurt is not to be there in the first place.”

“And how well did that work in the casino?”

I scowled.

“Your life is changing, Alex,” Arachne said. “I know you’ve always preferred to rely on evasion but things are different now. More and more you’re going to find yourself facing dangers that you can’t run from or hide from.” She tapped the jacket again. “You’re going to have to take risks. This will help you survive them.”

Dubiously I lifted the material a few inches, feeling its texture. “Well, it’s light enough,” I admitted. “Is this going to do anything against a battle-mage?”

“A direct hit?” Arachne said. “No. But against area-of-effect spells or glancing blows it’ll keep you alive against something that would kill an unarmoured human.”

“Bullets?”

“Lower-powered ones should be manageable. For higher-power shots it depends on the angle of impact. The mesh will try to reshape itself to curve projectiles but there’s only so much it can do.”

“This is an imbued item, isn’t it?” I asked. Now that I was close I could sense the presence from the suit. It felt incomplete, as if it wasn’t fully grown yet, but there was definitely something there.

“Yes, and on that subject, do make sure not to wear this at the same time as your mist cloak,” Arachne said. “They both have a protective purpose, but they do so in very different ways and the variation in mindset will cause problems. Also, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but imbued items can be . . . possessive about their bearers.”

“It’s okay,” I said, suppressing a shiver. “I’m not going to be using my mist cloak for a while.” I could still remember the weird stretched feeling, and it frightened me. The scariest part was that I hadn’t even really noticed what was happening. If Arachne hadn’t made me take it off, I didn’t know where I would have ended up, and I absolutely did not want to look into the future to find out. “Thanks for doing this for me.”

“Don’t you remember what I told you last year?” Spiders can’t really smile, but I had the feeling that was what Arachne was doing. “After what happened with Belthas? You have my help whenever you want it, Alex.” She tilted her head. “You don’t ask for enough, you know.”

“Old habits,” I said, and yawned. “You know, I’m feeling better. I think I’ll go to bed.”

“Good night.”