Fallen

chapter 6

Pain.

I woke up slowly and unpleasantly. Lots of places hurt, but the worst was my head, jagged and sharp. I shifted and realised I was lying on a hard surface. I could hear voices around me, the murmur of conversation, someone giving orders. I tried to orient myself. This felt like Arachne’s cave . . .

Arachne.

I tried to sit up. The pain in my head became a white-hot spike and I vomited. Nausea and agony drowned out all thought for a while.

After some length of time my head and stomach stopped hurting enough for my mind to start working again. The voices were still talking, and now added to them I could hear rustling and thumps. I cracked open an eye, moving more cautiously this time. The light hurt, but no more so than everything else, and I looked around.

I was in Arachne’s lair, in one of the far corners. Council personnel were scattered throughout the cave, and it was their voices I’d heard. They were searching the place, shaking out clothing and pulling out cushions. As I watched, a security man dumped a bolt of cloth onto the floor with a thump, then started pushing at it with a boot. I wasn’t up to using my divination, but through my magesight I could sense spells.

I tried to shift position and realised that my hands were held behind my back. Cautiously I explored with my fingers and touched cold metal. Handcuffs. I lay still, trying to think of options. No good ones came to mind, and the pain in my head wasn’t making it any easier. All I could think of was my lockpicks, but I wasn’t sure I had them anymore: my pockets felt lighter than they should have been.

The men around the chamber were still working. There were a lot of them, but Arachne’s lair is a big place, and they apparently weren’t in any hurry. I tried again to sit up, and still failed, though at least I didn’t throw up this time. Footsteps approached from my blind side and I held still.

A pair of heavy boots came into my vision. “You awake?” Caldera said from what felt like a long way above.

I couldn’t have answered even if I’d wanted to. Caldera hauled me into a sitting position, propping my back against the wall. Another wave of nausea rolled over me, and I fought to keep myself from vomiting again. Once my vision cleared, I saw that Caldera was squatting down in front of me. She held one finger up, and pale brown light glowed from the tip.

“You see the light?” Caldera asked. She moved it from side to side; my eyes tracked it with difficulty. “Is it blurry? Doubled?”

Focusing on the light was too hard. I closed my eyes and tried to talk. “Why?”

“You’ve got a concussion,” Caldera said. “Don’t move your head around. We’ll get a life mage to look at you.”

I would have laughed if I could. I’ll get healed before I’m executed. How nice.

Caldera stayed squatting in front of me. All around, the search continued. “Who was it?” I said, not opening my eyes.

“Who was what?”

“Who signed the death warrant this time?”

“There’s no death warrant.”

I cracked my eyes open. Caldera was looking at me eye to eye. “What there is,” Caldera said, “is an indictment. For you to be held for questioning.”

“Levistus finally got his four votes?”

Caldera looked at me with something like pity. “It wasn’t four. It was seven.”

The last struggling hopes within me died. I wanted to believe that Caldera was lying, but I’d worked with her long enough to know she wasn’t. “What’s the charge?”

“The charge is,” Caldera said, “that you are responsible for the San Vittore attack. Eighteen counts of murder, three counts of treason, and one count of assisting in the escape of a mage prisoner. Plus assault, grievous harm, and destruction of Council property, but we can probably put that aside for now.”

I closed my eyes and rested my head against the wall. It was what I’d expected. Honestly, it was what I’d been expecting for a long time.

“Going to deny it?” Caldera said.

“Is there any point?”

“Could be. Because you didn’t actually do most of that stuff. Did you?”

I opened my eyes to look at Caldera. “You think I’m innocent now?”

“Oh, you’re guilty of some of it,” Caldera said. “But the murders and the prisoner escape? We both know who did that.”

I was silent. “You can stop lying, Alex,” Caldera said. “We know what really happened.”

“Because of you,” I said. “Right? You were the one to figure it out.”

Caldera just looked at me.

“How?”

“I told you,” Caldera said. “I know a bullshit story when I hear one. I knew you were lying at the inquest. Just didn’t know why.”

“And so you put Sonder on it.”

“Don’t blame this one on Sonder,” Caldera said. “He tried to duck out of it. I had to call in favours and go over his head. And in the meantime, I kept digging. Tried to figure out what really happened in San Vittore. I’ve been working that case for months on my own time. And I didn’t find shit. You know why?”

I wasn’t in the mood for this. “No.”

“I was looking for the wrong thing,” Caldera said. “For evidence of you colluding with Morden or Drakh, or some crime you’d done at the scene, or some backroom deal you didn’t want to come out. Came up empty every time, and I couldn’t figure out why. What was so important to you that you’d throw out all that smoke?”

I was silent.

“That day in the courtroom, I was about ready to give it up,” Caldera said. “And then I remembered that there was one thing I hadn’t looked into. I’d checked everything about you, but I hadn’t checked the person you went in with. And when I started thinking about that, I remembered what happened a few years ago, back before you became an auxiliary. When she got snatched by those Dark apprentices, you didn’t just look into it, did you? You chased them blind right into a shadow realm. And that made me wonder—maybe you weren’t doing this for yourself after all. Maybe you were protecting someone.”

“Well, you figured it all out,” I said. I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. “You won, I lost, you proved you’re smarter than me. Is that what you want to hear?”

“I’ll make you a deal,” Caldera said. “You become a sanctioned witness, you waive your rights and agree to give a verified confession, I’ll make your sentence as lenient as I can. You still have a few friends on the Council. I’ll even testify myself. I figure I owe you that much.”

“That’s your deal?”

“Best you’re going to get.”

I looked away.

“Alex,” Caldera said. “Let’s get real, okay? They’re getting your confession. Either you give it up voluntarily, or the mind mages pull it out of your head.”

“Now who’s talking bullshit?” I said. “There’s not going to be any lenient sentence. Levistus and Sal Sarque have been wanting this for years. There’s only one sentence they’re going to sign off on.”

“You knew the game when you sat down to play.”

“A game?” Suddenly I was furious. “Fuck you. This was only a game for you. For you this was about your job and your ego. For me it was life and death.”

Caldera shrugged.

“Where’s Anne?”

“She’s not your concern anymore.”

“I want to see her.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen.” Caldera looked at me. “That offer of leniency? Doesn’t include her.”

I swallowed. My throat was suddenly dry. “What’s going to happen to her?”

“You know what she did.”

“It won’t happen again.” I hated how weak my words sounded, but I had to try. “She can control it now.”

“That’s not your choice to make.”

“She was possessed, she wasn’t the one making the decisions. You have to know that.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“You can’t just kill her!”

“That adept your team ran into in that Devon facility was possessed by a jinn too,” Caldera said. “What did you do to him?”

We killed him. I couldn’t say that out loud. “That’s different.”

“Alex, she killed eighteen people,” Caldera said. “And those are just the ones we know about. I know she wasn’t in control of her own actions. I know this is the latest piece of shitty luck in what’s been a pretty shitty life. But the law says she has to go, and the law’s right. She’s a danger to everyone else.”

“If it means losing her, I don’t care about everyone else.”

Caldera raised her eyebrows. “You really mean that?”

I didn’t answer. Caldera rose and walked away.

The men around us were still working. Some of them were starting to pack Arachne’s clothing and gear away into boxes. It was the same treatment we’d given the facility in Devon. It felt a lot different having it happen to a place I’d thought of as home. I tried to think of something I could do and came up blank.

I didn’t have long to wait. Caldera came back and hauled me to my feet. “Up.”

“Where are we going?”

It was a pretty pointless question, and Caldera didn’t bother to answer. She just put an arm through mine and dragged me.

I craned my neck, trying to ignore the pain in my head. There were various Keepers and security men around. Few were ones I knew, and the ones I did know were all ones I recognised for the wrong reasons. They’d probably gone out of their way to pick Keepers who didn’t like me. But it was Anne I was really looking for.

Then I saw her, and stopped dead. Or would have if it had been up to me. Caldera dragged me along. “What the hell?” I said.

“Keep walking, Alex.”

Anne was being led out from one of the back rooms, and she was so heavily restrained that I could barely tell it was her. A hood covered her entire head, her arms were bound behind her in a single sleeve, and her ankles were linked by a chain so she was forced to take short, shuffling steps. A pair of security men directed her with rods fixed to a collar around her neck. Two more mages and four more security men formed a perimeter around her, watching with a wary eye.

“Why are you treating her like that?” I demanded.

“Because she’s dangerous enough to need it,” Caldera said. She hadn’t slowed down, and now she pushed me forward into the tunnel leading out. I craned my neck to try to see Anne, but I’d already lost sight of her.

“She wasn’t threatening any of you! The only reason she even—”

“Take it up with HQ.”

Caldera marched me up the tunnel. I tried to reach out to Anne, talk to her, but my dreamstone was gone. Caldera kept me moving, not letting me hang back to let the others catch up.

The difference between how Anne and I were being treated said a lot about how much of a threat they thought I was, and the bitter part was that they were right. Right now, there was nothing at all I could do to stop Caldera from taking me away. Once we got to the surface and away from the cave’s wards, they’d take us through a gate, probably to San Vittore or somewhere equally bad. Once they did, I was finished. I’d have no chance of escape. I’d never see Anne again either. And there was nothing I could do about it.

Caldera led me out into Hampstead Heath. It was night and the Heath was quiet, the lights of Highgate glinting from across the ponds, the park itself dark and still. The air was still warm from the evening, and trees were black silhouettes against the sky.

A Keeper was waiting for us at the entrance. His name was Avenor; I’d never liked him much, and from the way he ignored me and addressed Caldera, he didn’t seem very cut up about my current status. “Diviner’s pulled out,” he told Caldera. “Last forecast was that everything’s quiet.”

“We clear for a gate?” Caldera asked.

“Got some civilians in the AO. We’ll have them gone in a couple of minutes.”

Caldera nodded and pulled me up the valley and out into the woods.

Once we were twenty feet or so from the ravine, Caldera stopped and we waited in silence. The trees stood around us, just faintly visible in the reflected light from the clouds above. I tried to think of something I could do but Caldera was keeping my arm locked in hers, and her grip was like iron. My head was still spinning and my leg hurt like hell. Even without the handcuffs I knew I’d have no chance against her, but I had to do something. I looked ahead, searching for something, some kind of edge . . .

I went still.

“Sergeant?” Avenor said from near the ravine. “We clear?”

Caldera looked over at him, waiting. Avenor stood for a moment, tapping his foot, then put a hand to one ear, talking into his communicator. “Sergeant Barnes. Please confirm that the civilians have been removed from the area and we’re clear for gate. Over.”

A few seconds passed. “What’s keeping him?” Caldera said.

“No answer.” I couldn’t make out Avenor’s expression, but he sounded irritated. “This is what happens when you count on normals.”

From the ravine, I heard the scrape of footsteps and I knew Anne was being brought up. Caldera sighed and spoke into her own focus. “Keeper Caldera to perimeter team. Need a report on those civilians, over.”

Seconds ticked by and I felt Caldera frown. The security men at the front of Anne’s detail climbed up out of the ravine, followed by the two men holding her collar poles. I saw Anne appear in the darkness, looking blindly from left to right. “Perimeter team, report in now,” Caldera said.

“You might want to duck,” I said quietly.

Caldera started to turn.

A bolt of black energy hit Caldera in the chest. Her eyes went wide but she didn’t let go of my arm, and as she fell she dragged me down with her. As I went down I caught a split-second glimpse of a green ray lancing out of the dark, striking one of the men holding Anne’s collar; he arched his back to scream and was gone in a flash of dust.

Caldera and I hit the ground, pain jolting through my head and leg. Shouts echoed through the night; there was the muzzle flash and chatter of automatic weapon fire, three-round bursts going ratatat, ratatat. A fireball burst next to us with a wash of hot air, lighting up the Council troops in hellish red. Caldera rolled, taking cover behind a tree. “Keeper Caldera to all units, we’re under attack at the cave entrance! Enemy force with battle-mages. Reinforce immediately, over!”

Caldera had lost her grip on me when she fell, and I’d taken the opportunity to duck away. She came up to one knee, looking around; her gaze fell upon me. “Alex!” Caldera hissed. “Get here! Now!”

I crouched behind a tree and looked back at her silently. Caldera’s expression darkened. She rose to her feet and stepped towards me.

The night ahead of us went black in an oval-shaped pattern of space magic, masked and opaque. Caldera reacted instantly, moving to attack. A mage jumped through and walked right into Caldera’s punch. He got up a shield but the impact threw him twenty feet into the trees.

Caldera held her ground, blocking the gateway. A muzzle flash strobed from somewhere in the darkness, and bullets ricocheted from her skin. “This is Keeper Caldera!” Caldera snapped into her com. “I repeat, we are under—”

A black-and-green shape came out of the gateway, tall and slim and moving fast. Caldera struck and the figure slid aside; it lashed out and Caldera staggered and fell back. Then I felt the signature of air magic from above, spells lancing down.

I pressed myself against the tree, but the attacks hadn’t been aimed at me. I felt blades of air go whistling into the ravine and heard a man scream. Lightning flashed and in its strobe I saw more men running at me.

I hesitated an instant, weighing my options, then held my ground. Two men ran past with barely a glance; the third grabbed me and started dragging me back towards the gate. Shouts and gunfire sounded from all around us, bullets and spells flying back and forth in the darkness.

We’d made it all the way back to the gate when I caught a glimpse of Caldera. She was off to the right, engaged in a furious battle against two enemies at once; she was hurt but still upright, defensive spells a glowing halo to my magesight, and her eyes fell on me. I saw her expression twist in anger and she lifted a hand, aiming an attack, then a deathbolt slammed into her and knocked her off balance and before she could recover, the man with me shoved me through.

I staggered through into artificial light. I was in a wide square room, the floor concrete, rusted metal hanging down from above. Looking around, I saw half a dozen men. One was focusing on the gateway; all were dressed in dark clothing and masks; several were watching me. None spoke.

“Uh,” I said. I wasn’t sensing any immediate threat, but I was getting a bad feeling about this. “Hi.”

The men watched silently. Seconds ticked away. I knew that on the other side of the gate, a battle must be raging, but there was no sound. I looked to see what the men’s reactions would be if I tried to leave, whether through the gate or out of the room. Not good.

A new figure stepped through the gate and as it did, the futures changed. Suddenly there was danger, along with all kinds of chaotic outcomes, branching and multiplying from the figure walking towards me. It was hard to catch any details, but I tried to focus on him . . . her? . . . yes, her . . . and at least figure out who she . . .

Uh-oh.

The woman reached up and did something to her face. The spell masking her face dissolved, revealing another mask. It was a black silk domino, with short blond hair hanging behind it. The eyes behind the eyeholes were blue, but I didn’t need to look at them. I knew who it was.

“Hey,” one of the other men said. “We aren’t—”

“Shut up,” Rachel said as she smiled at me. It wasn’t a nice smile. “Hello, Alex.”

I didn’t reply. My divination has never worked well on Rachel—she’s too impulsive and too crazy—but somehow I was sure that anything I did say had the potential to go very, very badly.

“You have no idea how long I’ve been looking forward to this,” Rachel said. “I’d love to tell you what’s going to happen to you, but I really don’t want to deal with you trying to escape. So . . .” She walked forward, taking something out from a pocket.

There was nowhere to run and no point trying. I stood my ground, staring back at Rachel. She walked up to me and pressed something to my neck, and for a second time the world went black.

I drifted through darkness. Time passed.

Gradually I woke. It was a gentler process this time. No pain or nausea, just a slow, gradual transition from sleep to consciousness. Bit by bit I became aware that I was lying on a bed on my side, and that I was alone. I opened my eyes.

I was in a small bedroom. The bed was comfortable, with a wooden headboard, and an armchair sat against the far side of the room. Two windows were set into the wall, both covered with translucent curtains and radiating magic. There was a single door.

Experimentally I tried to move. Nothing stopped me; the handcuffs were gone. Touching my head, I realised that my injuries were, too. My head wasn’t hurting and neither was the rest of me: it was as if I’d never been hurt at all.

I swung my legs off the bed and sat up, then stood, testing my weight on the injured leg. There was no pain or stiffness; whoever had healed me had done a very good job. Rising and walking to the window, I drew back the curtains to reveal a view out onto a winter landscape. Snow covered the grass beyond the window and the trees farther back, and more snow was falling softly from a grey sky. The windows were treated with spells to ward off heat, as well as anyone trying to break through. It was all very cosy.

I didn’t feel cosy. I felt horribly vulnerable and exposed. Despite the comfort of the setting, all my instincts were telling me that my position was very, very bad.

I was in some kind of safe house or fortress, probably within a shadow realm. There was about a ninety-five percent chance that it was owned either by Richard, or by another member of his cabal. The fact that I’d been healed and left to wake up in comfort was positive; the fact that the door was locked and alarmed was not. Taken together, it looked as though I was about to be offered some kind of deal, probably the kind that carried very bad consequences if I said no.

I paced up and down. Too many things had happened too fast, and I was still feeling disoriented, like a boxer who’d taken too many shots to the head. The Council had found out about Anne. Arachne was gone. I was a prisoner, and probably Anne was too. Any one of those things was really, really bad, and I didn’t know how to fix any of them. Out of the three, Arachne being gone was probably the most survivable. I didn’t know how the dragon had taken her away, or where she’d been transported to, but she was alive, and probably safe. Which was more than could be said of us.

The Council finding out about Anne was a disaster. Both of us were probably already outlaws. The last time this had happened, we’d been saved at the last minute by an unasked-for favour from Morden. I didn’t think we could count on that happening again. What we had done this time was much worse, and the Council wasn’t going to forgive us, not ever. They were going to hunt us to the ends of the earth.

Of course, depending on the next couple of hours, the Council hunting us could be the least of our problems.

I sensed movement in the futures and steeled myself, turning to face the door. Here it comes.

The handle turned. Richard Drakh stepped through and shut the door behind him.

You’d never guess to look at him that Richard is one of the most powerful and feared mages in the British Isles. He has brown hair, dark eyes, a neutral sort of face with no distinguishing marks, and dresses in such a way as to look as nondescript as possible. It’s quite deliberate: Richard can easily catch people’s attention or intimidate them, but he deliberately chooses to fly under the radar. Until he suddenly doesn’t.

Richard scares me more than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s not because he’s particularly cruel or sadistic—as far as that goes, Vihaela has him beaten on both counts—and he doesn’t have the invulnerability or connections of someone like Levistus. What frightens me about Richard is something much simpler. For most of my life, I’ve survived in a world of enemies bigger and stronger than me by being smarter than them. Richard is the one person I’ve never been able to outsmart.

“Alex,” Richard said. His voice was just as I remembered it, deep and commanding. “Sit.”

I did as I was told. When I’d met Richard a few years ago, he’d been patient, allowing me to set the tone of the conversation. This time was going to be different.

Richard sat in the armchair and clasped his hands. “I think it is time for you to learn exactly what has been going on.”

I managed to keep my voice steady. “I would appreciate that.”

Richard nodded. “Here is what will happen. I will talk, and you will listen. No comments or questions; you will have that opportunity later. Once you understand your position, I will ask you a question. Your answer to that question will have immediate and far-reaching consequences. As such, I recommend you pay close attention. Do you understand?”

My mouth was dry enough that I didn’t trust myself to speak. I nodded.

“Good,” Richard said. “I have been aware for many years that to fulfil my long-term plans, I would need additional resources. As you know, that decision eventually led me to the jinn, which in turn led me to the question of how to best harness their capabilities. I will not go into detail as to the research I conducted, nor the numerous dead ends. What matters is that after various failures, I decided that the crucial variable was the identity of the subject. As you are aware, jinn require a bearer—preferably a human—to utilise their wishes. The subject functions as a lens. If the lens is imperfect, the great majority of the jinn’s power is wasted. The more powerful the jinn, the greater the requirements on the bearer. And the jinn I was interested in was the most powerful of all.

“The requirements in question were specific. The subject had to be a powerful mage, possessed of both strength and skill. They had to be empathic, capable of partnering with the jinn in an emotional link. And they had to be strong-willed and ruthless. As you would expect, the last two requirements caused the greatest difficulty. Finding someone who satisfied one was easy; finding one who satisfied both was all but impossible. Until I came across an almost perfect subject.”

I felt cold. I knew where this was going.

“I was interested to learn that you and she had developed a relationship,” Richard said. “I doubt it was a coincidence. I suspect rather it was a case of assortative matching. You, after all, shared some of those traits too. Once I was prepared, I approached the two of you in Sagash’s shadow realm.

“I honestly do not think that either you or Anne fully understand just how much easier your lives would have been if you had accepted that offer four years ago. At a conservative guess, it would have deterred somewhere around eighty percent of your current enemies. You certainly wouldn’t have had to deal with that death sentence, nor the constant assassination attempts, and Anne’s bond with the jinn would have been made safely and under controlled conditions. But I told you at the time that it was a free choice, and I meant it. When you turned me down, I withdrew, though not without misgivings. I had no intention of allowing Anne to die, whether at the hands of Sagash and Crystal or anyone else.

“However, watching you together, something occurred to me. I’d noticed your protective manner towards your companion, and I remembered how the fate of that girl, Katherine, had been such a sticking point for you all those years ago. I could not protect Anne directly without raising suspicion—but you could. And so I decided, on that day, that you would be my agent in this matter. You would protect Anne in my stead, and because you did so of your own volition, you would be a far more motivated guardian than any mercenary.

“Of course, while you were protecting Anne, someone needed to be protecting you. That someone was me.” Richard smiled slightly. “I’ve been your guardian angel, Alex, though you may not appreciate it. On at least three occasions that you know of, and at least two that you do not, I’ve intervened to keep you alive. I’m sure you must be aware of it to some extent. You’re brave and resourceful, but do you really think that you would have survived this long on your own? Why do you think Morden went out on a limb to shield you? But anything you owed, you have more than repaid. Over and over again, you proved that you were the right choice. Sagash’s shadow realm, the pursuit following your death sentence, the Vault, those attacks on Anne’s home . . . even when those Crusader assassins abducted her two years ago. In that matter, I admit, I was in error. I’d considered the possibility of their moving against her, but I simply did not believe that they could be so stupid. But every time, when it most counted, you were there.

“Needless to say, I was never going to allow you or Anne to be executed by the Council. Once I learned that they were moving against you at Arachne’s lair, I prepared a response. We waited for them to expose themselves by bringing you outside the cave, then struck. I was sorry to hear of Arachne’s departure; I always found her a fascinating conversationalist. But to answer the question that is no doubt foremost in your thoughts, yes, Anne is safe. We extracted her along with you, and she is resting in this very building. You’ll have the opportunity to see her shortly.”

I wanted to see her sooner, but I held my tongue. Knowing that she was here made me feel a little better, but only a little. I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“Which brings us to Anne and her current situation,” Richard said. “Quite simply, I need Anne as a host for the jinn. In many ways, she is perfectly prepared for the role. She’s honed her magical skills and power, and she has hosted it in the past. Their relationship has grown to the point where I believe she could fully utilise the jinn’s power. And believe me, that power is vast. The jinn that was bound within that ring is a marid, the sultan of all of the jinn in the waning days of their empire, and it was its binding by the master mage Suleiman that ended the war. It is one of the most powerful of its race ever to exist. However, without a human lens, that power is useless. Each time that Anne has called upon the jinn, the strength of their bond has grown, and its ability to act through her has increased. If she calls upon it once more, their connection will be complete. Its full power will be at her disposal.

“Which brings us to our problem. Currently, Anne is not willing to cooperate. You can see how this presents an issue. As you know, I prefer willing servants, but I have spent considerable resources on bringing Anne to this position, and my patience has limits. She will take up her place as host to the jinn. The only question is how.

“I can, of course, employ force. I can threaten Anne, or use mind magic to control her actions directly. However, both of these approaches come with undesirable side effects. I believe that to reach her full potential, Anne must complete her contract with the jinn of her own volition. And I believe the key to doing so lies with you.”

I blinked at that.

“I see you’re confused,” Richard said. “A blind spot, perhaps? Well, I believe it is important that you understand. Because this ties in very much with you. Have you considered why you are in this position now? Not here in this room, but your overall situation. If I released you right now, dropped you into the middle of London, how long do you think you would last before the Council picked you up? A week? Less? You are, right at this moment, one short step below me and Morden on the Council’s most-wanted list. They’re sending out bulletins as we speak, and come tomorrow, you will be unable to set foot in any city in Britain without drawing hunters. So I think you should take a moment to consider just how you have managed to sabotage your life and professional career so thoroughly.

“Your life has reached this point of disaster because of the choices you have made, and the choices you have made have stemmed from the type of person you have tried to be. You have attempted to be, for want of a better phrase, a ‘nice guy.’ Compassionate, loyal, a protector of the weak, et cetera. I won’t address the question of how you can view yourself in this manner while having killed more people in your career than most Dark mages do in their entire lives. What matters is that nearly all of your worst decisions have directly stemmed from being too nice—or, to be more accurate, being insufficiently ruthless. Your attempted betrayal as my apprentice. Your alienation of Levistus. Your failed attempts to protect Anne from crimes for which she is self-evidently guilty. Take Levistus, since that is the most blatant. As I understand it, during the White Rose affair, Levistus specifically warned you of what the consequences would be if you acted against his interests. You ignored him, and he quite predictably responded by having you sentenced to death. You survived only due to my intervention. Let me be very clear, Alex: both your sentence and the ensuing pursuit were entirely your own fault. Levistus was more powerful than you, and you could not afford to make an enemy of him, yet you did. You then compounded your error by failing to strengthen your own position. All because you were unwilling to make the necessary sacrifices.

“Now take your current situation with Anne. Under Light laws, the Council are fully entitled to sentence you and Anne to death. A Light mage would say that you have broken the Concord and must face the penalty. A Dark mage would point out that the real issue is that the Council have the ability to enforce their decisions on you and Anne, while you do not have any ability to enforce your will on them in return. A Dark mage in such a position would have taken action to ensure that any attack by the Council would be defeated. By refusing to follow either the Light path or the Dark, you have failed at both. And once again, I am the one cleaning up your mistakes.”

Richard leant forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Listen to me, Alex. Your way of doing things does not work. Being nice does not work. The world is not ruled by those who are nice. The world is ruled by those who understand power and how to use it. That you are sitting here is proof of this. You no longer have the luxury of depending on me to bail you out of trouble. Except in your case the problem goes further, because this is not about you. It is about Anne.

“Anne, like you, still believes that one should be nice. In her case, however, much of the strength of that belief stems from her relationship with you. If you had not been there that day in Sagash’s shadow realm, she would have accepted my offer. But you were there, and you advised her against it, and she listened, because she trusts you.

“And that brings us to the present. I need Anne to host the jinn. I cannot persuade her to do so voluntarily. Neither can Morden, nor Vihaela, nor anyone else. Except you. And that is why you are here. Because for better or for worse, you are the one person able to convince her to take this action of her own free will. So we come to the point of decision. Will you cooperate, or not?”

I looked at Richard. Richard looked back at me.

“You want me to convince Anne to host the jinn,” I said.

“I want you to make Anne host the jinn. The precise method, I leave to you.”

“She’s not going to do something like that because I ask her.”

“Alex, you’re not inviting her on a date. I’m not talking about asking her. Anne has been tempted by the jinn’s power many times, and at present she is resisting that temptation, and the keystone of that resistance is her relationship with you. I want you to destroy that keystone. Please do not insult my intelligence by asking how. You are more than capable of solving that problem yourself.”

“If Anne calls on that jinn again, she won’t be able to get it out,” I said. “She’ll lose herself.”

“To an extent.”

“There’s no way she’d do that willingly. You’re asking me to force her.”

“Yes.”

I took a deep breath. “What’ll happen to her?”

“She will fight on the front lines in the war to overthrow the Light Council,” Richard said. “I can’t promise she’ll be entirely safe, but I fully expect her to survive. Actually, with that jinn, she’ll be considerably safer than she has been with you. You will have access to her as long as it does not interfere with her duties. Provided she wants to see you, of course. Depending on the means you use to convince her, you may find it wise to allow a cooling-off period before attempting to resume your relationship. But I think she will come to understand the necessity of your actions given time.”

“Except that it won’t be her,” I said quietly. “Will it? She’ll be some combination of your slave and the jinn’s puppet.”

Richard held out his hands, palms upwards, in an equivocal gesture.

“What happens to her afterwards?”

“I have no objection to making some quality-of-life efforts on her behalf. However, the job comes first.”

I took a breath. “Was this what you did to Rachel?”

Richard raised an eyebrow.

“That thing inside her head,” I said. I’d caught a glimpse of it once, a long time ago, while visiting Rachel’s Elsewhere. Back then, I hadn’t understood what it was, but all of a sudden, it made sense. “It’s a jinn, isn’t it? Were you planning this, right from the start? Was she the prototype?”

“More accurately, it was a possibility I was considering,” Richard said. “I had taken certain steps to facilitate the process, but before I could take action, Rachel linked with a jinn on her own. The results were . . . mixed, but she did provide some valuable insights about the necessary conditions in the forging of a human-jinn bond.”

“You’ve got one too, haven’t you?” I said. “That was what you were using in the fighting in the Vault.”

“You’re stalling, Alex.”

I was running out of cards to play. “You know the jinn isn’t going to follow your orders,” I said. “It hates humans. All of them.”

“I will take care of the jinn.”

“How are—?”

“That is not your concern. Enough questions.”

“One more question,” I said. “What if I say no?”

“I’m afraid you don’t quite understand,” Richard said. “You are going to help me. Your choice is whether to do so willingly. I don’t often give people second chances. I gave you two, and you turned them both down. Understand clearly that this is your last. Should you reject this final offer, there will be no more reprieves. I will take the necessary steps to gain what I need without your cooperation. You will not enjoy the experience.

“And so you come to the point of decision. Assist me, and bring Anne under my control. Or refuse, and suffer the consequences. There is no third option. Choose.”

I found myself remembering that conversation with Dark Anne in Elsewhere. She’d told me that I’d never convinced anyone with my words, that no one ever listened when I talked about what I believed in. Maybe she’d been so vehement because Anne was one of the few people who had listened. And that was why Richard wanted to use me now. To manipulate her, trick her, or break her the way I’d done with my enemies in the past.

A terrible weariness seeped through me. I knew where this was going, and I knew the answer I was going to give. It wasn’t even a choice. I wanted so badly to drag this out, buy a few more moments, and I knew it was hopeless. The edge of the cliff was getting nearer, and all I could think of was digging my heels in to slow down the inevitable.

I opened my mouth, took a deep breath. Saying the next word was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. “No.”

Silence. I kept my eyes down at the floor.

“I see,” Richard said.

“Sorry to disappoint you.” I couldn’t bring myself to meet Richard’s gaze; all I could do was put some bitterness into my words. “I guess I haven’t exactly turned out to be what you wanted in an apprentice.”

“I am disappointed, yes.” Richard’s voice was calm, and all of a sudden I felt sure that he’d known what my answer was going to be, known it before I said it. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why refuse? You must know what the consequences will be. Why choose a course so obviously self-destructive?”

I could have lied, tried to spin a story, but if this was going to be the end, I wanted to tell the truth. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes.” I managed to look up. Richard was watching me, apparently curious. “You’re right, it is my fault that I’m here. I’ve made bad decisions and I’ve done a lot of things I’m not happy about. But there’s one thing I’ve never done, and that’s betray a friend. What you want me to do to Anne . . . it’d be taking everything I love, everything that matters to me, and breaking it. I won’t do it.”

Richard looked at me, and I met his gaze. The fear was still there, but now, at the end, there was an odd sense of freedom. I didn’t have to play games anymore.

“That is unfortunate,” Richard said at last. He rose to his feet, straightened his jacket, then nodded to me. “Good-bye, Alex.” He walked out and the door closed behind him. There was something final about the sound.