Fallen

chapter 13

The Hollow was quiet in the darkness. Both Luna and Vari had gone home to sleep and I was alone. I should have been tired but instead I felt wide awake and full of energy. I walked through the Hollow’s woods, listening to the wind in the trees.

The fateweaver seemed to pulse in my hand, singing a song that only I could hear. I traced the futures, flicking from one possibility to another. There was a bird roosting in the branches just above, and I climbed the tree, going hand over foot in pitch dark. I crawled out along the branch, pushing away the futures in which the bird woke, until I was close enough to reach out and brush its feathers. The bird stirred drowsily, carried on sleeping. I dropped lightly to the grass below and kept walking. I’d just wanted to see if I could do it.

A presence appeared in the futures ahead and I turned towards it. I walked into a clearing, moonlight shining down from above, picking out the blades of grass and fallen leaves. At the other side of the clearing, barely visible in the darkness, the light glinted off a pair of eyes.

I stopped a little distance away and crouched down. “Hey, Hermes. How’s it going?”

Hermes moved cautiously forward and stopped just beyond arm’s reach. I held out my right hand. The blink fox leant forward, sniffed. His tail flicked from side to side.

“What do you think?” I asked.

Hermes looked up at me, down at my hand, then backed away and disappeared into the shadows. He gave me a final glance over his shoulder, then was gone.

“I guess I’ll put you down as a maybe,” I said to the darkness.

It was a couple of hours before dawn. There were two people I needed to talk to, and looking through the futures, I saw that they were finally asleep. I turned back towards my bed.

I slipped through Elsewhere like a fish through water, feeling the currents and eddies pulling me this way and that. Funnily enough, this was one place where the fateweaver didn’t make things any easier—in Elsewhere, your mind is a better tool than any magic. I found the door I was looking for and opened it.

I stepped through into a darkened gym. Scattered patches of white light illuminated heavy bags, floor mats, and a boxing ring. At the far end, a door stood half open, light spilling out around the edges: whether it led deeper into the building or out into the night, I couldn’t say. The sounds of city traffic drifted in from outside, and under that, just audible at the edge of hearing, a woman’s laughter.

There was someone else in the gym with me. I couldn’t see him, but I could hear impacts, blows thudding into a punchbag. They were rhythmic, steady; one, one-two, one-two, one-two-three. With the end of each combination, there would be a faint metallic clinking as the support chain swung back.

“Got a minute?” I said into the darkness.

The sounds of impact cut off. The punchbag swung for a second or two longer, creaking, then was still. Seconds ticked by. I could feel myself being watched, but didn’t move.

Cinder stepped out of the blackness. He was wearing shorts and a white sleeveless T-shirt, and looked younger than I remembered. Sweat glistened on his bare arms. He looked at me for a moment, then walked past me to the side of the room, disappearing back into the darkness. There was the squeak of a faucet, followed by the splash of running water.

“I’m guessing Kyle gave you an update,” I said to the shadows.

Cinder reappeared. Water dripped from his hair, and he had a towel slung around his neck. He studied me without comment.

“A while ago, we made me a deal,” I said. “You’d help me out, and in exchange, you wanted me to split Deleo away from Richard. You changed your mind about that?”

Cinder looked at me, then folded his arms. “No.”

I nodded. “I think I know how to do it.”

“When?”

“As soon as I get the opportunity,” I said. “Most likely, Richard’s next operation. If you can give me any notice, it’d be helpful.”

Cinder nodded.

“One other thing,” I said. “If what I’m planning works, Richard is not going to be happy with her. Personally, this doesn’t bother me very much. But if you still want to help her, she’ll probably need it.”

“Anything else?”

“No.”

Cinder turned to go.

“Wait,” I said.

Cinder paused, looked back at me.

“I’m not going to ask what happened between the two of you,” I said. “I figure it’s your business. But when you fought your way out of Richard’s shadow realm, Deleo stayed behind.”

“So?”

“So why do you still care about helping her?”

Cinder studied me for a moment. “You lost a hand,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“Kyle said it was your girlfriend,” Cinder said.

“Yeah.”

“You giving up on her?”

I looked back at Cinder, then gave a short laugh.

Cinder walked away, the darkness swallowing him up. I turned and walked back to the door. Guess we’ve got more in common than I thought.

The better you know someone, and the more history you have with them, the easier it is to find their dreams through Elsewhere. It had taken me a little while to reach Cinder. Finding my next target was easier.

The door opened up into a room with a high arched ceiling and painted white walls. It could have been a palace but the proportions were off, more like a scaled-up doll’s house. People were scattered throughout the room, talking amongst themselves; they wore fine clothes but there was something insubstantial about them. I walked through the crowd, listening with half an ear to the muffled voices, searching for the presence ahead.

At the end of the room was a dais with a gilded throne, and sitting on the throne was Rachel. She wore clothes of purple and gold, trimmed with white fur, and she sat leaning forward, her brows drawn down in a frown. She tapped her fingers on the throne as she stared down at the boy addressing her from in front of the dais. He was young and plainly dressed; something about him looked familiar and it took me a moment to place him. He looked like Zander, one of the slaves from Richard’s mansion, back when Rachel and I had been apprentices.

Rachel asked Zander something. Zander responded slowly, and Rachel snapped at him, her voice sharp. Others were watching from around the walls, dressed in courtiers’ outfits: they gestured with fans, pointed and laughed. The murmur of their words never grew quite loud enough to be understandable, but it was a distraction, drowning out what Zander was saying.

Rachel was growing angry. She pointed at Zander, giving him orders; Zander responded sluggishly, as if confused. Rachel rose to her feet, her face a mask of anger. A green ray stabbed out and Zander disintegrated into dust.

“There!” Rachel shouted. “You see?”

The audience giggled and laughed. No one seemed upset or shocked; they reacted like schoolchildren to a teacher they didn’t respect. Rachel screamed at them and they slipped away, turning and ducking into the crowd. I saw other faces I recognised, shifting and changing; Tobruk and Morden, Vihaela and Onyx. From all around, the murmur of conversation continued unabated. Some of the crowd were drinking; I saw a woman who looked like Crystal lower a goblet, a red stain around her lips.

Rachel had sat back down on her throne and was giving orders. A couple of servants nodded and listened with half an ear: they didn’t seem to be paying attention. I could see Rachel getting angrier and angrier. Apparently, even now, she wasn’t getting the respect she wanted.

She doesn’t seem very happy, I thought coldly. I watched Rachel a moment longer.

Then I blew her throne into a million pieces.

Rachel came tumbling out of the explosion, a shield of green light glowing around her, eyes snapping from side to side. Bits of throne came showering down. “Hey, Rachel,” I called, stepping out of the crowd and into plain view. “I’m back.”

A green ray flashed out at me. I bent it aside and it hit the figure who might have been Crystal. The phantom shape thinned and faded, the goblet shattering to splatter its contents on the floor. The watching audience pointed and laughed. Rachel fired another disintegrate spell, and again I bent it aside. A statue between the windows puffed into dust. “Not this time, Rachel,” I said.

“Don’t call me that!” Rachel shouted.

“Why?”

Rachel attacked again. It wasn’t even close. It was harder for me to change reality here in Rachel’s dreams than it would have been in Elsewhere, but I’d been practising for a long time and Rachel couldn’t hurt me. Of course, I couldn’t do anything to her either, but I was pretty sure she didn’t know that.

“So,” I said. I created a grey-blue sofa in the middle of the room and sat, leaning back against the cushions. “Want to guess why I’m here?”

“Get out,” Rachel said through clenched teeth.

“I’ll give you a hint. It’s to do with what happened at the Tiger’s Palace.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Don’t remember? Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. It probably didn’t make much of an impression on you.” I crossed my legs, settling back comfortably. “It was that evening last year. While we were waiting for the Council to kick in the door, we had a chat up there on the balcony.”

“I don’t care.”

“So anyway, I asked you why you hated me. Well, I got my answer, and you really didn’t hold back. You told me that I was a hypocrite, that I was just as power-hungry as any Dark mage, that I wanted the same things as you, I just wasn’t willing to pay the price for it. That I’d always known who Richard really was, and that the only reason I’d left was because I couldn’t handle taking orders. Remember?”

“Jesus,” Rachel said. “You’re justifying yourself in my dreams now?”

“Oh, Rachel, you’ve got it all wrong. I’m here to say thank you.”

Rachel stared.

“I had a talk with Shireen a few years ago, and she told me something that stuck with me,” I said. “Back when I was still Richard’s prisoner, right at the end, she came down to the dungeons to talk. She was having second thoughts by then—I guess she’d seen what you were turning into and it was making her nervous. Well, at that point I liked her about as much as you like me, so I really let her have it. Funny thing was, it turned out to be the most helpful thing I could have done. If we’d been friends, I would have tried to sugarcoat it and spare her feelings, but instead I was the one person in that mansion who told her the truth.”

“Don’t talk about her,” Rachel said, her voice low and dangerous.

“What, painful memory? That’s your problem, not mine. Anyway, like I was saying, it took me a while to realise that you were basically doing the same thing to me. You were the one person I could count on to be completely honest, because you hated me so much.”

“You’re welcome. Now get out of my head!”

“Why? We’re getting to the good part.” I leant forward, looking at Rachel intently. “You spent all that time telling me all the ways in which I was a loser and a hypocrite. You know the funny thing? I’m pretty sure you never considered I might decide you were right.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m congratulating you, Rachel. You’ve won. All these years, and you’ve finally convinced me that you were right and I was wrong. Except I don’t think you’re going to enjoy it very much, because the next thing I’m going to do is come after you and Richard. And you know what I’m going to do then? I’m going to take Richard up on his offer.”

“Bullshit.”

“He’s been wanting both Anne and me for a long time. Now he gets the complete set.”

“Too late,” Rachel said. “You already said no.”

“I’ve changed my mind.”

“You don’t get to change your mind!”

“Why?”

“You betrayed Richard. He’s not giving you another chance.”

“Richard didn’t become the most powerful Dark mage in the country by being inflexible.”

“He doesn’t need you anymore.”

“You really don’t understand, do you?” I said. “Now that Richard’s got Anne, he wants me twice as badly. He can control Anne with his dreamstone, but having me around will make everything so much easier.”

“You can’t do this!” I could see the anger on Rachel’s face. Good. “You stopped being a Dark mage! You can’t just turn around and come back!”

“But that’s what it means to be a Dark mage,” I said. “I can do whatever I want. The fact that you never got that is why you’ve been left behind while Richard’s promoted everyone else over your head. And soon, he’ll be promoting me over your head as well.”

Rachel’s face was drawn and white. “I’ll kill you first.”

“You’re welcome to try. I’m a lot more powerful now.” I gave Rachel a smile. “But even if I wasn’t, Richard would still choose me over you. You know why? Because as far as Richard is concerned, this has always been about Anne. He’s put up with your screwups and general insanity for this long because he’s needed you. But the last couple of years he’s needed you less and less. And once he has Anne fully under his control? He won’t need you at all.”

Rachel snapped. Green light flashed out and I leapt backwards, alighting on the floor as the sofa turned to dust. Rachel screamed in anger and went for me, but I slipped away, flitting with the speed of thought from cover to cover as disintegration rays exploded chunks of the palace hall. A final blast took out the floor at my feet as I flew through the door I’d entered from and back into Elsewhere.

I alighted and turned to face Rachel. She was striding towards the door, face set in fury. Rachel aimed another green ray at me: it reached the doorway and fizzled. She came to a halt.

Only a few steps separated Rachel from the doorway. Once she crossed that line, she’d be out of her dreams and into Elsewhere. I spread my hands invitingly. “Coming?”

Rachel stared murder at me but didn’t move.

“Didn’t think so.” I let my hands fall to my side. “I want you to tell Richard. Let him know that I’m coming to take up my old place. Tell him, Rachel. Because if you don’t, I will.” I turned and walked away.

Rachel didn’t follow. I could sense her eyes on me, but she stayed, safe in her own dreams, watching until I disappeared behind a building and vanished from her sight.

I heard a voice calling from behind me. Not Rachel, Shireen. “Alex! Wait!”

I didn’t want to talk to Shireen. I stepped out of Elsewhere, Shireen’s voice fading away as I slipped back into my own dreams.

“I do not even know where to start,” Klara said.

It was the next day. The Hollow was peaceful, birds singing in the trees and the midday sun shining down from above. Klara had come to check up on me as promised, and the visit was going a little differently from last time. For one thing, instead of being sprawled out on my mattress, I was sitting at my desk, my right arm laid out. Klara was leaning over it, frowning in concentration, her hair tied up out of the way of her eyes. Luna was leaning against the wall, staying quiet but obviously anxious. Landis wasn’t here, which concerned me slightly, but I had bigger problems to worry about.

“Are there any problems?” I asked.

“Problems would imply solutions,” Klara said. “I have no idea what I am looking at. The last I saw of you, your hand had been severed from your pattern. Now you have replaced it. How did this happen?”

“It’s complicated.”

“So I see. The thing on your arm is not a hand. It looks like a hand, it functions like a hand, but it clearly is not. It is an imbued item of some design I do not recognise at all, and whatever it was designed for, it was not to be a body part. Except that something has changed it into a body part, and now it has formed a symbiotic bond.”

“So what does that mean?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” Klara said. “For now, at least, it is functioning. The item has linked into your nervous system and even your circulation. But it has done so by overwriting your body’s pattern in the respective areas. It was clearly never designed for anything such as this, and I would not expect it to be stable.”

“Can you stabilise it?”

“Are you listening to me?” Klara said. “I have no idea how this works or what to expect. It could remain exactly like this for years. It could continue overwriting your pattern until you turn into a construct. It could feed off your blood until you drop dead from desiccation. I would not be surprised by any of these things.”

“Okay,” I said. “What do you recommend?”

“If I was only concerned with preserving your life, the recommended course of action would be amputation,” Klara said. “That would of course kill the item. A less hasty approach would be to study it, and you, in intensive care. That still runs the risk of exposing you to negative consequences, but we would have the chance to study the nature of the bond under controlled conditions, and determine whether it was developing, degenerating, or remaining stable.”

“I’m afraid neither of those are options.”

Klara looked frustrated but not surprised. “Very well. Then at the very least you must refrain from using the imbued item’s powers.”

“Why?”

“The item is tied into your body’s pattern. Each time you use it, it will adapt. The longer this goes on, the more difficult it will be to reverse.”

I nodded. “Unfortunately, I need to keep using it.”

“There is a good chance that doing so will kill you.”

“I’ll just have to see how it turns out.”

Klara threw up her hands and muttered something in German, then switched back to English. “I cannot help you if you will not cooperate. I will come back to check on you in three days, assuming you haven’t killed yourself by then.”

Klara left. “Don’t you think you should be listening to her?” Luna asked once she was gone.

“I am listening. I just have different priorities than she does.” I stretched, flexing my muscles. “Come on, let’s walk.”

I set off along one of the paths in the Hollow, enjoying the feel of the breeze on my face. Luna followed, looking unconvinced. “Have you heard from Vari?” I asked.

“No,” Luna said. “I was about to tell you when Klara arrived. When I woke up this morning, I had a text from him saying that there was a problem and he’d been called in. I haven’t been able to get in touch since.”

“Was the text from the early hours of the morning?” I said. “Around two or three A.M.?”

“Maybe?”

I nodded. “I think something’s happened with the Council.”

“Why?”

“I’ve been using the fateweaver to block their tracking spells,” I said. “I woke up around dawn to keep that going and found that I didn’t need to.”

Luna frowned. “So what does that mean?”

“Put together with Vari being called in and Landis not showing up? I think they’ve just been distracted by other problems.”

“I’m still worried about what Klara was saying,” Luna said. “Maybe you should stop using it.”

“You don’t understand how big a game-changer this is,” I said. I held up my right hand, the smooth ivory of the fateweaver bright in the midday sun. “I could never stand up against any of the really powerful mages before. Now, I can.”

“You’ve gone up against lots of powerful mages without the fateweaver,” Luna pointed out. “You seemed to do pretty well.”

“I really didn’t,” I said. “You have no idea how many times in the past five years I’ve been one mistake away from death. Over and over again, I get into situations where I have to do everything perfectly just to survive. And sometimes even that’s not enough. I use all of my skill and all of my knowledge, and the best I can do is set things up and hope that my enemy will fall for a trick, or someone else will come to the rescue. I don’t want to keep living because of other people’s slip-ups. I want to control my own fate.”

“Even if it kills you?”

“Trying to go up against Levistus and Richard without something like this will kill me,” I said. “Divination alone isn’t enough. You have to be on guard all the time, always watching, because you don’t have any safety margin. With this, I can actually make plans of my own, because I know . . .” I stopped.

Luna walked another few steps, then halted and looked back at me. “What?”

I stared into the trees. “I just figured out what Richard’s magic type is.”

“How?”

“I always thought he acted too confident,” I said. My thoughts were whirling, putting the pieces together. “That was why I thought it couldn’t be . . . But that’s it, isn’t it? He had the same problem as me, he just solved it a different way. My answer was the fateweaver, his was getting a jinn of his own. But he wanted all the power that a jinn could provide, the strongest possible jinn with the strongest possible bond.”

“Wait. Richard’s got a jinn?”

“Yeah, but it’s not enough,” I said absently. “Not for everything he wants. Probably he couldn’t bond a really powerful jinn without losing more control than he was willing to give up. That’s why he needed Anne.”

“Then what—?” Luna cut off as her phone beeped. She pulled it out, then stuffed it back into her pocket. “I have to go. I told Vari I’d call him now.” She pointed at me. “Don’t leave!”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Luna disappeared and I sat on a fallen tree, my thoughts turning back to Richard’s magic type. Everything made so much more sense now. That was why Richard had always been one step ahead of me.

And he’ll always be one step ahead of me. For a moment, I felt overwhelmed. If I was right, Richard had every possible advantage. How could I beat that?

Shireen’s prophecy had given me an answer. Rachel. If she turned, then Richard would lose.

But how would that help? Rachel was powerful, but not that powerful. The only reason she’d been such a problem for so long was because she hated me so much. Well, that and the fact that she was so batshit crazy that—

I stopped.

That divination works really badly on her.

I sat quite still.

I felt the gate spell ten minutes later as Luna returned to the Hollow. She’d come straight back after talking to Variam, and she made a beeline for me through the trees. “Richard launched an attack last night,” Luna said as she walked into view.

“Where?”

“Vari says there were two. The first one was on the ground-floor offices of the War Rooms in Westminster. Mixed force, mostly adepts. The guards managed to hold out long enough for a response team to arrive, and when it did they surrounded them. A few of Richard’s mages escaped through a gate, the rest were wiped out.”

“The ground floor of the War Rooms?” I said. “What were they going for?”

“Fighting was around the security checkpoints, I think?”

I frowned. “But all the important places in the War Rooms are below ground. Taking the security checkpoints doesn’t get you anywhere.”

“The way Vari talked about it, they seemed to think it was the first stage of an actual attack and they aborted midway through.”

“Mm. You said there were two attacks.”

“Other one was on someplace called the Eyrie,” Luna said. “I’ve never heard of it, but Vari seemed to know what it was.”

“It’s the Council’s main monitoring centre,” I said. “Tracks calls and video feeds, runs surveillance, sends dispatch requests to Keeper HQ. Back when I was in the Keepers, most of our coms were routed through there.”

“Well, it’s not going to be doing that anymore. According to Vari, they wiped the place clean. Killed all the staff, then set off an EMP that fried every computer in a city block.”

I stared down at the grass, then turned away from Luna and began pacing. “What are they doing now?”

“The Council? Figuring out what happened and calling up their reserves. All the Keepers are on standby right now, waiting while Council intelligence tries to track down Richard’s forces for a counterstrike. As soon as they find something, Vari says they’re going all in.”

I thought for a moment. “Was there any connection between the two attacks?”

“They think hitting the Eyrie was meant to cut the War Rooms off from reinforcements.”

“The War Rooms are too well guarded for that. All it’d do would be slow down the Keeper response teams. And it wouldn’t even do that very well.”

Luna shrugged. “Can only tell you what I heard. What do you think’s going on?”

“I’m not sure,” I said slowly. “Something feels off.”

“You don’t think it was Richard?”

“Oh, it was Richard all right. But attacking two targets at the same time doesn’t make sense. Even with the jinn, Anne can’t be in two places at once.”

“You think one was a fake?”

I nodded. “He’s done it before. In which case, the real target must be the attack that succeeded, on the Eyrie. Question is what he was trying to do. Wiping the computers makes it sound as though he was trying to take out their records, but it’s hard to see what they could have on there that would be worth that much.”

“Something they didn’t know they had?”

“Or he could be setting up for a different attack. With the Eyrie gone, the Council’s response time’s going to be lengthened.”

“The War Rooms again?”

“Maybe,” I said dubiously. Taking out the War Rooms would end the war, full stop. But for that exact reason it was the most heavily defended fortress in Britain. Even with Anne, I didn’t think Richard had the firepower to break it.

“Well, Vari thinks we should get ready to move,” Luna said. “They’re going after Richard as soon as they manage to follow the attacker’s trail. Vari says he’ll tell us as soon as they have a lead.”

I hesitated, then shook my head. “No.”

“You know they’re not just after Richard, right?” Luna said. “Anne’s right at the top of their list, too. Vari says their orders are to kill her on sight.”

“I can believe it, but I don’t think they’re going to find her,” I said. “Not unless Richard wants her found.” I thought for moment. “We’re going to have to split up. Go out of the Hollow and stay in contact with Vari.”

“I thought you just said you didn’t think they were going to find her?”

“I might be wrong.”

“What are you going to do, then?”

“I’m waiting to hear back from Chalice,” I said. “She’s got one last piece of the puzzle that I need before I can move.”

Luna disappeared, and I waited in the Hollow, checking every ten minutes to see if Chalice would be in contact. I was tense now—I didn’t know how much longer I had before Richard would strike.

But luck was with me. After less than an hour, my search through the futures found what I was looking for, and I gated out of the Hollow to find a text message on my phone. It contained an address and nothing more. Chalice hadn’t added a signature; she didn’t need to.

Buenos Aires, I thought. Feels right. I sent a message out through the dreamstone, calling Starbreeze. I didn’t have much time.

Starbreeze set me down in an out-of-the-way street in one of Buenos Aires’s suburbs before darting off. White-painted houses were nestled behind walls and gardens, and in the distance, down the slope of the hill, I could see the blue sparkle of the river. I checked my phone for the address Chalice had given me, and started walking.

It was winter here, but to me, the Buenos Aires winter felt more like spring. The neighbourhood was pretty but not hospitable—trees lined the road and climbing plants bloomed red and violet on the walls, but the gates were made of thick metal bars and more than one wall was topped with razor wire.

I stopped in front of a house that looked much the same as all the others, two storeys high and painted white, with a black iron fence blocking off access to the garden. There was nothing from outside that marked it out, but with my magesight I could feel the faint signature of wards. The rectangular box of an alarm system was mounted on the outside wall.

I glanced around, scaled the fence at the corner, and dropped down on the other side. You really don’t appreciate having two working hands until you’ve had to do without for a while. On the other side was a path of paving stones that led me into a back garden. A stone fountain bubbled away in the middle of a well-tended lawn, with a pagoda on the far side of a goldfish pond. The back of the house held a veranda, French windows leading into a living room. A minute’s work got the French windows unlocked and I stepped inside. An alarm panel to my left blinked red; I typed in the code and the light settled obediently on green.

The inside of the house smelt of woodwork and expensive carpets. A grandfather clock ticked, the sound echoing in the quiet. In the kitchen, a light lunch and a jug of orange juice had been laid out on the counter. I climbed the stairs, checking for traps and telltales and finding nothing. The bedroom was light and airy, with a balcony overlooking the garden. A double bed held rumpled sheets, as well as two or three outfits lying in roughly the place someone would have tossed them after trying them on in front of the mirror.

I path-walked through the futures in which I hung around, and got a hit between thirty minutes and an hour. I settled down to wait.

The futures narrowed as I waited, focusing until I knew precisely who would be arriving and when. When the sound of the front door opening drifted up from down below, I was ready. Voices echoed from the hallway, a man and a woman. The language was Spanish, but I could recognise the tones of voice. The man was pushing, entreating; the woman wasn’t quite saying yes, but wasn’t turning him away. A last exchange of words, then the man’s footsteps were moving towards the kitchen, while the woman’s shoes clattered on the wooden steps as she headed upstairs.

I moved out onto the balcony, letting the blinds shield me from view. Footsteps sounded from the landing, then the woman was walking into the bedroom. I stayed out of view, studying her through the futures.

Meredith is small and delicate, only a little over five feet tall, with long flowing dark hair. She wore a black blouse and skirt with brown-and-gold highlights, and moved with the confidence of someone who knew that people would find her attractive. And if they didn’t, well, she could change that. Meredith is an enchantress, able to manipulate emotions, and she’s good at it. She’s less skilled when it comes to politics. In the time I’d known her, she’d worked for both the Council and for Richard, without siding with either, and had ended up giving them both good reason to distrust her. Apparently she’d decided to hide out here while things calmed down.

The man called up something from downstairs: I caught the word noche. Meredith glanced down in annoyance, but her tone as she called back to him was sweet and welcoming. She dropped her handbag onto the bed and was just starting to open it when she paused, frowning. She looked up towards the balcony.

Looks like we’re done hiding. I’d been using the fateweaver to push away the futures in which Meredith detected me, but you can’t keep people careless forever. I strode into the bedroom. “Meredith,” I said. “We need to talk.”

Meredith’s eyes went as big as dinner plates. “Mateo!” she screamed.

I heard the clatter of something falling followed by footsteps racing up the stairs. The door slammed open and a young man burst in. He was dressed in a tight-fitting outfit of black, decorated in silver thread, and he had a long knife drawn in one hand. With two strides he put himself between me and Meredith.

“Tell your boy toy to wait outside,” I told Meredith.

Mateo said something in Spanish, not taking his eyes off me. The knife stayed pointed towards my chest.

“No,” Meredith said. “He’s one of the ones—from before, the ones I was telling you about. Mateo, be careful, he’s been hunting for me.”

Mateo replied confidently, then switched to accented English, addressing me. “Leave now, Dark mage. While you still can.”

“Mateo, or whatever your name is, right now I have no particular intention of hurting either you or your mistress. Keep pointing that knife at me and that’s going to change. Now, I’m not going to ask again. Go wait outside.”

“I don’t know who you are or where you came from,” Mateo said, “but I’m sure of one thing. No man of honour would enter a lady’s bedchamber and threaten her like this.” He drew back his knife in a combat stance, flourishing his free hand: blue energy glowed at his fingertips. “Come dance with me, if you dare.”

I looked at Meredith in annoyance. “Where did you find this clown?”

“Catalina, stay behind me,” Mateo announced, glancing back towards Meredith. “I’ll handle—”

I strode towards Mateo. He stepped forward to meet me, light flashing on the blade.

There was a flurry of movement.

The hilt of the knife slammed into Mateo’s chin with a solid thud. Mateo’s eyes rolled back into his skull and he collapsed to the floor. I flipped the knife in my hand and thrust it towards Meredith. “Stay!”

Meredith froze. She’d started to back towards the door when the fighting had started, but had only made it two steps before it was over. “Now,” I said. “You owe me. I’m here to collect.”

“Owe you?” Meredith’s eyes flickered down to Mateo, lying unconscious, then from side to side. I knew she was sizing up escape routes. “What do you—?”

“Six years ago, you sold me and Luna out,” I said. “I haven’t come after you because quite frankly I’ve had better things to do. But right now, I’ve got a job that needs doing, and I need a charm mage. You’re it.”

“I don’t—I can’t do anything like that.”

“Oh yes, you can.”

“I can’t go back to Britain. The Council will kill me!”

“I’m a member of the Council, and I’ve seen their most-wanted list. You’re not on it.”

“They’ll still pull me in for questioning.”

“Right now, they’ve got bigger things to worry about. And even if they didn’t, it wouldn’t matter, because you don’t get a vote.”

Meredith looked at me nervously. Her attention was all on me: besides an initial glance when he fell, she hadn’t looked at Mateo at all. “This thing you want to do. It’s dangerous, isn’t it?”

“Depends on how well you can do your job.”

“How dangerous?”

“A lot less dangerous than turning me down.”

Meredith took a breath; the possibilities of her turning and fleeing flickered, then vanished as the futures bent towards a different path. “You have to understand,” she said. Her dark eyes rested on me, imploring. “What happened in the Tiger’s Palace . . . it changed things. Those people dying . . .” She took a shaky breath. “I ran away. I couldn’t go back, not after . . . It was too horrible.” There was open fear on her face, and I could feel her terror. “I can’t be a part of something like that. Not again.” Her words vibrated with emotion. I could sense she was on the verge of tears, and I felt a wave of sympathy. It would be too cruel to force her to—

The knife flew past Meredith’s hair to sink into the doorframe with a solid tchunk. Meredith screamed and the emotions rolling over me suddenly vanished. I was on her in two strides; Meredith flinched, shielding her head, and I slammed my hand into the doorframe behind her, leaning in so that our faces were close. “Rule number one,” I said clearly. “Use your magic on me again and I will make you regret it.”

“What do you even need me for?” Meredith cried. “What do you want?”

“I need you to make someone do something stupid and impulsive that goes against their self-interest. And that is something I know from personal experience that you are very good at.”

“Someone? Who?”

I told her. As I kept talking, Meredith’s face grew pale.

I told Meredith that I’d be back later that evening. Reluctantly, she promised to be there and not to try to run away.

As soon as I was out of sight, Meredith tried to run away. I intervened and gave her a reason not to do it again. Once we were done, I gated back to the Hollow.

I’d already checked in with Luna and my other contacts and come up dry. There were reports of skirmishes between Council forces and adepts, but neither the Council nor Richard had made their move. In the meantime, there was one more person I needed to talk to. I went back to my bed, lay down, and closed my eyes. It took me longer than it should have to fall asleep.

I walked through Elsewhere, landscapes shifting and changing around me. Once upon a time, just visiting this place would have been dangerous. Now it felt like a refuge before the battle ahead. My progress slowed as I drew closer to my destination, and when the city came to an end, the buildings falling away to be replaced with towering trees, I came to a halt. I stood between the pillars at the end of a colonnade, looking at the forest ahead. Dark green leaves rose up into an overcast sky, the wind hissing through the branches and making the tree trunks creak and sway. I couldn’t see the tower in the middle of the forest, but I knew it was there.

I was on the border between my Elsewhere and Anne’s. I could cross into her realm, but as soon as I did, she’d know I was there. And then she’d come to meet me, and that was something I didn’t want. Not yet.

Ever since taking up the fateweaver, I’d felt strong, powerful. I hadn’t been worried when facing Rachel or Meredith. Onyx and Pyre had been a threat, but one I’d approached coolly and calmly. Even when I’d been pressured during the battle, I’d never felt afraid.

But I was afraid of facing Anne. Deep down, I still wanted to plead with her, tell her how sorry I was in the hope that things could go back to how they once were . . . and I knew it was a terrible idea. All my instincts told me that Anne’s dark side would react to that very badly. I had to meet her from a position of strength.

I didn’t feel like I was in a position of strength. I felt horribly vulnerable.

I sensed movement, a presence. Dark Anne had detected me, and she was coming. I fought back the impulse to run away, took a deep breath, and stood with my arms folded.

Dark Anne came walking out from between the trees, the undergrowth rustling beneath her feet. She was dressed in grey this time, a drably coloured dress that matched the muted tones of the sky above. “Well, well,” she called out as she approached. “Look who’s back.”

She doesn’t sound angry. I felt a flash of hope, and squashed it; it was more than I could afford. I tried to sound confident. “Long time no see.”

Dark Anne stopped at the edge of the tree cover, the leaves at the tips of the branches just barely overhanging her head. I stayed where I was at the edge of the colonnade, yellow-grey stone darkened with age. Between us was the border between the two realms, cracked paving stones giving way to tufts of grass.

“I’m sorry about what happened.” I managed to keep my voice steady, but only just. “It wasn’t my choice.”

“Yeah, I know, it was Crystal,” Dark Anne said. “I figured it out as soon as she and Richard came through that door.”

“Would have been nice if you’d figured it out before killing my right hand.”

“So don’t get possessed next time.”

We stood looking at each other for a minute. “Let’s take a walk,” I suggested.

Dark Anne considered for a moment, then shrugged. “Why not?”

I began walking to the right, and Dark Anne paced me, the two of us following the border of the two realms. To my right were the buildings of my cityscape, to the left Anne’s forest. “Where’s your other half?” I asked.

“Somewhere safe,” Dark Anne said. “For me, that is. And no, before you ask, you don’t get to see her. I learned my lesson last time, thank you very much.”

“How is she?”

“No worse off than she treated me. Is she all you wanted to talk about?”

“No, right now I’m more interested in you. How’s Richard treating you?”

“I suppose it could be worse,” Dark Anne said. “At least I get a better room than I had with Sagash.”

“I meant more as in whether he’s having Crystal mind-control you.”

“Oh, that. No. I mean, she could—probably—but it wouldn’t be much good for combat. No, it’s that dreamstone. He can’t use it to control me, but apparently he can use it to control the jinn. Which really sucks, by the way. I spent so long working out an arrangement with that thing, and then Richard comes along and surprise! Turns out he’s been studying jinn for like, his entire life, and he knows literally everything there is to know about them. He’s figured out some way to use that dreamstone of his to shut down that jinn completely, at least when it comes to using its powers. So I can do what I want, except if I don’t do what Richard says, then he snaps his fingers and suddenly I have to deal with a pissed-off jinn and all of Richard’s gang as well. So yeah, I’m pretty much stuck.”

“Were you expecting working for Richard to go any other way?”

“So are you going to do anything to help?”

“What, I’m supposed to sort out your problems now? You wanted this. Don’t come crying now that it turns out Richard’s keeping you on a short leash.”

“It would have worked out just fine if you hadn’t messed it up.” Dark Anne waved a hand. “Fine, whatever, mistakes were made. Water under the bridge and all that. What are you going to do about it?”

We’d drawn closer as we walked, until now we were pacing side by side, almost within arm’s reach. “If I wanted to break you free,” I said, “what’s the best way to do it?”

“Destroy that dreamstone,” Dark Anne said. “It’s messing everything up. And I do mean destroy it, just in case you’re getting any cute ideas about taking it for yourself. Richard’s bonded to it, and as long as it’s there, he can call the shots. If I’d know the trouble that stupid thing would cause, I’d have thrown it away back in that shadow realm.”

“Even if the dreamstone’s gone, there’s still Crystal. She can use that imbued item and dominate you the old-fashioned way.”

“She can’t dominate anyone if she’s dead,” Dark Anne said flatly. “I’ve been wanting to settle the score with that bitch for a long time. Trust me, you get rid of the dreamstone, and Crystal will stop being a problem really fast.”

“All right,” I said. “So the next question is how to find him.”

“Yeah, somehow I don’t think that’s the biggest thing you have to worry about.”

“Richard keeps the dreamstone on him. If I want to get rid of it, I have to catch him first.”

“You are going to catch him?” Dark Anne looked at me with raised eyebrows. “Someone got two spoonfulls of self-esteem in their cornflakes this morning. I hope you’re bringing a lot of friends.”

“Just me.”

“Were you not listening or something?” Dark Anne stopped, turning to face me. “I can not pull your feet out of the fire on this one. I can stop Richard from just wishing you out of existence, but when it comes to you and him, you’ll be on your own. And it won’t be just you and him, because Richard doesn’t go out on his own these days. There’s Morden, Vihaela, Deleo, Crystal, some air mage assassin guy who never talks, a radiation mage called Tenebrous . . . you’re going to be dealing with at least two or three out of those guys, plus however many he decides to bring along from his adept army. Did I mention the adept army? Morden’s been training them up in some shadow realm he calls Arcadia. You want to stand a chance, you’re going to need firepower and lots of it.”

“Not really an option.”

“Argh.” Dark Anne covered her eyes. “Look, it’s cute that you’re trying to impress me here, but in case you haven’t noticed, all of those mages I just listed are ones who either can mop the floor with you, or already have. You are not winning this on your own, so either call in some favours or find some people who hate Richard badly enough and point them at him.”

“I’ve gone through some changes since we last met.”

“What, you’re missing a hand?”

I just looked at her.

“Say you find him,” Dark Anne said. “What are you going to do, talk him to death?”

“No, I have a plan,” I told her. “I just don’t trust you enough to tell it to you. You went behind my back to make a deal with Morden and Richard once. I don’t feel like giving you the ammo to do it again.”

“Well, look who’s acting alpha male all of a sudden.” Dark Anne folded her arms and studied me, tapping one finger on her upper arm, then shrugged. “Fine, it’s not like I’m swimming in options. Shoot.”

“I need to know where and when Richard’s going to be next.”

“He doesn’t brief me,” Dark Anne said. “I get told when he’s launching an attack, and that’s it.”

“What about if I spoke to you through the dreamstone the next time you move out?”

“They watch me too closely for that. I try to talk to you like this and Crystal will know. It’ll be hard enough stopping her from seeing these memories.”

“He has to talk to Morden and Vihaela at least.”

“Not while I’m around. They discuss the current mission and that’s it.” Dark Anne paused. “There’s one thing, though. I think Richard’s tracking the Senior Council.”

“Are you sure?”

“All through the attack, Deleo was giving Richard updates,” Dark Anne said. “Saying ‘they’ve moved,’ or ‘they haven’t moved,’ stuff like that. No names, but right at the end, Richard asked her about something, and she dropped Bahamus’s name. Richard gave her a look and she shut up.” Dark Anne shrugged. “That’s all I’ve got.”

“I guess it’ll have to do.”

Dark Anne glanced back towards the forest. “Time for me to go.”

“All right.”

But she didn’t move, and neither did I. We stood within arm’s reach, looking at each other. “I miss you,” I said.

Dark Anne grinned. “Come see me once that dreamstone’s gone. I’ll be waiting.” She turned and walked away.

I watched Dark Anne go. She disappeared into the trees without looking back, the winds swaying the branches above. Only when I was sure that she was gone did I step out of Elsewhere and wake, opening my eyes to see the ceiling of my cottage in the Hollow. Anne’s side of the bed was empty and I was alone once more.

It was just after eleven when Luna found me. “It’s on,” she said simply.

I was ready and waiting. I was thin on gear—my armour was still repairing itself, and I hadn’t had a chance to restock my one-shots—but I had my dreamstone and the fateweaver. “Where?” I asked, buckling on my webbing belt.

“The Council’s got a lead on Richard’s shadow realm,” Luna said. “Vari says they’re gearing up to move right now.”

I holstered my gun. “Let’s go.”

We stepped out from the gate and onto the roof of the Arcana Emporium. Luna had some extensions done to the chimney when she’d had the place rebuilt, and I had to step around the brickwork to get a view of the street.

Luna had one hand to her ear and was talking into her communicator. “Yeah,” she was saying. “You sure? . . . Okay.” She turned to me. “Okay, it might not be Richard’s home base. New intel is that it’s the adept training camp. They’re trying to force entry right now.”

“Okay.”

Luna waited for me to go on. When I didn’t, she looked at me. “So?” she said.

“Give me a second,” I said absently. I walked to the edge of the roof, looking out over the Camden rooftops. The sounds and smells of the city drifted up from the street below: shouts and yells from a party somewhere nearby, the scent of Indian food from the restaurant opposite, a siren rising and falling in the far distance, fading away. I’d often come up here to think, back in the old days.

“Are we going?” Luna asked.

“No.”

“Vari says there’s one hundred percent going to be a fight.”

“I don’t care if there’s a fight. I care about Richard and Anne.”

Minutes ticked by. I path-walked, searching the futures for any trace of Richard and not finding one. I was certain I’d be able to find one if I waited long enough—the further things developed, the easier it would be to find his trace—but that would take time I didn’t have.

Luna put a hand to her ear, listening, then looked at me. “They’re trying to break in through combat gates.”

I nodded.

“You still might be able to make it if you go now.”

I tapped a knuckle to my lips, then shook my head. “Wait.”

“This is going to be the biggest fight in this war so far,” Luna said.

“I’m not buying it,” I said. “So far, every time Richard’s engaged the Council, he’s done it on his own terms.”

“Okay, look,” Luna said. “You haven’t told me much about what you’re planning here. From what you’ve been saying, I’m guessing it has something to do with Deleo. But once you find Richard, you do actually have a plan, right? You’re not trying to go out in a blaze of glory?”

“No, both of us are going to be walking away from this one.”

“How?”

“The times you’ve gone out gambling, did you ever try poker?”

Luna looked at me in surprise, her face faintly illuminated in the orange of the streetlights below. “Not much. Too little luck once the cards are dealt. Why?”

“Your play style in poker falls on a scale,” I said. “Tight versus loose. No one’s a hundred percent one or the other, but the longer you play, the more you find the point on the scale where you’re most comfortable. So most of the time, when you first sit down at a table, you want to play your natural style because it’s what you’re best at. But once someone gets to know you? Then you’ll usually find you make the most money when you take your natural style and play the opposite.”

Luna frowned. “I don’t get it.”

“I’ve tried talking to Rachel a lot of times the past few years,” I said. “I’ve tried persuading her, tried probing for a weakness, but I’ve never pretended to be anything I’m not.”

“How’s that going to—” Luna paused, as if listening to something. “They’ve broken in. Keeper teams are entering the shadow realm. Vari says the fighting’s already started.”

“All right,” I said. If Richard was going to make a move, this was when he’d do it.

Seconds ticked by. I searched through futures, picking through possibilities of me making calls, checking on contacts, scouting in person. It was slow going; too much variation between the futures.

Maybe I should play a hunch. Assume I was right and Richard was going after one of the Council. Who would he pick? No, that was the wrong question. If I were Richard, and I wanted to weaken the Council’s resolve, make it more willing to come to terms, who would I want removed?

I’d go after Levistus or Sal Sarque. I narrowed my focus to those two but widened the trace. Nothing, nothing . . . wait.

There.

“It’s Sal Sarque,” I said. “Richard’s going to make a move on him while the Council forces attack Arcadia.”

Luna frowned. “Are you sure? If you wait, we can—”

“Can’t,” I called over my shoulder. I was already sending out a call to Starbreeze. “Keep in touch with Vari. I’ll call you with the dreamstone.”