Fated

2

The two of us stood facing each other across the grass. The wind had dropped, and the birds around had gone silent, sensing danger. I stood still, keeping my face blank and not letting myself show any sign of the sickening sensation you get when you’ve made a really bad mistake. I’d left my house without weapons or defences. Once upon a time I never would have dreamt of stepping outside without them, but months of safety had lulled me into dropping my guard.

Now I was paying for it. I was standing in front of a Dark mage, and if he decided to come at me, I was toast — literally. The silence stretched out while I looked frantically into the future, trying to see what would happen. ‘I guess we haven’t been introduced,’ I said at last, keeping my voice steady.

‘You can call me Cinder.’

I raised my eyebrows. ‘Subtle.’

‘Trying to be funny?’

‘I don’t know, are you laughing?’

He grinned then. ‘Smart mouth.’

I didn’t answer, but as I looked at the futures branching out from ahead of us, I felt a chill. This conversation could unfold in a thousand ways, and most of them led to Cinder attacking me, brutally and without warning. And the cause of the fight was …

I stopped, trying to keep the confusion off my face. It was the red cube, the same one that had been left on the blanket just two feet behind where I was standing. The instant Cinder saw it he would do his absolute best to kill me, and I had no idea why.

Right now Cinder was focused on me, but in only a few seconds he would notice. I made a snap decision and deliberately turned my back on Cinder, crouching down to fold up the blanket. ‘I reckon …’ Cinder began to say, then stopped. ‘Hey.’

I didn’t turn around. ‘What?’

‘I’m talking to you.’

I wrapped the blanket around the cube, keeping the thick cloth around the thing. ‘And?’ I took out my bag and started packing the blanket inside. From behind, I could feel Cinder’s confusion. No one turns his back on a Dark mage unless he’s crazy or planning something. I felt a surge of magic starting to build up behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder, feeling an itch in my back. ‘Stop that,’ I said, keeping my voice cool.

A trace of anger was showing on Cinder’s face. ‘I think maybe you don’t know who I am.’

I slung the pack over my shoulder, and turned to face Cinder. I’d learnt to hide my fear while still young, and it served me well now. Instead of slowing me down the fear sharpened me, focusing my senses. I could feel the slight tension in Cinder’s body as he squinted at me, angry and puzzled. Turning my back on him had been an insult, and now he was focused on me, trying to decide if I was powerful or just stupid. Behind, I could sense Luna pressed flat against the beech tree, a mouse menaced by a hawk. ‘I don’t much care,’ I said. ‘You’re here because you want something. Get to the point.’

Cinder looked at me through narrowed eyes, his anger simmering before coming under control. ‘You met Lyle,’ he said at last.

‘And?’

‘He try to hire you?’ Cinder’s tone made it clear that he already knew the answer.

‘What if he did?’

‘You helping him?’

I hesitated. Looking into the future wasn’t helping now — too many branches. I didn’t want to answer, but if I didn’t, Cinder would assume the answer was yes. That could be bad. ‘I don’t work for Lyle,’ I said finally.

Cinder grunted and suddenly looked less threatening. ‘Smart.’ He paused. ‘We pay better.’

It took me a second to take that in. When I did, I blinked. ‘You’re offering me a job?’

‘Need a seer. Could get others. Better we get you.’

‘What’s in it for me?’

‘Same as the rest. Share of the value.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Huh?’

‘What’s the value? How are you going to share it?’

Cinder smirked. ‘You’re the seer. Find out.’

‘Funny.’

Cinder’s smirk faded. He looked steadily at me. ‘Wasn’t joking.’

If I agreed, Cinder would expect me to go with him, and if I stalled, he’d take it as weakness. ‘No thanks. I don’t work on credit.’

‘There’ll be a share.’

‘You think there’ll be a share.’ I shook my head. ‘Come back when you’ve got something more solid.’

Cinder’s face darkened, and I felt the futures shift. Suddenly, the possibilities were looking a lot worse. ‘That your last word?’

I kept my voice very calm. ‘Don’t try and threaten me, Cinder.’

Cinder looked me up and down, slowly and deliberately. He wasn’t calling his magic up but I could sense he was ready to. ‘Seems to me,’ he said, ‘I could take you any time I want.’

‘You could try,’ I said lightly. Inside, I was panicking. I had no weapons, the cube was in the backpack over my shoulder, and Luna was hiding not fifteen feet away. If a fight started, it would be a disaster. I could see the futures forking ahead of me, depending on whether Cinder decided I was bluffing or not.

For a moment Cinder hesitated, then he grinned again and the futures shifted decisively. ‘I reckon you got nothing.’

Shit, shit, shit. Every future I could see now led to an all-out battle. I searched through them frantically, trying not to let it show in my voice. ‘Bad idea.’

‘Oh yeah?’ He spread his arms invitingly. ‘Take your best shot.’

Twenty seconds. Suddenly I found a cluster of futures free and clear of danger. I scanned them desperately. What was the difference, what did I have to do? Ten seconds. The air started to darken around Cinder, the sunlight going from yellow to blood-red.

A name. I rehearsed it, spoke. ‘Morden.’

Cinder stopped dead. His magic faded away and the evening sunlight flooded back. ‘What?’

I stood there, not answering. ‘You working for him?’ Cinder asked at last.

I raised my eyebrows. ‘What do you think?’

Cinder hesitated, and the seconds stretched out. It looked almost as if he were afraid. ‘Why didn’t you-?’

‘You didn’t ask.’

Cinder’s expression firmed up again. ‘You tell the old man we meant it. He’s not our master.’ Cinder was still trying to sound threatening, but he wasn’t going to attack, not any more. ‘He’s smart, he’ll stay out of this. You too.’

‘What am I? Your postman? Tell him yourself.’

Cinder stared at me, then took a step back, disappearing into the trees. I felt a surge of magic and he was gone.

I stayed standing for another ten seconds, scanning the future to see if Cinder would be back. Once I was absolutely, positively sure he wouldn’t be, the strength went out of my legs and I flopped to the ground. My heart was hammering. ‘Jesus,’ I muttered.

‘Alex?’ Luna finally said from behind the tree.

‘He’s gone,’ I managed. I tried to get up and found I couldn’t. My hands were shaking. All I could do was sit there as Luna emerged, looking around at the normal, everyday shapes around her. The birds that had fallen silent at Cinder’s approach had started to sing again, and there was no sign he’d ever come. Luna knelt down, closer than normal. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine.’ I brushed my hair back, then gripped it to stop my hands shaking.

Luna made as if to reach out to me, then checked herself and pulled back, drawing away to a safe distance. There was concern in her blue eyes, though, and strangely that made me feel better. ‘What happened?’

I took a deep breath, remembering that Luna couldn’t look into the future. I’d seen all the ways the meeting could end with the grass burnt black with flame, but Luna had heard only voices. ‘That was your first Dark mage.’

‘They’re dangerous?’

‘Understatement of the year.’ My breathing was steadying down. I pulled myself to my feet and patted the backpack to make sure the cube was still there. ‘I don’t understand,’ Luna said. ‘Who’s Morden?’

‘Southbound terminus on the Northern line.’

Luna looked at me blankly.

I sighed. ‘No clue. All I know is that it was the only thing that would have got Cinder off my back.’

‘But why?’

‘Because it made Cinder think I’m working for this Morden guy, and he didn’t want to pick that big a fight. But now Cinder’s going to go hunt up some people to ask, and once he finds out it was a bluff, he’ll be back. I just bought myself a whole lot of trouble.’

‘You were bluffing?’

I started for the edge of the park. ‘Let’s get out of here before he figures that out.’

My flat is just above the shop, up on the first floor. It’s got what passes for my kitchen as well as a sofa, a table and a couple of chairs for my rare-to-nonexistent visitors. There are three watercolours on the walls, inherited from the previous owner, and the windows look out over a low roof onto a view of the London skyline. The sun was dipping low in the sky, and the lights had started to come on across the city, outlining the buildings in yellow and orange. Across the canal and visible over the bridges are blocks of flats, their sides turned towards me, and I like sometimes in the evenings to lie on the sofa and watch the shifting patterns of the lights in the windows, wondering what they mean.

Luna was curled up on one corner of the sofa, while I was sprawled in my favourite chair. ‘So,’ I said, setting my glass down with a sigh. ‘Now you know one of the reasons I don’t hang around with other mages.’

Luna gave me a questioning look and I shook my head, more to reassure myself than her. ‘Well, it’s done and we got away safely. Could have been a lot worse. You were a good girl to run and hide when I told you.’

‘Don’t call me a good girl. You’re not that much older.’

‘Don’t argue. Be a good girl.’

Luna gave me one of her rare smiles. It faded quickly though. ‘Alex … You were scary. Your voice was so cold. I thought you were going to …’

‘Going to what?’

Luna was silent. ‘You were really bluffing?’

‘He was looking for weakness.’

‘I thought you didn’t know him?’

‘I know people like him.’ I fell silent, lost in old memories.

‘He talked like he knew you,’ Luna said after a pause.

I didn’t answer.

‘How do you know people like him?’ When I still didn’t answer, Luna went on. ‘Is it about what you did before you got this shop?’

‘Luna …’ There was a warning note in my voice.

Luna fell silent. When I looked up, though, she met my eyes, not backing down. ‘You’re better off staying away from this,’ I said at last. ‘Just knowing about these people can get you in trouble.’

Luna tilted her head. ‘I thought you said I was already in trouble?’

I hesitated. Mages have a policy of not discussing their business with outsiders. The Council wouldn’t be happy if they found I was telling this to Luna. On the other hand, the Council doesn’t like me anyway.

And besides, I’ve never really bought into the idea of keeping people ignorant for their own good. What you know can hurt you, but what you don’t know can hurt you a lot worse. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘What do you know about Dark mages?’

Luna curled her legs under her on the sofa. Her white fingers were clasped around a mug of tea, a faint wisp of steam drifting upwards. ‘I thought they were mages who went bad.’

‘No.’ I tried to figure out how to explain it. ‘Well … maybe. Dark mages follow a philosophy called the True Way. The True Way says that good and bad as we see it are conventions. Our ideas about good and evil come from customs and religions designed to benefit the people in power. Dark mages think that obeying them makes you a sheep. Like when you asked for that cube from that man today? A Dark mage would say you should have just taken it.’

‘You mean stealing it?’

‘A Dark mage would tell you that you only feel stealing is wrong because your parents brought you up that way. Right and wrong are just conventions, like which side of the road you drive on.’

Luna thought about it for a few seconds, then shook her head. ‘But he’d have called the police.’

I nodded. ‘That’s the bit they think matters. What stops people breaking the law is the threat of punishment, and the threat only means anything if there’s the power to enforce it. To a Dark mage, power is reality. The more power you have, the more you can shape the reality around you. Strength, cunning, influence, whatever, but the one thing they don’t tolerate is weakness. Dark mages believe weakness is a sin, something shameful. If you’re not strong enough to take what you want, it’s your fault.’

Luna frowned. ‘Oh.’

‘Do you understand?’

‘I suppose.’ Luna thought for a second. ‘I’ve heard people say stuff like that. I suppose they’ve got a point.’

I shook my head. ‘It’s not about having a point. Dark mages don’t say these things. They live them.’

Luna looked at me, and I knew she didn’t understand. ‘That man, Cinder,’ I said. ‘What do you think he would have done if he’d found you?’

Luna looked suddenly uneasy. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Whatever he wanted,’ I said. ‘He might have ignored you. He might have laughed and walked off. He might have raped you and left you bleeding on the ground. He might have taken you back to his mansion as a slave. And he wouldn’t think twice about doing any of those things.’

Luna stared. ‘And something else,’ I went on. ‘No other Dark mage would think twice about him doing any of those things either. If you can’t stop him, it’s your fault. Understand now?’

Luna’s eyes were wide, and I could tell I’d finally gotten through. ‘You know these people?’

‘Yes.’ Luna began to say something else but I shook my head. ‘Don’t ask me about it. Not now.’

Luna fell silent. The pause dragged out and became uncomfortable. ‘I should go home,’ Luna said at last. I nodded and rose.

I walked Luna out. She kept at arm’s length just like always, but there was a distance that hadn’t been there before. Over the past months, Luna had started to open up to me a little. Now all of a sudden she was drawing back.

Once she was gone, I locked the door with a sigh. I’d been trying to scare her, and I had. I didn’t like showing Luna that side of me but I knew the safest thing would be for her to stay away for a few days, at least until this business with Cinder was settled. But I had the feeling that it would be a lot longer than a few days before Luna called me again for advice.

Somehow that depressed me. I shook it off. No one likes guys who get sentimental.

I took the red crystal cube and put it somewhere very hard to find. Then I headed for my room. I’d been planning to make inquiries about the cube but Cinder’s reaction had changed all that. If just the sight of it was enough to make him try to kill me, I didn’t want to spread it around that I had it. Instead I’d keep it secret until the fuss had died down, and in the meantime I’d arrange for it to be thoroughly investigated by an expert in magical items … namely, me.

But first I needed to find out more about this Precursor relic that Lyle and Cinder were so interested in. And this time, I wasn’t going out empty-handed.

Being a diviner is all about being prepared; that was why I’d been so scared when Cinder had caught me napping. Diviners can’t do the flashy things that elemental mages can. We can’t fly or throw fire or disintegrate things. We aren’t any tougher or stronger than other men, and our magic gives us no power over the physical world. But what we do have is knowledge, and applied in the right way that can be some pretty impressive leverage.

I set about making sure I’d have something to apply that leverage to. I dressed in a warm shirt and jeans, then put on a pair of black running shoes before turning to the items scattered around my desk. My first choice was a crystal sphere the size of a marble with a fingernail’s worth of mist swirling inside — I dropped it into my right-hand coat pocket, checked to see that I could reach it quickly, then did the same with a small glass rod in the matching pocket on my left. Next was a packet of trail dust — my last one; I’d have to get some more. A tapering crystal wand about eight inches long clipped into my coat, then I filled the rest of my pockets with a general selection of odds and ends: a jar of healing salve, a handful of tiny pieces of silver jewellery and two vials containing a pale blue liquid.

Next I went on to my mundane items. Most mages aren’t fond of technology but I prefer to take every advantage I can get. A small, powerful torch went on my belt along with a few tools and a slender-bladed knife held securely in its sheath. I reached for the drawer which held my gun, paused, then decided to leave it behind. It would probably be more trouble than it was worth.

Finally, I went to my wardrobe and took out my mist cloak. It’s not the most powerful item I own, but it’s the one I most trust. To casual eyes it looks like a length of some kind of grey-black cloth, thin and light and soft to the touch. If you keep looking, the colours seem to shift and flow at the edge of your vision, subtly enough that you might think you’d imagined it. Mist cloaks are woven from moonbeams and the webs of snowspiders, and they’re rare and little known items. They’re imbued items, not simple focuses, and as I put it on the colours rippled quickly before going still. I patted it affectionately, then turned to look at myself in the mirror.

I saw a tall figure, angular lines blurred by the shadows of the mist cloak. From beneath the hood a pale, quizzical face looked back at me, guarded and watchful, spiky black hair framing a pair of dark eyes. I studied myself for a moment, then turned to the door.

Time to get to work.

The sun had long set by the time I stepped off the ladder onto the roof of my flat. A few muted stars shone down from above, their faint glow almost drowned out by the yellow blaze of the London lights. Rooftops, chimneys and TV aerials were all around me, shadowed in the darkness, and from below came the sounds of the city. The air carried the scent of car exhausts and old brickwork.

Mages like to think their magic sets them above everyone else, and I guess in some ways that’s true. But when you get right down to it, mages are still people and, just like other people, they gossip. Lyle might think his Precursor relic was a secret, but I was willing to bet it wasn’t anywhere near as secret as he thought it was. And if the news was out, I knew someone who’d have heard all about it.

The roof of my flat’s maybe twenty feet square, peeling white paint bordered by a small parapet with a dusty chimney sticking up to one side. If you’re a good climber you can cross to other houses, and often I do. I stood in the centre, took the glass rod from my pocket and wove a tiny thread of magic through it, whispering as I did. ‘Starbreeze. Dancer of the air, friend to the clouds, you who know the secrets of the mountain peaks and all between earth and sky. I am Alexander Verus and I call to you. Come to me, lady of the wind.’ A faint breeze sprung up, as the whispering wind swept my words away and into the north. I repeated it again for south, west and east, then looked into the future.

The good news was that Starbreeze would be here soon. The bad news was that the assassin stalking me would be here sooner.

It’s nearly impossible to surprise an alert diviner. It’s how we survive in a world of things bigger and nastier than we are. I’d detected the man hunting me even before I’d stepped outside my door. The only question was what to do about it.

I don’t usually let people pick fights with me. It’s not hard to give someone the slip when you can see the future, and the kind of people who like picking fights tend to have lots of other enemies. It’s easier just to keep your head down and wait for someone else to deal with them. In this case, though, if I shook this mage off, the first thing he’d do would be to try and break into my shop, and that would risk him finding the cube. I was better off dealing with him directly.

Of course, that didn’t mean I was going to fight fair. I hopped down to the roof of the house next to me and kept going until I reached the roof of a small block of flats to my south, five buildings down. The building had been renovated ten years back, and the roof now held a couple of ventilators, but it still had the old chimney stacks near the edge. The combination of old and new made the roof cluttered, giving plenty of cover. I checked the roof to make sure the layout was as I remembered, then leant against one of the ventilators, closed my eyes, and waited.

Not much light from the streets below reached up to the city rooftops, but there was plenty of sound. From all around I could hear the muted chatter of people on the streets below, mixing with the rumble of cars carrying their passengers home for the last time before the weekend. The breeze carried the scent of Indian and Italian food — the restaurants were just starting on the dinnertime rush. All around was noise and bustle, but the roof itself was quiet. The only sound from nearby was the rustle of wings from roosting pigeons across the street. As I listened, the rustle suddenly went quiet.

I spoke into the darkness without opening my eyes. ‘You’ll miss.’

Black lightning cut the night air, slashing through the space I’d been in as I twisted away. The bolts were jet black, visible only as a greater darkness against the night sky, and they made no sound but a low hiss. I completed my spin with my back pressed against the ventilator, and as suddenly as it had begun, everything was still.

I leant just slightly around the ventilator’s edge. ‘Told you.’

The mage who’d attacked me was on the next roof over, a dark shape crouched behind a chimney. Looking into the futures in which I approached, I could see he was a small man, spindly and thin, wearing dark clothes and a mask that hid his face. He was squinting in my direction, one hand lifted to shield or strike. ‘Come out, little seer,’ the man said when I didn’t move. His voice was harsh, with a trace of an accent.

‘Why don’t you come over so I can see you better?’

I sensed the man’s lips curl in a smile. ‘Because I can see you … right now.’ As he said the last word another stream of black lightning flashed from his hand.

The black lightning was death magic, a kind of negative energy that kills by shutting down a body’s systems, especially the brain and heart. Death magic is incredibly fast, as quick as the lightning it resembles. As if that wasn’t enough, this particular attack was augmented with kinetic energy, giving it a physical punch as well. It’d be a real bitch to shield against, even if I could make shields, which I can’t.

But all the speed in the world doesn’t matter if the target’s not there. I’d ducked back out of sight as the man had cast his spell and the bolt struck the edge of the ventilator where my head had been, the lightning grounding as the impact made the metal shudder. I heard the man swear. ‘You know, I was expecting Cinder,’ I said conversationally. ‘Was he busy?’

‘Cinder’s a fool,’ the man snarled. I could sense he was off balance; he wasn’t used to missing.

‘He didn’t try to pick a fight with me,’ I said, then smiled into the darkness. ‘I’d say that makes him brighter than you … Khazad.’

The man — Khazad — stopped dead. ‘How do you know my name?’

‘What’s the matter, Khazad?’ I asked. ‘Bitten off more than you can chew?’

There was a moment’s silence, then from behind the chimney, Khazad stood up. Darkness flickered around him as he wove a shield. ‘I don’t scare as easily as Cinder,’ he said quietly, and began walking towards me.

So much for ending it the easy way. ‘So is this your way of asking me to join your team?’ I asked as Khazad closed in. ‘Because I’ve got to say, your sales pitch sucks.’

‘You can help us or you can die,’ Khazad said, and I could tell he was smiling. ‘I don’t mind which.’

Khazad had reached the parapet separating one roof from the next. He began to climb over it, slowly and carefully, keeping one hand free and his eyes on the ventilator. I took the opportunity to move back into the shadow of the chimney stacks, keeping the ventilator between him and me. Khazad’s feet came down onto the flat’s roof and he straightened. ‘Running already?’ he said mockingly.

‘You know, I can see why you make enemies like Morden,’ I said. ‘Your group really isn’t great on social skills.’

‘You’re not working for Morden,’ Khazad said calmly. ‘You don’t work for anybody. No one will care if you die here.’

Khazad had cleared the ventilator, but I’d been moving as well and now there was a chimney stack between us. There was a reason I’d chosen to fight Khazad up here. Death magic is deadly, but it needs a direct line of sight to its target. A fire mage like Cinder could have just burned the whole rooftop, but Khazad needed a clear shot. I changed direction, moving towards the drop to my left. ‘Just out of curiosity, how do you think killing me is going to help you get this relic?’

‘Who says I have to kill you?’ Khazad said. His voice was confident: he thought he was backing me up against the edge of the roof. Good. ‘All you have to do is do what I say.’

I’d backed into a dead end. The chimney stack I’d been hiding behind ended at the roof’s edge. Glancing down, I could see balconies and a cluttered alleyway with a dumpster. Khazad was fewer than thirty feet away, heading straight towards my hiding place.

Most mages have some way to use their magic to find people: fire mages can pick up a man’s body heat; air mages can feel his breath; life and mind mages can directly sense the presence and thoughts of a human being the same way that you can touch or taste. For death mages like Khazad, it works a little differently: they sense living creatures as an absence, a concentration of life where their magic can’t go. That was how Khazad had been able to sense me in the darkness, and it was how he was following me now.

I drew the crystal wand from my pocket and concentrated, channelling my magic through it. There was no effect to normal eyes, but to my mage’s sight the thing brightened, glowing. The wand is the simplest of all magic items, a battery. All it does is hold the magic and essence of the person who uses it. It doesn’t really do anything, but it’s very noticeable. There was a gutter on the edge of the roof, and I laid the wand in it. ‘You’ll have to find me first,’ I said over my shoulder, and flipped the hood of the mist cloak over my head. I took three quick steps backwards and pressed myself up against the chimney stack, going very still.

Let me tell you a bit about mist cloaks. They’re imbued items, with permanent magic of their own, and their basic function is to sense their surroundings and shift colour to match, camouflaging the bearer no matter where he is. Right now, I knew the mist cloak had shifted to match the bricks behind me, blending my shape with the chimney’s like a chameleon. As long as I didn’t move, the illusion would be perfect.

But mist cloaks have a second function which very few people know about: they also block detection spells. To magical senses, a human wearing a mist cloak gives off no reading, as though they aren’t there. From Khazad’s point of view, first he was sensing me, then he was sensing a source of magic coming from the exact same place that I’d been in a second ago. If he’d been paying close attention he might have noticed the flicker as the sources had switched, but he didn’t have any reason to think I’d moved. In fact, he didn’t even slow down. ‘Find you?’ he said, and I could tell he was smiling. ‘I already have-’

Khazad came around the corner and stopped. A few steps ahead of him was the edge of the roof, streetlights glowing dimly from below. I was just two steps to his right, pressed motionless against the chimney. This close, I could see the side of Khazad’s face behind the mask. His skin was light brown, and he was shorter than I was, small and lightly built. He was staring down at where the wand was hidden, just in front of him.

Mages have a tendency to over-rely on their magic. It’s human nature; if you have something that works ninety-nine per cent of the time, you tend to forget about the hundredth. Khazad’s eyes were telling him that there was nothing there, but his magic was telling him that there was something just over the edge, and it was his magic he trusted. He moved forward, his movements quick and jerky like a bird, his shield flickering as it dimmed the light behind him. He reached the very edge of the roof and stared down at the wand lying in the gutter.

I came up behind Khazad and shoved him hard in the small of the back. His shield stung my hands as it took the blow, but while kinetic shields can spread out an impact, they don’t do much to stop it. Khazad went flying over the edge with a shout. There was a crash as he hit the balcony, followed by a satisfying crunch.

I picked up the wand and dropped it back in my pocket, then turned and walked away, humming to myself. I didn’t bother checking to see how badly Khazad was hurt; he wasn’t going to be chasing me any more, which was all I cared about. I walked back to my roof, sat down and waited.

A couple of minutes later, something tickled my ear. I turned to see a semi-solid face made of swirling air just a few inches away, looking at me with wide eyes. ‘Boo!’

To ordinary eyes Starbreeze looks like air — that’s to say, invisible. To a mage’s sight she looks like an artist’s sketch done in lines of glowing vapour. Swirls of air magic make up her body, her shape changing from day to day depending on her mood. Today she was in one of her favourite forms: an elfin girl with short hair, big eyes and pointed ears. ‘Scared you!’

Starbreeze’s full name is about half a page long and lovely to hear, the sense of a rising wind over a snowy hillside, carrying with it the hint of spring, with the first stars of night appearing in the sky above. When I first met her I tried to remember it, until I found that she changes it every time she’s asked. Now I just call her Starbreeze like everyone else. Starbreeze is an air elemental, a spirit of wind. She can fly or shift her form with no more effort than it takes you or I to walk. She can feel the movement of a butterfly from across a field, hear a whisper from halfway across the world. She’s ancient and timeless. I don’t know how old she is, but I think she might have been born at the time the world was made.

She’s also dumb as a sack of rocks.

‘Hi, Starbreeze.’

‘You’re different,’ Starbreeze chirped. Then she brightened. ‘Pretty cloak!’ She dived right into me, turning into a swirl of wind around my clothes, sending my cloak billowing out, then starting to tug it over my head. ‘No!’ I said, pulling it down.

‘Give me,’ Starbreeze called, her voice coming from somewhere around my back.

I took a firmer grip on the mist cloak. ‘No. You’ll lose it.’

Starbreeze reformed behind me, and I turned to face her. She was pouting. ‘Won’t.’

‘Yes, you will. You’ll forget all about it.’

‘Won’t.’

‘What happened to the last thing I gave you?’

Starbreeze looked vague. ‘I forgot.’ She brightened. ‘Air stone!’

I sighed inwardly. Starbreeze has seen my cloak a dozen times, and it goes clean out of her head every time I’m gone. I suppose I’m lucky she can remember ‘Alex’. Actually, I’m lucky she remembers ‘Starbreeze’. I reached into my pocket and took out one of the tiny pieces of silver jewellery: a brooch, shaped like a butterfly with wings spread. Starbreeze hopped forward, eyes wide. ‘Ooh!’

‘Do you like it?’

Starbreeze floated up into the air and spun around so that her head was pointing down at the roof. She hung upside down with her chin cupped in her hands a few inches from the brooch, stared at it with rapt eyes for a few seconds, then nodded eagerly.

I closed my hand over the brooch and lowered it. Starbreeze’s face clouded over. ‘Bring it back!’

‘I’ll give it to you,’ I promised. ‘But I need you to tell me something first.’

‘Okay!’

Starbreeze doesn’t rest, doesn’t sleep and can hear anything carried on moving air. It’d make her the perfect spy, except that most of what she hears goes in one ear and out the other. ‘I’m looking for a Precursor relic, a new one.’

‘What’s a relic?’ Starbreeze said curiously.

‘A powerful magical thing. It would have been found a week or two ago.’

‘What’s a week?’

‘The Council would have been looking into it. They’d have been guarding it, maybe setting up some kind of research team.’

‘What’s the Council?’

I sighed. ‘Anything interesting in this city? Anything with magic?’

‘Oh!’ Starbreeze brightened. ‘Men came to the place with the old thing. Tried to open it up.’ Starbreeze giggled. ‘Lightning man came. It was funny!’

I frowned. ‘Which men?’

Starbreeze shrugged. ‘Men.’

‘Where did they come to?’

‘Blue round place.’

‘Is there anywhere else in this city where men have been doing something magical with an old thing?’

‘No, no, no.’ Starbreeze swirled around my head, rolling over in the air. ‘Go there?’

I thought for a second. If Starbreeze took me to the ‘blue round place’, I’d be able to find out whether it was what I was looking for. The only risk was she might get halfway, forget where she was going and drop me somewhere random. Last time that happened I ended up in Puerto Rico. If you’re wondering why I bring so much stuff with me on these trips, now you know.

On the other hand, I was pressed for time and this was the best lead I had. I nodded. ‘Let’s do it.’

Instantly Starbreeze swept in around me. For a moment a whirlwind clouded my vision, then there was a tingling through my body and I could see again. Looking down, I saw my body fade away, becoming mist and air. Then we were in the sky, flying at incredible speed into the darkness.

There’s no feeling as amazing as being carried by an air elemental. Imagine flying in a hang-glider, soaring over the city by night. Now imagine that you’re going ten times as fast, so that the streets and lights and crowds below roll by like an unfolding blanket. Now add the feeling that there isn’t a breath of wind, and that you’re lying in mid-air watching the land zoom past below. When an air elemental carries you in its body, the rushing wind doesn’t touch you; it’s like swimming through the sky.

Tonight, though, I didn’t have much time to enjoy it. I had one brief glimpse of a huge curving roof, a pale green dome forming a bubble out of the centre, before Starbreeze turned me back from air and dropped me to the ground so fast that I was standing on flagstones almost before I knew what was happening. I was standing under the night sky in a massive dark courtyard in the shadow of a vast building. Opposite the building was a high fence with a pair of tall gates, and through the closed gates I could see lights and passing cars. The courtyard itself was almost pitch-black and for a moment I was disorientated, then I saw the massive columns to my left and suddenly I knew exactly where I was.

Starbreeze swirled upwards. ‘Starbreeze, wait,’ I whispered up to her. ‘Don’t you want the brooch?’

Starbreeze paused in mid-air and stared blankly down at me. ‘Brooch?’

I sighed inwardly. ‘Here.’ I held out the silver butterfly. ‘This is for you.’

‘Ooh!’ Starbreeze said raptly. A puff of wind whisked the butterfly out of my hand and Starbreeze leapt up and away out of the courtyard and into the night sky, spiralling higher and higher, tossing the brooch from breeze to breeze until she disappeared into the air and vanished.

I was left alone. I took a quick glance around me and got to work.