Forged

chapter 9

The next day dawned hot. It was September, but the summer weather had lingered, and the morning sun shone down out of a brilliant blue sky. Even this early, it was warm: come midday, it would be scorching. I stood in the shade at the edge of the woods, looking across the grassy valley.

We were in Wales, at Richard’s mansion. Or what was left of it. The once-elegant building was a mass of rubble and shattered walls, so thoroughly destroyed that you couldn’t even tell where the rooms had been. It looked as if a bomb had hit it, which it had. The front lawn was wild and overgrown, scattered with pieces of tile and stone that had been thrown outwards in the blast. A pair of crows hopped between the rocks, pecking at the ground.

To me, Richard’s mansion had been many things. A home, a school, a prison, a graveyard. I’d loved it and feared it and hated it with a burning passion. Seventeen years ago, for the four of us, this was where it had all begun. Today, this was where it would end.

A muffled footstep announced Cinder’s presence. He moved quietly for such a big man. “So?” he said.

“We’re clear.”

I started walking down the slope, and Cinder fell in beside me. The morning sun lit us up, casting bright shadows behind us. “Council?” Cinder asked.

“They won’t interfere.”

“Thought they wanted you.”

“Two days ago, they were hunting me,” I said. “Day after tomorrow, they might be doing it again. But not today.”

From across the valley, the ruins looked as if they could have been made yesterday. Up close was a different story. Grass had grown around the scattered tiles and bricks, and new bushes and saplings marked where last year’s battle had scorched the earth. The crows took off as we approached, flapping away down the slope, cawing in their harsh voices: arrh, arrh, arrh.

Cinder nodded at the rubble. “Dig through?”

“Don’t have to,” I said. “Council earth mages cleared a way.”

“Basement might have caved in.”

“I was the one who called in that airstrike, and I was the first one down into the basement. It’s still there.”

“Anyone moved in?”

“Who the hell would want to?”

We climbed over some rubble, skirted the remains of a chimney stack, and found ourselves at the top of a set of stairs leading down into darkness. It was easy to miss: in the bright daylight the stairway was a small shadow with nothing to mark it out. Searching with my magesight, I couldn’t see many auras. The summoning trap was long gone, and the gate wards that had once protected the mansion were ragged and patchy, many of their nodes destroyed. They would hamper gate magic, but wouldn’t prevent it.

Cinder called up a light and we descended into darkness, leaving the warmth and sun behind. Our footsteps echoed on the stone steps as we went deeper. At the bottom of the stairs the dark red of Cinder’s light illuminated a door.

We didn’t go far. One short corridor and we came out into the room the four of us had once called the chapel. The statues in the corners had been removed at some point, but the murals were still there, strange and unsettling. The archway by which we’d entered led back into the corridor and up the stairs. A second archway at the far end led deeper into darkness. I walked to the middle of the room and stopped.

“This is it?” Cinder asked.

I nodded.

Cinder’s light lit his face from below, casting strange shadows from his features. “So?”

I began to lean against one of the walls, then saw the murals and thought better of it. “Now we wait.”

Cinder looked at me. “Wait?”

“What, you thought I was going to use the fateweaver?” I said. “Lure her in?”

“Can you?”

“I’ve seen her twice the past few days,” I said. “Once in Tibet, once in London. Both times she gated in on me. Know what I did to lure her in?”

Cinder looked at me.

“Nothing,” I said. “I was trying to deal with other problems, and both times Rachel somehow managed to show up at exactly the time and place to make my life as difficult as possible. So no, I’m not going to lure her, or do any kind of fancy tricks. I’m just going to hang around somewhere suspicious, like here, and wait for her to show up and ruin my day. Because that’s what she does.”

Cinder studied me. “Called her Rachel.”

“I did?”

Cinder gave a nod.

I shrugged irritably. “Slip of the tongue.”

“You sit here, she shows up?”

“Best guess.”

“So why’d you wait so long?”

“Because bringing her here is all I can do,” I said, and pointed up and out. “You and I have been allies two and a half years now. The deal was that you’d help me out if I got R—split her from Richard. Well, I’ve done it. But you wanted more. You want things back the way they used to be. Right?”

Cinder looked at me for a second, then nodded again.

“And that I can’t promise,” I said. “Right now, she walks down those stairs and sees me, she’s just going to kick off and we’re back to square one. The way I see it, the only thing that has a chance of turning her off the path she’s on right now . . . is you. And it has to be now, because I can’t keep doing this. She’s been trying to kill me too long, got close too many times. If after you’ve said your piece she still goes for me . . . then it’ll be the last time.”

Cinder looked at me silently.

“You okay with that? I can’t keep softballing any longer.”

“Enough chances,” Cinder said. “I get it.”

We stood in silence for a little while. The chapel was dark and cold. We would only have to turn and walk up those steps to return to the warmth and the morning light, but somehow it felt very far away.

“Mind if I ask you something?” I said.

“Yes.”

“I’ve never asked how you two got to be partners. Figure it’s not my business. But I really want to know why you haven’t given up on her.”

Cinder didn’t answer.

“I mean, maybe it’s just me, but if a girl I knew was shooting disintegration spells at my chest, I’d take that as a pretty strong indicator that we were officially broken up.”

Silence.

“Look, at the end of the day, it’s your life. I’m just wondering.”

“You ever stop asking questions?”

“Not really.”

More silence.

“So?”

“Just do your job.”

“I am doing my job,” I said. “But until Rachel shows, we’ve got nothing better to do.”

“Bloody hell,” Cinder said. “You do not take a hint.”

I shrugged. “Diviner curiosity. Used to think it would get me killed someday. Turns out a lot of other stuff is going to beat it to the punch. But right now, I’m here and you’re here, so . . . ?”

“I’ll tell you if you’ll just shut up.”

“Deal.”

“Del and I made a promise, long time ago,” Cinder said. “She’d have my back, I’d have hers.”

I waited for Cinder to go on. “That’s it?” I asked when he didn’t.

Cinder shrugged.

Trying to get Cinder to open up is like prying apart a stone wall with a chisel. “Well, I suppose that was pretty much how things were when we first met. When it was you, Deleo, and Khazad. Khazad sold her out soon as it got convenient. You didn’t.”

“Khazad was an arsehole.”

“But that all changed when Richard came back, didn’t it? She got drawn back in.”

“Yeah.”

I studied Cinder. “I don’t buy it.”

Cinder shot me a glare. “What?”

“I can believe you’re the kind to keep that sort of promise,” I said. “You’ve kept every deal you’ve made with me. But that’s because I’ve kept every deal I’ve made with you. If I’d stabbed you in the back, you would not be trying to save me like this.”

Cinder didn’t answer.

“Now, maybe you think I just don’t look as good as she does,” I said. “But you never really struck me as the kind to care that much about looks. And you might be playing some kind of complicated game where she’s a piece on the board, except you never really struck me as that kind of person, either. So we’re back to the same question.”

Another silence, but this one of a different kind. I could feel the futures shifting and knew that Cinder was going to speak. I waited for him to decide what to say.

“Every time I used to see you, you’d have some kid around,” Cinder said. “That apprentice of yours, that Council time mage, the Indian kid, that life girl . . . even with that spider, you’d made friends.”

“Yeah.”

“Lot of Dark mages think that’s dumb,” Cinder said. “They stay cold. No attachments. Travel light, travel fast.” He paused. “But you do that, you got nothing when you get there. People like that . . . they don’t last.”

I looked at Cinder curiously. “Was that why you bonded Kyle?”

“Del doesn’t have that,” Cinder said, ignoring me. “Used to. Had that friend, Shireen. Even you, sounded like. Until Drakh. She couldn’t let him go.”

“He doesn’t care about her,” I said. “I’m not sure he cares about anyone. As far as he’s concerned, at this point, she’s just a failed experiment.”

Cinder grunted. “Told her that.”

“How’d she take it?”

“Not well.”

“So why—?” I paused. “Oh. Out of time.”

Cinder shifted, straightening, and walked to the centre of the room. I moved to the archway at the far end. The passage beyond led into the laboratories and cells of the mansion’s basement complex. I had plenty of memories of them, few good, but I wouldn’t be going there today.

Silence. Minutes ticked by. I scanned through futures and learned little—normally my divination gives me some idea of how a conversation is likely to go, but Rachel’s just too unpredictable. I began to channel through my dreamstone, carefully weaving together pieces of a spell that I hoped I wouldn’t need.

I felt a flash of gate magic from above and knew Rachel had arrived. I’d wondered if she’d hesitate, suspecting something, but as the futures moved it became clear she was coming straight down. “Thirty seconds,” I told Cinder.

“Great,” Cinder said. “Now keep your mouth shut.”

Footsteps sounded from the archway. A moment later, sea-green light, dark and flickering, illuminated the steps. Rachel’s feet appeared, then her body, and finally her face. The black domino mask hid her expression, but I saw her eyes flicker past Cinder to me and felt the futures spike as she called up her magic.

“NO!” Cinder roared. Dark flame billowed with a hungry whoosh. It didn’t strike either of us but it did make us jump. Rachel’s spell faltered and she looked at Cinder in surprise.

“We are NOT DOING THIS!” With his back turned, I couldn’t see Cinder’s face, but his voice held an intensity I’d never heard from him before. “I do not have TIME for your shit right now. You are going to LISTEN.”

Rachel drew back slightly. I think she was surprised. I certainly was.

“This shit with Verus?” Cinder said. “It ends. No more hunting him. He goes his way and so do you.”

“Why are you on his side?” Rachel snapped. But for now at least, there were no futures of her resuming her attack. Cinder seemed to be holding her by sheer force of personality.

“How many times have you tried this?” Cinder demanded. “Over and over, and you missed every time! You think the hundredth is going to work?”

“I have to!” Rachel shouted back.

“Why?”

“Because—Richard—”

“Drakh’s not your master!”

“Because of him!” Rachel shouted. “He tricked me!”

“Drakh was using you,” Cinder said. “Every time he got someone new, he put them above you. Wasn’t going to change.”

“No!” Rachel’s voice cracked. “I’m his Chosen. It—it would have been fine if he hadn’t—”

Cinder just looked at her.

“Stop looking at me like that! It’s his fault!”

“Del,” Cinder said. He didn’t shout this time; he spoke clearly, simply. “Drakh’s not taking you back.”

“No.” Rachel’s voice wavered. “No, he told me. He told me this was my last chance. If I proved . . .”

“You’ve served him long enough,” Cinder said. “It’s time to stop.”

Rachel drew a breath, looked away. Then she turned back, suddenly calmer, and I felt the futures shift. “Maybe,” she said. “But not till I kill him.”

Uh-oh. I sped up my working through the dreamstone.

Cinder’s voice was flat. “Not an option.”

“No, I have to, you see?” Rachel’s voice was suddenly bright, persuasive. “He’s the one who set all this up. You just can’t see it because he’s fooled you too. He does it to everyone, except me. He’s laughing at you right now. Look!”

“Forget. About. Verus.”

“You should call him Alex,” Rachel said absently. “I don’t—oh. Wait.” She turned and stared into empty space, her head tilted.

I felt a chill. Shireen.

“I thought you couldn’t come when he was around?” Rachel asked. She paused, then nodded. “Oh, that makes sense. But you see, don’t you? He killed Tobruk and he killed you. So I have to kill him. I’m all that’s left.”

“He didn’t kill Shireen, Del.”

“Yes, he did.” Rachel sounded as if she were explaining things to a child. “If it hadn’t been for him, she’d be fine.” She paused, frowned. “Well, you would say that.”

This isn’t working. I finished the shaping through the dreamstone. The gate was almost ready. All it would need was a push.

“This ends,” Cinder said. “Today. You got two choices. Back up the stairs with me. Or—”

“Or through that other archway and go after Alex,” Rachel said. “You know, there’s a reason I got bored of you.”

“Del—”

“Shh.” Rachel put a finger to her lips. “No more talking.”

Rachel took a step towards Cinder, then another, smiling to herself. I tensed.

“We made a promise,” Cinder said quietly. He didn’t move as Rachel closed in.

Rachel laid her hands on Cinder’s shoulders. She had to reach up to do it. Blue eyes gazed up at Cinder’s face. “I know,” she said. “And I always keep my promises.”

Cinder hesitated.

Rachel’s smile deepened. “It’s just that sometimes the important promises are the ones you make to yourself.”

“Cinder!” I shouted.

Green-black light formed at Rachel’s hands. Cinder’s black flame sprang to meet it, just a heartbeat behind. There was a flash and a roar. I caught a glimpse of Cinder staggering, then Rachel was darting towards me, light steps flying across the stone.

My spell completed and a gateway appeared in the wall to my right. I leapt through.

I held my grip on the spell, making sure the gate would stay open a few seconds longer than usual. I needn’t have bothered. Rachel jumped through with blinding speed. “Ah-ah!” she called. “No running!”

I backed away. We were in a room that looked much like the one we’d left, except that instead of being dark it was clearly lit in grey and blue.

Rachel didn’t seem to notice. She moved forward, graceful and balanced, still smiling. “Here we are again,” she told me. “Do you remember?”

“Oh, I remember,” I told her.

“I knew you’d come back,” Rachel said, as if telling me a secret. “But you shouldn’t have done that with Richard. He’s supposed to be mine.”

“You wanted to keep Richard for yourself, you shouldn’t have given him Anne.”

Rachel nodded. “You’re right. You are right. I should have made sure, shouldn’t I? If she’d died in that attack, it would have been fine. Richard would have been angry, but he’d have come around. But I can fix that. If I just—”

“I really don’t care.”

Rachel frowned. “I’m not finished.”

“Rachel, how many times have we done this?” I said. “It’s been six years now and we keep running into each other. Sometimes you’re more crazy, sometimes you’re less crazy, but it never makes much difference, does it? Nothing ever changes.”

“Well, of course it doesn’t.” Rachel sounded as if she were explaining the obvious. “You’re you.”

I’d been backing away as Rachel approached. She could have closed the distance in a lunge, but instead she paced me, watching me closely. Strangely, I hadn’t got any closer to the edge of the room.

“But I have changed,” I said. “It’s been painful, but I’ve learned. You, though? You’re frozen in time. You’re still the same broken angry teenager standing over Shireen’s dying body.”

Rachel’s smile faded. “Don’t say her name.”

“Why not?” I nodded to one side. “She’s right there.”

“Rachel!” Shireen came striding out from the archway, tension and alarm in her movements. “What are you doing?”

“Not now,” Rachel said absently, not looking at Shireen.

“No!” Shireen said. “You have to get out!”

“Oh, and don’t forget your jinn,” I said, gesturing to the other side of the room. “Looks like the gang’s all here.”

A slender, almost-human shape was standing in the shadows, unnaturally still. It watched us both, unmoving. Rachel shot it an uninterested look. “They’re always here.”

“Has it occurred to you,” I told Rachel, “that you’ve managed to kill or drive away every single person who’s ever cared about you? First there was Shireen. She was your best friend and you murdered her in cold blood. Then there was Richard. He might have put Anne above you, but he still would have kept you on. At least until you managed to ruin years of his work by freeing her. Oh, I was the one who manipulated you into it, but it was still your choice, and Richard knows it. He’ll never trust you again.”

Rachel’s expression had become fixed. All traces of a smile were gone. “Shut up.”

“And finally there’s Cinder. God only knows why, but he’s stayed loyal to you for years. Even today, you still could have taken his offer and walked away. Or you could have done, until you tried to kill him yet again.”

“Rachel!” Shireen burst out. “You have to—”

“Shut up,” Rachel hissed. “All of you.” She stared at me, eyes icy with hate. “Richard should never have taken you in. He could never see what you were. I’m going to—”

“Look at your hands, Rachel,” I said quietly.

Rachel blinked and glanced down, then stared. Faint wisps of light were rising from her fingers.

“You didn’t know that I could open gates to Elsewhere now, did you? I told you I’d changed.” I paused. “Something else I noticed. Ever since our reunion, the times we’ve met via Elsewhere, you’ve never gone into Elsewhere. You’ll walk right up to the edge, you’ll look over the line, but you’ll never cross it.”

“You’re lying,” Rachel said. But all of a sudden, she looked uncertain.

“He’s not!” Shireen said. “Rachel, please, you have to run!”

Without looking, I knew that wisps of light were starting to rise from my own clothes and body. Not enough to be dangerous, not yet. “I spent a while wondering why you’d never set foot into Elsewhere,” I told Rachel. “I mean, Elsewhere’s a reflection of your inner self. So I thought it’d be interesting to see what happened if I brought you here. What do you think, Rachel? What would your Elsewhere be like?”

Rachel looked at me for a long moment, then turned to run. And stopped. Behind Rachel, where the door had been, was a floor-to-ceiling mirror spanning the length of the room.

“Oops,” I said softly. “Guess you’re staying.”

Rachel tried to call up a gateway. I snuffed it out with an effort of will. She tried again with the same result.

“What are you doing?” Shireen cried. “Let her go!”

“Like she said,” I told her. “No running.”

Rachel threw a disintegration ray at the mirror, the beam and its reflection meeting in a green flash. It should have turned the mirror to dust, but the glass absorbed the spell as though it were nothing. I could feel Elsewhere shifting, focusing around us. I couldn’t make out the shape of what was happening, but Rachel was the centre of it.

Rachel turned on me, and green death lashed out. I bent the spell away, letting it fizzle out somewhere off to the side. There was no way Rachel could hurt me, not here. Gate magic might work, but it was my will against hers and—

A chill went through me.

In the mirror behind Rachel, I could see myself reflected, quite small at this distance. I could see Shireen’s reflection as she called out again for Rachel to run. I could see the jinn’s reflection, silent and unmoving in the shadows. And I could see Rachel’s reflection standing just behind her.

Except that when Rachel had spun to face me, the reflection hadn’t moved.

Rachel sent another disintegration ray at me; without looking I knocked it away. Her reflection was watching me from over Rachel’s shoulder.

“Die already!” Rachel shouted at me. When I didn’t answer, she paused. She followed my gaze, turned with a frown. She looked at her reflection; the mirror Rachel looked at me. The real Rachel turned back. “And look at me when I’m killing you!”

I stared back at Rachel, the chill inside me growing. She doesn’t see it.

The mirror Rachel turned away, her gaze lingering, then began walking, heading for my reflection.

Instinctively I backed away. My reflection moved sideways, matching me, but the mirror Rachel was advancing faster and faster. “What the hell is wrong with him?” I heard the real Rachel say.

“It’s Elsewhere.” There was a frantic edge to Shireen’s voice. “Something’s here. Alex, get us out! Please!”

Elsewhere is dangerous. Anne and Luna and I can use it because we’re careful and disciplined. Every crack inside your mind, every part of yourself that you can’t face, is a vulnerability. And by that measure, Rachel was about as bad a candidate for Elsewhere as you could get. So my plan had been to bring her here, then simply wait for her to self-destruct.

All of a sudden, it was occurring to me that bringing the most mentally damaged person I knew into a place shaped by thought might not have been a good idea.

Rachel’s reflection lunged for mine. I flinched, half expecting to feel the impact, but didn’t. Rachel’s reflection slid around mine and yanked my knife from its sheath.

My hand went instinctively for the same knife, and closed on empty air.

Rachel tried again to disintegrate me. I was so distracted I barely managed to deflect it. I had no idea what was going on anymore. I’m used to knowing how to handle threats, but I didn’t know how to handle this.

Dimly, I was aware of Rachel talking to Shireen. “Is he even paying attention?”

“I told you, something’s here! You have to get out!”

The mirror Rachel looked at me through the glass. Our eyes met and a secretive smile touched her lips; she held up my knife, the blade glinting in the light. Then she turned her gaze towards Rachel.

“Hey,” Rachel called to the jinn. “How about you do something useful for once and—”

The mirror Rachel lifted the knife out in front of her, clasped in a double-handed grip, blade down, and drove it into her own stomach.

Rachel’s words cut off in a scream. She doubled over, clutching her belly, then looked up at me in pain and shock. There was blood on her fingers.

The mirror Rachel drove the blade into her stomach again and again. Each time she wrenched the knife out, it left a bleeding wound, but she didn’t react. For all the pain she showed, she might have been stabbing a plank of wood. Her eyes were locked onto her counterpart. The real Rachel cried out and staggered as the knife went in.

“Stop it!” Shireen screamed at me. “Stop it!”

“I’m not doing anything,” I snapped.

The mirror Rachel looked at her original, head tilted, and drove the dagger into her thigh. Rachel screamed again as her leg gave way beneath her. She collapsed to the stone floor.

“Make it stop!” Shireen yelled at me. She looked around wildly, then her gaze turned towards her reflection. “Rachel!” she called. “The mirror! It’s the mirror!”

Rachel twisted around from where she lay. Within the mirror, Rachel’s reflection looked back at her. Something seemed to alter in Elsewhere, the surroundings changing with a click, and Rachel’s eyes widened as she finally saw what I did.

The two Rachels looked at each other through the mirror. The mirror Rachel smiled.

Rachel’s face twisted in rage. She sent another disintegration ray into the mirror, then when that didn’t work, lashed it with a whip of sea-green energy. She followed that up with a water blast, then a spray of acid, then some sort of cutting effect I didn’t recognise. Spell after spell hit the mirror, each of them powerful enough to kill a man in an instant.

The mirror soaked them all up. Rachel might as well have been hitting thin air.

The light from the last spell faded to reveal Rachel’s reflection standing on the other side of the mirror, untouched. She was still smiling. She lifted up my knife, turning the blade to show the blood on it.

The anger in Rachel’s eyes began to turn to fear.

“Alex!” Shireen shouted. “Make it stop!”

“I told you,” I said, not looking at her. I couldn’t take my eyes off Rachel. “It’s not me.”

“Then open a gate! Take her out of Elsewhere! You can do that, I know you can!”

The mirror Rachel looked down at Rachel, then opened her mouth very wide, her jaw gaping.

“No,” Rachel muttered. She held up a hand, sea-green light glowing around it, but there was nothing to strike at. All of her deadly battle-magic was useless. The light around her hand winked out.

The mirror Rachel reached into her open mouth with her free hand. She gripped her tongue between thumb and forefinger.

“No,” Rachel said, her voice rising. “No!”

The mirror Rachel raised my knife. Metal glinted as she pointed it down towards her mouth.

“Shireen!” Rachel screamed.

“Alex!” Shireen screamed desperately. “Please!”

I hesitated, looking at Rachel. Just for a second I felt the urge to help.

Then I thought about what had happened only last month, when Crystal had controlled my body and forced me to beat Anne until Anne had snapped. I remembered how I’d been left on the floor, crippled and helpless, just as Rachel was now, and how Rachel had laughed at my tears, her eyes bright with happiness.

The urge to help died.

The mirror Rachel brought the knife down, stabbing through her tongue and pinning it to the floor of her mouth.

Rachel gave a horrible choking scream. The mirror Rachel dragged the knife out, blood welling up. Rachel clutched her face and threw her head from side to side in agony, red droplets spattering on the floor.

“Rachel!” Shireen screamed and ran to Rachel’s side. She tried to pick Rachel up, cradle her in her arms, but Rachel thrashed wildly, hitting Shireen in the face and knocking her flat. Rachel managed to pull herself up onto one knee, looked up at the mirror to see that her reflection was still standing. The lower half of her reflection’s face was a mask of blood, but its eyes were still fixed on Rachel.

It was holding my knife against its neck.

Rachel stared back at her image, then slowly, she turned to face me. The bloody mess of her jaw matched the image behind her. Her eyes met mine, and for once there was no anger there, only fear. She tried to speak through her mangled tongue but the words were incomprehensible.

I was still looking into Rachel’s eyes when her reflection cut her throat.

A horrible wound opened up across Rachel’s neck, starting below one ear and going all the way around to the other, the skin slicing and tearing like a paper bag. Blood spurted from the arteries, and the trachea gaped open. Rachel convulsed and collapsed, making a wet gargling sound.

“NO!” Shireen screamed. Again she ran to Rachel’s side and again she was knocked away. Rachel was thrashing wildly, blood spurting out to pool around her. Shireen looked around desperately and ran to me. “Help her!” she screamed. She beat at my chest with her fists. “Alex, you bastard! Do something!”

I looked back at Shireen coldly and stood my ground.

Rachel died slowly and horribly. She thrashed and clawed, but as the blood gushed out, her movements became slow and sluggish. At last her hands clutched at the stone a final time and then went still. Her head fell to one side and her eyes began to glaze. Her chest rose and fell more and more slowly until it stopped.

The instant that it did, the wisps of light around Rachel brightened tenfold. Physical bodies of any kind don’t last long in Elsewhere. A living creature can hold together for a while—a dead one can’t. Rachel’s corpse dissolved from the outside in, the hair and fingers going first and the rest following, the body coming apart into flaring particles in an eerie imitation of the disintegration magic she’d used on so many other people. From start to finish it took less than ten seconds. A last few wisps of light trailed upwards, then faded.

Rachel was gone.

Shireen was left alone, staring at the empty patch on the floor. Even Rachel’s blood was gone. “You . . .” she began, and trailed off.

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.

Shireen shook her head.

“I didn’t want it to end like this,” I said. “But I just couldn’t afford to let her keep trying to kill me every time I turned my back.”

“Stop it,” Shireen said softly.

“I gave her as many chances as—”

“Stop it,” Shireen said. “Stop talking!” She turned on me. “Do you know what you’ve done?”

I looked at her silently.

“When Rachel Harvested me, she took a piece of me,” Shireen said. “That was me!”

I sighed. Suddenly I felt very old and very tired. “I know.”

“I told you to redeem her! That was what I was waiting for, all these years! I helped you, because I thought you were going to help her! And you do this?”

“She chose the other way. I’m sorry.”

“She chose the other way? You think this was her? You sound like—”

Shireen cut off. She lifted a hand, staring at it. For a moment I couldn’t see what was wrong, then I realised that I could make out the outlines of her chest through her fingers. Shireen was fading. She stared at her hand a moment longer, then her eyes rose slowly to me. “Oh, my God,” she said softly. “All this time, I never saw it.”

“Saw what?”

“Richard set us against each other,” Shireen said. “He wanted to see who’d be the last one. I thought it was over, but it wasn’t!” Her voice rose. “It was you! First you killed Tobruk, then you killed Rachel, now you’ve killed me! I thought it was Rachel that was Richard’s Chosen. But it was you!”

My heart went cold. I couldn’t answer.

“It was you!” Shireen laughed wildly. She was transparent now, the walls and floor clearly visible behind her. “All this time, I thought I was helping you save her, and you end up taking her place! Well, enjoy it, Alex! You’re the last one, so enjoy it! You finally get what you wanted! You finally get . . .”

Shireen faded away. Her words lingered a little longer, echoing, before dying away.

The jinn had watched the entire exchange from the edge of the room. Now it stepped back, fading into shadow. Its shape merged with the darkness and it too was gone.

Wisps of light were rising from my skin, dangerously bright. I stared down at the space where Shireen had been, then with an effort tore my eyes away to make a gateway back to the physical world. But before I did I took one last look at the mirror.

Rachel’s reflection was still standing there, still bearing the same horrific wounds, still holding my knife. She met my eyes through the mirror, lifted her free hand, and waved her bloodstained fingers with a secret smile.

A thrill of terror went through me. I turned and fled.

—

Cinder was waiting for me in the chapel, standing in the centre of the room. He was favouring one leg and arm, but otherwise showed no sign of injury. As I walked in through the archway he looked at me in silent question.

I came to a stop and looked back at him.

We stood facing each other for a long moment, then Cinder turned and walked away. His magelight followed as he climbed the stairs, leaving me alone in the dark.

As the sound of his footsteps faded, a bolt of pain shot through my right arm, making me gasp. I staggered to the wall, leaning against it for support. It was too dark to see, but as I slid my left arm inside my clothes, my fingers felt the cool, too-smooth material of the fateweaver above my bicep. There were only a couple of inches of flesh left below my shoulder.

I put my back against the wall, slid down to a sitting position, then leant my head back against the stone and closed my eyes. I needed to visit the shadow realms that Karyos had marked out for me. I needed to prepare for the Council, and for Richard, and for Anne. But right now I wanted to sit, and remember the apprentice I’d once been.