Hidden

Chapter 7

I came down into a sea breeze and dazzling sunlight. The gate closed behind me and I was alone.

I was standing on a stone platform on the edge of a massive cliff. The cliff stretched away to my left and right; as my eyes adjusted I saw that it went on as far as I could see. Behind was forest and greenery and the sun was shining down out of a cloudy sky, filling the air with haze. At the foot of the cliff and stretching away into the distance was an endless ocean, and the rush of waves on rock was a steady sound in the background.

Directly ahead was an enormous castle. It was built upon a rocky island offshore, several hundred feet from the cliff, and a long narrow bridge stretched from my feet to some sort of courtyard directly ahead. The castle was made out of yellow-grey stone, and it was huge. Square towers and buttresses reached up into the clouded sky, arched windows peeking down from layered walls, with a darker, towerlike building beyond the first few layers of ramparts.

I was still holding my phone in one hand; the signal indicator was spinning uselessly and I switched it off. As I did I searched ahead, looking for danger, and came up blank. As far as I could tell I was alone out here. Of course, given how big it was, it was going to be pretty hard to tell the difference between alone and nobody in range . . .

I shook my head and focused. Back in London, Darren would be waking up right now. He’d notice I’d stolen his gate stone, and it wouldn’t take him long to figure out what I’d done with it. There wouldn’t be any easy way for him to report to Sagash (and given the typical attitude Dark masters have towards failure, he probably wouldn’t want to), so his most likely next move would be to contact one of the other apprentices. I’d taken his phone specifically to slow that down, but he’d manage it sooner or later and once he did I could expect him to show up here with reinforcements. I needed to find Anne before then.

I started walking forward across the bridge. It was a full fifteen feet wide, which was good because there was no railing, just a sheer drop. The cliff face was vertical, and I glanced down after a few steps to confirm that there was absolutely nothing below me except a long, long fall of hundreds of feet to the water. Sea breezes tugged at me, whipping my hair and pushing me from side to side. I had a macabre impulse to look into the future in which I jumped off the edge, down and down to those little wavelets below, but shook it off.

I couldn’t help feeling relieved when I made it across. The courtyard beyond was vast, more than a hundred feet deep with ledged walls reaching a good forty feet above my head. A straight stone path ran to a huge door which led deeper into the castle, and grass grew on either side. I’d been scanning for danger as I’d been crossing but I hadn’t found anything—either nobody had noticed me, or I really was alone. Something caught my peripheral vision; I looked right to see what it was and jumped.

Standing in the shadow of the outer wall, just a few feet away from where the bridge met the courtyard, was a fuzzy mass of darkness which looked like a humanoid sculpted out of shadow and black smoke. Its only features were a pair of faintly glowing white eyes, through which it watched me silently. It wasn’t moving, and as far as I could tell it wasn’t going to.

I looked at the thing, puzzled. It was a construct, and as soon as I’d seen the thing my hand had gone to the pocket where I kept my focus, but as I studied the futures I saw that the thing wasn’t going to attack. Unless I bothered it, it was just going to stand there. Variam had said something about shadow constructs used as a security force, but this one didn’t seem to be doing very much in the way of security . . .

. . . unless it wasn’t there to keep me out, but to keep someone else in. Experimentally, I looked into the futures in which I walked back out over the bridge. No response. Constructs aren’t alive and can’t take initiative; they only do what they’ve been specifically ordered to do. If the construct had been told to watch for one particular person then it wouldn’t react to anything else.

I was tempted to keep experimenting, but it didn’t relate to my primary goal of finding Anne and the clock was ticking. I walked away from the bridge and deeper into the castle. The shadow watched me go, white eyes tracking me silently.

The first courtyard led into a bigger courtyard with multiple levels, patches of grass crossed by walkways. Now that I was out of the wind, I was getting hot; the castle wasn’t tropical but it was much warmer than the cold London spring. I stripped off my greatcoat and slung it over one arm, looking from side to side around the high courtyard walls. There were several ways out and no obvious correct direction; given enough time I could map the place blind, but I was on a clock. I searched the short-term futures and saw that one of the back staircases led up to a high tower.

The interior of the tower was the same yellow stone and it felt dark and gloomy compared to the bright sun outside. There was something eerie about the castle, something that was hard to pin down, like a feeling of being watched. I climbed the spiral staircase which lined the inside of the tower wall, going up and up until at last sunlight broke through the gap in the ceiling above me and I came up into the light again. I shielded my eyes as I did, looking around over the tower parapet, and for a moment thought that I’d gotten disoriented. When I realised what I was seeing, my eyes went wide.

It had been my fault, honestly. Variam had said the castle was huge, but I hadn’t really listened—after all, most castles are pretty damn big by normal standards. But this place wasn’t big, it was gigantic. From my position on top of the tower I could see dozens of buildings and other towers rising out of the haze, clustered together and built on top of one another. Sun-drenched courtyards separated the buildings, and sheer drops plunged from vertical walls down into lower levels. The tower I’d just climbed had to be close to a hundred feet, and it wasn’t even the tallest. The ocean was to my left and right, and behind the castle too; the island kept going away from the mainland, but not forever. I’d never heard of a shadow realm so big. Most are little pocket realities, no bigger than a football pitch; this place could have swallowed up every other shadow realm I’d ever seen with room to spare.

Towards the centre of the castle, rising up above the lower halls and towers, was a square keep. It was darker than the construction around it, a dull matte black instead of the sandstone shades of the other buildings. The design felt different, too. It wasn’t exactly the architecture, it just didn’t quite fit with the castle around it. The rest of the shadow realm was a single unit but the keep jarred somehow, didn’t blend in.

I looked for magical signatures, and found them. Wards covered the castle—scratch that, they covered the whole shadow realm. They were so omnipresent that they were hard to see, huge background currents like a haze in the air. I couldn’t pick them all out but I could identify some. Most recognisable was the gate ward that Vari had warned me about. It didn’t look as though point-to-point transport within the shadow realm was impeded, but gating directly out was going to be impossible. There were also shroud effects, subtle and layered, though I wasn’t sure what they were meant to guard against. They weren’t blocking my divination, at least. Maybe they were designed to stop longer-range spells.

Two places stood out in my mage’s sight. The first was the platform back on the mainland, on the other side of the bridge. A space magic effect was bound around the standing stones, allowing passage in and out. The second was the dark stone keep. Wards were laced over it, tight and dangerous-looking. It was hard to be sure at this distance, but they seemed to have a different style than the universal effects over the shadow realm—they were more focused and aggressive.

I understood now what Vari had meant when he’d said that Anne had hidden here, back all those years ago. With its size and the shrouds, this place could hide an army. Anne had managed to stay concealed here once; maybe she’d managed it again.

Time to think. Anne had arrived here three days ago, almost certainly to the same platform which I’d just come down on. Where would she have gone?

She could have run directly away from the castle. Turning to look, I could see the narrow bridge running to the cliff face, and the platform at the top. Beyond was grass and light woodland, green and inviting. Or she could have done what I’d done: crossed the bridge and disappeared into the castle. Instinctively that felt like the worst direction, but if you want to lose pursuers, you go where they’re not expecting.

And then there was a third possibility—Anne’s pursuers might have caught her. In which case (assuming she was still alive) she’d be in whichever part of the castle they used as a prison. I had a nasty feeling it would be that keep.

Three possibilities, three directions, and I didn’t have time to search them all. Which to choose?

I spent a precious minute thinking. What swung my decision in the end was that shadow I’d seen in the courtyard. It hadn’t been on general guard duty or it wouldn’t have let me in, but its presence there made perfect sense if it was meant to stop Anne from getting out, which suggested that someone thought Anne was still inside. Until I found something better, I’d assume Anne was hiding somewhere in the castle.

The bad news was that anything that could hide her from her pursuers would also hide her from me. If I was hiding, and she was hiding, how was I going to find her?

Well, there are mundane ways to track people, but it’s complicated and quite frankly finding stuff the normal way takes too damn long. Divination it was.

I moved to the edge of the tower parapet. The breeze ruffled my hair, though it wasn’t as strong as the wind should be in a tower so high. I looked into the future to see what would happen if I stood there and screamed “ANNE!” at the top of my voice.

No response from Anne, which wasn’t surprising. No response from anyone else, which was more surprising—the wind and the sea must be making it hard to hear. I looked to see what would happen if I kept screaming. Nothing . . . nothing . . . ah. Futures of shadows closing in on my position . . . they could fly? Didn’t know that. And . . . a person? It looked like a girl . . . could it be Anne? It felt similar to her . . . maybe . . . at this distance I couldn’t be sure. I needed a closer look.

I gave the castle a last glance, fixing its layout in my mind, then went jogging down the stairs of the tower. When I reached the bottom, I picked a direction towards where I’d seen the figure in my vision and started working my way deeper into the castle. The layout of the place was winding and confusing—instead of straight corridors I had to take side routes to get anywhere. Luckily, finding paths is something my magic is very good at, and I made good time.

I stopped inside a huge, cathedral-like hall. Narrow windows cast slivers of light through the gloom, and rafters crisscrossed the roof above. The floor had a gaping chasm in the middle, but a railed walkway ran around the walls and a catwalk crossed the cathedral lengthways. Movement in the future caught my attention and I stopped to look. Movement, a presence . . . there was a girl heading this way, and it wasn’t Anne.

I had more than enough time to avoid her, but I needed information. There were doorways along the wall leading into side rooms. I checked to make sure I’d have a way out in case things went wrong, then slipped into one of the rooms and waited. Footsteps broke the silence, quiet but growing louder, until someone emerged at the cathedral’s north end.

I stayed out of sight behind the wall, watching her through the futures in which I leant out. She was slim, with short black hair and Southeast Asian features; her clothes were grey, and a pair of shortswords were sheathed at her belt. Assuming Sagash didn’t have more than one armed Korean girl hanging around his shadow realm (which didn’t seem too likely unless he had a very specific fetish), then this was the third apprentice Caldera had told us about, Yun Ji-yeong. Right now her arms were folded and she was standing at the cathedral’s north entrance. I wonder what you’re waiting for . . . oh. That. Sagash’s other two apprentices were on their way, and they were in a hurry.

Three Dark apprentices at once were more than I could handle. I did not want to be found here, but I did want to eavesdrop. I checked again to make sure I wouldn’t be spotted, then hunkered down and waited.

Darren and the other apprentice from the ball appeared at the south end of the cathedral two minutes later. They stopped as soon as they saw Ji-yeong; I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but their body language wasn’t friendly. After a pause they started across the central walkway.

“What are you doing?” Ji-yeong said as they approached.

Neither of the two boys answered. Ji-yeong stepped out onto the walkway, blocking their path. “Hey.”

“What?” Darren said. He was wearing the same clothes as when I’d knocked him out, and he was moving stiffly, obviously hurt. He didn’t look ready to quit, though.

“Where have you been?”

“Out.”

“Who were you fighting?”

“None of your business.”

Ji-yeong looked him up and down. “You lost, didn’t you?”

Darren’s eyes narrowed. The other boy—Sam Taylor, if Caldera’s info was right—put an arm across to hold Darren back. I couldn’t get a good look at him, but he looked smaller and slighter than Darren, and he had a faint Manchester accent. “We’re a bit busy. Can this wait?”

“Busy with what?”

Neither boy answered. “You said busy,” Ji-yeong said. Her speech was slightly accented, more formal than Sam’s or Darren’s. “Busy with what?”

“None of your fucking business,” Darren told her.

Ji-yeong looked at Sam, ignoring Darren. “You’re looking for something?”

Darren started to answer, and again Sam held him back. “Trying to get the fox,” Sam said. “It was in the castle again.”

“The fox?”

“Yeah.”

Ji-yeong cocked her head. “That was why you sent all those shadows to the main gate half an hour ago?”

Uh-oh. Getting out of here might be a little harder than getting in.

Sam and Darren didn’t answer. “Sending all eight of your shadows to guard the gate,” Ji-yeong said. “You must really want that fox. It’s funny. Didn’t you have that one guarding the gate already?”

“You going to get out of the way?” Sam was giving Ji-yeong a hard look. There was no trace of friendliness in his voice anymore.

“Okay,” Ji-yeong said, smiling suddenly. “Maybe I’ll go talk to Sagash.”

Both Darren and Sam stopped. “About what?” Sam said.

Ji-yeong shrugged. “Nothing.”

Darren took a threatening step forward. “What are you telling him?”

“What’s the problem?” Ji-yeong said. “You’ve got nothing to hide, right?” The smile didn’t leave her face, but suddenly her right hand was resting on the hilt of one of her swords.

“Okay, okay.” Sam stepped between them, arms out. “Look, let’s talk about this. Ji—” His voice lowered and I lost the rest of the sentence.

Damn, just when it was getting interesting. The trouble with divination-as-eavesdropping is that it’s got a very limited range. I wanted to sneak closer but I couldn’t risk it; living magic is very good at detecting people, and with three different mages the chances were too good that one would spot me. Instead I looked through the futures in which I approached, trying to pick through the ones in which I was noticed to the ones in which I caught a few words.

“—listening to her?” Ji-yeong was saying.

Sam answered, but he was turned away from me and I couldn’t hear what he was saying. “No, she isn’t,” Ji-yeong said.

“So what?” Darren said. He still sounded angry.

“So, she’s using you?”

Sam answered again, and Ji-yeong said something I couldn’t quite catch; Darren had moved in front of her. Will you get out of the way? I adjusted the futures I was watching, cycling through angles.

“—taking the blame,” Ji-yeong was saying.

“So get off your arse and help,” Darren said.

“Look, let’s go back to the keep,” Sam said. “We can—” He moved forward and again I lost the thread of the conversation. This time Ji-yeong let him pass and Sam headed for the northern exit, still talking. Darren and Ji-yeong followed, eyeing each other like a pair of wary dogs. The three of them disappeared through the archway and were gone.

I straightened up from where I’d been crouched, frowning as I tried to put the subtext of that conversation together. Secrets, Sagash, a fox . . . Apparently Darren and Sam had been hiding what they were doing from Ji-yeong. Maybe the House of Sagash wasn’t as united as it looked.

One very definite impression I was picking up from watching Sagash’s apprentices was that they were a step below Anne in terms of power. They might be ruthless, but they weren’t as skilled or experienced, and I suspected Sagash’s isolation might be a reason for that. He wasn’t as connected as Morden, and he hadn’t found apprentices as dangerous as Onyx. Maybe that was why he’d resorted to kidnapping the first time round . . . though this lot seemed to be here willingly.

I didn’t want to run into the three apprentices accidentally so I trailed them at a distance, using divination to track their passing while staying well outside their detection range. After only a few minutes they crossed a drawbridge over a lower courtyard and disappeared into a set of halls. Looming over the halls was the dark shape of the keep, and it didn’t take long to confirm that that was where they were going. Sagash was probably there.

A bigger worry was whether Anne was there. But I hadn’t heard anything about her being captured, and until I did I’d stick with the plan. I turned around and started working my way towards the castle’s edge. The high buildings of the castle made it hard to see the sun, but assigning that direction as west put the cliff to the south. The keep was south-central, relatively close to the exit. If I were Anne, I would have tried to put myself as far from the keep as I could. I began heading east, hoping to curve around the keep towards the north.

As I walked, I looked into the futures of what would happen if I yelled for Anne. I cycled through a variety of calls, eventually settling on “Hey, Anne, it’s Alex, could you come out, please?” To begin with I saw futures of movement from the direction of the keep, but as I put more distance and stone walls between Sagash’s apprentices and me, the chance of detection decreased until I could shout as loudly as I wanted.

While I walked, the back of my mind was turning over what I’d overheard. Ji-yeong had mentioned telling Sagash, and it had been a threat. What if Sagash didn’t know anything about the attack on Anne at all?

If that was true, then not only would it explain why Sagash had denied knowing about it, it would also fit with how crude the attack had been. Darren and Sam had caught Anne totally by surprise, yet they’d still botched the job and let her get away. Not the kind of performance you’d expect from a Dark master mage, but exactly the kind of performance you’d expect from a pair of ruthless but inexperienced apprentices.

But if they weren’t doing it on Sagash’s orders, why had they targeted Anne? From what Variam had said, it didn’t sound as though Anne had even met these three, much less given them a reason to go after her. And if they’d just been looking for a victim, why pick her? Had they chosen her at random? That felt like too much of a coincidence.

I was still missing something.

I wound my way through halls and across courtyards, up and down staircases, futures spreading through possible paths before me like spiderwebs. The castle had a strange brooding feel to it, hushed and watchful. It didn’t feel threatening, not exactly—it was more secretive, as though you could live in this place for years without ever really understanding it. I could hear the sea from over the walls and the wind around the towers, but after a while it just became background noise and the castle felt silent. Sagash’s apprentices were long gone and the only living things I could see were the white birds that soared over the castle towers and perched on the rooftops.

As I travelled I passed all kinds of strange constructions. A crane occupied one tower, a chain trailing from its tip down and down to a circle of grass far below. Other sets of rooms were filled with weird ancient machinery made out of black iron. There was even a railway, running along the outside of the castle’s northeast wall, with a horrifying drop to the rocks far below. I path-walked along the railway line and it curved around the castle’s northeast corner before ending as inexplicably as it had started. Sagash hadn’t built this place, of that I was sure. His life and Anne’s were just one more story out of hundreds, stretching back in time.

I’d been at it for more than two hours now and it was getting dark. The sun had disappeared below the western walls, and the sky was turning a dusky purple. I’d come to a section of high walls and narrow walkways; endless drops stretched down into darkness and the golden light of sunset cast long shadows on the walls. The wind had dropped with the coming dusk, and the castle felt empty and lonely, as though I were the only person left alive in a silent world. In the still air, my voice carried farther, and for the thousandth time I sent my future selves path-walking in different directions, calling for Anne. There was no response, but just as I was about to cut the spell I sensed something from the route through the lower archway. Someone there . . . I tried again, focusing on it this time, then started walking, matching my future self’s path. As I drew closer to the archway, I could hear a strange creaking sound.

The archway led into a small grassy area, enclosed on three sides. Grey-tinted walls rose up to the left and right, but up ahead the ground dropped away to a beautiful view of the ocean. The sun was setting beneath the clouds, its light reflecting off the waves in a long rippling beam. I was right on the edge of the cliff, and looking out at the sea it was as if the water stretched out to infinity.

In the centre of the grassy space was a windmill. It was made of stone and wood, with eight long canvas sails, and they were turning very slowly in the gentle breeze. The rotating sails made the rhythmic creak . . . creak . . . creak . . . that I’d heard before, mixing with the sound of waves on the rocks far below. Next to the windmill was a pool ringed with rushes, and white birds were perched beside it, dipping their beaks into the fresh water.

I walked towards the windmill, my footsteps quiet on the grass. The birds took flight as I approached, circling up into the warm air. I halted a little way from the windmill, looking up at the stone windows. “Anne?” I called quietly. My voice cracked, and I had to swallow and try again. “Anne, it’s Alex. I’m down here.”

There was a moment’s pause, then a face appeared in one of the open windows. It was Anne, and at the sight of her something tense inside me relaxed at last as a warm feeling of relief went through my body. It had been worth it.

Anne’s face was in shadow and I couldn’t read her expression as she stared down at me. “Alex?”

“Mind if I come in?” I said. “You look like you’ve got fewer patients this time.”

Anne stood for a second, then disappeared. I heard running footsteps, then the door swung open and Anne stepped out into the evening light. She was staring, and I knew she was using her lifesight, checking to see whether it was really me. “It is you,” she said. “I didn’t believe— How did . . . ?”

All the time I’d been searching for Anne I’d only looked for her presence, the sound of her voice, because that was the quickest way to identify her through the futures. I hadn’t bothered to check for what she’d looked like. Now that I thought about it, I should have been expecting it. She’d been attacked while she was sleeping, after all.

Anne was wearing a long T-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts. The T-shirt had once been bright pink but had faded with age, and there were holes along the seams. On the front was a picture of the Disney cast of Winnie the Pooh, all sharing a hug and waving, with Sweet Dreams written underneath the picture in cutesy lettering, decorated with yellow stars. I stared at it for a second, then burst out laughing.

Anne looked at me in confusion, then she figured it out and her expression changed to exasperation. She folded her arms, covering up the Sweet Dreams and shifting her bare feet on the stone steps. I kept laughing and she spoke loudly enough for me to hear over it. “Are you finished?”

I shook my head. Somehow it felt like the most hilarious thing I’d ever seen. I think it was relief more than anything else—I’d been so wound up that now I just couldn’t stop laughing. “That—” I managed. “That T-shirt.”

“What about my T-shirt?”

I looked at Anne. She didn’t look particularly embarrassed about being caught in her sleepwear—she just looked annoyed, and the expression on her face made me double over and crack up again.

“Could you please stop doing that?” Anne said over my laughter.

“I’m sorry,” I said, wiping my eyes. “It’s just— It looks like a nightie for a little girl.”

“I was asleep. What did you think I’d be wearing?”

“Honestly? Never thought about it.” I still had the urge to keep laughing.

“Look, I’m sorry if it doesn’t look nice, but I didn’t know I was going to be kidnapped when I was choosing what to wear to bed. It’s not like—”

I closed the distance to Anne in two quick strides and put my arms around her. Pressed against me, she felt light and underweight, as though she’d been starved. “Alex?” Anne said in surprise.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” I said quietly.

I’d expected Anne to pull away but she didn’t move. We stood there for a little while, the sails of the windmill gliding steadily by over our heads as the rays of the setting sun fell all around. From above the birds looked down curiously, watching from their perches upon the high walls.

“So what happened?” I asked Anne a little while later.

The interior of the windmill was roomy, with high ceilings and ancient iron machinery. Square windows looked out onto the ocean, and the beams of the setting sun painted gold light onto the stone walls. Anne was curled up like a mouse in a nest of old sacks she’d made for herself. I’d given her my greatcoat; she was tall enough that it fit, even if it was a little baggy. There wasn’t anything I could do about her bare feet, but she’d tucked them into her sack-bed for now. I’d finished telling Anne the shortened version of my side of the story, and now I wanted to hear hers.

“I don’t remember much of it,” Anne said in her soft voice. “After I finished talking to you that night I went home, made dinner, washed up, and went to bed. Then the next thing I knew my head was spinning, all my nerves were screaming, and I was being hit with lightning.”

“You played dead?”

“It was all I could think to do. I didn’t know what was going on, but he wasn’t trying to kill me. So I stopped moving and waited for him to get close.”

“He thought you were knocked out?”

“I nearly was,” Anne admitted. “But . . . I can take a lot more than most people think I can. I’ve been shot and stabbed and a lot worse, and it hurts, but I can fix it. Once I had the chance to brace myself, that electric spell wasn’t too bad.”

I raised my eyebrows at that. I’ve never been hit by a really powerful electric shock so I don’t know what it feels like, but I had to wonder what kind of things Anne was comparing it to if a full-power lightning spell “wasn’t too bad.” “So you stunned him and jumped through the gate?”

“I didn’t mean to. I wanted to get out the door, but when I saw it was locked I knew I wouldn’t be able to get it open in time.” Anne was briefly silent. “I knew where I was the instant I stepped through, but by then it was too late. I just ran for the bridge.”

“Why not the woods?”

“Because I tried that the first time I ran away. It doesn’t work; there isn’t enough forest before you hit the boundary. I went into the castle instead, then those Dark mages came through behind me.”

“They’re Sagash’s apprentices.”

Anne nodded. “I thought they were. The first place they checked was the forest. It gave me enough time to get into the castle and I lost them in the courtyards.”

“You did a pretty good job,” I said. “I don’t think many mages would have lasted this long here.”

Anne didn’t smile. “It’s not my first time.”

“Well,” I said, “you’re the expert. What’s the best way out?”

“The main gate. But I don’t have a key.”

I held up the fluted rod I’d taken from Darren. “You mean one of these?”

“That’s it.”

“One slight problem,” I said. “Darren and Sam stuck a squad of eight of those shadows on top of the platform.” I’d taken a few minutes to confirm it after breaking away from the three apprentices, and Ji-yeong had been telling the truth. “Don’t suppose you know a way to deal with those things?”

Anne shook her head; she looked weary. “They’re not alive, my magic can’t touch them. It was why I could never get away. There are too many and they don’t get tired or give up.”

Anne’s head was down. “Well, it might not be that bad,” I said, trying to sound cheerful. “From what I overheard, I think Sagash only lets his apprentices play with four of them each. If they’ve got their shadows there, they haven’t got them out here looking for us.”

Anne didn’t answer. “Any other ways out?” I asked.

“Maybe.” Anne shook her head. “Yeah. I don’t know exactly . . . Somewhere.” Her eyes drifted closed for half a second, then she pulled herself awake again. “What was that?”

I frowned. “Are you okay?”

“. . . Little tired.”

“Have you slept since you got here?”

“They’ve been looking for me,” Anne said. “They searched here the first night. If I’m asleep . . .” She trailed off.

“You’ve been awake for three days?”

“I can go longer than this if I have to.” Anne sounded defensive.

“That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.” I looked at Anne, and this time I noticed the little signs I’d missed; her eyes were slightly dulled, her movements not as quick or as sure. She must have been running on adrenaline since she’d heard me, and now it had worn off. I made a quick decision. “Get some sleep and I’ll keep watch. I can use the time to scout ahead.”

Anne put up a token protest but it didn’t last long. She curled up in the nest of sacks like a dormouse, and when I next looked she was fast asleep.

I leant back against the wall with a sigh. Well, that’s step one. Now we just need to get out. I looked through the futures in which I sat still, watching to see if anyone would come. Apart from the futures in which Anne woke, nothing disturbed us. For now at least, we were alone.

I looked over at Anne and saw that she was shivering slightly. I walked quietly across the floor and tucked my coat more closely around her. She settled into it with a sighing sound and her shivering slowed. I looked down at her and had to smile. Asleep, Anne looked very young and delicate. It was good to know she was safe.

Though her surviving shouldn’t really have been a surprise. I once saw Anne shot with a full clip of bullets, and by the next day she was walking around as though nothing had happened. I’ve also seen her rip the life out of another mage in the blink of an eye. She might look delicate, but she isn’t.

How much of that came from what had happened to her here?

I shook my head and straightened, then walked to the stairs and climbed up to the next floor. The staircase led into an upper level with windows open in all four directions, giving a view down onto the grass and the pool and out to sea. The sun had set, and the sky was a tapestry of red cloud fading into dusky purple to the east. I sat on the stone floor, resting my back against the wall with a sigh. My armour isn’t really designed for lying around in, but it’s a lot better than anything made out of metal or Kevlar and I was comfortable enough. I closed my eyes and started searching for a way out.

Just as the conditions at the Tiger’s Palace had been terrible for path-walking, the conditions in the castle were nearly perfect. Path-walking requires a long chain of highly predictable links, and as soon as one link becomes unstable, everything beyond it collapses. If you’re within a busy environment like a city, then normally the only way to do any kind of long-distance path-walking is to limit it to your own home or some other controlled environment where you don’t have to worry about passersby destroying your intricate probabilistic house of cards. But here, path-walking was easy. The castle wasn’t deserted but it was pretty close, and the only uncertainty came from the ocean winds and the foraging birds. There was still just enough light for my future self to see by, and I sent him running south, working his way back towards the entryway as the sky darkened above him. I couldn’t see any trace of Sagash’s apprentices, but the castle was so big that wasn’t really a surprise. There were a lot of places they could be, and I didn’t try to find them; instead I explored my way south, running up against dead ends and memorising them as I did, building up a mental map of the castle so that with each wrong turning I could find the path a little faster next time.

Just as I expected, reaching the bridge and crossing the cliff to the platform caused the painstakingly held thread of my future to break apart into the chaos of combat. There were a bunch of shadow constructs on the door, and this time they weren’t going to let me past. Constructs aren’t sapient, which means it’s theoretically possible to predict how a fight with one will go, but it didn’t really matter in this case: the shadows were individually weak but there were too many of them. The focus in my pocket would take out one, but not the other seven.

I tried to work around the fight, but the combination of distance, darkness, and cumulative uncertainty was making it hard to see. It didn’t help that I was pretty tired myself. It had been a long day.

I opened my eyes and looked up out of the window. I’d lost track of time while I’d been path-walking, and the last traces of sunlight had faded from the sky. In their place a moon had risen, shining through the eastern window and turning the dark tower of the windmill into a strange place of black shadow and knife-edged moonlight. The sails still swung past outside, the rhythmic creaking blending with the rush of the waves on the rocks far below. The moonlight on the clouds gave it a misty halo, rings of light spreading out through the sky, and I sat there for a while, gazing up at it. I’ve always loved looking at the moon, and I wondered idly what I was really seeing. Was it our moon, its light transported, or another one? Did the shadow realm have its own sun and moon and stars, or did it borrow them from our world?

Who knows. Whatever that moon was, I was glad it was there.

Movement in the futures caught my attention, and as I glanced at them I saw that Anne was awake. I was within the radius of her lifesight so I didn’t need to tell her where I’d gone. After a minute I heard quiet footsteps on stone and a shadow appeared at the staircase. “Alex?” Anne said softly.

“Trouble sleeping?” I asked.

Anne nodded. She had my coat wrapped around her. “Come over here,” I said. “You look cold.”

“I’m not,” Anne said. She sat down against the stone wall opposite, shivering slightly.

I looked at Anne for a second, then got up. I’m not much good at knowing what to do when someone’s upset or unhappy, but every now and then my divination gives me a hint. I sat down next to Anne and put my arm around her. “What’s wrong? Did you get hurt?”

Anne shook her head. I could still feel her shivering against me. “You’re sure you’re not cold?” I asked. Anne wasn’t exactly heavily dressed, but the stones of the castle were still warm.

“It’s not that.”

“Did something wake you up?”

“No,” Anne said. “I mean, I was asleep . . . I was afraid they were coming. I wanted to sleep, I had to make myself wake up. Then when I did it was like they were there—I couldn’t see them, but they could have been . . .” Anne’s shoulders hunched and she fell silent.

Oh. Right. Anne had just spent three days without rest or sleep, alone and on the run with Dark mages trying to abduct her or worse. On top of that, she’d been dragged back to the same shadow realm that had been the site of probably the most horrible experiences of her life. Anne always seems so self-possessed but she’s actually younger than Luna, and what she’d just gone through would have sent most people into a nervous breakdown. “It’s okay,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. “You’re safe.”

“We’re not safe.” Anne’s voice was slightly muffled, and she didn’t look up at me. “They’re still after us. And now you’re going to get hurt too.”

“Okay, I’m not saying it’s impossible that things’ll turn out that way, but let’s look on the bright side. You’re here, I’m here, we’re both alive and safe, and you get to have a good night’s sleep for once. Why not enjoy it?”

Anne was silent. “Come on,” I said. “Remember back when you moved in with me? That talk we had up on the roof? You trusted me to take care of you back then. Trust me now.”

“That was—” Anne said, then stopped. I’d seen Anne’s words—she’d been about to say, That was before last year. After a pause she went on. “I can’t stop thinking about it.” Her shoulders were hunched and she was looking down at the floor. “All the ways they might catch me. I had nightmares about this place for so long. When I was here I dreamed every night about getting away. Then when I did I kept being afraid that someday I’d be caught again. You don’t understand—you don’t know what Sagash did to me. What it was like. Getting away was the only thing I wanted. And now, it’s . . . the one thing I did and it’s all for nothing.”

“You aren’t the same person you were,” I said quietly. “And you aren’t on your own anymore.”

“I’m so tired of being afraid.” Anne sounded dull and weary and utterly wretched. “I wish I didn’t . . .”

“There’s nothing wrong with being afraid of people who want to hurt you. I’d be more worried if you weren’t.”

“Easy for you to say. You and Vari and Luna are never scared of anything.”

I laughed out loud at that. Anne looked up in surprise. “What?”

“Anne, I’m scared of more things than I can count. If I ever sat down and tried to make a list, I’d be there all week.”

“But you don’t . . .”

“I’m eight years older than you; I’ve had time to get used to it. Look, you remember when we first met? You were twenty then, right? When I was that age, I was much more screwed up mentally than you were. I’d just gotten away from Richard and I was terrified out of my wits that he’d come after me. I couldn’t hold any kind of job or relationship, I treated everyone like they were out to get me, and I slept with a weapon under my pillow. But it gets better. It takes time and you have to work at it, but it does.”

Anne was silent. “Have you ever talked about it?” I asked.

Anne shook her head.

“Vari? Luna?”

“Vari knows bits. Little bits. Luna . . . she asked, but . . .”

“Why did Sagash bring you here?”

Anne was silent for a little while, long enough that I started to think she wasn’t going to answer. “He found out about us because of Miss Chandler,” she said at last. “She was his . . . student, I think. We didn’t know. We just thought she was on her own; we’d never heard anything about Dark mages back then. I was payment. That was the way Sagash explained it. He wanted an apprentice, and I was the price.”

“And you lived here for nine months?”

Anne nodded, not meeting my eyes.

“What was it like?”

“It was horrible,” Anne said softly. “The only other people were Sagash and his guests. Not all were Dark mages, but they were just as bad. I’d . . . I’d look at them when they came in and wonder what kind this one was, and whether Sagash would give me to them. I never had any say, not about anything. What I wore, what I did, where I went . . . He controlled everything. The only choices I had were the ones he gave me, he was changing me into something and I couldn’t stop it. I just watched and I kept losing myself, one bit at a time . . . I tried to run away but it never helped; there wasn’t any food and eventually I’d have to come back or starve. After the second time Sagash put a collar on me so he could hurt me and track me, and I couldn’t even run away anymore. I had to come back each time, for training . . .” Anne fell silent again.

“What kind of training?” I said quietly.

“I can’t tell you,” Anne whispered. “I can’t, I don’t . . .” Her shoulders shook and she started to cry. “I didn’t want to, he made me. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me . . .”

I held Anne closer and she kept crying quietly, tears mixing with sniffs, one hand tight on the mesh of the armour at my chest. I didn’t ask her any more questions. Maybe she could have answered and maybe not, but pushing her to do it felt too heartless. Eventually she fell silent. She was huddled up against me, the coat still wrapped around her, and listening to her breathing I realised she’d fallen asleep. From a glance into the futures, I could tell this slumber was a deeper one; she wasn’t going to be waking up so easily this time.

Well, now what?

Anne was pressed up against me, which pretty much ruled out any more path-walking. We still needed to get out, but it wasn’t immediately obvious how. Trying to retrace our steps to the main gate would just lead us into a battle with a squad of constructs, which would draw in Sagash’s apprentices. I’d sucker-punched Darren once—I didn’t think it would be so easy to do it twice.

The best approach would be to find some other way out, but for that I’d need Anne’s help, and she was obviously exhausted. From the signs of it she’d been using a combination of terror and her own life magic to keep herself in a state of hypervigilance for three days straight, and she wouldn’t be able to think clearly until she’d had a chance to rest. For that matter, I was having trouble thinking clearly too. I hadn’t had much sleep since this whole thing had started, and it had been a long day.

I rested my head back against the stone and gazed up at the beams of moonlight slanting through the windows. The creak of the sails, the whisper of wind, and the distant waves blended together into a soothing, gentle sound. Anne slept next to me, still and warm. I found my eyes drifting closed, and chided myself, looking ahead to check the futures in which I sat here and stayed awake. It didn’t look as though anything was going to disturb us—in all the futures I could make out, we’d be left alone until sunrise. Still, even if I’d checked, there was always the chance of something changing, no matter how small. I let my eyes close, feeling the presence of my armour around me, watchful.

I shouldn’t go to sleep, but it felt good to rest my eyes. Just for a little while . . .