Marked

8

It was two hours later.

‘So when are you going to tell us what happened?’ Variam demanded.

‘I already told you,’ Anne said. ‘I don’t know.’

We were in the Hollow, gathered in one of the clearings under the afternoon sun. It was a lot like the last time we’d come here to meet, with one difference: Anne was on one side, and the rest of us on the other.

‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’ Variam said. He was still wearing his red and gold dress robes; he and Luna had come running straight from the Carpenter Club as soon as they’d seen my alarm. ‘You had a Crusader hit team attack your house! How do you just forget something like that? “Oh, I’m sorry, I know there was a bunch of assassins in my bedroom, but I really wasn’t paying attention.”?’

‘It’s nothing to do with attention,’ Anne said. ‘I told you how the attack went right up to the point where I fell back. I was going to try to catch one as he came through the door. Then the next thing I remember, Alex was bursting in.’

‘So what happened to the guys chasing you?’

‘I guess they were the ones Alex took care of.’

Variam threw up his hands. ‘That is such bullshit!’

‘I’m sorry, were you there?’ Anne said pointedly.

‘You said there were two guys chasing you when you ran into your bedroom,’ Variam said. ‘The one who was in the lead was using force magic, and he was white. Right?’

‘Yes …’

‘Well, Alex already told us that the mage he was fighting was an air mage, and he was black,’ Variam said. ‘So what, you’re saying that the guy chasing you not only changed his magic type from force to air, but spontaneously managed to change his race as well?’

‘Then maybe he left? There were plenty more outside. Why is this so important anyway?’

Variam looked about to explode when Luna touched him lightly on the shoulder. ‘Vari.’

Variam switched his glare. ‘What?’

‘This is pointless,’ Luna said. As she withdrew her hand the silver mist of her curse flowed back down her arm to cover the fingers once again. ‘We know what happened.’

‘Oh yeah?’ Variam spread his arms. ‘Then how about you fill us all in.’

‘Remember last year at the Vault?’ Luna said. She was wearing a white blouse that left her arms and shoulders bare, with a long pleated turquoise skirt. The fit and design made me pretty sure it was Arachne’s work; she would have drawn plenty of attention at that party. ‘When Alex caught up with Anne, she was out cold, but whatever had happened, it had driven those Crusaders off. And she didn’t remember anything about that either.’ Luna turned to look at Anne. ‘It’s exactly the same.’

‘I didn’t fall unconscious,’ Anne said.

‘Not this time,’ I said. ‘But Luna’s right. It has to be the jinn.’

‘It might not be …’

‘Anne,’ I said. ‘Wake up. There is no way this is anything else.’

‘But how?’ Anne said. She was looking defensive now, hunted. ‘Back then, it was because I picked up that ring. And I know it was a bad idea, but … I haven’t touched it again. I haven’t even seen it.’

The four of us looked at each other. ‘Okay, hear me out here,’ Luna said. ‘Is this necessarily such a bad thing?’

‘Are you kidding me?’ Variam asked.

‘I just think it’s worth pointing out that so far, the only times this jinn has done its possession thing has been when Anne’s been cornered by a bunch of Crusader arseholes trying to torture and kill her.’ Luna shrugged. ‘Don’t know about you, but I’m fairly okay with this.’

Anne shot Luna a grateful look. Variam didn’t. ‘You’re okay with her having a freaking eldritch abomination hanging out in her head?’

‘As long as it’s only eating people like that? Yeah, I don’t really see the problem.’

‘It’s not inside her head,’ I said. ‘I asked Dr Shirland about that specifically.’

‘Then where the hell is it coming from?’ Variam asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘I haven’t touched the ring that jinn was bound in,’ Anne said. ‘I know, I picked it up the first time, and I know, it was a mistake. But I haven’t done it again. I haven’t even gone close.’

‘I know.’

‘Then how is this happening?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I still don’t think you should be beating yourself up over it,’ Luna said. ‘So far, every time this thing’s come out, it’s been pretty helpful.’

‘If it can possess Anne whenever it wants to,’ I said, ‘then I can promise you, it won’t take long for it to stop being helpful.’

‘So what, you’d rather have her be defenceless the next time these guys show up?’

‘That’s how these things work,’ I said. ‘Of course they’re helpful. At first. Then as you start depending on them, the price goes up. Did you forget how Anne got trapped in the Vault with those Crusaders? Richard and Vihaela very specifically engineered that situation to force her into doing it.’

‘Why does that make a difference?’ Luna asked. ‘It’s not like the Crusaders were going to leave her alone if she didn’t.’

‘Think,’ I said. ‘What does Richard gain from protecting Anne? You think he’s doing this out of the kindness of his heart? Or because he’s suddenly so interested in her welfare? There is always a price for this kind of help. And the fact that we don’t know what that price is – that’s what scares me.’

‘So what are we going to do?’ Variam asked.

I didn’t have an answer to that. Neither did Anne or Luna. We stood in silence around the clearing.

We stayed together for another hour, but Variam’s last question hung over the conversation like a cloud. At last Variam was called away on his Keeper duties. Luna stayed; Anne didn’t.

‘I’d better go,’ Anne said, rising to her feet. ‘I haven’t checked on Karyos.’

‘I could come with you,’ Luna suggested.

‘I’d … rather be alone,’ Anne said. ‘Sorry.’ She walked away.

Luna frowned after her. ‘That’s not good.’

‘She’s feeling as though we don’t trust her,’ I said.

Luna raised her eyebrows at me. ‘Yeah, I wonder why.’

‘Not now.’

‘I’m just saying, you and Vari could have been a little nicer.’

‘Not now.’

‘Fine,’ Luna said. ‘So what’s the plan?’

‘Why do you all keep asking me that?’

‘Because you’re the first person we think of when this sort of crap happens, and you’re usually pretty good at it,’ Luna said. ‘Sorry.’

Which was a tacit way for Luna to admit that she couldn’t think of any solution, and she wasn’t expecting Variam to come up with one either. Great. ‘You made it sound like you were okay with Anne having a superpowered evil side.’

‘Well, I kind of am in the short term,’ Luna said. ‘But I learned my lesson from the monkey’s paw. You don’t get something for nothing.’ She paused. ‘You think there’s any way to use that? One jinn to counter another?’

‘Runs into exactly the same problem,’ I said. ‘The thing’s not on our side. No, I think that right now, we don’t know enough. The first step is to find out what we’re dealing with.’

‘Arachne?’ Luna asked.

I shook my head. ‘If she knew anything, she’d have told us already. I’m thinking of something a bit more direct.’

‘Need any help?’

‘Thanks, but no. This is going to be a one-man trip.’

* * *

I stayed in the Hollow after Luna had left, waiting for evening. The sun set beneath the miniature world’s tiny horizon, the sky fading through shades of purple and gold as the stars came out, first in ones and twos and then in clusters, shining down in a million pinpoints. I’ve never been able to work out exactly what the sky is that you can see from the Hollow. They aren’t real stars – they can’t be – but at the same time they seem too real to be just an illusion. Sometimes I wonder if they’re a reflection of another world, just as the Hollow is a reflection of ours.

I waited for an hour after night had fallen. Anne didn’t come back. She knows the Hollow better than any of the rest of us, and with her magic she’s quite capable of sleeping in a tree or curled up in a bush. I could probably have found her if I’d gone looking, but I didn’t. I don’t like using my divination to spy on friends, though I was pretty sure that what I was about to do would be just as likely to upset her, and for exactly the same reasons. But I needed to know more.

Once I knew it was the right time, I stripped to my underwear and lay down on my futon. The night was warm enough that I only pulled the duvet up to my waist. The dreamstone glinted off to my right, and I took a last glance at it before closing my eyes. I didn’t feel the need to touch it any more – I’d been practising enough that it was easy. Sleep came.

I stepped through the door and the world solidified into verdant woodland. Birds sang in the treetops, and shafts of sunlight slanted down between the leaves to fall upon the undergrowth of the forest floor. The temperature was pleasantly warm, that of a summer afternoon, and the air smelled of grass and seeds. This was Elsewhere … or Anne’s part of it.

Arachne had been teaching me about differing levels of dreams. True dreams are constructs of the unconscious mind, and while with training one can learn to become partly conscious of them, there isn’t much you can do with them. A dreamshard – such as the one in which I’d visited Arachne – is created more deliberately. It’s shaped by the whim of its creator, and it makes for a comfortable place in which to meet, or be alone.

Elsewhere is a very different story. It’s less of a dream and more of a world, one that doesn’t work the same as ours. What happens here may not touch our reality, at least not physically, but the dangers are real, and not everyone who goes there comes back. When you visit Elsewhere, you don’t see its ‘pure’ form – you see an interpretation, shaped either by yourself or by another. In this case, the version of Elsewhere that I was seeing was shaped by Anne. Anne spent a long time here when she was younger – maybe too long – and her Elsewhere feels more real than mine, more detailed and vivid.

I couldn’t see through the forest cover, but I knew where I was. Over to my left were the great trees, spiralling behemoths the size of small mountains, with houses and platforms built around their branches. The times I’ve visited Anne, that’s where I’ve met her, and I’ve always found it beautiful. This time, though, I had a different destination in mind. I turned right and started walking.

Normally when you visit another person’s Elsewhere you always find them, or a doorway to their dreams. It doesn’t matter what direction you go in, the place reshapes itself around you. With the dreamstone and my newfound skill, though, I could shape my own path, finding the destination that I wanted. The trees ended at a wall of black glass, mirror-smooth and darkly reflective. I jumped up to the top.

The inside of the wall was as different from the outside as night and day. Outside was forest, the green canopy stretching on and on for ever; inside was black glass, perfect and lifeless, straight lines and smooth curves. The wall had a parapet, but despite its neatness, there was something wrong with the design. There were no stairs, no gates or towers, nothing that would make the wall useful to living people, as though it had been sketched in abstract and left unfinished.

The wall formed a circle, and at the centre was a tower, rising up into the grey sky. Looking up, I could see a balcony. Once upon a time I would have gone looking for a staircase or a door, or some other way inside. This time I fixed my eyes on the tower, focused and walked forward. There was a moment’s resistance, then my foot came down on black stone.

I was standing on the balcony. The view was amazing, seeming to stretch out for ever, but I didn’t pause to look; I’d seen it before. High arches led into a sitting room of dark wood and green glass. It was empty.

I frowned. Where is she?

I walked across the room and opened the door at the end to reveal a corridor with white sphere lights glowing from the walls. I kept going deeper, my footsteps echoing inside the tower. They were the only sound; the stillness was absolute. I climbed a flight of stairs, picked out a door and opened it.

Inside was a bedroom. The far wall was open, a line of arched windows following the curve of the tower and giving a view out onto the landscape beyond. A storm was raging in the distance, sparks of lightning flashing at the base of a vast anvil-shaped cloud.

To the left was a double bed, the sheets and duvet rumpled, and it was occupied. Lying on it was Anne … or someone who looked just like her. She had her hands behind her head and one knee up, long hair spread over the pillow, and was wearing a red chemise with black lace, cut long with slits in the side to leave her legs bare. ‘Long time no see,’ she said with a smile.

‘Last time you met me downstairs.’

‘Last time I was the one who needed to talk to you,’ the girl who looked like Anne said. She patted the bed next to her. ‘Come on, don’t be shy.’

I looked around for a chair; there wasn’t one. I crossed the room and sat on the bed, a little distance away. The girl raised her eyebrows but made no move to close the distance. ‘I’ve wondered,’ I said. ‘What should I call you?’

‘Just “Anne” is fine.’

‘That feels a little misleading.’

‘But I am Anne,’ the girl said. ‘Just not a part she likes to think about.’ She tilted her head. ‘You can keep thinking of me as “not-Anne” if it makes you feel better.’

How did she know that? I’d never used that name to Anne, not once. ‘Should I give you time to dress?’

She laughed. ‘I never know whether you’re serious when you do that. It’s funny either way.’

I paused, looking at not-Anne. She looked back at me.

‘So,’ I said.

‘So?’

‘Last time you came to the point a lot faster.’

‘Last time we were in a little more of a rush.’ She smiled at me. ‘Sure you’re in such a hurry to talk? We can always do that after.’

‘I … think I’d like to settle this first.’

Not-Anne rolled her eyes. ‘God, you’re slow. How many invitations do you need?’

I raised my eyebrows. ‘I’m slow?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I think …’ I looked at Anne, or this reflection of her. The more I looked at her, the harder it was to remember that she wasn’t Anne. And she had all of Anne’s slender beauty, posed in a way that made it hard not to look. I knew exactly what she was implying, and it was more tempting than it should have been. ‘I think you’re trying to distract me.’

Not-Anne laughed again. Her mood seemed to shift more quickly than Anne’s, amusement to annoyance and back again in an instant. ‘Okay, sometimes you’re quick. Though you’d be more fun if you were a little easier to manipulate.’ She sighed, stretching in a way that made her body shift under the chemise. ‘Go on, ask it.’

‘Today, in Anne’s flat, when I spoke mind-to-mind,’ I said. ‘It was you I was talking to, wasn’t it?’

‘Ding ding, advance to round two.’

‘Except it wasn’t just you. You were sharing space with the jinn.’

‘Ding ding, round three.’

‘So where is it?’ I said. I looked around the tower. ‘Here?’

‘Bzzt. Sorry, you are not a winner. Weren’t you listening to Dr Shirland? This tower is single occupancy. I like my privacy, thank you very much.’

‘It sure as hell wasn’t single occupancy today,’ I said. ‘Okay, so the jinn’s not a permanent resident. But somehow, it’s getting in. And if it’s getting in, then it’s also getting out. So how exactly is that happening?’

‘Answers on a postcard?’

I took an angry step towards her. ‘Stop playing around and answer the question!’

‘Or what?’ Not-Anne stretched, crossing her wrists above her head with a smile. ‘You’ll punish me?’

I glared at not-Anne, took a breath. She’s playing like this is a game. I tried not to think about the fact that if it was a game, then I was pretty sure I was losing.

The problem was that it was Anne. This kind of thing is usually something I’m good at, but it was too easy for her to put me off-balance. ‘That jinn is getting in. And you know what? I’m pretty sure you’ve got something to do with it.’

Not-Anne shrugged.

‘Are you going to say anything?’

‘Why?’ Not-Anne sat up and hopped off the bed, then walked past me. I turned to watch as she opened the wardrobe, talking over her shoulder. ‘It’s not my job to find things out for you.’

‘I’d say it concerns you in a fairly major way.’

‘Oh, not disagreeing.’ Not-Anne took out a blue velvet dressing gown and slipped it on, then turned to face me, tying the belt around her waist. ‘I just don’t see the problem.’

‘You don’t have a problem with some incredibly powerful disembodied entity possessing you?’

‘Who says we’re being possessed?’

‘That seems to be what’s happening.’

‘No, that’s what’s happening to that Anne.’ Not-Anne pointed through the windows into the distance. ‘I, on the other hand, am doing just fine.’

I stared at not-Anne for a second. ‘You’re not getting possessed at all, are you? When Anne has these blackouts and the jinn takes over … you can think and remember. She’s the one who can’t.’

Not-Anne looked at me.

‘What happened in Anne’s flat today?’

‘I told you. Do your own legwork.’

‘Damn it!’

‘You really need to relax more,’ not-Anne said, walking over to the windows. She turned and sat on one of the sills, crossing one leg over the other. The distant clouds formed a backdrop to her head and shoulders. ‘Look, Alex, it’s not like we’re on different sides here. You want Anne healthy and happy and alive. So do I. Haven’t you noticed that the only time I’ve pulled the trigger on this has been when we really, really need it? Would you rather those Crusaders had managed to get us today? Because I’m pretty sure you don’t.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘This was the better option. But I’ve got the feeling that this isn’t going to stop.’

‘Who wants it to stop?’ not-Anne said. ‘I don’t know about you, but the way I see it, having a jinn in your back pocket is a pretty handy last resort. Besides, stop acting so high and mighty. It’s not as though you’ve never got your hands dirty.’

‘That’s not the part that worries me,’ I said. ‘Remember the first time we talked? You told me that one thing you and Anne agreed on was that you’re not going to be a slave again. What’s going to happen when you call on that jinn one time too often and it decides it doesn’t want to leave?’

‘I don’t know, Alex, what do you think’s going to happen?’ Not-Anne tilted her head. ‘What terrible thing do you think that jinn’s going to do to that other Anne, the one you care about so much? You think maybe it’s going to take control? Lock her away in her own mind, in some prison where she could never see anyone else again? But hey, who’d do something like that?’

I was silent.

‘You know what it’s like to be a prisoner?’ not-Anne said, and her voice was hard. ‘Shut away in the dark, only let out when she needs you to hurt something, like an attack dog on a leash? So yeah, when that jinn first showed up with his offer, you’d better believe I said yes. Because I am done with being chained up in the basement.’

I didn’t have a good answer to that. From her perspective, this arrangement really did suck. And I could see how she could grow to resent it. Anne relied upon her other self to survive, but she wasn’t willing to let it out.

But while I did feel sympathy, I wasn’t totally naïve. When you spend time in Elsewhere you learn to trust your instincts, and my intuition told me that if not-Anne ever got fully loose, it could be really bad news for everyone around her. ‘What do you think about Dr Shirland’s solution?’ I said. ‘The two of you becoming integrated?’

Not-Anne gave a short laugh. ‘Yeah, right.’

‘You don’t agree?’

‘Alex, don’t take this personally,’ not-Anne said. ‘But you really don’t understand me or Anne as well as you think you do.’

I paused. ‘When that jinn came to you, what was its offer?’

‘Is that all you care about?’ Not-Anne walked to the bed, grabbed a pillow off it and threw it at me. ‘Figure it out yourself.’

I caught the pillow and lowered it. Not-Anne was sitting on the bed, her face turned away from me, and there was something different about her pose. I didn’t think she was trying to produce an effect this time. ‘It’s not the only thing I care about,’ I said quietly.

‘Do you know what it feels like to have your skin pulled off in strips, layer by layer?’ Not-Anne didn’t turn to look at me; her voice was cold and distant. ‘Having your body violated with hooks and scalpels? Knowing that it won’t end until you’re nothing but a torn and bleeding pile of flesh?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Though I’m not sure you’d want to trade your experiences for mine.’

‘Like it matters.’

I looked at not-Anne for a long moment. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said at last. ‘I should have come earlier.’

‘Just—’ Her voice wavered, steadied. ‘Just go away.’

I paused. ‘Is that really what you want?’

‘Yes, I—’ Not-Anne took a deep breath. ‘Not now.’

I stood looking at not-Anne a little longer, then turned and let myself out. I took a last glance as the door closed behind me; she was still facing away, looking out at the distant sky.

It was the next day.

The bell above the door went ding-ding to announce another customer. The sounds of the Camden street outside swelled, then became muffled as the door swung closed once more. It was another bright sunny day, and the shop was bustling.

‘I’m worried,’ I told Luna.

‘I got that part.’

‘What do you think I should do?’

‘Why are you asking me?’

We were in the Arcana Emporium, or maybe I should call it the Arcana Emporium Mark 2. It looked cleaner than it had been when I’d owned it, but then that’s what you expect from a building that’s just been renovated. The walls were bright white, the tables and shelves covered with pale green cloth, with the same old merchandise lined up neatly upon them: crystal balls, wands, daggers, statuettes of stone and glass. There was even a herb rack, placed in more or less the same position as the old one. You really couldn’t tell that the place had been burned down.

The clientele hadn’t changed at all. Teenagers in jeans and T-shirts, men with beards and women with big handbags, a pair of Americans in baseball caps. Most would be tourists or window-shoppers; some would be there because they thought they knew about the magical world; a much smaller fraction would be there because they actually did. And rarest of all, you’d have the ones who genuinely needed something: an adept, perhaps, or a novice. But those sorts of customers usually arrived very late or very early. The middle of the day was tourist time.

Luna was standing behind the counter, waiting at the till. The number of customers in the shop waxed and waned, but relatively few spent any time buying anything. Mostly they were there to look and point, and there was plenty of room for me to talk, as long as I did it quietly.

‘I’m starting to realise how big a problem this is,’ I said. ‘Up until this year I figured it was something we could solve with magic. Like, figure out the connection to the jinn, shut it down, fix things that way. Talking to her, though, it made me realise that it’s not that at all. That other part of Anne’s still going to be there, and she’s still going to be watching and waiting. And the thing is, I can see her point. She has been treated pretty badly. If I were in a position like that, I’d probably grab on to the first chance I got too.’

‘I guess.’

‘But it’s not like we can just give her what she wants and make her happy. Because from what I’ve seen, I’m pretty sure that the kinds of things that make her happy are really unlikely to make anyone else happy. She’s got all of the parts of Anne that Anne doesn’t want to face. What happens when all the stuff that’s been sealed up like that for so many years gets to have—’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ a voice broke in. ‘How much are the crystal sphere things?’

Luna and I looked up to see a smiling and round-shaped woman in a hat. ‘The crystal balls?’ Luna asked. ‘Ten pounds.’

‘Oh, I didn’t mean the large ones. I meant the ones one size smaller.’

‘Those are nine pounds.’

‘And the very small ones?’

‘Seven-fifty. The prices are just underneath, on the shelf.’

‘Oh, they are? I didn’t see them.’

Once the woman was gone, I turned back to Luna. ‘What do you think?’

‘About what?’

I looked at her.

‘Oh right. Look, Alex, I don’t know. Do we have to have this conversation now?’

‘I’ve got to spend this evening prepping for the Council meeting tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Besides, you spent more than enough time bugging me back when I was the one running this place.’

‘And now you’re getting your own back,’ Luna muttered. ‘Great. Okay, look, I’m going to ask again. Why are you asking me?’

‘Because it’s a choice between you or Vari, and when it comes to talking about these kinds of things, Vari’s got even less patience.’

‘Isn’t there a much more obvious candidate here?’ Luna asked. ‘As in, you know, the person you’re talking about? How about instead of having this conversation with me, you have it with her?’

‘And how am I going to bring that up?’ I said. ‘“Hi, Anne, so I went into your mind without telling you and had a chat with the part of yourself that you’re ashamed of and keep cut off from everyone else, and we had a talk about the thing that you’ve already made really clear you don’t want to talk about with anybody. Now would you like to talk about it some more?”’

‘I’m not saying it’s going to be a good conversation, but it seems like a better solution than moping around my counter.’

‘Have you got any advice?’

‘Like what?’

‘You’re Anne’s best friend,’ I said. ‘If anyone would know, it ought to be you.’

Luna sighed. ‘I suppose I am. But that doesn’t mean I know everything about her. Actually, in a lot of ways, the more time I’ve spent with Anne, the more I realise I don’t know much about her at all. I mean, she trusts me and I trust her. And I’ve opened up to her a lot. There were times, when things were really bad, and I was lying on my bed crying, and having her there to talk to … it really helped. And I knew she’d never tell anyone else. But she’s never really done the same. I think you might actually know more of her secrets than any of the rest of us. Ever since you went to find her in Sagash’s castle, I’ve noticed that she acts differently around you than she does around everyone else. Even Vari.’

‘But I don’t know what to say,’ I said. ‘I mean, if I’m dealing with someone like Onyx threatening me, or someone like Levistus trying to get me killed, I know exactly what to do. With something like this, I don’t. I’m not a psychologist.’

‘So go to an actual psychologist, then. What’s that woman’s name, the mind mage? Dr Shirland?’

I sighed. ‘I asked her. She says she’s happy to see Anne, but she won’t call her up and nag her to come, because the patient’s supposed to be the one making the decision to participate and pressuring her would be unethical.’

‘Then it sounds to me like you’re back to asking Anne.’

Another customer came to the counter and again we broke off. This one wanted suggestions for a present for his girlfriend, and while Luna was busy with him two more joined the queue behind. I was left alone with my thoughts for a good ten minutes. I didn’t come up with any answers I liked.

‘Okay,’ Luna said once she was finished, turning back to me. ‘Maybe you should focus on the part you can do something about. Like the question of how that jinn’s getting access.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Well, as far as that goes, I’ve got a guess. Back when I spoke to Dr Shirland, she thought that the jinn wouldn’t be able to possess Anne without some sort of connection. I was mostly worried about Anne finding that jinn’s item and picking it up again, but now that I think about it, that wasn’t exactly what Dr Shirland said. What she said it needed was a sympathetic link. And that got me thinking. Linking minds is exactly what my dreamstone does. And I’m not the only mage who has one.’

‘Who else— Oh,’ Luna said. ‘Last year …’

‘We got another dreamstone for Richard,’ I said. ‘Yeah. Arachne told me at the time that it was different from mine, less for talking, more for dominating. What if that’s how the jinn is getting in? He’s sitting off in his mansion somewhere and giving it access to Anne’s mind?’

‘And you think that dark-side Anne is letting it in.’

I nodded. ‘Dr Shirland was pretty sure that it wouldn’t be able to just brute-force its way into Anne’s mind. But if you’ve got someone letting you in through the back door …’

Luna thought about it. ‘How would he know when to set up the link? I mean, he’s got other things to do, right? I can’t really see him just sitting around all day waiting.’

‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘But out of all the ways it could be getting access, this is the best answer I can come up with.’

Luna frowned. ‘I don’t like it, but it fits.’ A customer made to approach the counter, but Luna glanced at them with a wait please gesture and they withdrew. ‘Explains why he wanted that dreamstone. He’s been planning this a long time, hasn’t he?’

‘We already knew that.’

‘So what’s he doing all this for?’ Luna asked. ‘What’s his endgame?’

‘My best guess is that he wants Anne,’ I said. ‘It’s not like he’d be the first one. Sagash and Morden already tried. With Anne’s power and the jinn’s power, all concentrated in one person … that would be pretty scary.’

‘Don’t know if either of them would be keen on following his orders,’ Luna said. ‘Okay. So if that’s true, how do we stop it?’

‘Shut off his access to Anne,’ I said. ‘Which means getting that other Anne to stop opening the back door. Which brings us round in a circle.’

‘Yeah, well,’ Luna said, ‘then I’m going to go round in a circle too. You should be having this conversation with her.’

I made a face but didn’t answer. The customer approached Luna again and this time she turned to talk to him, leaving me alone with my thoughts in the busy shop.