Marked

10

It was a week later.

The communicator went ping, signalling an incoming call. It was windy up on the hillside, and the sound was lost in the background noise, but I’d already seen the message coming and stopped what I was doing, walking over to my pack. Anne watched as I towelled my neck and arms before pulling out the focus. ‘Verus.’

‘This is Talisid.’ Talisid’s voice was hard to hear over the sound of the wind in the leaves, and I had to hold the communicator close to my ear. ‘We’ve had the signal from Onyx. We’re on.’

‘When and where?’

‘Friday evening. At the Tiger’s Palace.’

Wonderful. ‘When do you need me in?’

‘The Senior Council is meeting this afternoon, and the Keepers are finalising plans. They’re closed meetings, but make sure you’re available in case you’re needed.’

‘… Okay.’

‘I’ll be in touch.’ The light on the communicator winked out.

Anne walked over. ‘“In case you’re needed”?’

I sighed and tossed the communicator back into my bag. ‘It means that now they’ve made the deal, they don’t need me any more. Knowing the Council, they won’t tell us anything about what the plan’s going to be or what we’ll need, but they’ll still expect us to make ourselves available.’

‘So not much point rushing.’

‘Nope. Back to work.’

We were in Wales, in a little valley hidden by the curve of two hills. It was a quiet and deserted spot, which was why I’d picked it for hand-to-hand practice. Anne had asked me to teach her a year or so back, and I’d agreed, even though it had struck me as a weird request. Like all life mages, Anne is basically unbeatable in hand-to-hand – her touch can inflict anything from healing to paralysis to death, and unless you’re a life or a death mage, there’s no way to stop it. But when I’d made that argument to Anne, she’d pointed out that she’d more than once ended up in close quarters with things that her magic didn’t work against, due to them not being alive. In any case, she’d spent more than enough of her own time helping me out with my own physical training, so I’d gone along with it.

I went back and picked up the pads, slipping them onto my hands. The earth and grass were soft enough that we had no need for a mat. ‘Left, then right,’ I told Anne.

Anne sighed but obeyed. The combination was a basic one: left jab, right straight. Anne steadied herself, then hit. One-two, one-two.

‘Don’t drop your guard,’ I said after the fortieth hit.

‘I know,’ Anne said. She kept her hands up for the next ten combinations, then started to let them droop. When she went in for number sixty-three, I reached out and tapped her on the forehead. Anne flinched and stepped back.

‘I shouldn’t be able to do that,’ I told her.

Anne dropped her hands and stepped back. ‘I’m getting tired.’

‘I thought life mages didn’t get tired.’

‘Just because I can mute those receptors doesn’t mean it’s a good idea,’ Anne said. ‘How many of these do you want me to do?’

‘A few thousand.’

‘Seriously?’

‘That’s how many repetitions it takes for something to sink into muscle memory.’

‘Aren’t we ever going to do more than just punches?’

‘What were you expecting, high kicks?’

‘Well … kind of.’

‘Are you flexible enough for those?’

In answer, Anne lifted up her right knee, then wrapped her right hand behind the calf and pulled it up until her foot was above her head. She held her balance on one leg, looking at me with raised eyebrows and a ‘what you think of that?’ expression.

I nodded, bent forward to inspect her standing leg, then poked her hard in the thigh. Anne yelped and lost her balance, tumbling to the grass.

‘That’s why you don’t do high kicks,’ I told her.

‘You are such a jerk!’ Anne bounced up and swiped at me. I leaned back and let it breeze by, then stepped back. Anne took a step forward, realised I was already out of range and settled for glaring at me. ‘You could have just told me.’

‘This way’s faster.’

‘You’re not the one getting jabbed in the leg!’

‘Take that same pose again,’ I said. ‘I promise I won’t touch you this time.’

Anne gave me a suspicious look but obeyed, folding her leg upwards, wobbling slightly. ‘I’ll reach in slowly,’ I said. ‘Try to dodge.’

I bent forward, reaching for the same spot. Anne hopped away, started to fall and brought her other leg down fast. ‘Any time you take a foot off the ground, you lose balance,’ I said. ‘Keeping both feet low with good balance lets you move, and movement is what keeps you alive.’

‘So what do you do then?’ Anne said. ‘Just simple punches?’

‘Have you ever seen me do a complicated move in a fight?’

‘I haven’t exactly sat around to watch.’

‘One of my first self-defence teachers told me that I shouldn’t bother with any technique that I couldn’t learn in five minutes,’ I said. ‘Idea is, if you can make it work in five minutes, then practising will make it better. If you can’t make it work in five minutes, then you probably won’t be able to make it work in a high-stress situation. When your life’s at stake you want something that works every time. Simple is good.’

We worked for another half-hour before I called it a day. Anne wasn’t sweating (another one of those unfair life mage things) but her reactions were getting slow and it was obvious she was running out of energy. As soon as I let the pads drop, she did too.

‘So are we going back to the War Rooms?’ Anne asked once we’d both had the chance to catch our breath.

‘I don’t think it’s worth the effort,’ I said. ‘They’ll call if they really need us.’

Anne yawned. ‘They usually do, don’t they?’

I looked at Anne. She was lying on the grass with her hands behind her head, and didn’t seem in a hurry to leave. ‘Want to go somewhere?’

‘Where?’

I shrugged. ‘You’ve done your shift at the clinic, and I’ve cleaned out my in-tray. I’m sure the rest of the Council will want us available, but it won’t be for anything useful. So why don’t we have some fun for a change?’

Anne tilted her head to look up at me. ‘Okay.’

So we did.

It was a relief to spend some time doing something that didn’t involve political manoeuvring. I’d been on the Council for nine months now, and I’d become reasonably adept at playing the game, but one thing that I hadn’t anticipated back when I’d started was the degree to which it would wear me down. When I was in the War Rooms, there was no such thing as a casual conversation. Every sentence was studied for hidden meanings, every action taken as a message, and wherever you went, people were always watching. Even with the mages whom I considered allies, like Belthas and Druss, I had to be on guard, making sure that I stayed useful enough for them to keep me around. I had no friends in the War Rooms; there were allies of circumstance, and that was about it.

When you’re spending your days in that kind of environment, you need a safety valve, and for me, that had been my circle of friends: Anne and Variam, Luna and Arachne. No matter how bad things got, I knew that I could always find them and relax in their company, even if it was only for a little while. It probably isn’t a surprise that out of all of them, the one I’d come to rely on the most was Anne. We’d been spending a lot of time together recently, though in most cases it was dominated by work – there was always some new political problem or threat to talk about. But now, for a change, we had some time to ourselves. It was a strange feeling.

We went for lunch in La Rochelle, then visited Nara in Japan. I’d picked the countries semi-randomly for reasons of safety (if I didn’t know where I was going next, no one else would either) but as the day wore on and no signs of danger appeared, I began to relax. It’s not something I get to do very often these days.

‘They’re so cute,’ Anne said. We were under one of the trees in Nara Park, and Anne was stroking one of the deer. It was light brown and rather fat, and it was chewing its cud with a self-satisfied expression.

‘It doesn’t seem to care about us very much, does it?’ I asked. Nara’s a big tourist attraction, and the deer here get a lot of free food, which probably explained this one’s weight.

‘He’s got a full stomach and he’s feeling lazy,’ Anne said. She scratched the deer between the ears; it blinked at her. ‘I saw pictures of this place when I was younger and I really wanted to come here.’ She paused and looked at me. ‘Is that why you picked it?’

‘You might have mentioned it,’ I said. It had been a couple of months ago in Arachne’s cave; Anne had been talking to Luna and I’d been within earshot. ‘I wonder if the Hollow’s ecosystem would support deer.’

‘Not a whole herd of them,’ Anne said. ‘But a few would be fine.’ She looked at me. ‘Could we?’

‘It’s your home as well.’

Anne smiled. It’s not something she does often, and seeing it always gives me a warm feeling. ‘Then let’s.’

Evening found us back in London, on Hampstead Heath, in Pryors Field, one of the less well known parts of the park. It doesn’t have the views of Parliament Hill, but for that same reason it’s less crowded, and you can still look out south and west past the Royal Free Hospital and over London. In fairground season the place is crowded with tents and marquees, but right now that area was empty and the only other people sharing the field with us were dog walkers and a collection of students playing Frisbee. It had been a hot afternoon, and even with the coming dusk, the earth still held the warmth of the day’s sun. We lay back on the grass and watched the sky darken from blue to violet.

‘What do you think you’d have done if we’d never met?’ Anne asked.

‘That’s a funny question,’ I said. ‘You mean just you?’

‘All of us,’ Anne said. ‘Me, Luna and Vari. All your problems with Levistus started because you got drawn into that hunt for the fateweaver because of Luna, right? And then it was because of Vari and me that you had to deal with what happened at Fountain Reach and with Sagash. If you’d never met any of us, you’d never have got into any of that.’

‘I guess that’s true.’

‘So what would you have done instead?’ Anne asked. ‘Where would you be?’

I thought about it for a moment. ‘Probably running my shop.’

‘Do you think you’d still be on the Council?’

‘I think if Luna hadn’t pulled me into things, I’d have kept on running the Arcana Emporium and minding my own business.’

‘Do you wish things had stayed that way?’

I considered briefly. ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, for one thing, I probably wouldn’t be alive,’ I said. ‘Remember the Nightstalkers? They wanted me dead for something that had happened way before I met you guys. And if you hadn’t been there, they probably would have managed it.’

‘I’d forgotten about that.’

‘But … even leaving that out, the answer’s still no.’

‘Wouldn’t your life be a lot easier?’

‘It’d be easier,’ I said slowly, ‘but it’d mean less. That was something I only realised last year. The reason I ran the Arcana Emporium so long wasn’t so that I could sell stuff. It was because every now and again it actually made a difference. I guess it’s something you think about more when you’re a diviner. You can always get away from conflicts. But if you take that far enough, staying away from conflicts also means staying away from life. I can stay safe if I keep my distance, but it’s a pretty empty sort of existence.’

‘Do you think what we do at the Council does make a difference?’ Anne asked. ‘A lot of the time it feels as though no one listens.’

‘I think it does,’ I said. ‘One of the things I keep noticing with the Council is that I’ll say things that no one else seems to have thought of. Most of the people in that room never talk to anyone outside the inner circle. I think that’ll have an effect, over time.’

‘Assuming no one kills us first.’

‘Well, there’s that.’

We lay there for a little while in silence. Below us, the Frisbee floated into the air, thrown on a long pass; four people raced after it. A woman was walking across the path, a Golden Retriever running back and forth at her feet, sniffing at the grass. One of the students jumped for the Frisbee; the other players dashed forward, trying to score.

‘So what about you?’ I asked Anne.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You said that all my problems started because I got drawn in,’ I said. ‘But you didn’t get drawn in so much as dragged. What do you think your life would have been like without all this?’

‘I have trouble even imagining it any more,’ Anne admitted. ‘It’s been so long.’

‘What if you got to choose?’ I asked. ‘Say you got to rewrite your life, change how things have gone. Any way you liked. What would you pick?’

Anne was silent for a while. ‘Peace,’ she said at last. ‘A normal life.’

‘You mean without your magic, or … ?’

Anne shook her head. ‘Everyone in the magical world always acts as though those are opposites. Either you’re a mage, or you’re a normal. I don’t want to give up being a mage. I want to be a mage and live like a normal. A house, a garden, a family. Not having to look over my shoulder.’

‘Is that it? You wouldn’t want more?’

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know. If you ask most people what they dream about, it’s stuff like winning the lottery or becoming famous.’

‘Winning the lottery wouldn’t fix any of my problems,’ Anne said. ‘And every bit of fame I’ve had has made my life worse. If I could make every mage in the world except for you and Luna and Vari forget about me, I would.’

‘No ambitions?’

‘Back when I was young, I used to dream about having adventures,’ Anne said. ‘Then I actually had some, and half of them were me being hunted or tortured and the other half were trying to save other people and knowing that I was the only one who could do it and if I made a mistake they were going to die. I don’t want any more adventures. I want a peaceful life with the people I care about.’

I hesitated, but only for an instant. ‘Is that what the other side of you wants too?’

Anne was silent for a moment, and when she spoke, her voice had changed. ‘You spoke to her again, didn’t you?’

‘Can you tell?’

‘I can tell when things are different.’

We sat for a little while. ‘Are you angry?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ Anne said. ‘No. I don’t know.’ She shook her head as if trying to brush away an insect. ‘It’s … hard. Any feelings I have about her are mixed up.’

‘Can you talk to her?’

‘I did last year. Dr Shirland took me into Elsewhere and we went to the tower. She was different from how I remembered.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I don’t think she’s happy about being locked up. How’d the conversation go?’

‘Not well,’ Anne said. ‘At least I didn’t think so. Dr Shirland said that the more we talked, the easier it’d get.’

‘You know she’s the reason the jinn can reach you.’

I heard Anne sigh in the twilight. ‘I know. I was always afraid of it. I just hoped that if I stayed away …’

‘Did you keep talking to her?’

Anne was silent.

‘You stopped in the autumn,’ I said. It wasn’t a question. ‘After what happened on your birthday.’

‘I suppose.’

I looked over. ‘Have you been back since?’

Anne didn’t look back at me.

‘Anne.’

‘No,’ Anne said. ‘And yes, you’re right. Do we have to talk about this?’

‘We don’t have to,’ I said. ‘But it’d probably help.’

Anne didn’t answer. ‘Why did you stop?’ I said. ‘Dr Shirland seemed to think it was helping, and I could tell the difference too. You seemed less on edge.’

‘You know why,’ Anne said.

‘I know what caused it,’ I said. ‘I don’t know why.’

‘Because I don’t have to go to the tower to know what she’s feeling.’

I looked at Anne, questioning.

‘She was with me when we were being tortured,’ Anne said. Her voice was distant, and she didn’t meet my eyes. ‘She always is, when something like that happens. The worse the danger, the closer she gets, until we blend together. Then afterwards, when everything’s quiet again, she fades. Except this time she didn’t, not completely.’

The sun had dipped below the horizon and the light was fading from the sky. Down below, the Frisbee game went on, white T-shirts and bare arms and legs standing out in the gloom. ‘What did you feel?’ I asked quietly.

‘Rage. Hate.’ Anne’s voice was low. ‘She wants to be safe, just like me. Except she wants to do it by killing everyone who’s ever hurt us and anyone who might do it again. And the closer I get to her, the more I want that too. It’s like a wave, pulling me under. The only thing I can do is wall her off.’

‘Dr Shirland thinks that the answer is to merge,’ I said. ‘Become one person, not two.’

Anne gave a short laugh. ‘Yeah, right.’

I looked at Anne, disturbed. That had been not-Anne’s reaction exactly. She’d even sounded the same. ‘It seemed like she knew what she was talking about.’

‘You don’t understand,’ Anne said. ‘You think there’s some way for us to compromise, don’t you?’

‘It would be good if there was …’

‘Imagine you bring someone to a party,’ Anne said. ‘You walk in the door and it’s filled with people. You decide you want to get a drink. The other person decides she wants to kill everyone in the room. How do you compromise about something like that, Alex? Do you kill half the people in the room?’

‘Is she really that bad?’

‘Yes,’ Anne said flatly. ‘She is. You don’t know what she’s like. I do. She wants you to feel sorry for her so you’ll give her an opening.’

I opened my mouth, then hesitated. Because Anne was right – I did feel sorry for that other Anne, locked up and kept away from the outside world. And there was a pretty good chance that Anne was right and she had produced that effect deliberately. I’m not immune to being manipulated and Anne knows me well enough to have a good chance of succeeding at it.

But I could also see not-Anne’s side of the story. From her point of view, she’d done what she’d had to do and what she’d been made to do, and in return she’d been shunned. And she hadn’t struck me as the kind to accept an unjust punishment for ever. I didn’t think that keeping her locked up was going to work, and I had the nasty feeling that the longer Anne kept doing that, the more trouble she’d be storing up.

Dr Shirland had made it clear that in the end, the only one who could solve this problem was Anne. If I kept pushing her, would it help? Or would it just make her resentful?

In the end what swung my decision was remembering what Luna had said. Anne was under enough pressure. Right now, what she needed more than anything was people on her side. ‘All right.’

‘You agree with me?’

‘I’m not sure how comfortable I am with it,’ I admitted. ‘But you know yourself better than I do. Just remember that if you ever want to talk about it, you can.’

It was dark enough that I couldn’t make out Anne’s face any more, but I could feel her relax. ‘Thank you.’

We lay there for a little while longer, watching the stars come out one by one in the dusky sky. Below us, the Frisbee match ended. The players gathered up their bags and clothes, laughing and calling to one another, and headed away eastwards towards Parliament Hill. ‘It’s easier like this,’ Anne said.

‘What is?’

‘Everything.’ Anne gazed up at the stars. ‘I wish all my days could be this way.’

The dog walkers and the rest of the people in the park had vanished. We stayed as the summer evening turned into night.

‘… and so that’s the current state of play,’ Talisid said.

I was sitting in a coffee shop, people all around me. It was evening in the West End and the place was bustling, the whirr of the coffee machines blending with the noise of the crowd. Talisid and I were talking through a communicator focus, audio only, and I was keeping my voice down just to be on the safe side, but honestly, I probably could have been as loud as I liked and it wouldn’t have made a difference. Most of the crowd wouldn’t have paid attention and the few that did would have just assumed I was using a hands-free. The air smelled pleasant, a mix of coffee beans and food from the bakery.

‘So let me get this straight,’ I said to Talisid. ‘They’re going ahead with the assault, but they don’t want me there. But they also want me to be on call during the operation. So I’m supposed to be close enough that I can come if I’m called, but not close enough that I’ll be there if I’m not.’

‘Yes,’ Talisid admitted.

‘Am I the only one noticing the problem with this?’

‘The two directives may have come from different people.’

I sighed. ‘Of course they did.’

‘I’m sorry about the way that this has unfolded,’ Talisid said. ‘I imagine you feel as though you’re being shut out. This operation was largely yours from the beginning.’

‘Oh, it’s what I expected,’ I said. ‘The Keepers were never going to want me on board.’ While I had some friends in the Order of the Shield, the biggest and most influential of the Keeper orders is the Order of the Star, and they’d hated me ever since their attempt to arrest me for treason. It had always struck me as backwards – shouldn’t I be the one holding a grudge against them? – but I guess they really don’t like being made to look foolish. ‘Just out of curiosity, if everything does go pear-shaped and they decide they need my help after all, how exactly do they expect me to get there in time?’

‘Presumably via gate.’

‘Firstly the Tiger’s Palace has wards; secondly the Keepers are going to set up an interdiction field; and thirdly there’s the little detail that I’m a diviner and can’t use gate magic.’

‘Gate stone?’

‘Sure, I’d really have a gate stone keyed to there. Look, just forget about it. I’ll figure something out.’

‘I could ask the Keepers in charge … Are you close enough to reach the area on foot?’

I glanced out the window. I was in the middle of Soho; the Tiger’s Palace was two blocks away. ‘Not really, no.’

‘I see … Hopefully things will go to plan.’

‘Which they won’t, because it’s the Tiger’s Palace,’ I said. The Tiger’s Palace is run by a rakshasa named Jagadev. He hates mages and humans in general, and it’s a good rule that anything associated with the place is going to be bad news. ‘Have they confirmed that Richard’s going to be there?’

‘Divinations have been unreliable,’ Talisid said. ‘But what human intelligence we’ve been able to gather has provided some support for Onyx’s claim.’

In other words, this whole thing was happening because of the deal I’d negotiated. Depending on how things went tonight, that could be anything from quite good to very bad. ‘Assuming Richard’s going to be there, how carefully are you hiding your preparations? Because I’m not sure how you’re expecting to go undetected moving in … how many men was it? A hundred?’

‘The Keepers are not willing to go in undermanned,’ Talisid said. ‘And I agree with them. We’ve yet to have a direct confrontation with Drakh’s cabal, and their full capabilities are still unknown. But yes, there’s a very high chance that we will be detected on approach, at which point we expect Drakh to attempt an escape.’

I was pretty sure that the Council had had a direct confrontation with Drakh’s cabal already, just last year at the Vault, and that it had gone decidedly in Richard’s favour, but I didn’t bring that up. ‘Keep me updated, please. If this is going to get messy, it’d be nice to have some warning.’

‘I’ll do what I can. Talisid out.’ The communicator clicked off.

I lowered the communicator and looked at the two girls on the other side of the table. ‘Did you catch all that?’

‘I got the gist,’ Luna said. ‘“Not close enough”?’

‘I don’t see the need to keep Talisid updated with every little detail,’ I said. ‘Besides, it’s not like he tells me everything.’

‘I think that was going a little further than not telling him everything,’ Anne said.

‘Oh, he’ll be fine,’ Luna said. ‘We ready to go?’

‘I think we’ll move about half an hour from now,’ I said. ‘We want to go in when the crowd’s busiest.’

‘You’d be a lot safer if I was with you,’ Anne said.

‘Not this again,’ Luna said.

‘I don’t like the idea of you two in there alone,’ Anne said. ‘Remember, I lived there.’

‘And that’s exactly why you can’t go in,’ I said. ‘Jagadev kicked you out under sentence of death.’

‘That didn’t stop you going back.’

‘We need someone on the outside as backup,’ Luna said.

‘If I’m outside and things go wrong fast enough I won’t be able to give you any backup,’ Anne said. ‘You know I can’t do anything at range. If someone shoots you and I’m not close …’

Luna started to argue, but I raised my hand and she stopped. ‘Richard may be there,’ I said.

‘He might not be,’ Anne said.

‘I don’t care,’ I said. ‘We know that Richard wants you, and we know he still has some kind of influence over that jinn. I don’t want you in the same room as him. End of discussion.’

Anne didn’t look happy, but she didn’t argue. We settled down to wait.

It was half an hour later when we paid our tab and headed out. We turned down two side streets before coming to a stop. ‘You ready?’ I asked Anne.

‘I suppose,’ Anne said. ‘You’ll tell me when anything goes wrong?’

I smiled slightly. ‘Don’t you mean if anything goes wrong?’

‘No.’

I glanced around. We were at the corner of two of the Soho back streets. Music and laughter spilled out of a bar with a flashing neon sign above, and on the other side was a pair of shops with tinted windows and ribbon curtains over the doors. There was enough light to make out the groups of people on the street, but not enough to see their faces. The air smelled of sweat and spilled alcohol. ‘You going to be okay?’

‘I used to live here,’ Anne said. ‘I can find a place to watch.’

I nodded. ‘I’m not going to tell you to stay outside no matter what. I’d prefer that you did, but you’re right that this might be dangerous, and if it is, we might need you. But promise me that if you do come in, you’ll tell us first, okay?’

Anne seemed to relax a little bit. ‘Okay.’

‘See you soon.’

We split up, Anne going down one street and Luna and I going down another. ‘You’re good at that, aren’t you?’ Luna asked once we were out of earshot.

‘What do you mean?’

‘If you’d told her to stay outside, she wouldn’t,’ Luna said. ‘But she wouldn’t break a promise like that.’

‘I’m not trying to manipulate her,’ I said sharply. ‘Having her anywhere near Richard is a bad idea.’

‘I know,’ Luna said with a sigh. ‘I’m just worried.’

We turned down another street and halted. Up ahead was the entrance to the Tiger’s Palace, hidden away at the bottom of a set of steps. At least, that was how I remembered it. Right now, the enormous queue of people trailing up the steps, past three buildings and down the alleyway was making it a lot less hidden.

‘You weren’t kidding about it being busy,’ Luna said.

‘Mm,’ I said. I was doing mental arithmetic. Adepts are maybe a tenth of a per cent of the population. London’s population is nine million or so. Call it ten thousand adepts. I’d expected that maybe one or two per cent of that number would be showing up tonight. Eyeballing the crowd, I was pretty sure I’d underestimated.

‘So I’m assuming you have a plan for the whole “banished from the Tiger’s Palace on pain of death” thing?’ Luna asked.

In answer I took a handful of woven threads from my pocket, tied them around my wrist, then pulled loose one of the knots. I felt a pulse of magical energy, very brief, and quickly damped down. Illusion magic is very difficult to detect. Focusing on my arm with my magesight, I could just barely see the weave, and only if I concentrated. I was pretty sure that most other mages wouldn’t be able to see it unless they knew exactly what to look for.

‘Very nice,’ Luna said approvingly. ‘Arachne?’

‘Good guess.’

‘Wasn’t a guess,’ Luna said. ‘You’re actually dressed well now.’

‘Shouldn’t you also be worrying about being recognised, Miss Fashion Critic?’

‘I was invited,’ Luna pointed out. ‘It won’t exactly work if I pretend to be someone else.’

‘You like living dangerously, don’t you?’ I said. ‘Fine.’

The queue was enormous, and it wasn’t moving fast. We joined the back, and had to wait less than sixty seconds before another couple joined the queue right behind. ‘Well, this brings back memories,’ I said quietly to Luna. The line was noisy, with a group of girls just in front having a loud conversation, so I wasn’t worried about being overheard.

‘Of what?’

‘Going out clubbing.’

‘You went out clubbing?’

‘Not very often. You?’

‘Queuing up to get onto a packed dance floor, brushing up against everyone?’ Luna said. ‘What do you think?’

‘Okay, silly question.’

‘I really wished I could,’ Luna said. ‘Though it’s a funny thing: once I’d been training with Chalice and I was confident enough, I went out one night with Vari, and it was crap. The music is awful, everything is overpriced and it’s so loud you can’t talk.’

‘That’s pretty much the club experience.’

‘At least I didn’t miss much.’

The line shuffled forward, approaching the corner of the Tiger’s Palace. ‘So what’s Jagadev’s angle?’ Luna asked.

‘Tiger’s Palace has always been an adept hangout,’ I said. ‘Jagadev hosts it as a venue for mages too. Probably he’s going to claim he’s just a disinterested service provider.’

‘You think the Council’ll buy that?’

‘Hell no,’ I said. ‘Richard is radioactive right now. Which is what worries me. Jagadev’s not dumb, and he’s been doing this stuff a long time. If he’s willing to associate himself with Richard, it must be because he’s getting something out of it, and the most likely reason I can see is that he thinks it’ll be really bad for us.’

‘Whoever loses, he wins?’

‘I think he’s inviting a bunch of powder kegs and then withdrawing to a safe distance. Wouldn’t be surprised if he isn’t even here.’ A thought struck me. ‘Wait a sec.’ I reached out to Anne through the dreamstone. Hey. You there?

Anne’s answer came instantly; she must have been waiting. Of course.

Picking up anything on your lifesight?

There’s a big crowd inside the Palace.

Jagadev?

No Jagadev.

Figures. Richard?

No sign of him either. But there are people on the rooftops.

Civilians?

Not with the gear they’re carrying, Anne said. Either the Council is getting started early, or Richard is really serious with his security. Or both.

The queue crawled slowly forward. As we approached the entrance I grew close enough to see to the front of the line. There was a cluster of security men, a lot more than you’d need just to check IDs, and they were questioning each person in turn. As we watched, a pair of guys were turned away. They started to argue; one of the bouncers stepped up, looming over them, and they backed off in a hurry. The third guy who’d been with them hesitated, looked after them, then turned and was let in.

Try to stick to mental only from now on, I said to Luna. You ready?

Let’s do this.

We reached the front of the line. ‘Name?’ one of the bouncers asked. Like his companions, he was big and nasty-looking. They were wearing suits, but they didn’t look at home in them.

‘Alice Trent,’ Luna said.

‘Contact.’

Luna blinked. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘Your contact,’ the bouncer repeated, unsmiling.

‘My— oh, right, right. I was invited by Stephen.’ Luna blinked up at the bulky man, her eyes innocent. ‘I don’t know his last name, but that’s okay, right? He said I should use his name. I’ve got his number if you want me to call him.’

A second man was flipping through a list. The bouncer glanced across; the man looked up and nodded. The bouncer looked back at Luna. ‘ID.’

‘Right, here you go.’ Luna fumbled in her purse. ‘A driver’s licence is okay, right?’

The bouncer studied the card, handed it back, then looked at me. ‘You with her?’

‘Yeah.’ I let a little bit of anxiety show in my voice. ‘That’s right.’

‘List says plus one,’ the other man said.

The bouncer nodded, already dismissing us. ‘Full search before you go inside.’

The second line of bouncers searched us. I submitted without complaint. Illusions can be given away if someone gets close enough to touch, but Arachne had been careful – the braid around my wrist wasn’t making me look taller or shorter, it only made fine changes to my features and the colours of my clothes. I’d been more worried about the guy picking up on the items I was carrying, but my coat was lined with damping fabric and I’d made sure not to carry any obvious weapons. It was just as well I hadn’t – the guy was thorough. Once the bouncer was done he jerked his head to indicate that I should go. The other bouncer gave a last glance at the item he’d taken from Luna’s bag – a long-handled hairbrush – then shoved it back in and handed it over. Luna rejoined me and we passed through the doors and into a corridor lined with concrete and metal.

I suppose you couldn’t have got away with wearing your armour, Luna thought.

Would have liked to, but no. It was a small but definite effort to keep the connection open. The downside of not being a mind mage – Luna couldn’t just think loudly and expect me to hear. I don’t think there’s any way they could have missed that.

Are you going to be okay with no weapons?

Oh, I’ll figure something out.

The hum of conversation sounded from behind the doors ahead of us, swelling to a roar as we pushed them open. We walked out onto the club floor of the Tiger’s Palace.