Marked

16

It was later that evening.

‘What I can’t figure out,’ Luna said, ‘is what she was doing in New Zealand.’

We were in Dr Shirland’s living room. The quiet room felt strange after everything we’d been through that day. I’d changed my clothes, but my muscles still remembered the battle in San Vittore, and my mind the weird brain-twisting fight in Elsewhere. But here, nothing seemed to change. Dr Shirland’s cat was sitting with his paws tucked beneath him in the exact same armchair he always used.

‘She wanted somewhere private,’ I said. It was just me and Luna in the room at the moment. Variam was outside making calls, while Dr Shirland was with Anne in the consulting room. Anne had still been unconscious when we’d brought her in, and Dr Shirland asked not to be disturbed. That had been almost two hours ago. ‘She was going to join Morden and Richard eventually, but she didn’t want to meet them unprepared. She thought that they’d take the opportunity to capture her.’ I shrugged. ‘She was probably right.’

‘It was pretty scary going through that gate,’ Luna admitted. ‘I know you’re good with your predictions, but you’ve told me enough times that they’re not perfect. I mean, bodyguards would have been one thing, but if someone like Vihaela had been there …’

‘Anne wouldn’t have trusted Vihaela to watch her while she slept,’ I said. ‘It’s always the weakness of Dark mages. They’re just as much a threat to each other as they are to us.’

‘So why New Zealand?’

‘Anne sensed me watching her when she was talking to Morden,’ I said. ‘As soon as he left, she must have gated away. The description you and Vari gave me sounded a lot like a bay in New Zealand that the two of us visited when we were on the run. I guess she wanted somewhere safe and secluded, and that was the first place she thought of.’

The sound of the front door closing made us both look up. Variam was talking out in the corridor, his voice muffled. ‘… yeah,’ he was saying. ‘So they aren’t calling us in? … Okay … Yeah, that makes sense … Okay, I will. Later.’ He opened the door to the living room and stepped in, slipping the communicator into his pocket.

‘So?’ I asked. I couldn’t keep the tension from my voice.

‘I’m not making any promises,’ Variam said. ‘But so far? I don’t think they’ve figured it out.’

Luna let out her breath in a long whistle. ‘You sure?’ I said.

‘I asked two different Keepers. They haven’t put your name out, or Anne’s.’

‘What if they’re just waiting to jump on us with everything they’ve got?’ Luna asked.

‘That’s what I’ve been checking,’ I said. I’d been leaving the room with Luna at ten-minute intervals, path-walking to look for signs of danger. So far – so far – there had been nothing. But it would only take one person asking the right questions, one Council Keeper getting an inkling of what had really been going on …

‘So you’re really going to bluff it out?’ Luna said. ‘Pretend it wasn’t you?’

‘If I can.’

‘Jesus.’ Luna shook her head. ‘Anne gets possessed by a jinn and summons up a whole army right in the middle of a Council prison, and come tomorrow, you’re going to just walk into the War Rooms like nothing happened?’

‘What choice do I have?’ I said. ‘We can’t admit to it. We can’t put up a defence, not for something like this. Actually, I don’t think we’d even get the chance to make a defence. They’d kill us before we opened our mouths.’

Luna grimaced but didn’t argue. ‘What happens when they go through the recordings?’

‘Anne and Morden trashed the control room on the way out,’ I said. ‘The cameras didn’t have digital backups. Apparently they were still using CDs. And the wards over San Vittore will make it really hard to use timesight.’

‘They can still break through if they look in the right place,’ Variam said.

‘I know,’ I said with a sigh. I’d seen Sonder penetrate shrouds before. ‘But I’m not sure they will be looking in the right place. They’ll suspect me because I’m Junior Council. But if I can convince them that I didn’t know anything, then it won’t occur to them to look at Anne.’

‘That feels like a really flimsy thing to stake your life on,’ Luna said.

‘Actually, he might be right,’ Variam said unexpectedly. ‘It’s how the Council thinks. The way they see it, Anne’s not even a real mage. They won’t think she’s important.’

‘That still leaves a lot of people who know,’ Luna said. ‘Vihaela, Morden, Richard …’

‘Who are all on the Dark side of the fence,’ I said. ‘We just have to hope that the spectacularly crappy lines of communication between the Light Council and everyone else work in our favour for a change.’

Luna and Variam didn’t say anything, but I knew what they were thinking. It was a horribly weak protection.

Footsteps out in the corridor made all three of us look up. Dr Shirland opened the door, stepping through.

‘So?’ Variam said before either Luna or I could speak.

‘Anne is well,’ Dr Shirland said, shutting the door behind her. ‘The jinn is gone.’

Luna sighed in relief. ‘Is it going to last?’

Dr Shirland sat down in one of the armchairs. The cat opened a drowsy eye to look at her, then stretched and went back to sleep. ‘Theoretically.’

‘Theoretically?’ I said.

‘This isn’t a situation I’ve seen before,’ Dr Shirland said. ‘But as far as I can tell, Anne has gone through a mental realignment that has greatly diminished her shadow’s influence. It will not be able to take her over again unless something changes.’

‘What kind of change are we talking about?’ I asked.

‘Up until now, whenever possible, Anne has attempted to solve her issues alone,’ Dr Shirland said. ‘This has placed her under a great deal of mental pressure, and the strain and isolation was a large factor in enabling the jinn to possess her as it did. She was able to break its possession because, at the key moment, she was not alone.’ Dr Shirland looked between us. ‘The three of you are the people in the world she most trusts and depends on. If she’s to prevent this from happening again, she will need your support.’ Her eyes rested on me as she said the last sentence.

‘It can’t come back?’ Variam demanded.

‘Not as things are now.’

‘What if she tries using the jinn’s magic again?’ Luna asked.

‘That would be absolutely disastrous,’ Dr Shirland said. ‘The nature of a jinn’s magic is such that the more its bearer uses it, the more influence the jinn can exert upon the bearer. At first, Anne was able to banish the jinn herself. This time, she needed your help. If it happens again, it might very well be irreversible. She cannot use these powers again.’

‘Can I see her?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ Dr Shirland said. ‘She’s resting but—’

I was already through the door. Behind me, I heard Variam starting to ask Dr Shirland something else.

The room down the corridor looked like a consulting room, with a chair and a flat couch. A window looked out onto the back garden, but I only had eyes for Anne, sitting on the couch with her head drooping. She looked pale, and there were dark circles under her eyes. She managed a smile when she saw me, but it faded almost instantly.

I started towards the chair, changed my mind and sat on the couch by her side. ‘How are you doing?’

‘I’m okay,’ Anne said. She didn’t say for now.

I looked at Anne. She didn’t meet my eyes. ‘Will you keep being okay?’ I asked.

Anne let out a long breath. ‘That’s the question, isn’t it? I feel like I am. Dr Shirland thinks I am. But that was what I thought before, and that didn’t work out so well, did it?’

‘We know how it happened,’ I said. ‘We can stop it from happening again.’

‘Can we?’

‘Yes.’

Anne still didn’t look at me. I felt the futures flicker, then settle. She’d been about to say something, but I hadn’t seen what …

Except I knew what she’d been about to say. She’d been going to ask me about what I’d said in Elsewhere. But she hadn’t, and something told me that if I didn’t raise the subject, she wouldn’t either. A part of me – the same part that had been making the decisions about Anne for a long time – liked that idea. After all, this was a bad time to bring this up. Anne had just recovered from a traumatic and dangerous experience. Better to wait for things to calm down …

… which is never going to happen. I’d known Anne for five years, and we’d faced every kind of threat imaginable, from Light mages to Dark mages to magical creatures, trying to attack us or capture us or kill us or torture us or all of the above in various orders. After this danger there would be another one, and then another, and then another. Our lives weren’t safe and they never would be, and that little voice that kept telling me to wait hadn’t been prudence, it had been fear. And maybe if I hadn’t spent so long listening to it, things wouldn’t have gone so badly wrong today.

I couldn’t change what I’d done. But I could learn from my mistakes.

‘You’re thinking about what I said in Elsewhere,’ I said.

Anne did look up then. Her eyes searched my face.

‘And the answer’s yes,’ I said. ‘I meant it.’ Funny, my heart wasn’t beating this fast against the jinn.

Anne was still watching, as if waiting for something. I could path-walk, figure out what the results would be if …

Screw it. I leaned in to kiss her. I did it slowly enough that Anne could easily pull away.

She didn’t.

After what felt like a long time but probably wasn’t, I pulled back.

‘This is a bad idea,’ Anne said. She sounded short of breath, but she didn’t draw away from my touch. ‘I’m dangerous.’

It was hard to keep myself from smiling. It wasn’t to do with anything Anne had said – I just felt light-headed. ‘So are the rest of us.’

‘Not like this. Richard wants me. What happened today could happen again. Just by being near me— Wait, what’s so funny?’

I stopped laughing long enough to answer. ‘Half the reason I never brought this up was because I was afraid you’d be in danger from being close to me.’

‘I’m serious!’

‘So am I,’ I said. ‘We’re always going to be in danger and that’s never going to change. I’m through wasting time.’

Anne looked me right in the eyes. ‘Do you really want to take on everything that this’ll mean? All the mistakes I’ve made, all the enemies I have? Everything that’s wrong with me?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And I decided that a long time ago. It just took me until now to say it out loud.’

Anne kept looking at me, then tears glittered in her eyes and she leaned forward to rest her head against my chest.

I stroked her hair. In a little while, we’d go back to the living room to rejoin our friends. And after that, we’d have all of our other problems to deal with. There was Richard, and Morden, and the jinn, and Levistus, and the rest of the Council, and more others than I could count, not to mention Anne’s other self. None of those things were going away, and I didn’t know if I would be able to deal with them all. But right now, for the first time that I could remember, I was happy.

Let’s see what tomorrow brings.