Taken

chapter 14

Explaining the whole thing to the Council kept me busy for the next few days.

I was interviewed by the Keepers, then by Council reps, then by the masters in charge of the apprentice program, then by the Keepers again, then by some other guys whose names I can’t remember, then by the Keepers one more time. After that I had to tell the whole story to each of them again, except slower and in more detail. After that I had to tell the whole story to each of them again, by which point I was about ready to chew my own arm off, or possibly someone else’s. Luna got lucky and was let out sometime around the second day.

Anne and Variam got interviewed too, and their interviews were a lot less friendly than mine. Anne had it especially bad-it took a long time to convince the Keepers that she hadn’t fled from custody and even then they didn’t stop treating her as a suspect. I later found out that the only way Anne finally got them to accept her story was by submitting to a memory probe.

The rest of the tournament-unsurprisingly-was cancelled. A Council task force evacuated everyone from Fountain Reach and established a cordon around the mansion. Fortunately all the remaining apprentices got away safe. Unfortunately Crystal did too. She’d seen which way the wind was blowing and had given Lyle the slip within minutes of getting back to Fountain Reach, and by the time the order went out to bring her in for questioning she was long gone. Talisid had been giving me regular updates and on the third day he sent me a message with an invitation.

* * *

The train that took Luna and me into the Cotswolds was the same one I’d taken for my first trip there, and as we alighted I looked around to see that the country station was deserted. The train pulled away from the platform, and as the rumble and clatter of the carriages faded into the distance everything became quiet. The town the station was built in was a small one and there wasn’t much traffic.

I walked out of the station and onto the main road. “Aren’t we taking a car?” Luna asked. She’d been quiet on the trip and was looking around at the green hills. It was less than an hour to sunset and the light was fading quickly.

“We’re early,” I said. “Might as well walk.”

Luna looked resigned but didn’t complain, and we turned towards Fountain Reach and settled into a steady pace. It had been a clear winter’s day and the temperature dropped like a rock as the sun disappeared behind the western hills. The stars came out, bright and twinkling in the clear air, the Square of Pegasus hanging almost directly overhead while the stars of the Summer Triangle sank into the west.

We came up around Fountain Reach from over the back hillside. We bypassed the campsite where we’d gathered around a fire with Anne and Variam and Sonder a few nights ago, and descended towards the clearing where I’d seen Onyx and Lisa before that. The woods were going from shadowy to pitch-black, but neither Luna nor I slipped or fell.

As we approached the clearing I began to make out lights between the trees, and we emerged onto the grass to see that shielded lamps had been stuck into the grass around the clearing’s edge. Two men were talking at the centre of the clearing: one I didn’t know and one I did. As I watched they finished their conversation and one turned and walked away down the hill, disappearing into the darkness. The other turned to us with a nod. “Verus. Luna.”

“Hey, Talisid,” I said. In the dim light I could see he was still wearing his maths-teacher suit, looking faintly ridiculous in the winter forest. There was the crackle of static and Talisid raised a hand apologetically. “Just a moment.” He took out a radio and spoke into it. “Receiving.”

“Charges are set,” a voice said from the radio speaker. “Everyone’s accounted for.”

“Did anyone enter the building?”

“No.”

“Good,” Talisid said. “You have full tactical command from this point. Proceed at your discretion.”

“Roger that,” the voice said. “Moving into final positions now.”

Talisid clicked the radio off and returned it to his pocket. “So you decided not to go in,” I said.

“The Council decided that the chances of a successful recovery from Vitus’s shadow realm were too low to justify the risks of mounting an expedition.” Talisid gave me a glance. “Based on your report it didn’t sound as though there was any realistic likelihood of finding survivors.”

I thought of the slaughterhouse in Vitus’s sanctum, piles of bones stacked neatly in their alcoves. “No,” I said.

We stood in the darkness on the hillside, looking down upon Fountain Reach. The mansion was dark, no lights showing from the windows. I couldn’t see any activity but I knew people were moving in the grounds. “Any news on Crystal?” I said.

“Of a sort,” Talisid said. “We haven’t been able to pick up her trail, but we managed to find one of her hideouts and it turned out to be quite a source of information.”

“About her and Vitus?”

“It seems Vitus had been practising his particular brand of life extension for some time,” Talisid said with an expression of distaste. “Apparently his ritual absorbed his victims’ life force through the medium of their blood-I’ll spare you the details. Unfortunately for him, the ritual was providing diminishing returns. Each killing was extending his own life by a shorter time. So he recruited Crystal to ensure a steady supply.”

“What did she get out of it?”

“Knowledge,” Talisid said. “Vitus shared his research with her. It seems Crystal came to believe that the flaw in the ritual had been Vitus’s choice of subjects. Crystal started preying on adepts, and when that didn’t work she began kidnapping apprentice mages. According to Crystal’s notes, she believed that if they found the right mage the ritual would grant perfect immortality, without the. . flaws Vitus had developed.”

“And when they saw Anne use her magic, they decided she was the right mage.”

Talisid nodded. “Hopefully we’ll never find out if they were correct.”

“As long as Crystal’s still out there we might,” I said sharply. “Do you have any leads?”

“Unfortunately since she disappeared in Fountain Reach there’s very little to go on. We’ve tried tracer spells but so far nothing.”

“So she gets away clean.”

“I think the masters and relatives of the apprentices she helped murder might have something to say about that,” Talisid said dryly. “I know at least five mages who are currently bending their full resources towards tracking Crystal down and killing her.”

I made a neutral sound.

“Not everything is your responsibility, Verus,” Talisid said, and his voice was firm. “You found her. Others will take it from here.”

I turned away, looking into the darkness. Again I remembered that great bare room with its scent of death, rows and rows of alcoves filled with the remains of human bodies. I wondered how many Crystal had led there to their deaths, how many Vitus had butchered on that blood-soaked table. And I wondered what would have happened if Vitus and Crystal hadn’t decided that their ritual needed an apprentice. If they’d kept on killing normals and sensitives and adepts, as they’d done for so long before, would any of the Light mages have noticed? And if they had, how many would have cared?

“Um,” Luna said hesitantly. She’d been silent until now, watching our conversation from a safe distance. “Is Anne going to be okay? With the Council, I mean.”

“She’s still under arrest,” Talisid said, “but as far as I know there are no plans to press for a trial. The last I heard from Avenor he was coming around to the view that she hadn’t knowingly cooperated with any of the kidnappings.”

“Knowingly?” I said.

Talisid nodded. “They seem to have accepted your explanation as the most probable one.”

Luna looked between us. “What explanation?”

“Crystal had access to Anne through the apprentice program,” I said. “She could have read the information she needed out of Anne’s mind.”

“It doesn’t account for every detail,” Talisid said. “But given Crystal’s obvious guilt I think the Keepers are eventually going to accept it.”

“So they’re going to let Anne go?” Luna asked.

“I can’t give any guarantees, but that’s what I would expect.”

Luna looked relieved. “Looks like it’s about to kick off,” I said.

Talisid turned towards Fountain Reach. “So it is.”

For a few seconds the hillside was still. Then from below the night lit up in a flash as explosives went off all around Fountain Reach. The mansion’s outer walls simply disintegrated, coming down in a tumble of bricks and stone even as the echoes of the first blast came rumbling around the hills. The inner layers of the mansion were spared from the initial shockwave only to be caught in the spreading flames, fire engulfing the house far quicker than should be possible.

The blaze grew by leaps and bounds, licking higher and higher. From below I could sense fire magic working to enhance the flames and air magic pouring in pure oxygen to feed them. Sparks and embers went soaring into the night sky. Even from here I could feel a slight warmth; down below it must have been truly hellish.

The wards didn’t stand a chance and I felt them shredding and dissolving as the structure they were tied to burned away. I wondered what it must be like for Vitus, hidden in that pocket dimension that had once been his fortress and had now become his tomb. If it had been a smaller fire he might have been able to extinguish it by transporting away the air or the burning material as he had before, but there was nothing in the world that could have extinguished this. All he could do was sit there and watch.

I don’t know if Vitus came out. There was a minute or two during which the wards still held, even while all around them Fountain Reach burned with a single flame. Maybe somewhere in that time Vitus Aubuchon did emerge, leaving his sanctuary for one last time in a final desperate attempt to defend his home. If he did he died there, alone and unnoticed in the blaze. A moment later the internal structure of the mansion groaned and broke, and Fountain Reach collapsed in an enormous crash, throwing a storm of smoke and sparks into the sky as the wards that protected it and linked it to that other copy of itself flickered and died.

The mages below didn’t stop. They kept the fire going as the ruins of Fountain Reach dwindled, burning the wreckage to splinters and the splinters to ash. They weren’t here to find or confront Vitus, they were here to eliminate him, as efficiently and safely as possible. Only when there was nothing left but dust did they finally let the fire die.

Talisid and Luna and I looked down the hillside in silence. Where Fountain Reach had stood was an open patch of scorched ground, still glowing with heat. “I think we’re done here,” Talisid said. “Was there anything else?”

“No,” I said.

“You did a very good job,” Talisid said, giving a nod to Luna to include her. “Call me any time you need my assistance. Good night.”

Talisid walked down into the forest and disappeared into the darkness between the trees. I gave the scorched patch one final glance, then turned away. “Come on,” I said to Luna. “Time to go home.”

* * *

“Run through it for me one more time,” I said.

“Again?” Luna said with a sigh.

It was a few hours later and we were standing outside a coffee shop in Soho. Now that we were back in London the winter night was a little bit warmer but much less clear, the fuzz of the city glow clouding the sky above. Neon lights shone from the buildings and scatterings of people moved past in twos and threes. “I’m going to stay here until you pick me up,” Luna said in her why-do-I-have-to-do-this? voice.

“Or?”

“Or until it’s been one and a half hours.”

“And after that?”

“I go somewhere safe and call Sonder and Talisid and read them the message in this letter.”

“And if I call you and tell you it’s all clear?”

“Then I run like hell. Is this about that thing you had Sonder research for you?”

“Yes.” I handed Luna the envelope. “If everything goes to plan I’ll be back within an hour.”

“Why can’t I come?” Luna asked, accepting it. “I did last time.”

“If you open that letter you’ll know. Enjoy the coffee.”

* * *

Tiger’s Palace looked pretty much the same as when I’d last seen it. The shark-eyed bouncers let me pass, and the roar of music washed over me as I crossed the dance floor. I caught a glimpse of one of the kids who’d picked a fight with me and Luna. The instant he saw me his eyes went wide and he vanished into the crowd. I smiled to myself and walked up the stairs.

Jagadev’s throne room was filled with a smaller entourage than last time, and Jagadev wasn’t there. The Asian guy with sunglasses stopped me once again. If he was still bruised from the last visit, he didn’t show it. When I said I was here to see Jagadev, he gave a curt “Follow me” and led me farther in. The bead curtain parted to reveal a small maze of corridors. I passed a couple of heavies with badly concealed guns under their jackets who gave me unfriendly looks before Sunglasses stopped in front of a door. “Inside.”

I opened the door and walked in. It swung shut silently behind me.

Jagadev was there, and he was alone. The chamber was a dining room, wide and tall, with hangings of red and dark gold. Gold statuettes stood on tables, and curved swords and intricately woven tapestries hung on the walls. A fire blazed in the fireplace, its flickering light illuminating the long table at the centre, and at the middle of the table sat Jagadev. A meal was laid out before him but he sat with his clawed paws clasped and still. His dark eyes watched me opaquely as I approached the table and stopped.

Jagadev made a gesture towards the chair opposite him. “Sit.”

“Thanks.” I pulled out the chair. Jagadev’s plate was piled with some sort of meat I didn’t recognise and his glass was filled with red wine, but both seemed untouched.

“You wished to speak to me,” Jagadev said in his growling purr once I was seated.

“I did,” I said. “First, I’d like to thank you for the pointer towards Fountain Reach. It was very accurate, as I’m sure you know.”

I stopped. “Is that all?” Jagadev said.

“No,” I said. “I think I might have figured out who’s been trying to kill your ward Anne. I thought you might be interested.”

“Speak.”

“Thanks.” I settled back in the wooden chair. “It interested me because once I looked back on it the first thing I noticed was just how much bad stuff has been happening to Anne over the last week. First there were those assassins in Archway, then there were those constructs at the motorway cafe, then she got arrested by the Council and could easily have gotten executed, and then she nearly got killed off by Vitus. When you think about it it’s actually pretty surprising she’s still alive.”

Jagadev watched me silently. “So,” I said. “I looked at Anne and tried to figure out why someone would want her dead so badly. And I really couldn’t come up with a good explanation. Okay, Vitus was after her because she was an apprentice who was the right age. And the Council were after her because they thought she was Vitus’s accomplice. But the assassins and the constructs didn’t fit with that at all. So I tried to figure out who was behind those.

“The obvious person to blame was Crystal, because she was the one who kidnapped all the others. But if it was Crystal then she should have been trying to kidnap Anne, not kill her. And there was something else-the more I thought about it the more it seemed to me that neither of the attacks would have done Crystal or Vitus any favours. They wouldn’t have led us away from Fountain Reach-if anything they would have done the exact opposite. If I’d been killed in the middle of investigating that place it would just have convinced the next few investigators that I was on the right track. So whoever was behind it, they weren’t on Crystal and Vitus’s side. But they weren’t on Anne’s side either, because they were trying to kill her. And they weren’t on my side or Variam’s side, because they could have killed us too, and they weren’t on Morden or Onyx’s side, because those guys wanted me alive, at least until they found Vitus. In fact, it didn’t seem like they were on anyone’s side, which didn’t make any sense.

“So I decided I’d been going about this the wrong way. I threw out all my ideas and started from square one. And when I looked at it with a fresh eye the first thing that jumped out at me was that every time Anne had been in danger, your name seemed to crop up. That first time in Archway she’d gone there in your car with your driver. Same with the motorway services. Vitus trying to kill her wasn’t your doing. . but it was your doing that she was in Fountain Reach in the first place. And that’s a bit odd, isn’t it? Anne doesn’t duel, so why send her to a duelling tournament when there’s someone out there kidnapping apprentices? Especially when you knew that Fountain Reach was the place those kidnappings were coming from? And finally there was the Council arresting her. It didn’t seem like that could be your fault. . until I remembered that habit of yours of asking Anne about her classmates. The Keepers are probably going to decide that Crystal got that information out of Anne’s mind, but they’re not a hundred percent happy with that explanation and neither am I. Of course, if the information was getting passed on to Crystal by someone she told it to. . well, then that would make Anne a perfect spy, wouldn’t it? She’d be Crystal’s accomplice without ever meeting her. But as long as she was alive, she’d be a link that could be traced back to you.”

I stopped and waited. The only sound was the crackle of the fire. “Are you accusing me of attempting to kill my own ward?” Jagadev asked.

“It doesn’t seem to make sense, does it?” I said. “After all, you pointed me towards Fountain Reach. It’s almost as if you wanted to get rid of everyone. Anne and Variam and me and Vitus and Crystal and Onyx. . and a whole lot of random apprentices in England.”

Jagadev extended his hand to pick up his glass of wine and drank from it, his eyes not leaving mine. “Then there were those gunmen who went after Anne,” I said “I always had the feeling they were killed to stop them from talking about their employer, but it was interesting how they were killed, wasn’t it? Those weren’t gunshot wounds, more like claws. Almost like a big cat.”

Jagadev set the glass down. “Please come to the point.”

“Sorry. Anyway, the problem was that I still couldn’t figure out any reasonable motive. So I did some historical research. I eventually found what I was looking for but I had to go back a long way. All the way to 1865.”

I felt Jagadev go still. “For Americans, that was the Thirteenth Amendment,” I said. “For Indians, it was the British Raj. And for mages, it was the rakshasa wars. That was the year a group of British and Indian mages supported by an auxiliary force attacked the palace of a rakshasa named Lady Arati. Arati was killed, but the other rakshasa in the palace-her husband-escaped.” I paused. “Just out of interest I tried to trace the family trees of the mages who carried out that attack. It was very difficult. Over the decades nearly all of them seem to have suffered mysterious deaths or just disappeared. In fact as far as I can tell, there are only two direct descendants of those mages alive today. Their names are Anne Walker and Variam Singh. And the name of the rakshasa that escaped that attack was Lord Jagadev.”

Jagadev didn’t move or speak. “Mages like the idea of immortality,” I said. “But I don’t think many of us understand what it would really mean. What would it be like to lose someone with whom you were going to live forever? What would you do about it?” I paused. “You could take revenge. It wouldn’t be hard, with all that time to do it in. But in the end, no matter what you did, all the men and women who did the deed would be dead of old age if nothing else. So what then? What price to avenge the death of an immortal? Maybe going after the children of the ones who killed her, following the line down and down until every one of their descendants was gone. Or maybe going after all mages, manipulating events to cause the deaths of as many apprentices as possible, reducing the number of mages in the world one by one.” I stopped and looked at Jagadev. “What do you think? When is it enough?”

The room was very quiet, and Jagadev was still. The futures weren’t. Looking ahead I saw futures branching, the room erupting into a blur of violence. “Before you make any decisions,” I said, “I should point out that there are people who know where I am. They’ve got copies of what we’re discussing and they’re under orders not to open them. Yet.”

Jagadev and I sat and looked at each other. Ahead of me the futures flickered between two branches. In one, we continued to sit and look at each other. In the other. . I’d come prepared, but even so I wasn’t sure I would make it out of the room. I expect to be threatened in these sorts of meetings, but Jagadev wasn’t going to make threats. If he started something it would be spectacular.

Gradually the futures of violence began to recede and finally winked out. Jagadev stayed silent for a full minute before speaking. “I hope you have some proof for your assertions.”

“Anne and Variam’s family history isn’t difficult to check,” I said.

“Nor does it prove anything.”

“Not on its own,” I agreed. “Of course, if those two were to suffer mysterious deaths as well you’d suddenly become a very likely suspect.”

“What do you want?” Jagadev said.

“First, no more assassins in the night,” I said. “Second, I want you to cut your ties with Anne and Variam. They go free and clear with no more plots against them.”

“And if I do not?”

“Then I’ll take everything I’ve told you and everything else I’ve found and publish it to every mage in the country,” I said. “Right now there are a lot of mages looking for someone to blame for their missing apprentices. They’d love to have someone to vent their rage on.”

“Again,” Jagadev said. “You have no proof.”

“They won’t care,” I said. “Not for a nonhuman.”

“And you think they will listen to you, Alex Verus?” Jagadev said softly. “To one who betrayed his master, turned against his tradition, and is responsible for the deaths of so many other mages himself? One who holds himself apart from the Light Council and the Dark associations, with mortal enemies amongst both, and whose closest allies are adepts and nonhumans? They will accept your story on nothing but your word? I think not.”

“Jagadev, let me tell you something about diviners,” I said. “You’re right that other mages don’t like us very much. But do you know the real reason they don’t want us around? It’s not because they don’t trust us to find out the truth. It’s because they trust us all too well.”

“Then let me tell you something about myself,” Jagadev said. His voice stayed soft, but something about it sent a chill down my spine. “You are very far indeed from the first mage to threaten me. Do you think I hold this domain at the whim of your Council? I have resources you cannot conceive of. If you bring war to me, then let me assure you that the apprentices whose lives you seem to value so highly will be the first casualties.”

We sat staring at each other for a long moment, then I broke the deadlock, leaning back in my chair. “That is the problem, isn’t it? If you ever really decided to cut loose you could do a lot of damage. On the other hand, by publishing this information I could do you a lot of damage. And if it came to war you’d eventually lose. You know it and I know it. It wouldn’t matter how many you killed. It’d be wolves pulling down a tiger. They’d bring you down by sheer weight of numbers.” I met Jagadev’s eyes. “So I guess what it comes down to is this. Is taking your revenge on two human apprentices more important to you than your own immortal life?”

“And what do you gain from this?” Jagadev asked.

“Does it matter?” I said. “Anne and Variam are a liability to you now. I’m going to be watching them and so will others, and if anything happens to them while they’re supposed to be in your care we’ll know it was you. Even if it wasn’t.”

I could have said more, but stopped. Some instinct told me that trying to persuade Jagadev further wasn’t going to help. Instead I sat and waited, watching the futures whirl ahead of me. The fire crackled in the quiet room, throwing flickering light over Jagadev’s orange-striped face and glinting off his opaque black eyes.

“Anne and Variam are banished from my domain,” Jagadev said at last. “As are you. Should any of you set foot in this place again your lives are forfeit.”

I nodded.

“Go,” Jagadev said.

I did. My muscles were tensed all the way to the door; if Jagadev was going to try anything, now would be the time. Every step I half-expected to hear a sudden rush of movement behind me.

But Jagadev did nothing. I reached the door and took a last look back. The rakshasa was still watching me from the table, lit up in the firelight, the meal untasted before him. I studied him for a moment and then turned and left. The guards let me go.

* * *

It was another clear winter’s day. The temperature had been getting lower and lower until it was close to freezing, and according to the forecasts there might even be snow this weekend. But for today the skies were clear, and we were taking the opportunity to do some moving.

“That the last one?” I said as I came back out into the street and saw the solitary box by the van.

“Yep,” Sonder said. “Is there anything else?”

“It’s fine,” I said. “Go ahead and take the van back. Thanks for the help.”

“It’s okay,” Sonder said. “Uh, you know, I could probably find somewhere they could use. The Council has a few buildings that are pretty much always empty.”

I shook my head. “You’ve done more than enough.”

Sonder hesitated. “Have you told them about. .?”

“What you found out about Jagadev?” I asked. “No. And to be honest, I’m not sure I’m going to.”

Sonder looked startled. “Really?”

I nodded. “But. .” Sonder said. “It’s the truth. I mean, I know it’s not going to be fun for them to hear, but. .”

“You did the research on Anne and Variam’s family history,” I said. “How much of an extended family do they have?”

Sonder thought for a moment. “I don’t think they have much of one. Not in their generation anyway. Variam used to have-”

“Right. How many of those deaths do you think were from natural causes?”

Sonder paused. “Oh.”

“And how do you think Variam in particular is going to react when he finds out?”

“Um. I guess he’s not going to be happy.”

“No,” I said. “He’s not.”

We stood by the van in silence for a moment. “What are you going to do?” Sonder asked.

“Sooner or later they’re going to have to know,” I said. “But. . I think I’m going to wait. At least until things quiet down.”

“I guess,” Sonder said. “Are we still on for dinner?”

“Sure. Drop by whenever you like.”

As Sonder drove the van away I picked up the box and carried it back to the shop. As I did I noticed that a couple of customers were hovering around the front door. “Hi,” one of them said as I fumbled for the handle. “Are you open?”

“Sure,” I said, shouldering the door open. “Come in and-” I stopped as I realised no one was behind the counter.

“Do you work here?” the younger one said.

“Yeah.” I put the box down and headed past the counter for the hall. “Wait just a sec and I’ll find the sales manager.”

I heard the argument from all the way down the stairs. “You are not leaving that crap all over my room,” Luna was saying.

“It’s where I’m staying, all right?” Variam said.

“I don’t care where you stay but you’re not staying here.”

“You said this was a spare room!”

“I told Anne this was a spare room. I didn’t say you could have it.”

“This is such bullshit,” Variam said. “You don’t even live here.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes classes run late and I sleep over, and I don’t want to be picking your dirty clothes off the floor.”

“My clothes aren’t-”

“Hi,” I said, sticking my head through the door of the spare room. “Is there a problem?”

“Variam wants my room,” Luna said with a frown. She was standing in front of the camp bed with her arms folded.

“It’s not your room-” Variam started.

“All right,” I cut in. “Let me break it down for you guys. I have two rooms available, the living room and the spare. I don’t care who sleeps where, but if you’re a guest here you should be polite to your host, and if you’re a host you should be trying to make your guest feel comfortable.”

Luna and Variam looked at each other, then back at me. “Okay?” I said.

“Okay,” Luna said.

“So who gets the room?” Variam said.

“You’re over twenty years old,” I said. “Sort it out yourselves. Oh, and Variam, the rest of your boxes are downstairs, and Luna, you’re supposed to be minding the shop.”

Luna sighed and obeyed. Variam followed. As I left I heard them start arguing again.

I wandered into the living room to find the rest of the boxes in a pile, stacked neatly but unopened. I thought for a minute, then went out onto my balcony and climbed the ladder to the roof.

There’s not much on the roof of my flat-a little parapet around the edge, one chimney, and that’s it. It’s bare and cold and there’s no shelter, but I love coming up here all the same and it’s because of the view. The edges of the roof go out just far enough that you can’t look down into the street, but other than that there’s no direction you can’t see. As I climbed I could hear the sounds of the city all around us; the whistling of the wind on the rooftops, the creak of stone and metal from the buildings nearby, the low steady growl of traffic. Voices echoed up from the streets around, a train rumbled along one of the railway bridges in the middle distance, and far overhead an airliner drew a clear contrail of white across the blue sky. Millions of people, millions of stories, all blending into the sounds of London.

Anne was sitting on the parapet, looking southward over the skyline with her hands around her knees. She looked back as I crossed the roof. “Cold?” I asked.

Anne shook her head and I sat down next to her with a sigh. It really was a great view. “Are Luna and Vari okay?” Anne asked.

“Oh, they’ll be fine. Just sorting out the pecking order.”

“Thank you for letting us stay here,” Anne said. “And. . for everything else.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“When Vitus took me. .” Anne said. She was staring down at the building opposite, and she had to stop and take a breath before she could go on. “I was so scared I couldn’t think. I was lying on that table, trying to keep myself alive and hide my life so he couldn’t find me. I didn’t know if I could do it. The first time nearly killed me and I knew if Vitus came back to take any more of my blood I’d die. Then I felt you come in and Vari and Luna and. .” She looked up at me, red-brown eyes serious. “I wasn’t scared anymore. I knew you’d come.”

I looked away. I always get uncomfortable when people are grateful to me-I’m never sure I really deserve it. “Eh. The only reason it was me was because I made Variam stay back and guard the entrance.”

“Vari always fights,” Anne said simply. “He always tries to protect me and I know he’ll never give up. But I don’t know if he’ll be okay. Usually. . I guess it’s like I need to be responsible for everyone. And I don’t mind or anything, but. . It feels like I don’t need to worry about that so much that when you’re around. It’s nice.”

“You know, I’ve always wondered,” I said. “What is the deal with you and Variam? How did you get to know each other?”

“Everyone asks that,” Anne said with a slight smile. “We met because of another boy called Harbir. He was Variam’s older brother and when things started happening at my school Harbir came to help. He was like that.” Anne’s smile faded. “But he was killed. I didn’t know how to use my magic back then, but. . I wish I’d been able to do something.

“After that Sagash kidnapped me and took me away. I was in his castle for a long time. Sagash was a Dark mage but he didn’t have any other apprentices. He wanted me to become his Chosen, and when I said no he tried to make me.” Anne was quiet for a moment. “It was. . bad. Really bad. Back then I didn’t know Vari well-we only met because he was Harbir’s brother. He could have stayed at home and been safe. But he didn’t. He came looking for me and he tracked Sagash down and in the end we were able to get away. I think he did it because of Harbir. One of the last things Harbir had been trying to do before he disappeared was protect me and. . I guess Vari feels he kind of inherited the responsibility. He takes that kind of thing really seriously. He’d never let me get hurt, even if he doesn’t like me all that much.”

“Wait, what?”

“He doesn’t hate me or anything,” Anne said. “But I think it gets on his nerves the way I’m so quiet about things. He likes it when people stand up to him.”

“So that’s why he finally started listening to me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing.”

Anne gave me a puzzled look, then shook it off. “Did everyone make it out from Vitus’s sanctum okay? The Keepers wouldn’t tell me.”

“Crystal got away clean,” I said. “Lyle too-he got out with Crystal and she left him behind. He wasn’t hurt or anything, but last I heard he was in hot water. He was supposed to be keeping the apprentices in the White Stone safe and instead he ended up arranging them an all-expenses paid trip to Death Mansion.”

“Are the Council going to blame him?”

I shook my head. “He didn’t actually know what was going on, so no. Still, I don’t think he’s going to be getting any promotions for a while.” It was an odd feeling. I’ve had a grudge against Lyle for the longest time, but now that things had gone wrong for him I found to my surprise that I wasn’t especially happy about it. If he’d gotten in trouble because he’d finally taken advantage of the wrong person I probably would have laughed, but the way it looked to me was that it had been Crystal who’d taken advantage of him. Somehow that just made it sad.

“What about Onyx?” Anne asked. “Do you think he’s. .?”

“I wish,” I said with a snort. “I’ve seen him survive worse. I’m just glad he hasn’t come back for a rematch yet.”

We sat listening to the sounds of the city. The cold air bit at me and I knew I ought to go in soon, but I was reluctant to break the moment. “It feels strange,” Anne said at last.

“What does?”

“Being away from Jagadev,” Anne said. At some point she’d stopped tacking Lord onto his name. “It’s the first time Vari and I have been all on our own.”

“You’re wondering what you should do,” I said.

Anne nodded. “Well, for the short term you can both stay here,” I said. “I might not have as much status as some, but as long as you’re living under this roof you’ll have some protection at least.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t get too grateful. I’ll probably want you to help out around the place.”

I saw Anne try to hide a smile. “But. .” I said. “In the long run you and Variam are going to have to decide what to do next.”

Anne seemed about to say something, hesitated.

“I can’t take the two of you on as apprentices,” I said. “I couldn’t take on someone else and teach Luna as well. But even if I didn’t have Luna, I still couldn’t teach you properly. I only understand the basics of elemental and living magic, and you and Variam are way beyond anything I could show you. Both of you have more power right now than I’ll ever have. You need a teacher who can use the same type of magic that you can.”

A chill wind gusted over us, ruffling our hair. “Or you could try and make a go of it as independents,” I said. “But that’s got its own problems. You’re going to be seen as rogues or runaways or both. If you can get enough support and pass the journeyman tests, then the Light Council will have to recognise you as adult mages. But that’s not easy.”

Anne sighed. “None of it is, is it?” She straightened. “Well, we’ve made it this far. We’ll make do.”

“You will,” I said. “And you won’t be on your own this time.”

Anne looked at me and smiled. I got up and held my hand out to her. “Come on. Let’s go help Variam unpack.”

We went down out of the cold and towards the warmth and voices below.