Veiled

Chapter 10

It was a couple of hours later when Haken reappeared on the Belfry floor. He was frowning down at the stone and didn’t look up as he made his way over. “How did it go?” I asked.

Haken glanced up. I was sitting in the alcove in exactly the same place I’d been in when he’d left. “What?”

“The indictment.”

“Oh,” Haken dropped onto the bench. “Could have been worse.” He shrugged. “Rain got the worst of it, he’s the one in charge. Going to screw up his chances for his next promotion.”

“So what did they want to know?” I asked. “More about the case?”

“No one cares about the case anymore. This whole thing’s become about White Rose. That’s what the prosecutor was pushing for—they want an indictment against the whole organisation. Centrists aren’t going to agree to that but . . .”

“Then what are they going to do?”

“Fuck knows,” Haken said with a sigh. “All I know is that we’ll be the ones the shit lands on. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

We got up and started walking out of the Belfry the way we’d arrived. “They kept you in there a long time,” I said.

“Lot of questions.”

“When did they let you out?”

“Look, Verus, you know what ‘closed proceedings’ are, right? I’m not supposed to talk to you about this stuff.”

I nodded. “Sure.”

We headed down the tunnels, making the rest of the trip in silence. I didn’t say what I was thinking. While I’d been free in the Belfry, I’d kept myself busy by searching through the futures of questioning the other mages there. Most hadn’t been talkative but I’d found one clerk who’d been willing to help, and she’d told me (or rather, would have told me) that Haken had gotten out of the indictment proceedings forty-five minutes ago.

I was fairly sure it didn’t take forty-five minutes to walk from the judicial chambers to the Belfry. I wondered what Haken had been doing before rejoining me.

Night was falling by the time we made it out onto the city streets. “You’re not on the witness list anymore, but you’re still on call,” Haken said. “When they make their decision there’s a good chance you’re going to be called up. Make sure you’re ready to move on short notice.”

“Tonight?”

“Maybe. They might move fast on this one.”

I nodded. “Oh, one more thing,” Haken said. “You still have that focus you found at the station?”

“Sure.”

Haken held a hand out. “You’d better hand it in.”

I took a green spherical focus out of my pocket and passed it over. “You’re going to drop it off at the station?”

“Yeah. You might as well go home and get some rest. Don’t know when we’ll get the order to move.”

“See you tomorrow.”

I walked away down the road. The entrance to the War Rooms that we’d used was on a side street, and there wasn’t much traffic. Behind me, I could sense Haken taking out his phone to make a call. I turned the first corner, stopped, put my back up against the building, and waited.

Watching through my future selves, I saw Haken talk on his phone for a few minutes. Eventually he hung up, gave a glance in the direction in which I’d disappeared, then turned and went back into the building that led down into the War Rooms.

“That’s not the way back to the station, Haken,” I murmured. I waited for a few minutes more just in case he reappeared, then headed for Westminster.

I caught the Jubilee line and then the London Overground, alighting at Hampstead Heath. By the time I stepped off the train and walked into the Heath itself, it was night. The sky was overcast, thick clouds blocking out both starlight and moonlight, leaving the Heath pitch-black. A cold wind blew as I walked deeper into the park, whipping at my clothes and filling the night with the sound of rustling leaves. There was no way to see and hardly any way to hear. Most people avoid the Heath on nights like this, and for good reason.

But I’m not most people, and a night like this suits me just fine. With my divination I can navigate in pitch-darkness as though it were broad daylight, and against the vast emptiness of the park, the few wandering people stood out like searchlights. As I strode through the night, the wind gusting through my hair, I felt my spirits rise. The War Rooms had been tense, claustrophobic. Out here, alone in the cold and the blackness, I felt at home.

I didn’t hurry making my way to Arachne’s cave. When I finally stepped down into the ravine, I took a moment out of the wind, then stepped to the overhanging tree, touched two fingers to a root that was quite invisible in the darkness, and spoke into thin air. “It’s me.”

Arachne answered instantly. “Alex! Come right in. Everyone’s waiting.”

With a soft rumble the earth parted, revealing a yawning cavern. I stepped through and the earth and roots wove themselves shut behind me.

Arachne’s cavern felt warm and peaceful compared to the park outside. Globe lights cast a soft glow over the rocky cave, picking out the rainbow colours of the clothes draped over the sofas. Arachne was crouched at the far end. She’s a giant spider who looks almost exactly like a blue-and-black tarantula that’s been scaled up to ten feet tall, and she’s probably the nicest magical creature you’ll ever meet, assuming she’d let you in her lair in the first place, which isn’t all that likely. Nowadays my little group of friends are all on Arachne’s guest list, but it took them a while. Arachne’s got her own reasons to be cautious of mages, and it’s lucky for me that she isn’t the type to judge all by the actions of a few.

And speaking of my friends, they were all there: Luna, waving from a sofa; Variam, leaning back near to her with his arms spread out; Anne, cross-legged in a chair of her own. “Hey, sleepyhead,” Luna said as I walked up to them. “What kept you?”

“Don’t even start,” I told her. “However bad you think your day was, mine was worse.”

“Our day wasn’t that bad,” Anne said.

“Don’t tell him that!”

I smiled, then dropped into one of the sofas and shut my eyes with a sigh. I spend so much of my time looking ahead, watching for danger. Arachne’s cave is one of only a handful of places where I don’t have to do that. Behind the webs and the wards, I’m protected, and for once I can turn off my precognition and just relax. It’s good to have somewhere you feel safe, even if it’s only for a little while.

“So who wants to go first?” Variam said.

“Oh, go on,” Luna said. “I know you’ve been itching to tell us.”

“Alex?” Variam said. “You awake?”

“Just a little tired.” I opened my eyes. “I’m listening.”

Variam didn’t need any more encouragement. “Okay,” he began. He looked as though he’d just arrived, although he was wearing his street clothes: some masters keep their apprentices to a formal dress code, but Landis isn’t one of them. “We got a notice this morning that the Order of the Shield might be getting deployed, so we spent all day getting ready. First thing I did was look up the Order files on White Rose. Apparently the one from White Rose that the Council are thinking about going after is this woman called Vihaela.”

I searched back and remembered what Talisid told me. “The leader of White Rose is a guy called Marannis. Vihaela’s his second, right?”

“Kind of,” Variam said. “From what I heard it’s Vihaela who mostly runs everything. Some people are saying it looks like she’s going to take over. Anyway, she’s the one everyone’s scared of.”

“And she’s a Dark mage, right?” I said. I thought for a second and shook my head. “Don’t really know anything about her.”

“I do,” Anne said.

We all looked at her in surprise. “Not in a good way,” Anne said. “When mages want to tell horror stories about life mages, she’s one of the names they use.”

“Records have her listed as a death mage,” Variam said.

“They’re not as far apart as you’d think.”

“What kind of horror stories?” Luna asked.

“She’s a torturer,” Variam said. “The one who breaks down the White Rose slaves before they get handed over to the mind mages. If the reports are true, that was how she got into White Rose in the first place. Apparently even though she pretty much runs the organisation, she still deals with the new slaves herself. It’s hard to find out about her because there are hardly any witnesses. Most of the people she gets her hands on never get away, and the few the Council find are too afraid to talk. Even if they’re miles away, they’re so terrified of her coming after them that they don’t even want to say her name. The only full account we’ve got is from some girl who used to be one of the brothel slaves. She said that Vihaela ran White Rose on a points system. If you did something to make a customer unhappy, you lost points. At the end of the month, whoever had the lowest points got transferred to her lab. They didn’t come back.”

“The stories are that Vihaela’s supposed to use them for experiments.” Anne shook her head. “I don’t know if they’re true. I want to believe that it’s just other mages trying to justify being afraid of life mages, but . . .”

“How do you know this stuff?” I said curiously. “Is this common knowledge in the apprentice program, or . . . ?”

“First I’ve heard of it,” Luna said.

“It’s not,” Anne said. She didn’t meet our eyes. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

“I’m afraid that Anne’s stories aren’t exaggerations,” Arachne said. She’d been sitting quietly, working away on a complicated pattern of green and blue thread as she listened; now she spoke, her voice clicking gently. “From what I’ve heard, if anything, they understate the case.”

“Have the Council tried to do anything about her?” I asked.

“No one’ll agree to give evidence against her in court,” Variam said. “Apparently she goes out of her way to hunt down anyone who tries to spread stories.”

“Lovely,” I said. “Well, she sounds absolutely horrific. I really hope I don’t run into her.”

“There’s more,” Variam said. “She’s connected to some high-up people with the Council. Guess whose name comes up linked to her?”

“Please don’t say Levistus.”

“Nirvathis.”

“Great,” I muttered. This just keeps getting better and better.

“Wasn’t he Rayfield’s master?” Luna said. “The one who started all this . . . ?”

“Nirvathis does what Levistus tells him,” I said. I frowned. “And Leo was meeting his apprentice at Pudding Mill Lane . . .” It sounded as though it must have been Vihaela who’d sent him there, or someone working for her. Leo had been carrying that little focus . . . What had been on it?

“This is really confusing,” Luna said. “Who’s on which side?”

“There aren’t just two sides,” I said. “More like four. How did things go with Chalice?”

Luna glanced at Anne, then turned back to me. “Good, I think.”

“I’m guessing there wasn’t any trouble.”

Luna shook her head. “Nothing like that. Though . . . I got the feeling she might have known that we’d been preparing for it.”

“Chalice isn’t stupid,” I said. Even from our brief meeting, that was something I was sure of. “She knows we’ve got reasons not to trust her. She’d have expected you to bring backup.”

“I don’t think she brought anyone,” Anne said. “Not that I could see.”

“Mm,” I said. “She probably wouldn’t need them.”

“Well, we didn’t talk long,” Luna said. “It was mostly about chance magic. I was kind of expecting her to quiz me but she acted like she knew all she needed to already.”

“Did she say anything about the case?”

“No. She did ask what I thought about Morden’s proposal, though.” Luna shrugged. “I told her that since I wasn’t a mage, it didn’t matter much to me. She told me not to be so sure.”

“Huh.” I wonder what she meant by that?

“So?” Luna said. “What about you?”

“Well,” I said. “I spent half the day sitting around in a very nice waiting room, and about half an hour getting very thoroughly threatened by Levistus. He says if I don’t play along with what he wants, he’s going to destroy me. He also implied he’d do the same to you.”

Luna, Anne, and Variam exchanged looks. “Um,” Luna said. “Details?”

I told them the story.

Once I’d finished, there was a brief silence. “Okay then,” Luna said.

“What do you mean, ‘okay then’?” Variam said. “Fuck that guy.”

“Vari, wait,” Anne said in her soft voice. “We weren’t there when you had to deal with this the first time.” She looked between me and Luna. “Can he really do it? Everything he’s threatening?”

I hesitated. “Put it this way—I wouldn’t like to test it.”

“We beat his assassins before,” Luna said.

“I don’t think it’s his assassins that we should be worrying about,” I said. “You remember the Nightstalkers? The reason they were left to go after me was because of him. It’s that kind of thing I’m really scared of. If he sends an assassin, I can fight them. But if he just gets other Light mages to do the work instead . . . He could probably turn half the Council against me if he really tried.”

“This is so stupid,” Luna said. “He’s got this fight with Morden. The whole Council is fighting amongst themselves about White Rose and this proposal with the Dark mages. And he decides to go after you?”

I didn’t answer. What I was really thinking was something so childish that I was embarrassed to say it out loud: It’s not fair. I already had Richard to worry about. Wasn’t one overwhelmingly powerful enemy enough?

“So fuck him,” Variam said. “He’s not allowed to do this.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s really going to help,” Luna said in exasperation. “We’ll tell him he’s not allowed.”

“Yeah, well, what else are you going to do?” Variam asked me. “Do what he tells you?”

“It doesn’t even sound as though he can,” Anne said. “Levistus said that he wanted White Rose protected. If Alex stays here and they go through with their plan and arrest them, isn’t Levistus going to blame Alex anyway?”

“Somehow I don’t think he’s going to give me the benefit of the doubt.”

“So no point worrying, is there?” Variam said.

“I don’t think it’s that simple,” Anne said.

“Well, we’ve got one thing going for us,” I said. “We might be juggling multiple enemies, but Levistus is too. He’s too busy with this political duel he’s fighting.”

“Until it ends,” Anne said.

“And if he loses, he’s not going to be happy.” I sighed. “On the other hand, if he wins, then he’ll have even more influence. And he wanted to go after me anyway. I’m not actually sure which would be worse.”

“Alex?” Arachne said. “Would you like a suggestion?”

“Please.”

“It seems to me that you have already established what your decision has to be,” Arachne said. “Even if you could aid Levistus—which may or may not be possible—you could not trust him to uphold his end of the deal. You would be adding to the resources of one proven to be your enemy. As well as mine. That is without taking into account that aiding Levistus would by default bring you into conflict with other factions of the Council. Besides . . .” Arachne looked down at me. “You know what White Rose are. You know what they do. Do you really want to help them?”

“No,” I admitted.

Arachne made a movement, something like a shrug. “Well then.”

“I guess that does simplify things, doesn’t it?” I got up and walked absentmindedly over to one of the tables, moving a pile of clothes aside to pull something out from underneath.

“Can’t we do something about Levistus?” Luna said. “I mean, he’s trying to subvert the Keepers. That’s kind of like treason.”

“It is treason,” Variam said. “Problem is, all the rest of the Council do it too.”

“But it’s still illegal. Couldn’t Alex go to the Council and tell them what he told us?”

“Levistus would just deny it.”

“Well, what if Alex recorded him? Wear a wire, like they do on those police shows?”

“You ever heard of a Council case getting decided by audio recordings?” Variam said.

“What do you mean?”

“You know how sound mages can reproduce any voice they like?” Variam said. “That’s why. No Council court’s going to admit it.”

“Well, what if—?”

“Um . . .” Anne said. “Alex? What’s that?”

Variam and Luna turned to look at me. I’d returned to the sofa and I was tossing a pale green sphere back and forth from hand to hand. “Data focus,” I said.

Anne looked puzzled. “It looks like the same one from before.”

“That’s because it is.”

“Wait,” Luna said. “Didn’t you say you gave it to Haken?”

“I gave a data focus to Haken.”

Variam stared for a second, then his eyebrows rose. “You seriously—?”

“Yep.”

“Are you nuts?”

“Somehow I don’t think they’re going to take me to court over it,” I said. “Besides, how are they going to know the difference?”

Luna was looking between me and Variam. “Wait. You gave Haken a duplicate?”

“Alex came to me yesterday and asked for my help,” Arachne said in her clicking voice. She was still working away on the pattern of thread between her legs: it was beginning to take shape, looking like a dress of some kind. “Those old focuses are quite simple to duplicate when you know the trick. You can’t copy the information inside, of course, but other than that there’s no easy way to tell the difference.”

“And what are you going to do when they do look inside?” Variam said.

“The only way they’d be able to look inside would be if they were the intended recipient,” I said. “How exactly would a Council mage explain that they were receiving a private message from White Rose? And how would they explain how they’d got their hands on it when it was supposed to have been in a Keeper evidence locker? They can’t go public either.”

“But won’t they know it was you?” Anne said.

“Maybe. Or they might just blame White Rose.”

“Wait a second,” Luna said. “Wasn’t it Haken who asked for that focus?”

“Yup.”

“You think . . . ?”

“I’ve been getting a bit suspicious of Haken over the last day or so,” I said. “I don’t know exactly who he’s working for, but it’s not just the Council. What I’d really have liked would have been to trace that focus he took and figure out where it ended up, but . . .”

“It would have been too easy to annul it,” Arachne said. “Besides, it wouldn’t have given you more than a direction.”

Variam still looked sceptical, but he stayed quiet. “I’ve been thinking the same thing as you, about getting some sort of proof,” I said to Luna. “I’ve got the feeling that’s what this thing is—the information inside, I mean. White Rose might get money for what they do, but their real power’s information. I think that’s what’s in here. Blackmail material. Probably meant for Levistus in exchange for some other information paid in kind.” I sighed and held it up to the light. “Problem is, we can’t read it.”

“If you can’t read it, why’d you take it?” Variam said.

“Bargaining chip.”

“Wait a second,” Luna asked. “It was Vihaela who sent this focus, right?”

“Can’t prove it,” I said. “But from what Xiaofan said, it sounds like it.”

“Then if she was sending it to Levistus, why would she send it with someone like Leo?” Luna asked. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to use someone who could fight? Or something that couldn’t be intercepted?”

“That’s the bit I can’t figure out either,” I said with a frown. “Maybe Vihaela was so convinced it couldn’t be read that she didn’t care if it got lost?”

“There’s really no way to read it if you’re not the right person?”

“It’s quite impossible,” Arachne said. “Barring some extremely high-level methods that I seriously doubt anyone in this country could access.”

“So it is possible?” Variam asked.

“Variam, the things I’m referring to are orders of magnitude more powerful than anything we’ve been discussing. If your enemies have access to those, then you have considerably bigger problems.”

“Listen to Arachne,” I told Vari. “If she says it can’t be done, it can’t be done.”

“Isn’t that a little strange though?” Anne said.

I looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you said that the air mage who attacked you wanted that focus,” Anne said. “Now you’re saying that Haken might have wanted it, too. If no one except the person it’s meant for can read it, why would they care if it got lost?”

“Maybe they need to know what’s on it,” Luna said.

“But Alex said it had just been used.”

“No, you’re right,” I said. “Everyone’s been acting as though the information on this thing is something sensitive. They’re not afraid of it being lost—they’re afraid of it being read. But if no one can read it . . .”

“Well, maybe they don’t know that,” Luna said.

“But they’d have to . . .” I stopped.

“I still think there has to be some way,” Variam said. “I mean, you can break codes in computers, right? So if there’s some trick—”

“That’s it,” I said. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

Variam looked at me. “You mean—?”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s possible. It just matters whether they think it is.” I jumped to my feet. “I need to go.”

“Wait,” Anne said. “What’s going on?”

“And why are you running off?” Luna said. “Can’t you explain why—?”

“I don’t know if I’m right yet,” I said. “But if I am . . . I think I know who’s doing this. Meet me back at the shop. Arachne, thanks again.” I turned and headed up the tunnel.

Once I was outside Arachne’s lair, I used a gate stone to go home. Then I started making calls.

Most of the mages I tried to get in touch with weren’t much help. Mages tend not to make themselves easily available via phone, and the ones I did get through to didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. But after an hour, I finally managed to find the mage I’d wanted to speak to.

“It’s the middle of the night,” Lensman said peevishly. He sounded a lot more irritable than he had been when I’d spoken to him on Friday. I’d probably caught him about to go to bed. “Can’t it wait?”

“No, this is important. I need to know if you’ve heard anything about a new method of breaking the signature lock on a data focus.”

“A what?”

“A data focus. You know, the old Keeper model.”

“How did you hear about that?”

I snapped my fingers with my free hand. Yes. “Then it’s real?”

“Well, I haven’t confirmed it. But I just heard the same thing. Used almost those exact same words actually—”

“Where did you hear it from?”

“From Verde . . . he wasn’t sure where it had come from. Is it true?”

“Not a clue.”

“Because if it is, it’ll have huge implications for data security. You know how many old Council records are on those things? The whole reason anyone used them was that they were supposed to be unbreakable, but if there’s a way of getting round it—”

“Did you just hear about it today?”

“Yes, this morning. Look, Verus, what’s this about?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said honestly. All right, half-honestly. I didn’t know for sure, but I had a really strong suspicion. “But I should know whether that rumour’s true or not soon. I’ll tell you when I do.”

“All right.” Lensman didn’t sound entirely convinced, but I had the feeling he was keen to get off the line. “I’ll talk to you then.”

I hung up the phone, opened a notebook, and started writing. I kept going for a couple of minutes, then leant back and tapped the base of the pen against my teeth, looking down at what I’d written.

At least one group and probably more had tried to get this focus, in a manner that suggested that it contained important information involving White Rose. There were rumours going around that there was a new technique to break this focus’s encryption. Arachne was convinced that that was impossible.

Put that together with what was happening right now—the indictment against White Rose. Talisid had explained that the reason White Rose had stayed safe for so long was through mutually assured destruction. As long as everyone believed that White Rose’s data was secure, no one would move against them. But if you managed to convince enough people that it wasn’t secure . . . and acted in such a way as to make them believe that the data being released was only a matter of time . . .

“Yes,” I said out loud. It made sense. The only catch I could see was that for the plan to work, you’d need to be able to predict what Levistus would do. But given that all the signs indicated that they had successfully predicted that, that could just mean they had access to information I didn’t know about.

If I was right, then I knew who was behind all this. It was the same person who’d hired Chamois. And the reason they were doing it was . . .

My excitement died as I realised the implications. Yes, I knew who was behind this. But they were on the opposite side to White Rose. I could stop their plan—maybe—but that would mean helping White Rose continue to do what they did.

Levistus had been right after all: if I hurt one side, I’d be helping the other. Whatever I did, someone I hated was going to profit from this. Was there a third option, some way I could make both of them lose? I couldn’t think of one. It was too binary—if one side was weakened, the other would profit.

I stared down at the notebook, thinking. I didn’t come up with any solutions, and at last I shook my head. Worrying about which side I wanted to win was a long-term concern—right now what I should be worrying about was staying alive. If I was right, then I didn’t have much time. The indictment with White Rose was going to come to a head soon, and when it did, at least one of the factions involved in this was going to try to neutralise me somehow, probably by killing me.

The problem was, I couldn’t do anything to preempt them. If I attacked them directly then I’d find myself up against the Keepers. I was going to have to figure out their plan and come up with a counter on the fly.

Still, that didn’t mean I had to improvise everything. I could make some preparations of my own. And I had my own allies too. I just needed to figure out how to use them.

I got up and headed for my safe room. I was going to have to think very carefully about what to bring with me.