“Give me a sec.” I had my eyes closed, path-walking, watching as my future selves spread out in every direction. No immediate danger. I searched further, creating a slowly spreading mental map. The darkness made it harder, but . . . there. Just to the left, over a small rise, was a giant building. Not just a house, a country estate. There were only a few scattered lights from the windows, but even from a glance I could tell it was busy. Spotting the estate let me orient myself. So if we went the other way . . . Ouch. Okay, I wasn’t doing that.
“Anything?” Haken said.
“We’re in the grounds of a big country estate. Can’t confirm it’s White Rose’s base, but given that they have electric fences around the outside, I’m going to guess it’s not anywhere friendly.”
Haken didn’t seem surprised. “Vihaela?”
“I’ll check.”
Haken nodded. Silence fell.
“So,” I said after a minute. “You didn’t tell me how you found this place.”
“That’s classified.”
“I get that. It just seems a little odd.”
Haken didn’t reply.
“I mean, we kind of went to a lot of trouble to storm that place in Bank. And we already knew that Vihaela was going to be in their main base. Seems like it would have been more efficient to come straight here.”
“Wasn’t an option.”
“Couldn’t you have just done whatever you did to find this place, except first?”
“Verus,” Haken said. “Not now, all right?”
Another brief silence. Off in the darkness, a nightbird called and went quiet. The wind blew, rustling the leaves of the trees.
“So,” I said, “was there a reason you only brought me?”
Still no answer.
“I mean, yes, this is supposed to be subtle. But if we’re trying to stay hidden, it would have made sense to bring along Cerulean.”
“You know exactly why I haven’t brought Cerulean.”
“Sure,” I agreed. “But it would have been useful, wouldn’t it? I mean, illusionists are handy guys to have around. They can show you things that aren’t really there, hide their spells so that no one else can see what you’re really doing. Oh, and they can turn invisible. He could be right here, and we wouldn’t have any way of knowing.”
Haken looked at me silently. “So did you know he was working for White Rose?” I said. “Or did it come as a surprise?”
“That hasn’t been confirmed.”
I sighed. “You know the most annoying thing about you Keepers? It’s that habit you have of shutting everyone out. This whole thing would have gone so much faster if you’d just been up front.”
“You think I’ve been lying to you?”
“No, I just think you’ve been leaving out some really relevant information.” I studied Haken. “But you didn’t know about Cerulean, did you? Must have been a nasty surprise. You’d been trying to resolve the whole thing with Vihaela peacefully, then for a few minutes you thought you’d killed her.”
“Yes,” Haken said, an edge to his voice. “That was a surprise. Somewhere you’re going with this?”
I shrugged. “Just making conversation.”
Haken looked at me. I looked back.
“Vihaela’s in there, by the way,” I said.
“. . . Good.”
“So, we clear to go back?”
“Not yet.”
“I think it’s about time.”
“First I want you to—”
“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear,” I said. “I’m about to take out a gate stone and use it to go home. Are you going to do anything to stop me?”
Haken hesitated. It was only a very tiny pause, but it was long enough. The futures in which he said something reassuring flickered and vanished. The silence stretched out.
“Well,” I said at last. “This is awkward.”
“Something you’re implying?” Haken asked. His voice was flat.
“It’s not easy to keep secrets from a diviner.”
“Sometimes you don’t get a choice.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “I’m sort of inclined to the philosophy that there’s always a choice. Just not necessarily one you like.”
“If you know so much,” Haken said, “what are you doing here?”
I shrugged. “Honestly? I wanted to see which way you’d jump.”
Haken didn’t answer. Still on the fence? Maybe I could find out a little more. “So, there’s something I’d like to know,” I said. “What happened to Leo?”
“I have no idea.”
I sighed. “Can we quit the bullshit?”
“I didn’t have anything to do with that.”
“Fine,” I said. “You weren’t the one sending those golems out. But you sure as hell had something to do with why Caldera didn’t get that backup until it was too late for it to matter. I’m guessing it was Levistus, or someone from his crew. He didn’t want the Council moving against White Rose, so he tried to cut things off at the source. Only he didn’t get there fast enough.” I studied Haken. “I’m guessing they gave Leo the interrogation treatment. What happened to him afterwards?”
Haken sighed, rubbing his forehead. “You have no idea how this works, do you? You think this stuff gets decided with a boardroom meeting?”
“So you had no idea what was going on? That’s your story?”
“Leo was in the way,” Haken said. “He hadn’t shown up, this whole confrontation between the Council and White Rose wouldn’t have happened. We could have headed things off.”
“Yeah, I imagine that would have suited Levistus just fine.”
“This isn’t about Levistus,” Haken said. “No one wants to start a war with White Rose, not with Morden running around. You think Levistus would have taken this big a risk if most of the Council weren’t on his side? Two-thirds of them just want this whole mess to go away. It’s only the nuts who want to pick a fight.”
“Interesting that you see it as picking a fight,” I said. “Some people might think that picking a fight is kind of your job. You know, that whole enforcing-the-laws thing?”
“You don’t try to enforce the laws against a group like White Rose,” Haken said, his voice hard. “That’s not how it works.”
“So what did we just do?”
“Oh, for—” Haken made a frustrated gesture. “You think this operation was meant to be a success? Capture Vihaela with that bunch of fuckups? All we were doing was sending a message. We clear out one of their buildings, take a few of their low-ranking people. They get a slap on the wrist; we go back to the negotiating table. That’s how the game works.”
I tilted my head. “I doubt it’s much of a game for the slaves.”
“Yeah, well.” Haken’s voice was harsh. “Shit happens.”
“Except this time it didn’t,” I said. “Looks to me like Vihaela’s changing the rules.”
“Well, if you’ve got any theories as to why, I’d love to hear them,” Haken said. “Because right now I have no fucking idea what White Rose is doing.”
“And that’s a problem, isn’t it? Because you’re not here to do an arrest, you’re here to negotiate with them.”
“More or less.” Haken looked at me. “I could still use your help.”
“Yeah . . .” I said. “We might have a problem with that. You see, I don’t really feel like helping White Rose or Levistus.”
“You’re working for the Council—”
“Oh, please.”
“Fine,” Haken said. “How much do you want? You help clean this up, a lot of people are going to be grateful.”
“And that was why Levistus asked you to bring me along?” I said. “So that I could help out?”
The futures flickered. Again, it was fast, but I was watching for i
t. “Pretty much,” Haken said.
“Ooh,” I said sympathetically. “Sorry, Haken. You’re not a good enough liar.” Who had asked for me to be brought here—Levistus or Vihaela? I looked through the futures in which I accused Haken of both. If I’d done it cold, it would never have worked, but Haken was off balance, thinking on his feet. It takes more time to think up a lie than to tell the truth, and it showed.
“This doesn’t—”
“Ah,” I said. “Vihaela. So that was what was in those calls you were making, huh? She gives you the coordinates, and tells you to bring me as part of the deal.” I raised my eyebrows. “I’ve got to say, as a negotiator, you don’t seem to be doing all that well.”
“She’s not going to do anything stupid,” Haken said.
“Uh-huh,” I said. “Let’s take stock, shall we? First, the White Rose plant amongst your Keepers tries to kill me during that fight with the double. When that doesn’t work, Vihaela tells you to bring me here, out in the middle of nowhere, where no one knows where either of us is, to a mage who specialises in torturing people for information. This isn’t setting off any flags to you?”
“That’s not going to happen,” Haken said sharply.
I shrugged. “Well, since we’re on the same team, I guess you won’t mind if I do a little solo recon.” I turned to leave.
“Verus,” Haken said.
I started walking. I didn’t look back. All my attention was on the futures ahead. They were shifting, changing . . .
“Verus,” Haken said. And I felt the futures settle.
I paused, turned. Haken was standing side-on with one arm raised. A dull red glow had gathered at his palm, casting him in an ominous crimson light. “Come on, Haken,” I said. “If you love someone, set them free.”
“Yeah, well the version I heard of that saying ends with ‘if they don’t come back, hunt them down and kill them.’” Haken gestured with his other hand. “Get back here.”
I looked down at the spell in Haken’s hand, then up at him. “I have to warn you, I think this is going to put a serious damper on our relationship.”
“Here. Now.”
I shrugged, took one step towards Haken, then burst into a sprint.
Haken snapped something, but I wasn’t listening. I was focused on the presence behind me, the same person who’d tried to kill me back in Bank and who’d been eavesdropping on us ever since we arrived. He was silent and invisible, undetectable by sight or by sound, but no matter how well you hide yourself in the present, it doesn’t hide the actions you’re going to take in the future. I dodged left and a gun fired, the bullets whipping away into the night. Bushes loomed ahead and the futures of the next few seconds forked. Haken had two spells ready: one to block me in, the other to kill. He had only a second—
A wall of fire roared up in front of me, thirty feet long and ten feet wide, dazzlingly bright. It was just barely far enough away that I’d have enough time to stop. I took a breath, clamped down on the animal instinct to shy away, and ran straight into the flames.
The heat rose—and stopped rising. Flames licked hungrily at my skin, but the heat was drawn away, sinking into the stone at my neck. It lasted only a second, and then I was through and into the bushes. The fire-hunger stone was pulsing with heat and magic, but I was alive and unburned. My eyes were swimming with white-purple spots and my night vision was gone, but my divination still worked and I picked out a path over the broken ground, ducking and swaying out of the way of the branches. From behind me I heard a shout and felt the wall of fire vanish. I kept running, coming out of the bushes to swerve into a copse of trees. I knew that I was slightly faster than the two mages behind me. I also knew that if I kept going, they’d inevitably catch me. Mages have a lot of ways to track people.
And so instead of continuing to run, I ducked behind a tree, reached into my pack, and pulled out my hole card.
Most people don’t really get how defences work. Every culture has a version of the Achilles myth, where someone’s immune to every form of harm except getting shot in the heel, or hit with a dart of mistletoe, or having their hair cut off, or being stabbed in the left butt-cheek with a tuning fork while balancing one-legged on an aardvark, or something similarly stupid. In every single story, some dick goes out of their way to make sure all these ridiculous conditions are satisfied, and the supposedly invulnerable guy dies as a result. If you ask most people what the moral of the story is, they’ll say, “No one’s invincible,” or “Everyone has a fatal flaw.”
In my opinion, the real moral of those stories is: if you have some special ability that protects you, make damn sure people don’t find out about it.
My reactive armour is really useful. Only problem: Haken had already gotten a look at it. He knew what it could do, and he’d already have figured out exactly how much extra power it would take to blast through it. Which was why, for this mission, I hadn’t taken my armour at all. Instead I’d taken something that Haken didn’t know about. The loose bundle I drew from my pack was soft cloth, coloured a neutral grey, long enough to fall to my ankles and with a hood to shield the head. I pulled the mist cloak around my shoulders, stepped back into the shadows, and held still.
My mist cloak was made for me by Arachne, and it’s very good at what it does. When wrapped around a wearer, it functions as adaptive camouflage, changing its colour to blend with whatever’s behind it—it’s not invisibility, but if you keep still and stay in the shadows it’s pretty close. More importantly, it blocks magical senses. Most magic types have some way of finding people who are trying to hide from them, and mist cloaks cause you to drop right off their radar. It’s very, very useful, and it’s saved my life more times than I can count.
It also nearly ended my life, or the next thing to it at any rate. The last time I used my mist cloak I made the mistake of wearing it too long, and bit by bit it started hiding me so well that no one would have been able to find me, ever. The thought of that still creeps me out, and I’m not sure what would have happened if Arachne hadn’t pulled me out of it. I’d checked and rechecked obsessively with my divination, and I was as sure as I could be that as long as I only used it for a little while, the same thing wasn’t going to happen again.
Probably. I pressed up against the tree and held still.
Running footsteps sounded and Haken came into view, red light glowing about his hands. He came to a halt, looking left and right, frowning, and I knew he was looking through the trees, trying to pick out my heat signature. I kept my breathing slow and steady, not letting myself move. Haken stood, listening, and I could guess his thoughts. He couldn’t hear me running, he couldn’t sense my body heat, so where was I?
There was a soft rustle of movement. Haken turned sharply, the light at his hands brightening. He stared across the grass for a second, then I saw his stance shift. A shield of fire sprang up around him, and he lifted a hand to point towards an empty patch of grass. “Show your face or I’ll burn you out.” His voice was sharp and dangerous.
For a moment the landscape was silent, then a man seemed to fade into view, standing on the grass only twenty feet from Haken. The gun he’d been using was nowhere to be seen, and the glow of Haken’s fire magic reflected off his face. “No need for threats,” Cerulean said.
“Why were you shooting at Verus?”
“Because I wanted to kill him,” Cerulean said. He nodded over Haken’s shoulder. “Haven’t you got something to do?”
Cerulean looked far too relaxed for someone in his situation. Despite everything that had happened there was something bland about him—my eyes kept wanting to slide over him, and I had to keep dragging them back. “I’m getting really tired of your shit,” Haken said. “Give me a good reason I shouldn’t fry you right now.”
Cerulean shrugged. “For one thing, you wouldn’t make it off the estate alive. Where’s Verus?”
“Gone, s
ince you decided to fuck things up.”
“I didn’t shoot until he ran.”
Haken swore. “That’s how diviners work, you moron. It doesn’t matter if you’re invisible. All he has to do is look into the future to see what would happen if he runs, and if he sees you shooting, he knows you’re there!”
Huh, I thought. Haken’s got a pretty good understanding of divination. Would explain how I’d been having so much trouble spying on him. Though right now, I was a little bit too well placed for spying on them, at least for my own comfort. Maybe if I waited until they were busy with each other, then edged away . . .
“Maybe you should have used a fireball instead of trying to block him off with a wall,” Cerulean said.
“You know what?” Haken said. “How about you explain to me why you want him dead.”
Cerulean cocked his head, as though listening to something. “Vihaela.”
“She didn’t clear that with me.”
“Guess you’re not in the loop.”
“Don’t fuck with me.” Haken’s voice was dangerous. “This wasn’t part of the deal.”
“Why don’t you tell her that?”
Haken started to answer, then stopped. He looked up, over Cerulean’s shoulder, as though he’d noticed something. A second later, I heard it too: people coming closer, lots of people. The wavering white glows of flashlights were showing through the bushes. Shadows moved and Haken took a step back into a defensive posture. Then a woman stepped out into the light.
chapter 13
When I’d seen Vihaela’s decoy a few hours ago, I hadn’t realised at first that she was a fake. It’s hard to identify someone from a picture—you can match the features, but what really sets a person apart is their actions, the way they move and stand and speak. I’d known that there was something off, but I hadn’t known what it was. Often that’s how it happens, when you see an imitation—it doesn’t look totally convincing, but if you don’t have anything to compare it against, you’ll probably accept it.
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