Veiled

Chapter 12

There’s a saying that military life is long periods of boredom punctuated by brief moments of terror. As soon as Vihaela stepped through that gate, things started happening very fast.

Vihaela was dressed in brown and black, similar to her image in the Keeper records—actually, exactly like her image in the Keeper records. She stopped abruptly at the sight of all the people facing her. Two figures in suits stepped out behind her, brushing past on either side. They looked like men, but their blank expressions and the solid lines of their futures marked them as constructs.

The futures went crazy. All of a sudden dozens of new possibilities started unfolding, combat and confrontation and magic and violence all blending together, overwhelming me with information. It was too much and for a second I froze. “Mage Vihaela,” Haken began. “Under the authority—”

Danger, pain, death. There was a threat, and it was directed at me. Instinct broke my paralysis. “Haken!” I snapped. “Trouble!”

“—of the—” Haken stopped.

Green-black light bloomed around Vihaela’s hands, tendrils materialising out of the air. In an instant they’d formed into snakelike shapes with skull faces, rearing back like scorpion tails, ready to strike. The two constructs reached up under their coats, their movements perfectly synchronised, pulling out handguns.

“Gun!” someone shouted.

“Drop the—!”

Magical auras filled the room, overwhelming to my sight, air and fire and death and water. I couldn’t see the spell behind Vihaela’s green light; she took a step back, eyes going wide in fright, then the snakes lashed out with a piercing shriek, casting a hellish glow. Guns fired, deafening in the enclosed space. There was too much going on, and I could sense danger but it wasn’t matching up with the spells Vihaela was using. One of Vihaela’s snakes hit Slate; his shield was already up and the green light splintered into shards. A construct was in the middle of firing when an air blade severed its shoulder; I caught one fleeting glimpse of the arm pinwheeling, no blood from the wound, the fingers still tightening on the trigger to send a bullet into the floor. Then all of a sudden my precognition screamed, images of pain and death and blackness flashing in front of my eyes. Someone was about to kill me and I didn’t know who or how, but I could see the futures in which I lived and that was all I needed to know. I dived left, twisting; something tugged at my shoulder and I heard a splintering thud. I hit the floor hard, pain jolting through my side, and rolled left. I came up to my feet . . .

. . . and the battle was over. Vihaela and one of the security men were down. One of the constructs had been cut to pieces, its body parts scattered across the floor; the other was thrashing, headless, its remaining arm thumping erratically against the wall.

“Cease fire!” Haken shouted. “Cease fire!”

I looked left and right. The attic room hummed with magic, a dozen shields and protective spells brushing against each other. No one seemed to be paying attention to me. But someone had just nearly killed me. It hadn’t been Vihaela—I’d been watching her. The constructs had been in my field of vision.

That just left the people who were supposed to be on my side.

Whatever had caused the threat on my precognition, it wasn’t around anymore. Trask moved up to the thrashing construct and aimed a hand downward; there was the blue flash of a water spell. The construct went still and silence fell.

“No movement,” someone called.

“Rick, you okay?”

“Yeah,” a muffled voice said. It was one of the security men. “Just tripped.”

“Slate, Lizbeth,” Haken said. “Check her.”

Slate was staring at Vihaela’s still form. The Dark mage was lying facedown, crumpled against the wall. From a glance through the futures, I knew she wasn’t getting up.

“Slate!”

Slate started. “Yeah.” He and Lizbeth moved forward. Even though Vihaela looked out of it, the two of them treated her with wary caution. Lizbeth raised her hand, and I saw the grey flicker of a protection spell, then she cautiously kicked Vihaela’s ankle. Lizbeth frowned.

“Is she out?” Haken asked.

“Yeah, you could say that,” Lizbeth said. She straightened and looked at Haken. “She’s dead.”

“What?”

“As in, not alive.”

“Are you serious?” Haken demanded. “Check her pulse.”

“I don’t need to. Living people do this thing called breathing. You don’t believe me?” Lizbeth nodded at Slate. “Ask him.”

“Slate?” Haken said. There was a dangerous tone to his voice.

“Well, I didn’t fucking do it,” Slate said defensively.

“What are you getting in your deathsight?”

Slate hesitated.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Haken spun around. “Which one of you did this?”

No one answered. The other mages in the room avoided meeting Haken’s gaze. Behind him, the bodies of Vihaela and the two constructs lay still and silent on the floor.

“I didn’t hit her that hard,” Slate said again.

Lizbeth passed a weary hand across her face. She was leaning against the wall. “Will you stop saying that?”

“Well, I didn’t.”

“Trask?” Haken said. “Give me something I can use.”

The security men had all been shooed away, and it was just the mages—me, Haken, Slate, Trask, Abeyance, Lizbeth, and Cerulean. Abeyance was using her timesight, Cerulean had faded into the background, Trask was kneeling over Vihaela’s body and examining her, and everyone else was arguing.

I listened with half an ear. I was less interested in the argument than in what I’d found in one of the walls: a pair of bullet holes. There was nothing especially remarkable about them . . . except for the fact that they were in the side wall, and Vihaela and her two constructs had been against the far wall. By my estimation, from the angle the bullets had entered, the only place they could have come from was the group of Council security and Keepers.

Which was highly relevant, since I was pretty sure those two bullets had been fired at me. I’ve been shot (well, seen my future self get shot) enough times to recognise it. That just left the question of who’d done the shooting . . .

“Nothing,” Trask said.

“What does that mean?” Haken said.

“Don’t have a cause of death.”

“Then what do you have?”

“Stomach bruising.” Trask pointed down, then moved his finger up. “And a shot to the leg.”

“She got shot?” Lizbeth looked hopeful. “It was their fault then . . .”

Trask was shaking his head. “Why not?” Haken asked.

“Muscle wound,” Trask said. “Missed the arteries.”

“What did you hit her with anyway?” Lizbeth said to Slate.

“It was just an enervation bolt.”

“Well, those are dangerous.”

“I know how to do my job, all right?” Slate said. “Was the same thing I hit those guys downstairs with, and they’re fine, aren’t they?”

“People have died from enervation spells . . .”

“She’s a fucking life mage,” Slate said. He gave Vihaela’s body an angry gesture that seemed to imply that her death had been a personal insult. “You have any idea how tough they are to kill? They’re like frigging cockroaches.”

Lizbeth shrugged. “Didn’t seem that tough to me.”

Haken put a hand over his eyes. “Abeyance?”

“I’m not getting much,” Abeyance said. She’d stayed out of the argument. “Best guess is the bullet was from a burst aimed at one of those constructs. What took her down was Slate and Lizbeth’s spells, but I can’t tell what killed her.”

“What do you mean, you can’t tell?” Haken said. “The more recent an event, the easier it is to timesight it, right? So why can’t you see?”

Abeyance shot Haken an annoyed glance. “There’s interference. A shroud maybe, or spell static. It’s not as though I have lifesight—I’m not going to be able to tell you the exact moment she went from alive to dead.”

I ran my fingers along the bullet holes, then turned around, crouching slightly and angling my head to look back along the line they’d come from. I tried to remember who’d been in that position. It hadn’t been Vihaela or the constructs. Hadn’t been Haken or Slate, either. Coatl had been downstairs. That left Trask, Abeyance, Cerulean, and the Council security.

More to the point, no one seemed to have noticed anything. No one had said anything about my dive sideways, or about any shots going in my direction. That meant that either they’d seen it and said nothing, or there hadn’t been anything to see. The first was technically possible, but seemed like an unreasonable risk. I didn’t believe that everyone on the Keeper team wanted to kill me, which leant me towards the second option. It was always possible that the shooter had just hung back and taken a shot while all eyes were turned on Vihaela, but even in the confusion, that seemed unnecessarily dangerous. With the number of magical senses around, there was too great a chance that someone would notice. The simplest explanation was that it had been done in such a way that no one had been able to see anything at all.

Assuming that logic was correct, it gave me one very obvious suspect. And if they were a traitor . . .

I looked at Vihaela’s body. Wait a second. Could that be it?

The others were still arguing. I crossed the room and knelt; Trask gave me a glance, then rose and stepped away. Vihaela was lying on her front, head turned towards me, eyes closed in death. Her face was drawn and still. I blanked my mind, put all thoughts of who Vihaela was out of my head, and simply looked at her.

She looked young. I’ve seen a lot of Dark mages, male and female, and Vihaela didn’t really fit. It’s hard to say exactly what it is, but there’s something about a Dark mage’s looks that marks them. Maybe an apprentice . . . no, I wouldn’t even have pegged her as an apprentice. Not enough force. She looked like someone who’d had things done to her, instead of the other way around.

I thought back, remembering what I’d seen of the fight. In the few seconds I’d seen Vihaela alive, how had she looked? She’d looked afraid. Startled and frightened.

But looked at another way . . .

Yes. I couldn’t prove it, not yet, but I was sure I was right. I looked up. Slate was still arguing with Haken, something about giving the report to Rain. Cerulean and Lizbeth had been watching me; Cerulean glanced away, Lizbeth didn’t. I was pretty sure I knew who was working for White Rose, and I knew how they’d staged this. What was I going to do about it?

Accusing them openly . . . bad idea. I didn’t have enough status here, and I didn’t have any hard evidence. I could report what I knew up the chain of command. That was the dutiful thing to do, and what I was getting paid for.

Problem with that: I didn’t know who the people above me were working for either.

So let’s find out.

“It wasn’t Slate,” I said.

Slate frowned. Haken turned to look at me. “Say that again?”

I rose to my feet. “I know who killed her,” I said. “It wasn’t Slate.”

Slate gave me a suspicious look. This obviously hadn’t been what he’d been expecting. “Okay,” Haken said. “Then who?”

I glanced around the room, letting my eyes pass very briefly over everyone in turn. “You might want to hear this in private.”

Haken wasn’t stupid. His eyes narrowed as he realised what I was saying. “So who?” Lizbeth said.

I didn’t answer. “Rest of you, clear the room,” Haken said. “Wrap up downstairs.”

“Seriously?” Lizbeth said.

Haken looked at her. Lizbeth gave us both a disgusted look, turned on her heel, and walked out. Cerulean, Slate, Trask, and Abeyance followed. Abeyance lingered, looking curious, but when Haken waited pointedly, she shut the door behind her.

I listened to the footsteps going downstairs. Haken put a hand into his pocket and red light glowed. A shroud focus, possibly more . . . so that was why I’d had so much trouble eavesdropping on him. “This had better be good,” Haken said.

“It was Vihaela.”

Haken stared at me for a second. “You think it was suicide?”

“No. I’m saying Vihaela killed her.” I nodded down at the corpse.

“We don’t have time for—”

“Think about it,” I said. “What did we actually see? We saw someone who looked like Vihaela walk through the gate. Then the fight kicks off and there’s no time for anything else. She’s dead before she has the chance to talk.”

“You’re saying that wasn’t her.”

“You remember the briefing. Vihaela’s supposed to be the freaking death queen of White Rose. She shouldn’t have gone down this easily. White Rose uses fleshcrafters, remember? Perfect duplicates of whoever their clients want. If you were a Dark mage and you had those kinds of resources, wouldn’t you make some body doubles while you were at it?”

“She used magic—”

“Did she?” I asked. “Did your magesight actually see her cast any spells? Because mine didn’t. Yes, those green snake things looked scary, but they didn’t register as battle-magic, did they? Everyone was just so keyed up to fight that they reacted as if they were.”

Haken frowned at me for a second. “You’re saying they were faked.”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to. There had been exactly one person in the room who’d had the ability to create that convincing a show. I wasn’t openly accusing him, but there was only one way it pointed . . .

“What killed her?” Haken said.

“Here’s how I think this went down,” I said. “Vihaela’s on the other side of that gateway. She knows we’re waiting, and she’s got her body double ready. But she knows it won’t hold up under any kind of stress. So she makes sure the girl won’t be around to answer any questions. She uses some kind of spell before this girl steps through the gate. Time delay, maybe a triggered effect—but whatever it is, it was meant to make sure that this girl didn’t survive the encounter. She was dead from the minute she stepped through.”

Haken was silent for a few seconds. I knew he was going through what I’d just told him, checking it to see if it held up. “I’m going to make some calls,” he said at last. “Don’t tell anyone what you just told me. Understand?”

I nodded. Haken walked out.

I started to follow, then paused. I turned and looked back. The girl’s body was lying on the floor, alone in the room, still and lifeless. She hadn’t been involved in this at all, not really. She’d been a pawn, prepared and sacrificed. It was so utterly casual. They had treated her like one of my one-shot items, expended to produce a desired effect. Just like Leo.

Fuck these guys. The depth of my hatred surprised me. All of a sudden I didn’t care about the long-term consequences. I just wanted to see White Rose go down. I took out my phone and started making some calls of my own.

Haken called half an hour later, giving me instructions to meet him at the office where we’d planned the attack. He didn’t offer any explanations, and I didn’t ask.

The house was mostly empty now. Some Council forensics teams had arrived and were starting to go through the rooms, but most of the mages and security men had been called back to headquarters. It made sense really. The mission had been to bring in Vihaela, and now that Vihaela was apparently dead, things had ground to a halt. Outside, some yellow tape had been used to block off the alley, and bystanders were craning their necks to see if anything interesting was going to happen. I got a few glances, but no one challenged me on the way out.

I took a taxi to the office block and went inside. Night had fallen, and the building was dark and empty. My footsteps echoed up the stairwell as I climbed. When I found the door, I stopped and unslung my bag. I hadn’t worn my armour today, but I’d brought a light backpack. Reaching inside, my fingers brushed against soft cloth before closing on a stone attached to a chain. The item I took out wasn’t much to look at: a smooth-cut rock on a thin chain, teardrop-shaped and dull grey. But it wasn’t a rock, it was a fire-hunger stone, and I’d primed it before leaving the house. I checked to make sure it was still charged, then hung the chain over my neck, tucking the stone inside my shirt. I pushed the door open and walked in.

Haken was at the far side of the office, next to the windows. The lights were off and he was only a shadow in the gloom. Fire mages can see heat—it’s not quite the same as seeing in the dark, but it’s pretty close, and a fire mage can manage just fine with no light at all. Haken turned to me as I wound my way through the tables. The only light was the reflected glow from the street below the window: I could make out the lines of his face, but I couldn’t see his eyes. “Thinking something over?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I tilted my head. “Made up your mind?”

Haken looked at me for a second without answering. “Ready to go?”

“Where to?”

“White Rose’s base,” Haken said. “Maybe. I’m going to need you there to confirm it.”

I shrugged. “Easy enough. How do you know where to go?”

“Can’t answer that, I’m afraid.”

“Then mind telling me why we’re going there? Because it doesn’t seem like the safest possible vacation spot.”

“Our mission hasn’t changed.” Haken said. “If what you’re saying is true and Vihaela’s at their base . . .”

“Then we still have to bring her in?”

Haken nodded.

“If we’re doing something like that, wouldn’t it make sense to bring some backup?”

“This is recon,” Haken said. “If you’re right, then I can’t trust the others on the team.” He looked at me. “I hope you haven’t discussed this with anyone else.”

I kept a straight face. “No.”

“Good.” I felt Haken look me up and down. “Is that really what you’re wearing?”

“You don’t like my clothes?”

“Thought you had a set of armour?”

Funny thing about lying—the less often you do it, the more effective it is when you do. “Golem damaged it,” I said. “Besides, we’re not there to fight, right?”

“I guess not,” Haken said. He took a breath and straightened. “All right.” He turned to one side, and a minute later light bloomed as a fiery disc appeared in midair. The glow backlit his face, casting it in red and black. The disc shifted, becoming a ring. From the back, the gate was opaque; I walked around it to see that it led into an empty building. Haken stepped through and I followed.

We gated through three more staging points, each one another building. The air felt different in each, and I had the suspicion we’d just taken some very brief overseas holidays. Gating through staging points is a standard mage trick—it makes it much harder to track them—but usually they’ll only use one or two. Four is getting to the point of paranoia. Haken really didn’t want to be followed.

The last gateway took us outside, into what felt like the country. My feet came down onto grass, leafy bushes blocking my sightlines. Haken stepped through behind and cut off the gate instantly; he’d muted the glow this time, presumably to make us harder to spot. The air was cold, and looking up, I could see a black and overcast sky. There was no light reflected off the clouds: wherever we were, we were a long way from any settlements. “What can you see?” Haken asked, his voice low.

“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 it. “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, since 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.