The instant I was outside I ran quickly and quietly to the alley that ran alongside the building. I’d already confirmed that I had a few minutes before those two men would decide to come after me, and I had no intention of wasting them. I’d scanned the building on the way in, and I’d noticed a few places where . . . There. That should work. This side of the warehouse was smooth brick with no windows, but a metal drainpipe ran down from the first-floor roof. I got a grip and started climbing.
It was harder than I’d expected. With my divination I knew the pipe would support my weight, but it creaked alarmingly and pulling myself up wasn’t as easy as it should have been. With the chaos of the past couple of months I hadn’t had the chance to work out much. I pulled myself over the edge to see that the roof ran flat to merge into the taller warehouse ahead. Most of its windows were dark; two were lit. There was no cover. I crept forward, crouching down as I came close, then looked ahead to see what I’d see.
The window looked down into the room where Archon and the adepts were meeting. I stayed very still and focused, looking ahead to find out what I’d hear if I pressed my ear to the glass. Nothing but murmurs. The other window had a piece broken out of one of the panes, and I moved closer to the hole.
The murmurs resolved into voices. “. . . grassroots,” someone was saying. “. . . get the word out, it would . . .”
I lost the rest of the sentence. I edged closer.
There was more talking. I recognised the flat, mechanical sound of Archon’s voice, but I couldn’t quite make out what he was saying. “. . . not enough,” someone replied sharply. “Not enough identification. They have to feel threatened, that they’re coming for them.”
Archon said something; I caught the word martyr. Just need to be a little closer. I crept almost to the window.
I was near enough now that only one more step would leave me looking down into the room. Through the futures I could see that Archon was sitting at a table across from the man in glasses I’d pegged as the leader, with the other three standing behind. All seemed focused on one another. “And Morden can arrange that, can he?” the man in glasses asked suspiciously.
“Morden can arrange a great many things,” Archon said. “A better question is what you can bring to the table.”
“How do we know this isn’t a trap?” one of the other men demanded.
“If the Keepers wanted to arrest you,” Archon said, “they could simply arrest you. There would be no need for pretence. This is your first—and perhaps only—chance to gain the support of someone with real political power.”
“Then if Morden’s on our side,” the man in glasses said, “why’s his aide out there?”
“Mage Verus is close enough,” Archon said. And turned his head slightly up towards the window.
I was already scrambling back. I kept just enough presence of mind not to let my footsteps ring out on the rooftop, but I moved as fast as I could back the way I’d come. I could hear voices from street level; the men I’d left behind had followed me out. I swung over the rooftop to the pipe, dropped to the pavement, and pulled my phone out of my pocket just as the man appeared in the mouth of the alley.
“Yeah,” I said into the switched-off phone. “Okay.”
“Hey,” the man behind me called. It was the same one who’d told me not to get any funny ideas.
I frowned at him, then carried on talking. “That’s fine.”
“You’re not supposed to be out here.”
“Okay,” I said into the phone. “I’ll talk to you then.” I lowered it and stared at the man. “Do you mind?”
“You’re not supposed to be out here,” he repeated.
I walked past without bothering to answer. He hesitated, then followed. Up ahead, the other man appeared around the corner of the building. I already knew they weren’t going to let me out of their sight again.
The bits and pieces I’d overheard were only snippets, and I wished I’d been able to hear just a little more, but at least now I knew why Archon had brought me along: it had been to use my position as Morden’s aide to give his words authority. Did Morden know about it? Probably. A better question was what they were trying to achieve.
Archon appeared from the warehouse fifteen minutes later. I braced myself, expecting to be questioned, but he walked past without a word. I fell in beside him. Behind us, the adepts at the warehouse watched us go.
“So?” I asked once we were a couple of streets away.
“So?”
“What happened in there?”
“Why?” Archon asked. “Were you offering feedback?”
I shot Archon a look that he didn’t seem to notice. “I believe you can find your way home from here,” Archon said. “I’ll be in touch. Oh, and next time, I’ll expect you to be ready to leave more promptly.” He walked away without a backwards glance.
Sourly I watched Archon disappear into the darkness. Next time. Great. And it wasn’t as though I was in any kind of a position to turn him down. But maybe if I could figure out what he was doing . . .
I turned away, already searching for a place to gate back to Wales. I was pretty sure Talisid would want to hear about this.
chapter 6
MARCH
You know, I thought as I looked at the three men glowering at me, with hindsight, I really should have seen this coming.
It had seemed like such an easy job. I’d received an order from Rain’s office telling me to deliver an item to the Vault, the high-security location where the Council stores all of its most dangerous and valuable items, the ones they really don’t want Dark mages (or Light mages they don’t like) to get their hands on. The order hadn’t come directly from Rain—which, again with hindsight, should have been a tip-off—but it had been the first job the Keepers had given me this year and I’d been hoping that, if I made myself useful enough, they might start trusting me a little. On top of that, the person I was supposed to be doing the handoff to was Caldera, and I still wanted to talk to her about what had happened over Christmas.
So I’d gone down to the quartermaster’s, signed some papers, sat patiently through a lecture on security, and finally I’d been issued a small package, about the size of a paperback book. I’d been told several times that I absolutely must not open it, or try to open it, or even think about trying to open it, and I’d followed my orders. I hadn’t even tried looking into the futures in which I did any of those things (which in my opinion showed a really impressive degree of forbearance on my part), and now as I looked across the concrete floor at the three men waiting for me, I was quite sure that it all had been a waste of time.
We were in the tunnels beneath Old Street Roundabout. I’d taken the stairs down, watching the wide arches at the roundabout’s centre disappear behind the railings to leave only a narrowing patch of cloud-covered sky, before that in turn had vanished too. I’d followed the other pedestrians along the underpass until I’d found the steel door set into the tiled wall. The door had been locked but had opened to my Keeper signet, and I’d closed it behind me and taken the spiral stairs down, hearing the rumble of the traffic overhead. The spiral stairs had led into a wide, open area with a concrete floor, a low ceiling, a rather out-of-place tiled mosaic around the walls, and three heavily muscled goons in the centre of the room. I didn’t think they were here for a friendly conversation.