“Doesn’t feel much like it at the moment,” I muttered. “What’s in it for me?”
“You help Del, I’ll watch your back,” Cinder said. “Long as it takes.” He looked at me. “Well?”
I wanted to say no. I didn’t have the slightest clue how I was going to get Rachel away from Richard. I didn’t even know how to stop her from trying to kill me on sight. Shireen (or Shireen’s spirit, or whatever that creature who’d spoken to me in Elsewhere had been) had asked me to redeem Rachel, and I had no idea how to do that either.
Except . . . Shireen had also told me that if I didn’t succeed, then I was going to die. And given where she’d got that prediction from, I had a nasty feeling that it wasn’t the kind I could dodge. Which meant that I really didn’t have a choice: I was going to have to help Rachel anyway.
If I was going to do an impossible task, I’d need all the help I could get. I’ve fought both with and against Cinder, and I much prefer the former. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll try. But if you want me to get anywhere, I’m going to need your help.”
Cinder nodded, turned, and started walking. And as simple as that, I had an ally. I wonder how long it’ll last.
| | | | | | | | |
Anne and Kyle had been talking quietly; they fell silent as we appeared through the trees. Cinder drew Kyle to his side with a jerk of his head, then opened up a gate between the trees and stepped through into darkness. Kyle followed. The gate closed behind them and we were left alone.
“What did he want?” Anne asked.
“The same thing that Shireen did. I’ll tell you about it on the way.” I looked at Anne. “You ready?”
Anne gave me a nod. I took out a gate stone and began the process of opening a gate to take us back to London. I’d faced my enemies. Now I had to face my friends.
| | | | | | | | |
We made the journey back to London in silence.
Now that we were away from Cinder and Kyle, my thoughts kept going back to Richard. I suppose, to an outsider, it might seem a little bizarre that I was worrying about Richard and not the people who’d actually attacked us. Vihaela had gone for Anne, and Rachel had come far too close to assassinating me, while all Richard had done was give us some orders. But Richard frightened me in a way that Rachel and Vihaela couldn’t. That mansion is a place of horror to me, and being connected to it, even at one remove, felt like all of my old nightmares come to life. Maybe Richard hadn’t seemed to ask much, but then, it had been the same way all those years ago. One of the lessons my apprenticeship taught me is that it’s the things with no price tag that end up costing you the most.
Anne stayed at my side but didn’t speak. Anne can be very quiet sometimes and she was quiet now, her eyes downcast and shadowed. I knew it wasn’t the first time that she’d been forced to work for a master that she’d rather avoid, but from her expression it was hard to know what she thought of it. Maybe she saw it as just more of the same. I hoped not. I hated that Anne was involved in this almost as much as I hated that I was, and I wasn’t sure she was ready for what was coming.
A gate stone took us to a park in Camden. Variam had told us to meet him near Great Portland Street, and so we walked south across the wide expanse of Regent’s Park, skirting the edges of London Zoo where birds roosted in the aviary. Even in the winter cold the park was crowded, tourists and locals strolling along the paths and sitting on the benches. The place that Variam had directed us to was on the other side of Marylebone Road, next to the big hotel, and we walked around to the front of the building.
And there was Variam, pacing up and down the pavement, a small wiry brown-skinned figure wearing street clothes and a turban. He made a beeline for us as soon as he saw us. “You okay?” he asked Anne.
“For now,” Anne said quietly.
Variam looked at me. “We’re fine,” I said.
Variam nodded and then to my surprise gave me a quick hug and clapped me on the back. “Glad you made it.”
“Uh, sure,” I said. Displays of affection make me uncomfortable, though I’m pretty sure that’s less to do with my personal issues and more to do with me just being English. From the corner of my eye, I could see that Anne was hiding a smile. “You’re all right?”
“Come on, let’s get out of the street.” Vari started towards the hotel. “Too many prying eyes.”
| | | | | | | | |
The inside of the building was white and antiseptic, with the vaguely soulless look that all hotels seem to have. We took the lift up to the sixth floor. “So what happened?” I asked Variam once the doors had closed.
“When?”
“Back on Boxing Day.”
Variam looked startled. “That long ago?”
“We’ve spent the last month being hunted,” I told him. “It was kind of hard to get news bulletins.”
“Yeah, that might not have changed as much as you think,” Variam said. “I wasn’t kidding about being watched. That escape of yours from Canary Wharf got a lot of attention, and it turns out Keepers don’t like it when you make them look stupid. You were right up there on the most-wanted list.”
“I’m hoping not anymore.”
“The notices went out, but right now you’re kind of the mage equivalent of O. J. Simpson. Might want to keep your head down.”
I grimaced. Meeting Morden in front of the War Rooms tomorrow was really not going to help with keeping a low profile.
The lift stopped with a ding and we walked out into a carpeted hallway. Variam led us to the left. “What about you?” Anne asked.
“Oh, I was fine.”
“Didn’t sound like you were that fine,” I said. The last I’d heard, Variam had been in custody.
Variam shrugged. “Got knocked about a bit. Could have been worse. At least Anne got away.”
“Thanks to you,” Anne said.
“Eh. Landis sorted it out.”
Variam came to a halt in front of one of the rooms that looked exactly the same as all the others. “By the way,” I said. “What’s with the hotel?”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought you were living with Landis.”
“Course.”
“Then why . . . ?”
“It’s not for me,” Variam said. “It’s for Luna.”
I looked at Variam, puzzled. “Wait,” Anne said. “You said she got out safely.”
Until a day and a half ago, Anne and I had been on the run from the agents of a member of the Senior Council, a mage called Levistus. We’d stayed far enough ahead to force a stalemate, which had been broken when Levistus’s principal agent, a slimy little bastard called Barrayar, rigged Luna’s flat with explosives while she slept. I’d shown up ready for a last stand, but before Barrayar could finish me off, Morden had stepped in. He’d appointed Anne and me as his liaisons, giving us a place with the Council and putting our death sentence on hold. I hadn’t had the chance to see or speak to Luna since then. If something had happened to her . . .
“She did,” Variam said. “But she wasn’t exactly going to stay in that flat afterwards, was she?”
“So can we see her?”
“Yeah,” Variam said. “About that.”
“What?”
“There might be issues.”
“What kind of issues?”
Variam hesitated, then seemed to give up and knocked on the door. “Hey,” he called. “Luna?”
Silence.
“Luna! You there?”
I gave Anne a questioning look. Anne nodded, and from her manner I knew that Luna was inside and unhurt. But she wasn’t opening the door either.
Variam took out a keycard and inserted it into the door’s slot. A light flashed green, and he turned the handle, but the door opened only an inch before coming to a halt with a clunk. “Oh, for—” Variam muttered, then raised his voice. “Take the chain off!”