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‘You’re going to fight them here?’ Anne said quietly.

‘No bystanders,’ I said. The stairs leading up into the building were half blocked by a broken door, and I picked my way around it as I climbed them. The last time I’d visited the place, there had been a few homeless people living on the upper floors, but they were gone now.

The inside of the old offices looked like it had been bombed out and left to rot. Debris hung from the ceiling, and rubble and shards of glass were scattered across the floors. The furniture had been stolen or smashed, and the stair-rails and wiring had been ripped out and taken away. Graffiti covered the walls; a monstrous head with jagged teeth leered at me, the spray paint just barely visible in the light coming through the broken window frames. The place smelled of decay and old urine. Anne wrinkled her nose as she looked around – to her heightened senses, this place was probably even more unpleasant than it was to me – but she didn’t complain.

I set the bag down on the floor and unzipped it. The razor wire glinted faintly in the light. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Tripwires in each of the corridors, hidden as well as you can. If you have any left over, use it on the stairs. I’ll be up on the third floor.’

Anne nodded and took the bag, disappearing into the darkness.

The wrecked building would have been dangerous for most people, but my divination let me know where to step. Up on the third floor was a windowless closet, and half buried in rubble at the back was a metal chest. I felt around in the darkness until I found the combination lock that chained it closed, flipped it to its right setting, then levered open the lid.

Inside was a stack of dark green items, rectangular and slightly curved so as to form a convex shape. Each was about a foot long, with caps on the top. The outer casing was plastic, and embossed on the front were the words FRONT TOWARDS ENEMY. Two coils of wire sat beneath them, along with some tools. I stayed there for thirty seconds, staring down at them, then shook my head and checked my phone. Fifty-five minutes left.

Anne came up to find me just as I was setting the last one. ‘The entrances are all covered,’ she said as she walked into the room. ‘And I put a double set in the main corridor.’

I unwound another strip of duct tape, nipping it off before turning to wind it around the pillar. ‘Stairs?’

‘Ground floor and first floor. I don’t know how well they’ll stay in. There wasn’t much to attach them to.’

‘They only need to work once.’

Anne looked around. The green plastic items were mounted at various places around the room, concealed behind debris and joined with wire. ‘Are those …?’

‘Barrayar isn’t the only one who can use explosives,’ I said. I placed a last strip of tape and straightened. ‘There.’

Anne eyed the mines warily. Tucked away in the corners and against the walls, they didn’t look like much, but appearances are deceptive. Each of those mines contained hundreds of tiny steel balls, and when detonated, the explosion would hurl the spheres outwards in a sixty-degree spray at thousands of miles per hour. One mine could easily kill every living thing in a room. I’d set eight. ‘Are they safe?’

‘Until I hit the detonator. Then they’re very unsafe.’ I checked my phone. Thirty-one minutes. ‘Ready?’

‘Wait,’ Anne said. ‘What’s the plan?’

‘That’s going to depend on whether they play along.’

‘You’re going to try to draw them in and blow them up,’ Anne asked. ‘Isn’t that going to catch us too?’

I shook my head. ‘No.’

‘But how—?’

‘Anne, I’m sorry, but we’re short on time. I’ll explain in a minute.’

Anne hesitated, then nodded reluctantly. Her expression said clearly that she hoped I knew what I was doing.

I took out my phone and dialled Barrayar’s number. I stood in the darkness of the derelict building, Anne a shadow to my left. Through the empty windows, I could hear the traffic passing by. The phone rang and rang … then clicked. ‘Verus,’ Barrayar said in greeting. ‘Good timing. Exactly thirty minutes left.’

‘Yeah, you can stop your clock. I’m here.’

‘I don’t see you.’

‘I’m in Trad House, just east of the A12, next to Bromley-by-Bow station. Come get me.’

‘I want you here. Not—’

‘You wanted me. You’ve got me. But I’m not walking into your trap for you. Now, do I need to tell you the address again, or did you get it the first time?’

Barrayar was silent. I knew what was going through his head. He could kill Luna … but that wouldn’t get him what he wanted. ‘All right, Verus,’ Barrayar said. ‘We’ll play it your way. But your time limit is still running. If we reach the address and you’re not there…’

‘I’ll be there,’ I said. ‘Get moving.’ I hung up.

Anne was watching me, her features shadowed in the darkness. ‘That was—’

‘Not as dangerous as you think,’ I said. ‘It’s me he wants, not Luna.’ I took out a gate stone and started working on the spell. ‘Come on. We need one last thing.’

The gate opened into bright light, revealing a simply furnished room with a bed, a TV and a table. The curtains were drawn but the small amount of sunlight leaking through was still enough to make us both shield our eyes, adapted to the darkness. I stepped through, coming down into warm, dry air, then turned and beckoned to Anne. ‘Come on.’

Anne followed me through. ‘Where are we?’

‘Melbourne.’ I watched Anne as she looked around. Her hair brushed her shoulders as she turned her neck, those odd reddish-brown eyes searching the room. The sunlight filtering through the curtains lit up her skin, banishing most of the shadows from the gate behind. She really is beautiful. I tried to fix the image in my memory, standing there and taking it in.

When I didn’t speak, Anne looked at me. ‘Alex?’

I shook my head. ‘It’s a hotel. We need that bag from the other side of the bed.’

‘Luna is still—’

‘I know,’ I said. On impulse, I reached up and touched Anne’s face, drawing a finger down her cheek and along the line of her chin. Her skin felt soft and clean, and I could smell her scent. It made me think of flowers.

Anne stood still, looking back at me. She’d caught her breath when I’d touched her, but she hadn’t pulled back. She almost seemed to be waiting for something.

‘Hurry,’ I said. I hadn’t let go of the spell, and the gate back into London was still hanging to my left. ‘I can’t hold the gate open for long.’

Anne hesitated but obeyed. She walked around the bed and was just reaching down for the bag when I stepped back through the gate. Anne whirled instantly, sudden realisation flashing in her eyes, but before she could move I let the spell go. The gate winked out, and I was in pitch darkness again. The portal was gone, and Anne with it.

I sank down to my knees. All of a sudden I felt very tired; the energy had gone out of my limbs and I didn’t want to move. My phone rang, first once, then again and again. I didn’t want to answer it. For some reason, I did anyway.

‘Alex!’ Anne was as furious as I’d ever heard her. ‘You tricked me, you bastard!’

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t you dare leave me behind!’ Anne’s voice vibrated through the phone. ‘You’re not doing this on your own. Not again!’

‘You don’t have a choice,’ I said. ‘There are gate stones in that bag, but they won’t get you here. Not in time.’

‘And what, you think you’re going to win this on your own? All those times you told me that I was more powerful than you – were you lying all that time?’

‘I wasn’t.’