“Pretty much.”
“I haven’t seen him in more than ten years.” I met Caldera’s eyes. “I’m guessing you looked up my background before coming here?”
Caldera’s expression didn’t change. “Heard the story.”
“Then you know why I stayed away,” I said. “I haven’t heard anything about him. Not when I left, and not after I left. And you know what? I’m fine with that.”
Caldera held my gaze for a second. “All right,” she said after a pause. “What about his Chosen, then? Deleo. Does she know something?”
I looked away. “Deleo and I aren’t exactly friends.”
“You were in contact with her last year, right?”
“Briefly.”
“Learn anything?”
“Yeah.” I turned back to Caldera. “I learnt that Deleo’s crazier than a sack of rabid weasels. You want to interview her, go right ahead, but I’m not going to be standing next to you when you do it.”
Caldera made a pacifying gesture. “All right. Look, we don’t have many people to ask, okay? Not like Dark mages are going to cooperate with a Keeper.”
“They don’t cooperate with anyone. And I’m a rogue, remember? You think they’re going to trust me?” I shook my head. “What are you expecting to turn up?”
“Okay,” Caldera said. “Here’s how it is. I wasn’t around back when Richard was active, but from what I heard he had a lot of people running scared. Some of the Guardian types thought he had a plan, was working on something big with the Dark mages, I don’t know. Then all of a sudden, right when he was at the top of his game, he disappeared. Rumour was he’d gone somewhere, but he never showed up and neither did those two apprentices of his. After a few years the guys on the case filed all three of them as missing-presumed-dead and forgot about it.”
“Those two apprentices” had been Tobruk and Shireen. Deleo and I had been numbers three and four. “If they’d known Richard they wouldn’t have filed him as ‘presumed’ anything.”
“So where do you think he went?”
I shrugged.
“I thought diviners knew everything.”
“Richard disappeared in the summer ten years ago,” I said. Come to think of it, it was ten years almost to the day. It had been August then, and it was August now. “By the time he vanished . . . Well, let’s just say he and I weren’t on the best of terms.”
“You have to have some clue,” Caldera said. She was leaning forward, hands clasped, frank and persuasive. “Come on. You’re not seriously telling me you didn’t know anything.”
“You don’t know what Richard was like,” I said quietly. I held Caldera’s eyes, allowing a little of the memories to show through, letting her see I was telling the truth. “Those mages were right to be scared of him. You think he told me his plans? I lived in his mansion for two years, and by the end of it the biggest thing I’d learnt about him was how much I didn’t know. Anything you saw of him, it was because he wanted you to see it.”
“You’re a diviner, right? You never took a look to see?”
“That’s not how it works,” I said, and shook my head. “I’m sorry, Caldera. I don’t have what you’re looking for. I don’t know what Richard’s plans were. As far as I know, no one did.”
A silence fell over the table. Caldera drew back and I could tell she was disappointed. My phone chimed and I glanced at it. “I’d better go.”
Caldera held out a card. “If you think of anything or if anything happens, give me a call, okay?”
I hesitated, then slipped it into my pocket. “Thanks for the drink.”
“Who was that message from?” Luna asked once we were back out on the streets.
“Anne,” I said. “She says they’ve finished, but she’s not going to be back until late.” I frowned. Something about the message had sounded a little off. I glanced through the futures in which I called Anne and Variam, just to make sure they were all right. Well, they were answering their phones . . .
I snapped back to the present to realise Luna had asked me something about Caldera. “Not sure,” I said. “Listen, I think I’m going to go pay a visit to our mind mage consultant. You go back to the shop and meet up with Vari.”
“Can’t I come?”
“Next time. Anyway, I’m taking you out tonight, remember? Go get ready.”
Luna had been about to keep on pushing, but that diverted her. “Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“What kind of surprise?”
“An educational surprise.”
Luna gave me a suspicious look. “It’ll be fun,” I said. “Wear something nice.”
“Like what, battle armour?”
“I’ll leave that up to your judgement. Remember, seven o’clock. Don’t be late.”
The quickest route from Camden to Brondesbury is the overground line, which was once called the Silverlink Metro but now goes by the unimaginative name of the London Overground. I watched the rooftops and gardens of north-central London go by, then got off and walked to where Anne and Variam had met Dr. Ruth Shirland.
Dr. Shirland lived in a terraced house in a small closed-in street. It was a residential area and solidly middle class, the kind of place where you’re paying a lot more for the location than for the building. It’s not the kind of place you’d expect a mage to live, but I’ve seen stranger choices. I rang the bell and waited.
Dr. Shirland opened the door. She was about sixty years old, short and delicate looking, with grey curly hair, small round glasses, and the kind of wrinkles you get from smiling a lot. “Oh, hello,” she said. “Alex Verus, isn’t it? Come right in.”
“Thanks.”
I was escorted into a small and cosy sitting room with a modest number of chairs and a lot of bookshelves. I accepted tea, refused biscuits, and was inspected by a fat black-and-white tomcat who sniffed my hand, permitted himself to be stroked, then curled up on an armchair clearly reserved for his exclusive use. “Thanks for seeing me,” I said.
“It’s no trouble,” Dr. Shirland said. “Though I do have a patient in an hour.”
“A patient?”
“I’m a consulting psychologist,” Dr. Shirland said. “I see mages, but I have a regular practice as well.”
“Yeah, I imagine being able to read thoughts would make psychology easier. Are you reading mine now?”
Dr. Shirland raised an eyebrow. “Would you believe me if I told you I wasn’t?”
“Probably not.”
“Why not?”
“Call it a precaution,” I said. “Besides, in my experience most mages can never resist using their powers.”
“Would you include yourself in that category?”
“I can’t read thoughts.”
“But you can see what someone’s going to say.”
“But you can look inside someone’s head even if it’s something they’re not going to say.”
“It’s actually more complicated than that,” Dr. Shirland said, “but most people aren’t concerned with technical details. I imagine they don’t draw much distinction between your being able to predict some of the things they do and all of the things they do?”
“Not generally.”
“Being psychically naked before another is quite a frightening concept,” Dr. Shirland said. “Once that line is crossed, it makes very little difference how far one goes. The breach of privacy is just as extreme either way.”
I thought about it and gave a slight smile. “I suppose that’s a fair point.”
Dr. Shirland sipped her tea. I sat back in the armchair. From the other chair, the cat opened an eye to take a look at me and then went to sleep.
“I understand you’ve taken on the role of sponsor for Anne and Variam?” Dr. Shirland said.
“It’s not officially registered, but yes.”
Dr. Shirland gave a nod. “Before we go any further, please understand that I will not repeat to you anything that either of them has told me in confidence. The only information I will give is that which I believe is appropriate for you to receive as a sponsor.”