Variam was slumped on the sofa in the living room. Vari is short and wiry, with Indian-dark skin and thin arms and legs. He wears a Sikh turban and dresses in clothes that always seem to have just been thrown together but still manage to look good. Despite how small he is, Vari’s got presence; he draws attention wherever he goes, and seems to make friends and enemies equally fast. Right now he was sprawled with his legs out, glowering. As I walked in he threw a tennis ball to bounce off the wall with the thud I’d heard earlier before catching it again. He flicked me a glance and went back to glaring at the wall.
I stepped over Variam and went into the kitchen to fetch myself a drink. Once I’d filled the glass I came back in and leant against the doorjamb, watching Variam chuck the ball against the wall with a thud each time. “Want a drink?” I said.
Variam gave a negative sort of grunt.
“So I’m guessing you didn’t like what she had to tell you.”
Variam shot me a look.
I walked over and dropped into an armchair with a sigh. “The Keeper idea might not be a bad one, you know. I thought it was crazy at first, too, but it does kind of make sense.”
“I don’t care about the Keepers.”
“What is it, then?”
Variam bounced the ball off the wall with another thud, and took a while to answer. “It’s just me.”
“What is?”
“All the time, she was talking like me and Anne were going to be somewhere different. If I signed up with some Keeper we’d be split up, right?”
“Well, there might be some way . . .”
Vari looked at me.
I raised a hand. “Okay, okay. Yeah, you probably would be. You’d still be able to see her, but apprentice training is pretty focused. You wouldn’t be able to do everything together anymore.”
Vari went back to throwing the ball. “Would that be so bad?” I said.
“We’re supposed to stick together,” Variam said.
“Hard to fit in with getting a master.”
“What if I get one and Anne doesn’t?”
“It’s not like I’m going to kick her out. She can still stay here.”
Variam threw the ball to go thud again. “Supposed to be my job.”
“Why does it matter to you so badly?” I said curiously. Since I’ve known Variam he’s always watched over Anne, but I’ve never asked him why.
Variam was silent and I knew he was thinking about answering, but when he finally spoke all that he said was, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
I glanced at my watch. It was ten to seven, and looking through the futures ahead I could tell that Luna would arrive in five minutes. “Luna and I are going to be out till late,” I said, getting up. “If you get hungry there’s a fish in the fridge.”
Chapter 3
It was a summer evening in Leicester Square. The sun was dipping behind the buildings to the west, shafts of golden light slipping down the streets to light up the shop fronts and windows. The square was packed with people, Londoners and out-of-towners and tourists all crowding together into one noisy boisterous mass. Along the north side sketch artists had set up shop, selling caricatures and celebrity portraits to the curious, while the square of grass itself was scattered with sitting people. The smells of cooking food drifted from the restaurants all around the edge, pizza and noodles and steak.
Luna and I sat at a table at the edge of one of the outdoor restaurants, right by the rope barrier that marked off the seating area. “How much do you know about probability?” I asked her.
“A little,” Luna said with a shrug. “We did it in school.”
I took out a deck of cards and sorted quickly through it, taking out the four aces. “An event’s probability is a measurement of how certain we are that it’ll occur. If we’re sure it won’t happen, the probability is zero. If we’re sure it will happen, the probability is one. Otherwise it’s somewhere in between.” I showed the aces to Luna, then put the rest of the deck away and shuffled the four aces together. “If I keep shuffling these four cards, what’s the probability that the ace of spades will be on top when I finish?”
“Uh . . . a quarter?”
I nodded. “A shuffle isn’t random, but if it’s being done properly it might as well be. Too many variables.” I finished shuffling and dealt the four cards facedown. “If I tell you to pick a card, what’s the probability you’ll pick the ace of spades?”
“A quarter again?”
“Pretty much. You could probably do better if you paid attention to my patterns, but if you just guess then that’s right.” I pointed at one of the cards. “What’s the probability that card’s the ace of spades?”
“Still a quarter.”
I shook my head. “Wrong. It’s zero.” I pointed at another card. “Zero.” Another card. “Zero.” The last card. “One.” I flipped it to show the black-on-white of the ace of spades.
Luna frowned for a second, then her frown cleared. “Oh, I get it.”
“While the cards are being shuffled, they’re random,” I said. “Once they’re dealt they’re not random anymore—you just don’t know what they are. That’s the difference between your magic and mine. I can’t change how the cards are dealt, but I can see them. But you can change how the cards are dealt. Your magic works on all those little chaotic unpredictable things—reflexes, bounces, how something falls or slips. I think if you practise enough you should be able to start controlling it.”
Luna gave me a suspicious look. “Why did you take me out here to tell me this?”
I gave Luna a grin. “Because tonight we’re going there.” I pointed across the square to the bright lights of the casino.
The Empire Casino is on the north side of Leicester Square, dwarfed by the cinemas towering around it. It’s not the nicest casino in London and it’s not the most high-class, but it does have one big thing in its favour: it’s anonymous. Its position right in the heart of the West End means that it gets a near-constant stream of tourists and travellers and businessmen, which is handy when you don’t want to attract attention.
Luna got carded at the door. “Oh look, he thinks you look under twenty-one,” I said once she was done.
“Yeah, yeah,” Luna said as we walked down the steps into the entrance tunnel. “I still don’t think this is going to work.”
The tunnel opened up into a lobby with two stairways leading farther down: one to the slots and the poker room, the other to the main casino floor. I gave the receptionist a nod and headed towards one of the flights of stairs. “Look, my curse hurts things,” Luna said, keeping her voice down. “It doesn’t do helpful.”
“It protects you.”
“It protects me from accidents. There’s a difference.”
We came out onto the casino floor and into a hubbub of noise. The casino was laid out in two storeys, the main floor taken up with gaming tables and the bar while the balcony running around the room above held restaurants and a lounge. Although there were no windows, the room was filled with light: from the ceiling a yellow-white glow shone from flashy-looking chandeliers, and on the walls big projection screens displayed sports matches. The air smelt of fabric and sweat. “You remember last year?” I said. “When Deleo and Khazad tracked you down in that parking garage?”
“Yeah . . .”
“They were using a tracer. Your curse burned it out from thirty feet away.”
“I guess.”
“So that was more than just protecting you from accidents,” I said. “The tracer was dangerous only because it could have showed them where you were, but the curse fried it anyway. That means one of two things. Either the curse picks up on what you subconsciously know is dangerous, or it’s got enough awareness to be able to recognise indirect threats and neutralise them on its own initiative. Which means it ought to be able to help you in other ways too.” I gestured to the floor around us. “This is your element. Pure chance is exactly what your magic has power over. I think you can do this.”