Sonder’s not great at taking hints but he got the message. The two of us took the back way out, my divination magic picking the way through the obstacles. I didn’t know if the man I’d just killed had a partner and I didn’t plan on sticking around to find out. We negotiated our way through the council estate, and ten minutes saw us out in the sunlight again, on the main road.
“So how much did you find?” I asked once I was satisfied no one was going to be coming after us.
“A lot,” Sonder said, the distraction forgotten. “Want to know about the Dark mages first, or the ones fighting them?”
“The Dark mages.”
“Well, it was Cinder,” Sonder said as we turned onto another main road, heading towards a different Tube station. “And Deleo, just like you said. They hid on that gantry, waited for the barghest to show up, then stunned it.”
“Was there anyone else?”
“Just them.”
That was a relief. Cinder and Deleo were bad enough, and I still had nightmares about the last guy they’d partnered with. “It was over really fast,” Sonder said. “Then they went down and started working on the barghest.”
“What were they doing?”
Sonder frowned. “I don’t know. Some sort of ritual. They had a couple of focuses I’ve never seen before: like sort of dark purple metal spikes. But it took a long time. They kept stopping and starting.”
“Timing requirements?”
Sonder shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think they were … working it out as they went along? Like they weren’t really sure what they were doing.”
I hesitated. Something in that seemed off but I wasn’t sure exactly what.
“That was when the others showed up,” Sonder continued. “There was one mage and eight auxiliaries. I think the mage tried to talk to them. At least he said something, but Cinder and Deleo attacked him on sight. He was under a shroud so I couldn’t see much.”
“Huh,” I said. Shrouds are highly specialised items designed to block surveillance magic, rare and expensive. “So I guess you couldn’t see who it was.”
“Actually, I did,” Sonder said. I looked at him in surprise, and he shrugged. “It wasn’t that good a shroud.”
Sometimes I think Sonder doesn’t realise how talented he is. “Belthas?”
“Belthas. I just got bits and pieces from there. The auxiliaries opened fire and so did Belthas, and they drove Cinder back. Cinder dropped one of those focuses—the purple things—and one of the men ran to grab it but Deleo disintegrated him.” Sonder shivered slightly. “Literally. There was nothing left but dust. Cinder grabbed the focus and they fell back to the east doorway. Deleo held them off while Cinder opened a gate, and they got out.”
I frowned. “Wait. You mean Belthas was the only other mage?”
Sonder nodded. “And he still forced them back. He’s an ice mage and he’s really good. I think he would have been a match for them on his own.”
I remembered how calm Belthas had been at the prospect of facing the Dark cabal. If he was really that good, he had little to fear from anything short of an entire Dark kill team. It gave me another thing to think over as we turned into the station.
I spent the trip back quizzing Sonder about what else he’d learnt. There were no revelations but a few useful titbits. According to Sonder, the barghest had died either before the fight had started, or as a result of Cinder and Deleo getting interrupted midritual. Either way it was clear the ritual hadn’t been a success: the barghest might have had its magic drained, but neither Cinder or Deleo had profited from it. While that was probably a good thing, what I really wanted was some way to track them down. “You’re sure they didn’t gate in?” I asked for the second time.
“I’m sure,” Sonder said. “They walked in the same way we did.” He hesitated. “I got a look at their exit gate. I might be able to track it …”
I shook my head. “It’ll be a staging point.” Smart mages never gate directly home; there’s too much risk of being followed. Instead they jump to another location, usually somewhere desolate and empty, walk a short distance, then do the same thing again, maybe two or three times if they’re being particularly careful. Experienced mages keep libraries of literally hundreds of staging points and it’s all but impossible to track them. “Anything else about them?”
Sonder held up his notebook. “I think I found out Cinder’s phone number. Would that help?”
I couldn’t help smiling. “Probably not.”
We’d come out of the Underground at Euston and were talking amidst the square concrete pillars of the bus station. The station was busy with the afternoon rush, people of all looks and ages crossing the plaza. “Thanks for coming today,” I said. “Anything I can help out with?”
Sonder hesitated. “What are you going to do about Luna?”
I sighed, my brief good mood fading. The attack at the factory hadn’t been fun but it was the kind of thing I knew how to deal with. This wasn’t. “I don’t know.”
“But you’re not going to leave her with this guy, right?”
“What am I supposed to do, Sonder?” There was an edge in my voice; Sonder was hitting too close to what I was thinking myself. “She wants this. If I push her, she’ll just say no and I can’t make her.”
“But you’re supposed to,” Sonder said. “You’re her master.”
“Am I?” I leant against one of the pillars, staring out at the hurrying people. “Luna’s not part of the mage world the way you are. She didn’t grow up with the customs. I’ve been teaching her, but she never really agreed to be an apprentice. I’m not even sure she knows what it means.”
“Well, she ought to.”
“You really think that?”
“Yes. The master and apprentice system is important.” Sonder looked at me earnestly. “Yes, it goes wrong sometimes, and the kind of things Dark mages do with their apprentices are pretty awful. But it’s how mages learn—not just their magic, everything. It’s what everything’s built on.”
I looked back at Sonder. He was serious, and for the first time I stopped and faced up to the question of how I really felt about Luna.
Partly I thought of her as a friend. I lead a fairly lonely life and Luna’s one of the few people I like and trust. Partly I thought of her as a sort of protégé. I’d been teaching her for months now and I wanted her to be able to make a life for herself in mage society. And partly I thought of her as something more.
But as I thought about it I realised that I’d been acting like a mixture of all three. I’d been trying to treat her as a friend and as an apprentice and as a potential girlfriend all at the same time, and it wasn’t working. I remembered Arachne telling me that she wasn’t acting like my apprentice and that I wasn’t acting like her master, and I understood that Arachne had been right. I couldn’t be both Luna’s master and her friend, and I definitely couldn’t be both her master and her lover. I was going to have to pick one of the three.
But no matter which, one thing I was sure of was that I wanted to keep Luna safe, and that meant the monkey’s paw came first. “What do you think we should do?” I said.
“What if I went and talked to Luna?” Sonder said. “And I could find out some more about this Martin guy. He sounds dodgy.”
I couldn’t help smiling; I couldn’t honestly see Luna paying Sonder any attention. But Sonder had surprised me before. “Can’t hurt to try,” I said. “But if that’s what you’re planning, do you think you could spend some time researching the monkey’s paw first? How it works, what it wants—anything you can find. The more we know about this thing, the better.”
Sonder nodded immediately. “I will. And, um, be careful.”
“You too.”