“Strictly speaking, it was Anne who handled him, rather than you,” Richard said.
“What, you wanted me to shoot him through the head myself? You taught us to use the tools available.”
“I suppose I did.” Richard studied me a moment longer, then nodded. “Very well.”
“No!” Rachel shouted.
“This is not a final commitment,” Richard told Rachel.
“I agree with her,” Crystal said sharply. “It’s too risky.”
. . . he wants Verus. Meredith’s whispers were steady, relentless. Always did. You were the substitute. Now he can have him. Verus and Anne, together. Won’t need anyone. Won’t need you . . .
This was why I’d brought Meredith. No other type of mage would have been able to do this, not under Richard’s nose. But Meredith was an enchantress, and the one great trump card of charm magic is that it’s undetectable. Only Crystal would have a chance of figuring out what was happening, and even then she’d have to be looking directly at Rachel’s thoughts.
“It’s not your decision, Crystal,” Richard said, turning back to me. While he was still looking away, I met Rachel’s gaze and smiled.
Rachel snapped. Her face twisted in rage, and a green beam stabbed towards me.
My precognition gave me no warning—Rachel had made the decision and acted in a split second—but you don’t need a warning if you’re the one pushing the buttons. I leant aside, the ray missing my chest by inches and turning a section of wall behind me to dust.
Anne moved in a green-black flash. There was a crack of energy and Rachel went flying, her shield half broken. She hit the floor rolling and Anne took a step, hand raised to finish her off.
“Enough!” Richard shouted. His left hand came out of his pocket, glowing with black-purple light; Anne’s back arched and she went rigid. A thin line of darkness darted from his other hand, hitting the floor right in front of Rachel’s face.
Rachel froze and suddenly everyone was still. Anne stood like a statue, head tilted and her back curved into a bow, muscles trembling as she held the pose. Her eyes glittered with anger, but she didn’t speak. Crystal hadn’t moved; I hadn’t moved. The five of us stood, watching one another.
“None of you are killing each other unless and until I tell you to,” Richard said in a voice of iron. His eyes swept across the four of us. “Is that clear?”
One by one, the others dropped their gaze, though Anne had a dangerous look in her eyes. Rachel flinched as Richard looked at her. Through the dreamstone, I could still hear Meredith’s whispers: . . . took you out in one move, she’s all he needs, all he’s wanted. Replaced. All been for nothing, all of it . . .
Richard’s gaze reached me and I looked back at him, my expression calm. We stared at each other for a long moment.
“Your request is accepted,” Richard told me at last. “Provisionally. You will accompany us to be questioned. Any signs of deception will result in an immediate response. Is that clear?”
I could see deep purple light glowing from between Richard’s fingers: the dreamstone. I didn’t let my eyes rest on it. “Clear.”
“Don’t,” Rachel said.
Both Richard and I turned to look at her. Rachel was on her knees, staring up at Richard, and all of a sudden she looked like a different person. The cold menace was gone: it was as if the years had fallen away and she was a young girl again, lost and vulnerable. “Don’t do this,” Rachel said. “Please.”
Richard frowned. “We’ve discussed this, Deleo.”
“Not him. I’ll work with anyone else. But not him.”
A flicker of annoyance crossed Richard’s face. He didn’t like having to do this, especially in front of witnesses. “You know what is at stake,” Richard told her.
. . . doesn’t need you, he’ll say no, has to say yes, all because of her, say yes, say yes . . .
“I’m your Chosen,” Rachel said. She sounded like she had to force out the words. “It should be me.”
. . . could have been Shireen, now it’s Anne, the stone, her and the stone . . .
“Which means you follow my orders,” Richard said. He turned away from her. “We’ll discuss this later.”
I saw Rachel’s face fall in despair. And as it did, Meredith’s spell sharpened to a point.
He can’t do it if he loses Anne.
Crystal looked towards Rachel, starting to frown. “There’s something—”
Rachel’s face changed. Green light flashed out.
It was what I’d been waiting for. I threw all my strength behind the fateweaver, aiming for the future I needed. Richard had been looking away; at Crystal’s words, he twisted sharply. His left hand, still holding the dreamstone, came across.
The futures intersected. Rachel’s spell hit the dreamstone. There was a brilliant flash and Richard’s dreamstone, the one that Anne had brought out of the deep shadow realm two years ago and that was controlling the jinn right now, disintegrated into dust.
For a moment, everyone froze. Richard stared down at his empty hand. The last particles of the dreamstone were trickling from between his fingers. Then he looked at Rachel, and for the first time that I could remember, his face twisted in rage. “You stupid, stupid little—”
Then Anne spoke. It was only a single word but it echoed in stereo, Anne’s soft voice mixed with something deeper and darker, filled with a furious triumph.
“FREE!”
And everything happened at once.
Solace launched a spell and Crystal started some mind effect of her own, but Anne was faster. The control room flashed dead black as she cut loose. Richard twisted out of the way, a translucent shield coming up, but Anne hadn’t been aiming at him: she’d been aiming at Crystal, and she beat Crystal to the draw. A hurricane of death roared through the room and wiped Crystal from existence. Crystal didn’t even last long enough to be stripped to the bone the way Sarque had been: before that annihilating wave she simply . . . ceased. And that quickly, there were four instead of five.
Richard and Rachel turned on Anne, reflected light flashing from the walls, light green to dark green to black. I drew my gun and fired on Solace, who ran for cover, a water shield flaring around her as she threw spells up at the gantry. Everyone fought everyone, the movements too fast to see. Disintegration blasts blew holes in the walls, and black energy from the jinn tore apart desks as though they were tissue.
At such a pace, the fight couldn’t last long. A spell from Anne that would have turned Richard into dust missed by a hair, exploding a bank of computers and starting an electrical fire. Richard’s counterstrike was something complex I didn’t recognise, but whatever it was, it made Anne stagger. She crossed the room with a jump, landing near to Solace. Anne looked at her, a disintegration ray from Rachel glancing off her shield. “Oh hey. Didn’t you send those guys to my flat?”
Panic flashed across Solace’s face. “No! I wasn’t even his aide back then!”
Anne shrugged. “Well, you can die anyway.”
Solace dived for cover, sliding behind a desk just a hair ahead of Anne’s death spell. With her concentration broken, her shield wavered; I pushed with the fateweaver, aimed with my 1911, fired. The bullet found a chink in the shield and blew Solace’s brains into a red mist.
“Kill-stealer,” Anne called at me, then whirled to face Richard. He’d been coming up behind her, but Anne met him with a storm of magical death. Richard fell back to cover, and Anne jumped lightly thirty feet into the air, landing on the far gantry. “Well, got to run,” she shouted across at me. “Catch you later.”