Once I was done, I hung the CLOSED notice on the door, checked my wards, checked to see if my phone had any messages from Luna (it didn’t), then went into the back room and activated the gate stone. A shimmering portal opened in the air and I stepped through. I could have walked to the museum in twenty minutes, but if I did that I’d have to explain how I knew where the gate stone was going to lead. Right now I was in the Council’s good books, if only because they needed me, but I didn’t think it would take much to change that.
I came down onto a polished white floor, my feet echoing around a wide room. I was back in the British Museum’s Great Court. The area I’d stepped off into was marked off by ropes, and a chime rang in the air as I emerged.
The Great Court was mostly empty. The information desks and shops were deserted and most of the people I could see looked like Council security. A man dressed in brown and grey had been talking to two guards stationed at the entrance; now he finished up and walked over to me.
‘Morning,’ the man said once he was close enough. He was in his middle years, with iron-grey hair and a tough, competent manner. Although I’d only seen him for a few seconds, I recognised him. He’d been the one in command of the reinforcements, the one who’d shouted at Cinder to stop. I kept my expression relaxed, and was relieved to see no recognition in his eyes.
‘Alexander Verus,’ I said. ‘I’m looking for the leader of the investigation team.’
As I said my name, the man nodded. ‘You’ve found him. Griff Blackstone.’ He offered his hand and I shook it. ‘Good to see you. Been asking for a diviner for weeks.’
Griff led me towards the Reading Room and the curving staircase up. Now that I had a chance to count, I could see there were at least a dozen Council guards around the Great Court, stationed at the doors and corners. There were no traces of Friday’s battle; the floor and stairs were neat and flawless. Earth and matter mages can repair stone so well you’d never know it had been damaged. ‘Tight security,’ I said as we ascended the stairs.
‘Need it. You heard about the attack?’
I looked at Griff inquiringly, which he seemed to take as a no. ‘Some team, Friday night. Broke through the barrier and set off the relic guardian. Hell of a mess.’
‘How many were there?’
‘Three, maybe four. Wish we’d gotten a good look at them.’
Glad you didn’t. ‘Are we clear for civilians?’
Griff nodded as we reached the top of the stairs. ‘Museum’s closed until further notice. Everyone you meet’s been cleared.’ The restaurant at the top of the stairs had been converted into a temporary headquarters, and a dozen or so mages were gathered there: the investigation team. They all stopped to watch as we walked in and I could tell they knew who I was even before Griff introduced me.
Other mages have an odd attitude towards diviners. By the standards of, say, elemental mages, diviners are complete wimps. We can’t gate, we can’t attack, we can’t shield and when it comes to physical action our magic is about as useful as a bicycle in a trampolining contest. But we can see anywhere and learn anything and there’s no secret we can’t uncover if we try hard enough. So when an elemental mage looks at a diviner, the elemental mage knows he could take him in a straight fight with no more effort than it would take to tie his shoes. On the other hand, the elemental mage also knows that the diviner could find out every one of his most dirty and embarrassing secrets and, should he feel like it, post copies of them to everyone the elemental mage has ever met. It creates a mixture of uneasiness and contempt that doesn’t encourage warm feelings. There’s a reason most of my friends aren’t mages.
So as I was introduced to the team I wasn’t expecting a big welcome, and I didn’t get one; polite neutrality was the order of the day. But just because I wasn’t making friends didn’t mean I wasn’t paying attention. It was the defences I was interested in, and from what I could see they’d been beefed up heavily. There were overlapping wards over the entire museum, both alarms and transportation locks. The roped-off area I’d gated into was probably one of only two or three spots still accessible.
Once the investigation team and I had finished pretending to be friendly, Griff led me into the museum, passing more guards on the way. The landing above now held four guards instead of two, and the barrier had been strengthened — now it was an opaque wall blocking the top of the stairs. ‘Barrier’s pass-coded,’ Griff said as we walked up the stairs. ‘Pretty much the only thing that went right for us. The mages who mounted the raid couldn’t get round the alarm. Had to set it off as they went in.’
‘Uh-huh,’ I said, studying the ward. The password had been changed and I made a mental note to spend sixty seconds or so and re-crack it before I left. It’s funny, really. Even when people go specifically looking for a diviner, they still never seem to grasp what we can do.
The room inside was the same. The statue was still at the centre, the stone man looking forward imperiously with his hand extended, and I gave it a narrow look. If you’re going to build something that sets a lightning elemental on anyone who touches it wrong, you could at least have the decency to put up a warning sign or something. This time, though, there was company.
Another mage was examining the statue on his knees, a teenager in scuffed brown clothes. He had a mop of untidy black hair and a pair of glasses that he kept pushing up the bridge of his nose, only for them to fall back down again a second later.
‘Sonder,’ Griff said, and the young man jumped to his feet, startled. ‘Diviner’s here. Show him around.’ He turned to me. ‘You good?’
I nodded. ‘I’ll get to work.’
‘Sonder’ll get you whatever you need. Tell me if you get anywhere. We could use a break.’ Griff turned and walked back down the stairs, vanishing through the black wall of the barrier without a ripple.
Sonder scrambled to his feet. ‘Um, hi. Oh, you’re the diviner?’
‘That’s me,’ I said, looking around.
‘I’m David. Everyone calls me Sonder, though.’ Sonder started to extend his hand, then hesitated and stopped. ‘You’re here to look at it too? Oh!’ I had walked up to the statue and Sonder hovered anxiously, not quite willing to pull me away. ‘Don’t put anything in the left hand!’
‘Relax,’ I said as I examined the statue. ‘I wasn’t planning to.’
‘Oh good. The defence systems are really heavy. I mean, I haven’t actually seen them personally, but still.’
I gave a brief glance through the futures of me interacting with the statue and found that nothing had changed. Every future in which I put something in the statue’s hand led to the lightning elemental materialising in the middle of the room and trying to kill us. I took a look at the statue’s hands. While the left one was empty, the right one clasped an unmarked wand. I pointed to it. ‘This is what everyone’s here for?’
Sonder nodded. ‘That’s the fateweaver. It’s just a representation, though, the real thing is inside.’
‘Uh-huh. Sonder? Maybe you could help me with something.’
‘Really?’ Sonder sounded surprised, but pulled himself together quickly. ‘Well, okay. I mean, yes. If I can.’
‘Everyone keeps talking about getting inside this thing,’ I said. ‘How?’
‘Oh, right.’ Sonder seemed to relax. ‘Well, you see, the statue is the focal point for a Mobius spell. It’s one of the techniques that was lost during the post-war period, but one of the Alicaern manuscripts has a good description. A Mobius spell takes the section of space it enchants and gives it a half-twist to bring it out of phase with reality. The ends of the enclosed space collapse inwards and join with each other to form a spatial bubble. Now, obviously, the natural result of that would be that the bubble would drift away, and of course once that happens there’s no way to reestablish a link, so you need a focus to anchor it to our physical universe. Once it’s been set up, there’s no way to find the bubble from anywhere in the universe except via the focus. We’ve actually discovered Mobius focuses before, but this is the first time …’