Anne is tall and slim, with black hair and reddish brown eyes. She’s got a quiet way of speaking and moving which tends to make her blend into the background, although it wasn’t working very well this time. Some people seem to find her looks off-putting, though I’ve never really understood why.
Anne is one of the few people I know who could make a legitimate claim to having had a worse childhood than either Luna or me—about five years ago, while she was still in school, she was kidnapped by a Dark mage named Sagash who wanted to mould her into his apprentice. With Variam’s help she managed to get away, but it took most of a year, and Anne’s never told either Luna or me exactly what happened in those nine months. She gave me a quick glance with no sign of surprise as I walked in; she’d seen me coming. “Hi,” I said.
“—can I?” the man was demanding in a loud voice. “I’m what this government’s made me, aren’t I? My dad sent me to reform when I was a kid, and they treated me like a criminal. Well, now they’ve got what they—”
“Need a hand?” I asked.
Anne held a hand up and turned halfway between Tattoo Guy and me, speaking with her soft voice. “Not a good time.”
“I’d go through the public and the police like they were nothing. They wouldn’t know what hit them. They’re vermin, they’re nothing to me. They wouldn’t know what—”
“Do you mind?” I asked the man.
Tattoo Guy glared at me. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Friend of a friend. Sorry, do I know you?”
I watched as the guy’s brain switched gears. It was a slow process, and I saw the possible futures branch out before me. He could bluster, he could back down, he could kick off a fight. I was kind of hoping he’d choose the last one. Tattoo Guy was big and nasty, but my standards of “nasty” are seriously skewed compared to normal people, and as far as serious threats went he didn’t even make it onto my radar. I’d had a stressful day and the prospect of taking it out on someone was more attractive than it should have been.
“Alex!” Anne said.
I gave her a sideways glance. “What’s up?”
“Please don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“You know what.” Anne looked slightly frustrated. “I appreciate the help, but I’m fine.”
Tattoo Guy had been looking between us in confusion; now his expression changed to something uglier and I felt the futures shift. With me, Anne, and the crowd in the door all watching him, he would have to be seriously stupid to start something, but stupid and aggressive people are in absolutely no danger of extinction and Tattoo Guy was proving a fine example of the breed. “Hey! I’m fucking talking to you!”
“I’m sorry,” Anne told him. “I don’t keep any drugs here. If you sit down I can—”
“Shut the fuck up!” Tattoo Guy took a step forward, leaning over Anne. He didn’t have much of a height advantage to lean with, but his bulk made up for it. “Don’t bullshit me. They all lied and I fucking made them pay for it, yeah?” He started to take another step forward, and as he did he reached out for Anne. “I—”
As the man’s hand reached out my fingers twitched. I wanted to step in and I could see the sequence of moves with crystal clarity: I’d block his arm, he’d grab me, I’d shrug him off, he’d have all the excuse he needed to swing at me, and I’d have all the excuse I needed to drop him. He might be strong, but I was quicker and better trained and could predict his every move. There was only one way it could end . . .
. . . and Anne had just specifically told me not to do that. Anne knows what I can do, and that was why she’d said don’t. She wasn’t in any danger—up close she’s far more deadly than me. If I stepped in, I wouldn’t be doing it for her sake; I’d be acting out of pride, trying to prove something.
I held my ground. The man grabbed Anne, thick fingers going all the way around her upper arm. “I’m not fucking telling you again.”
Anne held the man’s gaze and all of a sudden she looked subtly different. Most people flinch when they’re grabbed, but Anne didn’t. She stared up at the man without reacting; it didn’t even look as though she was breathing. “I don’t have what you’re looking for,” she said clearly. “Let me go, please.”
I saw the man hesitate. Somewhere in his toxin-fogged brain, the message was probably trying to get through that Anne wasn’t acting very victimlike. But if someone’s dumb enough to start a fight in front of a crowd, then it usually takes clearly overwhelming force to make them back down, and Anne doesn’t look dangerous. He reached for her neck.
Something flickered in Anne’s eyes.
Divination magic can look forward in time, but not back. When someone’s making a choice, then if you’re quick you can get a glimpse of what they’re choosing between. For a fraction of a second, as Anne raised her hand, I saw a spread of possibilities open up, fleeting images jumping out from the branches: a subtle spell, stillness and quiet, a slumping body, someone screaming their lungs out, more talking—wait, back up, what was that last—?
—and gone. Anne’s fingers touched the man’s wrist and green light glowed, there and gone in an instant. The spell was complex, one I hadn’t seen before.
The man staggered and stopped. The aggression went out of his eyes and all of a sudden he just looked confused.
“Please sit down,” Anne said. Her voice was still polite, and the man obeyed, collapsing into one of the chairs as though his limbs were very heavy. Anne turned to me. “I’m a little busy.”
I looked back at Anne—what had I seen for a second there?—then shook it off. Maybe I’d imagined it. “Is this your way of asking me to come back some other day?”
“Yes.” Anne looked at me steadily. “I’m sorry. This isn’t a good time.”
I paused, then nodded. I left through the crowd, pushing my way past. Behind me, I heard Anne start to shoo them out.
Beside the building that held Anne’s flat was what looked from the outside like allotments or a small park, sealed off behind an iron fence and a locked gate. It wasn’t signposted but my phone labelled it as the Garthorne Road Nature Reserve.
Inside, the reserve was much bigger than it looked from the street, spreading out to either side and forming a long strip of land behind the houses that hid it. A railway cutting ran through the centre, forming a fenced-off valley with forested slopes. I got in over the fence, did a quick scout, then sat at a wooden bench and waited.
Time passed. The sun set and the sky faded from blue to indigo to black, lit from below by the orange glow of the London skyline. I’ve always been drawn to places like this, hidden away behind streets and buildings—I like nature, but I’m an urban person at heart and it’s deep in the city where I feel most comfortable. The nature reserve was very nearly pitch-dark, the streetlights blocked off by trees and houses, and the wind rustled in the leaves in a steady rise and fall. From time to time a train would pass along the railway line, rattle and bang and roar, leaving an eerie quiet in its wake. As I sat still and silent, rustles of movement began to filter through the undergrowth, the reserve’s nocturnal inhabitants growing accustomed to my presence. I saw the quick scuttling movements of rodents, and a hedgehog bustled past only a few feet away. The wind was beginning to blow away the clouds, and stars gleamed down from patches of clear sky.
It was nearly ten o’clock when I heard the sound of someone moving from the direction of the entrance to the reserve, footsteps on grass coming downhill towards me. I could tell the exact moment that I came within Anne’s lifesight, because she stopped. I saw the possibilities branch—would she keep coming, or would she back off?—but just as I knew that she’d seen me, she knew that I’d seen her. The future in which she left winked out, she kept coming, and a moment later I saw a slim shadow against the trees. “Hey,” I said.