‘So what would you advise?’
‘In your position?’ I said. ‘It doesn’t seem to me as though you have very much choice but to accept, given the alternative. It’ll cause problems, but you can solve problems. You can’t solve being dead.’
‘And what if I decide I might be willing to die for my cause?’ Morden asked. ‘What’s the Council’s plan then?’
I paused. Morden was looking at me, and there was no visible expression on his face. ‘Is that really true?’ I asked. ‘Do you want to become a martyr for this?’
Morden looked back at me for a long moment, then suddenly smiled. ‘No.’
I let out a breath I hadn’t realised I was holding, then wondered, only then, why I’d been so scared. It’s not as though he can do anything. Is it? ‘So you’re going for the stay-alive option.’
‘I’m in no particular hurry to die,’ Morden said. ‘So, do the Council have any ideas on how I’m supposed to catch Drakh for them? Somehow I doubt they’re planning to let me out on bail.’
‘They aren’t terribly keen on that idea, no.’
‘Then what exactly am I supposed to be doing from inside here?’
‘They suggested that you could contact Richard.’
‘Hand-delivered via a Council agent, no doubt,’ Morden said dryly. ‘Are they really that stupid?’
‘Not quite,’ I said. Actually, that had been their first suggestion. I’d had to explain to them that Richard might be just a tiny bit suspicious of a message that the Council had finally ‘allowed’ Morden to send after nine months of solitary confinement. ‘Do you have any direct way of getting in touch with him?’
‘If I had, do you think I’d be here?’
‘A more realistic plan is working through an intermediary,’ I said. ‘Someone who’d follow your orders and is sufficiently close to Richard. I was wondering if you had any suggestions.’
‘Suggestions?’ Morden raised an eyebrow. ‘There’s really only one person who falls into both of those groups.’
I sighed. ‘I was afraid you’d say that.’
‘But you were hoping I might point you to someone else?’ Morden shook his head. ‘It’s Onyx or no one.’
I grimaced. It was what I’d been expecting to hear, but I still wasn’t happy about it.
We talked for a little while longer, discussing approaches. I was surprised by how easy it was. By the summer of last year, Morden and I had become … well, we hadn’t been even remotely close to friends, but we’d had an efficient working relationship. That had been based on my acceptance of his authority, so I hadn’t expected it to last, but oddly enough, it had. We just fell back into the old patterns, except this time with me taking the lead. And instead of arguing or trying to assert dominance, Morden went along with it.
‘I’m a little surprised with how you’re taking all of this,’ I said once we’d finished our arrangements.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Last year, you were on the Light Council and one of the most powerful Dark mages in Britain,’ I said. ‘Now you’re imprisoned and awaiting trial. I was expecting you to be a little more … resentful.’
‘Resentment is an unproductive emotion,’ Morden said. ‘Our relationship was built on realities of power.’
I gave Morden a sceptical look. ‘You really don’t hold a grudge?’
‘Not particularly.’
I met Morden’s eyes. He didn’t look angry, but I couldn’t help wonder what his true feelings were. Would I be so calm in his position? ‘Somehow I don’t think Onyx is going to be so accepting.’
‘Ah yes,’ Morden said. ‘I’ll admit that Onyx has not developed as I had hoped.’
‘You really thought he was ever going to go any other way?’
‘I have known him significantly longer than you,’ Morden said. ‘When I first took Onyx on, I judged him to have potential. Unfortunately power can be a discouragement to growth, and he’s had difficulty adapting. I’d rather hoped that his association with you might have inspired him to look beyond his current set of problem-solving tools, but he seems to have decided that he’s learned all he needs to know.’
‘Which is a nice way of saying that he deals with anything in his way by smashing it,’ I said sourly. ‘And this is the guy you want me to liaise with.’
‘The Council are hardly going to do you favours for free.’
I glanced up sharply. Morden was looking at me inquiringly. Does he know what Bahamus offered? Or was that just a guess? ‘Well.’ I rose to my feet. ‘I suppose I’ve got a job to do.’
‘You do indeed,’ Morden said with a nod. ‘Oh, and watch your back.’
‘Watch it for what?’
‘I’m sure that not everyone on the Council is happy with the thought of my trial being cancelled,’ Morden said. ‘Some of them might find it … convenient, shall we say, if any negotiations were disrupted? And if that disruption happened to negatively affect a certain Junior Council member whom they also had little love for, that would be a case of two birds with one stone.’ He smiled slightly. ‘As I said. Watch your back.’
I looked back at Morden, then left. I felt the Dark mage watching me go.
6
It was two days later.
The communicator nestled in my ear chimed. ‘Hi, Alex,’ Luna’s voice said. ‘You free?’
‘For a little bit,’ I told her. ‘What’s the news?’
It was 10.30 p.m., and I was in Shepherd’s Bush, perched on the roof of a block of flats in an apartment complex. The roof was bare of shelter, and a wind was blasting across it from east to west, blowing my hair into my eyes and doing its best to send my coat flying up into the night sky. Even on a summer night like this, it wasn’t a comfortable place; in winter it would be horrible. But what the roof lacked in comfort, it made up for in elevation, and I had an excellent view down over the fence to the industrial park next door … and to the shapes hiding in the shadows within.
‘I’ve heard back from Stephen,’ Luna said. ‘You remember that adept I was telling you about? Well, he finally got me an invite. We’re going out for drinks tomorrow night.’
‘That sounds more like a date than a recruitment.’
‘Give me some credit,’ Luna said. ‘Yeah, he tried to make it sound like that, but it’s definitely a sounding-out. For one thing, there are going to be other people there, and from the sound of it they know more than Stephen does.’
‘If they know more, isn’t there a chance they’re going to recognise you?’
‘I don’t advertise that I’m a journeyman, you know,’ Luna said. ‘What, did you think I’d hung up a sign behind the counter? It’s like you said, there isn’t much communication between adepts and the Council. They’re not going to know every mage by name, much less some mage’s apprentice. As far as they know, I’m just another adept.’
‘Mm,’ I said dubiously. It sounded sketchy to me. Yes, it wasn’t likely that a random group of adepts would be particularly up to date on Luna’s status regarding the Council. But Luna was my apprentice, and I wasn’t exactly a nobody any more. If these guys really did see themselves as members of a resistance group, then they’d probably be going to at least some effort to check out potential recruits, and if they did that, it wouldn’t take much digging for them to find out who Luna really was. In which case, Luna might find herself a much less welcome guest than she’d been expecting.
On the other hand, Luna’s pretty capable of taking care of herself these days, and she’s comfortable with – and able to take advantage of – a higher level of risk than would be the case for me. ‘Make sure you have some backup, okay?’