‘That took way too much effort,’ I said as Anne closed the interview room door behind us.
‘They’re Light mages,’ Anne said. She gave me a glance. ‘Clear?’
The interview room was bare and inhospitable, with a single table and three not especially comfortable chairs. There was one door and no windows. ‘We’re clear,’ I said. I gestured at the left wall. ‘That’s a viewing port. One-way glass: looks opaque from this side. But there’s no one in the other room and the cameras are out in the corridor.’
‘So we wait?’
‘We wait.’
Anne pulled out a chair. I stayed standing, leaning against the wall. ‘What do you think they’re going to be saying to Morden?’ Anne asked.
‘Trying to see if they can get him to spill some sort of secret in exchange for his life,’ I said. ‘I doubt it’ll work. If Morden hasn’t cracked yet, I don’t see why this would do it.’
‘Unless he’s been saving something up.’
I nodded. ‘I wish I knew what Morden’s game was. Ever since he surrendered last year, none of what he’s done has seemed to make any sense. I know how smart Morden is – he wouldn’t be doing all this if he didn’t have a plan. But I can’t figure out what it is, and it’s bothering me.’
‘Do you think he really is trying to be a martyr?’
I raised my hands helplessly. ‘It almost feels like it, doesn’t it? It’s like he’s daring the Council to kill him. But I just can’t square that with what I know of what Morden believes. Risking his life, sure. He’s no coward. But sacrificing it just to make a point?’
‘Either way, it doesn’t seem good news for us.’
‘Yeah, the way this has worked out, it’s played right into Levistus’s hands. Now he gets to remove Morden and probably me as well. He won’t be able to get rid of us straightaway, but once I’m off the Council, he can just pass another resolution to get me arrested again and there’s precious little I can do about it.’
Anne stretched, looking around. ‘I hope those two aren’t spying on us.’
‘They’re not,’ I said. Being on the Council teaches you to be pretty good at spotting surveillance. ‘Could always switch to mental if you’re worried.’
Anne shook her head. ‘I like talking to you the regular way. And it’s nice not to have to wait for you to start the conversation first.’
I had to smile at that. ‘You seem like you’ve found ways around that.’
‘I haven’t really,’ Anne said. ‘You know how many times I’ve tried to say something and found that the link’s been broken and I’m just talking out loud in my own head?’
‘Okay, but some of the time you can talk to me first.’
‘No, I can’t.’
‘You just did,’ I said. ‘Ten minutes ago, at the security scanners.’
‘That doesn’t count,’ Anne said. ‘You’re the one holding the link open. If I’m paying close attention I can tell, but it’s really easy to forget and start talking when you can’t hear me.’
‘Technically you’re still the one starting the conversation.’
‘Okay, okay,’ Anne said. ‘I still don’t think it really counts.’
We sat in comfortable silence for a little while. I find being around Anne relaxing these days. ‘What about the Tiger’s Palace, then?’ I asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You definitely spoke to me first then. I figured it was just a case of you getting more practised with it.’
‘Well, it’s easier for me to control what I’m thinking when I do that with you, sure, but I still can’t actually open the link. If you don’t reach out first, it’s like I’m just calling where no one can hear.’
‘I did hear though.’
‘Only because you spoke to me first,’ Anne said. ‘Out when you were in the queue, remember?’
‘No, I mean when we were inside.’
‘You hardly spoke to me at all when you were inside,’ Anne said. ‘I was really worried. I had no idea what was happening.’
‘We were a little busy.’
‘You’re not making me feel any better.’
‘And anyway, it wasn’t “hardly at all”. I was checking in with you all the time.’
‘You called me once,’ Anne said, ‘when you wanted to check that the person you were looking at was really Vihaela. After that, nothing. I had to call Vari to get any idea what was going on, and all he did was tell me to stay away and hang up.’
‘Oh, come on,’ I said. ‘You’re seriously exaggerating now. What about the running back-and-forth during the fight? From the sound of it, you might have had more of an idea of what was going on in that building than we did. You were practically commentating the fight from the stands.’
‘I know my lifesight’s good, but it’s not that good,’ Anne said. ‘It was way too chaotic in there with all the patterns.’
‘Then what about when you were telling me to get away from where I was standing?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘After Vihaela did her power-up thing,’ I said. ‘You warned me away from her, then you were telling me to get off the floor.’
Anne frowned. ‘When?’
‘I know your memory isn’t that bad,’ I said. ‘What about when you were saying that Vihaela’s signature had changed? “A lot less human and a lot more powerful” – wasn’t that how you put it? You’re seriously telling me you can’t remember that part?’
Anne gave me a confused look. ‘I’m not sure what to tell you,’ she said. ‘But Alex, I promise. I did not say anything like that, not through the dreamstone, and not any other way either. After that first conversation I didn’t talk to you at all. The next time I saw you was when I got into the club after the battle was over and we met up face to face.’
I stared at Anne. She looked back at me, clear-eyed and sincere. I’m pretty good at telling when people are telling me the truth, and I was one hundred per cent sure that Anne was being honest.
An icy chill started down my spine, growing stronger with each passing second. ‘Then if that’s true,’ I said slowly, ‘who was I talking to?’
Anne changed.
An odd expression crossed her face, and she looked at me, lips parted, as though she were about to say something, then her eyes unfocused and her head drooped. A moment later her head came up, and this time there was a very different look in her eyes. When she spoke, her voice was stronger, layered with exasperation. ‘You just had to make this difficult, didn’t you?’
I held very still. Alarm bells were going off in my head, but I didn’t let anything show on my face. ‘Anne?’ I said carefully.
‘You could say that,’ Anne said. ‘Here, see if this jogs your memory.’
Black tendrils emerged from under Anne’s clothing, twining across her hands, her face. She stood, and wings of darkness unfolded, filling the room from wall to wall. All of a sudden she seemed taller, looming over me. Her eyes as she looked down were the same reddish colour, but there seemed to be something else layered over her, looking down on me from a second set of eyes.
I scrambled back, the chair going over, nearly falling to the floor. My back hit the wall and I opened my mouth to yell.
‘Ah-ah,’ Anne said. ‘Trust me, you really don’t want to do that.’
I swallowed. ‘Who are you?’
‘Come on, Alex,’ Anne said. ‘Don’t play dumb. You know exactly who I am.’
I did. The black tendrils playing around Anne’s face were distracting, but I recognised the mannerisms, the way of speaking. I’d seen it before, in Elsewhere. But right now, what was really scaring me, making my breath catch and my thoughts turn to horror, was something else. The shadowy black aura around Anne was blurry but very distinctive, and it was the same one that had been surrounding that figure that I’d seen on Friday at the Tiger’s Palace.