‘Wait,’ Luna said. ‘How is that going to work?’
‘We have to do this in exactly the right order,’ I said. ‘You can’t engage Anne first, because she and the jinn will wipe the floor with you. But if I do manage to pull this off, the most likely result is that she’ll be left unconscious. Either way, while I’m attacking in Elsewhere, her physical body will be vulnerable.’
‘I get that,’ Variam said. ‘But I can see one big problem. What if she’s in Richard’s mansion or something?’
‘Then …’ I hesitated. ‘We’ll improvise. I probably don’t need to tell you this, but this is dangerous. Really dangerous. I don’t think that Anne would kill either of you, but anyone else who might be there …’
‘Yeah, like that’s anything new,’ Luna said. ‘We’ll figure something out.’
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘There’s more. You can’t let anyone else know about this. Anyone. What Anne just did today has earned her a death sentence three times over. Even the most lenient members of the Council will execute her without a second thought. Our only chance is to shut this down before anyone finds out what really happened.’
‘Got it.’ Luna ran for where she stores her gear.
Variam didn’t follow, not straightaway. ‘What if it doesn’t work?’ he asked me.
‘Then we’re screwed. Which part do you mean?’
‘You going into Elsewhere and un-possessing her.’
‘Then …’ I tried to think of an answer and came up blank. ‘I don’t know.’
Variam looked at me for a second. ‘If you can’t deal with this, someone else is going to have to,’ he said. ‘You understand that. Right?’
‘I know,’ I said. Variam nodded and went after Luna.
There was no time to wish them luck; every minute mattered now. I hurried to my cottage and lay down on my futon, not bothering to undress. The dreamstone glinted on the side table and I reached out to it, pulling myself into sleep. The world faded away.
I opened a gate and stepped through into Anne’s Elsewhere.
The dreamscape felt … different. The forests and greenery were the same, but the sky above was clouding, on its way to overcast. A cool wind was blowing through the leaves, and in the distance I thought I heard the cry of some wild animal. I set off for the tower, moving swiftly.
As I walked, I ran through what Arachne had taught me about combat in Elsewhere. It wasn’t something we’d practised, not yet, but she’d explained the theory. According to Arachne, most mages are terrible at fighting in Elsewhere, because the rules of this place go completely against what they’re used to. When most mages fight, their instinct is to use physical force, because in their world, that’s what works. And the fluidity of Elsewhere makes that easy. You want to throw a fireball? If you’re in Elsewhere, then anyone can do it, no fire magic required. You’d prefer a weapon? Swords, guns, lightsabers, nuclear bombs … anything you can think of, you can make.
Of course, with a blank cheque like that, you know there’s going to be a catch, and in this case the catch is that none of the weapons really do anything. Weapons are dangerous because they can damage your body, and in Elsewhere, you don’t have a body. To an observer it might look as though I was walking through the forest, but what they were seeing was a projection, shaped by my unconscious. If someone jumped out and stabbed me, it wouldn’t affect me unless I believed that it would, and even then, it’d be more uncomfortable than dangerous. I didn’t have a heart to pierce or blood to spill; nothing that happened here could touch my body, which was lying safe back in the Hollow.
But just because my body was safe didn’t mean that the rest of me was. Mental attacks can reach you in Elsewhere just fine. It’s not just direct attacks that are the worry either: your body being safe doesn’t help much if you can’t find it again, and it’s very possible to become lost in Elsewhere, leaving your body an empty husk. The good news was that I didn’t think Anne would have any more idea than I did about how to do either of those things. A mind mage would be far more dangerous in this situation, but Anne’s a life mage, and that other Anne had those same memories to draw upon. She’d be used to ending fights by touching her enemies and disabling them. I was fairly sure that when she tried that on me and found that it didn’t work, it would throw her for a loop.
But the jinn was another story. I know what Anne’s magic can do and what its limitations are. I knew practically nothing about the jinn’s powers, except for a nasty feeling that they were very, very large. I knew that it was restricted in its ability to affect the real world – it needed a willing host. I didn’t know if the same rules applied here. If they didn’t, then this trip could turn very bad very fast.
I reached the black-glass walls surrounding Anne’s tower and hopped over, landing in the courtyard. The window at the top of the tower beckoned, but I didn’t want to go there, not yet. Instead I walked towards the tower. A cold breeze swept across the stone, ruffling my hair as I reached the smooth walls. There was no door. I reached out to place my hand flat against the wall and a passage opened. I walked inside and it sealed behind me.
The interior of the tower was hushed and gloomy. The corridors were lit with the same white sphere lamps that I remembered, but as I watched, one of them flickered and went out. Even the ones that were still glowing seemed to be dimmer, or perhaps it was because the black walls and floor soaked up the light as it was cast. Despite the silence, the tower didn’t feel empty. It felt as though something was waiting for me.
I needed some way to find out where Anne was. I picked a door at random and opened it to reveal an empty room with a stand at the far end that held an oval dressing mirror. I walked over and touched the mirror, sending a thread of magic into it.
The mirror swirled and darkened. An image became visible in the glass, clear at the centre and fuzzy at the edges. I was seeing a picture of the inside of a living room: wooden tables and a white sofa with a cross-beamed roof. Something about the architecture made me think of Spain, or maybe Morocco. Arched windows gave a view out onto a sun-drenched garden, and from outside I could hear the buzz of cicadas.
Morden was standing in the middle of the room, and he was dressing. The clothes he’d been wearing in San Vittore were lying neatly folded on a chair, and he was in the middle of donning a black button-up shirt. ‘Why?’ he said, without turning around. ‘Was this not what you were expecting?’
‘Where are all your underlings?’ It was Anne’s voice, and I nearly jumped. It sounded as though it were coming from over my shoulder. The timbre was different, deeper; it was her voice, but strange somehow. ‘Let me guess – they ran out once you got thrown in prison?’
‘I don’t need bodyguards, Anne.’
‘Could have fooled me.’
I still couldn’t see Anne … oh. It was Anne’s eyes I was seeing through. It made sense, but it was kind of inconvenient. I wondered what the chances were of her pulling out her mobile and bringing up Google Maps. Probably not very high.
Anne’s viewpoint shifted, as if she’d crossed her arms. ‘So what’s your next move?’
‘Did Richard not tell you?’
‘What, you think we were exchanging texts?’ Anne said. ‘Memory clouding only does so much. I think Anne might have got suspicious if she saw his name on her mobile.’
‘In that case, you should be happy to see him.’
Anne paused. ‘He’s coming here?’
Morden finished buttoning his shirt and smoothed it down. ‘We’ll be meeting at a neutral location.’
‘I wasn’t told.’