The jinn drew itself up. The eye-twisting aura around it seemed to die, but the darkness grew. For a moment I thought I could see it: a humanoid figure, impossibly slender and tall. It reached for Anne, one long arm stretching out and down.
Light blazed, green and white. The jinn recoiled, and Anne took a step forward, a leaf-green aura glowing around her. ‘Your invitation is revoked,’ she said clearly. ‘Now get out of my head.’
The jinn struck down, and Anne rose up to meet it.
The room shook. Light exploded outwards, forcing me to shield my eyes. I couldn’t see or hear what was going on; I could sense that it was a battle, but one I couldn’t reach or affect.
And just that fast, it was over. The light winked out and I lowered my hand, looking around. Anne was still there, standing in the centre of the room … but the room was different. The shadows were gone; where the lights had been weak and dim, they now shone clearly, illuminating the walls and ceiling. I looked for the jinn and saw no trace of it. The oppressive feeling had lifted.
Anne looked around. She saw me and a smile touched her lips, then her gaze fell upon the other Anne, and the smile faded. ‘You,’ she said. And never had I heard her voice contain such venom.
Dark Anne stared back at her.
‘I am done with you.’ Anne walked straight towards her shadow, her eyes set. ‘Do you have any idea what you’ve done today?’
Dark Anne looked back at her, defiant. ‘You deserved it.’
Anne came to a stop in front of her. The two Annes stared at each other, light and dark mirrors. ‘How long would you have kept me like that?’ she said. ‘How long would you have used my body to go on a rampage?’
‘How long would I have kept you?’ Dark Anne said. ‘How long have you kept me?’
‘Because I had to!’ Anne shouted. ‘I saw everything you did and I thought it had to be a nightmare, because even you couldn’t be that bad. But it was real! Dozens of people are dead, Morden’s escaped and the Council is going to blame it all on me!’
‘Well, that’s what you get, isn’t it?’ Dark Anne said. ‘You wanted to be the one to live in the outside world. You get to deal with that as well.’
‘Deal with that?’ Anne said. ‘No. I’m dealing with you.’
Manacles sprang up from the floor, latching onto Dark Anne’s wrists. She looked down in shock, tried to pull away; behind her, an armchair materialised out of the floor. The chains on the manacles began to retract, drawing her backwards.
‘No!’ Dark Anne shouted, struggling. ‘Don’t you dare!’
‘Letting you run free in this tower was a mistake,’ Anne said.
The chains withdrew into the arms of the chair, locking Dark Anne’s wrists in place. Two more manacles locked around her ankles, pulling them apart to the armchair’s corners. ‘You can’t do this!’ Dark Anne shouted. ‘You need me!’
‘To do what?’ Anne asked. ‘To fight? I’m learning to do that on my own.’
‘How long do you think you can—?’ A metal band locked around Dark Anne’s neck, pulling her against the back of the chair.
‘How long?’ Anne walked forward and leaned in close, staring into her twin’s eyes. ‘However long I have to. Because you are not getting out.’
The floor underneath the chair opened and it began to slowly descend, disappearing into a black pit. There were no stars in the darkness this time. Dark Anne struggled furiously. ‘You can’t keep me like this for ever!’ she shouted at Anne. ‘You think you can just forget about me? You remember how that worked last time?’
Something about that struck a chord. ‘Anne,’ I said. ‘Wait.’
Anne turned to me, and the expression on her face was not welcoming. ‘You do not get a vote in this.’
‘What if there’s another way?’
‘I don’t care,’ Anne said. ‘This isn’t your choice to make. And I’m making sure this doesn’t happen again.’
I hesitated. I looked down at Dark Anne, disappearing into the darkness, and felt a moment’s pity for her. But then I remembered the guards I’d seen massacred at San Vittore. They’d just gone in to work to do their jobs, and they’d been torn apart by summoned monsters. Maybe Dark Anne did deserve some sympathy, but her victims deserved a lot more.
The chair vanished from sight, and the floor began to close over Dark Anne, but her voice floated up from the pit, high and furious. ‘I won’t be here for ever! You hear me? I’ll be—’ The floor sealed and her words were cut off.
Anne let out a long breath, then turned to me. ‘Thank you,’ she said simply. Then she closed her eyes and slipped to the floor. I darted to catch her, but she was already fading, turning to mist. In an instant she was gone. I was alone in the room.
I reached out through the dreamstone. Luna. Report.
There was a moment’s wait, agonisingly long, then I felt Luna’s thoughts, strong and clear. We’ve got her.
I closed my eyes, feeling a wave of relief wash through me. We won. Anne’s herself.
Good. We’re heading home.
I took a last look around the black chamber, now silent and empty. I knew that the other Anne was somewhere beneath me, locked away, and that still wasn’t something I was fully comfortable with. But Anne was in control again and the jinn was gone, and I knew we were lucky to be walking away with as much as we had. I turned and created a door that would take me out of Elsewhere and back to the waking world.
16
It was later that evening.
‘What I can’t figure out,’ Luna said, ‘is what she was doing in New Zealand.’
We were in Dr Shirland’s living room. The quiet room felt strange after everything we’d been through that day. I’d changed my clothes, but my muscles still remembered the battle in San Vittore, and my mind the weird brain-twisting fight in Elsewhere. But here, nothing seemed to change. Dr Shirland’s cat was sitting with his paws tucked beneath him in the exact same armchair he always used.
‘She wanted somewhere private,’ I said. It was just me and Luna in the room at the moment. Variam was outside making calls, while Dr Shirland was with Anne in the consulting room. Anne had still been unconscious when we’d brought her in, and Dr Shirland asked not to be disturbed. That had been almost two hours ago. ‘She was going to join Morden and Richard eventually, but she didn’t want to meet them unprepared. She thought that they’d take the opportunity to capture her.’ I shrugged. ‘She was probably right.’
‘It was pretty scary going through that gate,’ Luna admitted. ‘I know you’re good with your predictions, but you’ve told me enough times that they’re not perfect. I mean, bodyguards would have been one thing, but if someone like Vihaela had been there …’
‘Anne wouldn’t have trusted Vihaela to watch her while she slept,’ I said. ‘It’s always the weakness of Dark mages. They’re just as much a threat to each other as they are to us.’
‘So why New Zealand?’
‘Anne sensed me watching her when she was talking to Morden,’ I said. ‘As soon as he left, she must have gated away. The description you and Vari gave me sounded a lot like a bay in New Zealand that the two of us visited when we were on the run. I guess she wanted somewhere safe and secluded, and that was the first place she thought of.’
The sound of the front door closing made us both look up. Variam was talking out in the corridor, his voice muffled. ‘… yeah,’ he was saying. ‘So they aren’t calling us in? … Okay … Yeah, that makes sense … Okay, I will. Later.’ He opened the door to the living room and stepped in, slipping the communicator into his pocket.