‘What are you talking about?’
‘When I came to you after running away from Richard,’ I said. ‘I was a failed apprentice on the outs with my master and the Council. Not exactly a safe investment.’
Helikaon shrugged.
‘You always said not to take sides. The only winning move is not to play, right? So why’d you get involved?’
‘I don’t bloody know,’ Helikaon said. ‘Because I’m old and stupid. Or maybe you reminded me of myself a bit. Young and clueless and thinking divination would fix your problems. Who the hell knows?’
‘Never knew you had a soft-hearted side.’
Helikaon scowled. ‘None of your lip.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’m never going to learn to project false futures – what you call optasia – well enough to fool someone like Drakh. What if I didn’t try?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Project wide-spectrum futures across his cone,’ I said. ‘I’ve got enough power to do it. Just random images and noise.’
Helikaon frowned. ‘He’d push past it.’
‘I could keep adding layers. Anyway, when it comes to something like this, it’s a lot easier to make a mess than clean it up, right?’
‘Suppose it is,’ Helikaon admitted. ‘Pretty obvious catch, though.’
I nodded. ‘It’d mess up my own divination as well.’
‘Only way for you to do it with your level of finesse, have to be right on top of him. Which means your cone’ll overlap his.’
‘If what you’re saying is true, I can’t beat Richard in a divination duel anyway,’ I said. ‘I can’t fool him, but he can fool me. I have to second-guess every future I see, while he gets perfect information.’ I looked at Helikaon. ‘So I blind us both. Even the scales.’
Helikaon grunted. ‘You know the thing about even scales? They’re not tilted your way.’ He threw up his hands. ‘All right, all right. It’s not a completely stupid idea. We’ll give it a shot.’
Despite his complaints, Helikaon worked with me for the rest of the morning. I threw myself into the practice, pushing as hard as I could. I had far to go, and little time to do it in.
By the time we were done, I could project a fuzz of images and random noise that should screw up both short- and long-term divinations over all possible futures. Helikaon could still see through it, but only with time and effort, and he admitted he probably wouldn’t be able to manage that under pressure. The big problem was range. According to Helikaon, an optasia master could project false futures anywhere, as long as they had a clear enough image of what they wanted the target to see. My own crude technique could only affect the area around me, and it was about as subtle as a fire alarm. The instant I used it, Richard would know exactly what I was doing, and why.
This would probably only work once. I’d have to make it count.
By eleven o’clock, I decided I’d practised enough. I said my goodbyes to Helikaon and left.
Talisid had left me a message while I’d been gone. Actually, several messages. I got in touch and after a minimum of pleasantries Talisid suggested a public place where we couldn’t easily be overheard.
I reached Stratford Olympic Park a little before noon. The sun was shining through breaks in the cloud, and the grass and concrete were wet from the morning’s rain. The Greenway across the Olympic Park gives an amazing view: from the embankment you can see all the way to south London and to the skyscrapers of the City. The last time I’d met Talisid here I’d turned down off the Greenway to the canal path, where we could walk without being seen. This time I stopped on the bridge over the canal, leant against the railings and waited.
A few minutes passed. People trickled by. Dog walkers, cyclists, locals. Not many children. The new school term had just started; most kids would be sitting in a classroom right now. Maybe they were staring out of the windows, watching the clouds move on the wind that was ruffling my hair right now, and wishing they were outside. I used to do that once.
A cyclist whirred past, and I turned to look at him, seeing him clearly in the second and a half that he sped by. Late thirties, English looks, thinning hair escaping in wisps from under a white cycle helmet. Light blue button-down shirt, cream-coloured trousers, dark shoes. From behind round glasses, a pair of blue eyes stared out at the path ahead with the absent-minded concentration of the practised cyclist. He looked like a civil servant, maybe a bank manager. Reasonably fit but with a sag to his cheeks that wouldn’t have been there five years ago. I knew the type. He’d have grown up here in London, six years in primary school, seven in secondary. Then the round of UCAS admissions, carefully researched. A gap year to show a little independence. Thailand, maybe Australia. Then three or four years at university and out onto the career track, nine to five and a starting salary and a commute that’d become so regular he’d know the journey by heart. A flat, a shared house, eventually a house of his own. Other people, more shadowy; a wife, children? And maybe one Saturday or bank holiday he’d happen to be wandering through Camden and he’d see a shop with a funny sign and he’d go in just out of curiosity. Ten minutes staring at the things on the shelves and he’d be off again, ready with some stories for the next Friday evening drinks: so did I tell you guys about the time I went to a real magic shop? No, not stage magic, supposed to be real. No, I didn’t buy a magic wand, ha ha, missed a trick there . . .
The bike sped away, pedals going up and down, its rider shrinking into the distance. I stared after him, trying to imagine what a life like that would be like. I couldn’t do it. He hadn’t looked much older than I was; if I’d been born into his place, maybe that could have been me. But I couldn’t see myself there. I used to have points of connection to the normal world: my shop, my flat, buying food at the supermarket, walking in the park. I didn’t have them any more. I was as far removed from that man on his bike as the Council was.
The thought left me tired. Maybe it really was time to end things.
Talisid appeared a couple of minutes after the cyclist, climbing up from the canal walk below. ‘Verus,’ he said, crossing the path to meet me.
I nodded.
Talisid glanced at the long sightlines around us, the Greenway stretching in both directions with the Olympic Stadium to one side and the view over London to the other. ‘A little exposed.’
‘Hiding isn’t really an option for me these days,’ I said. ‘How can I help you?’
Our relationship had changed, and I could feel it in the way Talisid addressed me. For all the years I’d been meeting like this with Talisid, he’d always been the more powerful. He’d never used it to threaten me; he was too courteous for that, in his well-bred way. But always, in our dealings, Talisid had been the one to set the terms. Not any more.
‘The Council has a proposal,’ Talisid said. ‘Actually two proposals.’
‘And you got tapped to do it,’ I said. ‘They weren’t worried that our little encounter in Hyperborea might have soured our relationship?’
Talisid looked back at me steadily. ‘Has it?’
‘Not really,’ I said with a shrug. ‘I’ve never had any illusions about you, Talisid. Your loyalty’s to the Council. I think you do sort of like me, as much as you like anyone. But if the Council orders me betrayed and killed, you’ll do it without a second thought. Or try to.’
‘I . . . regret the events of our previous meeting.’ Talisid was choosing his words carefully, and watching me more carefully still. ‘I would have preferred to have handled things differently.’
‘Really.’ I raised an eyebrow. ‘I didn’t get much of a sense of regret. You’d been getting frustrated with me for a while because I kept refusing to play the game. I think when they finally made the decision to have me removed, you were probably relieved. A way to close the book on a messy relationship and move on to something new.’