‘I can’t—’
‘A stasis spell.’ I spoke quickly. ‘It’s the only thing that’s got a chance of working.’
‘It won’t—’
‘It’ll land, I’ll make sure of it. Hurry.’
Sonder hesitated, the futures shifting. One second, two seconds, then his expression firmed. ‘No.’
‘Sonder!’
‘Our orders are to stay.’
‘We can’t hold against a marid on our own! If we try, everyone here is going to die!’
‘Then go,’ Sonder said.
I stared at Sonder, then towards Lumen. Lumen didn’t meet my eyes.
‘I’m not going out on a limb for you this time,’ Sonder said. He hesitated for an instant. ‘I’m sorry.’ He reached out towards the camera and my feed cut off.
I stared through the video link. All I could see was a black screen. ‘Sonder!’ I shouted.
There was no sound but for the whine of the wind.
Slowly I turned away. Sergeant Little was watching me, his face blank.
I couldn’t beat a marid. Not with the sovnya, not with the fateweaver. But Sonder had said it – I could go. Little’s men were under orders to hold this place. I wasn’t.
I hesitated, remembering the men outside. They were Council security, most of them veterans of the war, and I’d led many of them, learned their names. They had a dangerous job, with the usual profile for those in dangerous jobs: poor, low status and male. About two-thirds were lower-class British, the rest immigrants, most from Eastern Europe. If this were a Hollywood movie, they were the kinds of characters who’d be played by extras. No one would care if they died in a movie, and few would care if they died here.
I remembered what Nimbus had said when I’d confronted him. Security men were expendable; mages weren’t.
Thirty seconds.
‘Sir?’ Little said.
Little’s men weren’t going to make a difference to the battle. Cold calculation told me to abandon them.
Expendable . . .
‘Screw it,’ I said out loud. ‘Little, pull your men back.’
Little paused. ‘Orders—’
‘I am giving you new orders,’ I said harshly. ‘On my authority, get your men out of range of the accumulator and hold fire until further notice. Clear?’
‘. . . Clear, sir.’
I turned and walked out.
I strode out of the windmill, the sovnya in one hand, its blade low above the grass. The sun was directly overhead, dazzling and bright.
I came to a stop in front of the pond, then took a deep breath. ‘Marid!’ I shouted at the top of my voice. The echoes bounced off the castle walls, travelled on the wind. ‘Face me!’
The wind died away. The sails of the windmill above me slowed, the creaking coming at longer and longer intervals until it stopped. There was a hush.
Variam dropped out of the sky on wings of fire. He landed on the other side of the millpond with a thud before straightening to look at me.
I heard Nowy speak quietly over the tactical circuit. ‘I have a shot.’
‘Do not engage,’ Little said instantly. ‘Nowy, you pull the trigger on that LMG and I’ll stuff your dick down the barrel!’
Variam studied me dispassionately from across the water. Even if I hadn’t seen what he could do, I would have known it wasn’t him: his movements were wrong, too slow and too measured, as though he were used to brushing aside anything in his path. Flame flickered around his hands and feet, then died. ‘You challenge your doom,’ he said in that weird, too-old voice. He nodded towards the windmill behind me. ‘Stand aside.’
‘I will not.’ I levelled the sovnya at Variam; it quivered in my hand, eager to strike at the creature inside him. ‘For nearly ten years, you stayed with me. You slept under my roof, within the monkey’s paw, waking only to take your victims. I was your host, and you were my guest. You said as much when I spoke to you in the Hollow. Well, I am still your host, and under the laws of hospitality, you may not raise your hand against me!’
Variam paused.
I knew that I was gambling with my life. If the marid chose to attack, it could obliterate me. But I’d noticed back in the tombs that the marid from the monkey’s paw seemed different from the other jinn. The ifrit and the jann had acted like extensions of the sultan’s will, usually attacking us on sight. But Variam had spoken, drawing a line in the sand and waiting for us to step over it. The sultan cared only for war and death, but the marid inside Variam was a creature of law. That was how it had taken its victims back in my shop. It had offered them a contract, then extracted its price.
If I was right, I had a chance. If I was wrong, I was dead.
But the marid didn’t strike. It looked at me through Vari’s eyes, dark and unreadable. ‘The emperor commands. Stand aside.’
‘No,’ I said. I could feel the magic radiating from the accumulator behind me. It wasn’t fully charged: if Lumen fired now, everything we’d done would be wasted. ‘You want to destroy it, you’ll have to go through me.’
The marid stared at me. The futures shifted, slow and sluggish, and I felt a chill. The marid was making up its mind. ‘Intractable,’ it said. ‘You force a contradiction.’
I heard Nimbus through the focus in my ear, demanding an update. Sonder and Lumen said something that I didn’t hear. All my attention was on the marid.
Futures shifted, branching. I saw Variam’s eyes shift up to the windmill. He might try to strike past me, blow up the accumulator that way . . . I shifted position slightly, blocking a direct attack, and one of the futures faded out. The marid’s eyes shifted back.
Everything was silent. I held my breath, feeling the coin spin.
‘The contradiction is resolved,’ Variam said. He turned; fire ignited around him and he leapt up into the air, soaring away over the walls and out of sight.
I stared after him, checking and rechecking just to make sure he wouldn’t turn around. Nothing.
Variam was gone.
A wave of exhaustion rolled over me and I sagged, my knees going weak. There’s a special kind of fear you only get when your life is in someone else’s hands. All of a sudden, my limbs felt like lead.
Nimbus was still yammering on over the command channel, demanding updates. ‘Oh, shut up,’ I told him wearily. ‘The marid’s gone.’
‘Gone where?’ Nimbus asked. ‘Accumulator team—’
‘Verus!’ I heard Nowy call down from the walls. ‘You okay?’
I gave Nowy a half-wave, then walked slowly back to the windmill and pushed open the door.
The inside of the room was empty; Little had obeyed my orders and got everyone out of range, himself included. The monitor was once again displaying Sonder and Lumen on their towertop. Apparently they’d turned the camera back on once they didn’t have to worry about looking me in the face.
‘Alex?’ Sonder asked hesitantly.
‘It’s gone,’ I said. ‘No thanks to you.’ It was an effort to speak. I’d gone from fighting my way through the tombs to the chase over the castle walls to facing Variam, and right now I was running on empty.
‘Verus,’ Lumen said urgently. ‘Is the windmill clear?’
The accumulator was humming with power, filling me with tension. ‘Windmill is clear,’ I said. ‘Fire your damn weapon so we can get out of here.’
‘Sonder, charge,’ Lumen said.
‘One hundred and fifteen,’ Sonder said, checking something off-screen. His movements were jerky and quick.
‘How long to full?’
‘Three minutes, twenty seconds. Come on, Lumen, just fire.’
Lumen paused an instant, then nodded. ‘All right.’ She turned away from the camera, lifting the focus.
A soft voice spoke from out of view. ‘I think not.’