“Tried to kill-? No, no one’s come after us. Alex, what have you been doing?”
“Good.” The weariness in my limbs wasn’t going away and I realised Anne had been right. I didn’t have the strength to use a gate stone yet. “Listen, I’m going to be laid up for a few hours. I want you to work with Sonder on those reports. Get as familiar with the information as you can.”
“Are you going to be here?”
“No, I’m going to be following up on something else. Have you got any classes today?”
“Just one. It finishes at five.”
“Good. When you’re done go to Arachne’s and ask her to fit you a dress. Ask her to find me something too while you’re at it. I’ll meet you there, but I might be late.”
“You’re finally getting a better wardrobe?”
“No, we’re going to a party.”
“Oh,” Luna said. “Something really dangerous.”
“As long as I don’t have to arm-wrestle you to make you go this time. Now put Sonder on, I need to ask him something.”
“Say please.”
“Just do it.”
“Sonder!” Luna called. “Alex wants to talk to you. He says he’s got a date tonight and wants some advice on what to wear.”
I rolled my eyes. When Luna took the formal oath of apprenticeship, she swore to obey me “without question.” Luna’s way of getting around this has been to follow orders to the letter but add some creative misinterpretation. I heard the clunking of the phone being put down and picked up, then Sonder’s voice. “Um, hello?”
“Ignore Luna,” I said. “Listen, I need you to do me a favour.”
“Oh,” Sonder said. “Okay. Sure.”
“Three assassins tried to kill me and Anne last night in Archway. I’ll send you the address. I need you to look around and find out whatever you can about those men. One’s dead but two got away and I need to find them. There’ll be police lines so it might be difficult to get in, but do what you can.”
There was a moment’s silence. “Do you think there’s a connection?” Sonder said at last. “I mean. . right after you were asked to do the-the other job. It’s a bit of a coincidence.”
“Yeah,” I said. “It is.”
“Do you think it’s the same person?”
I frowned. “I don’t know. What I really want to know is what linked them to me.”
“That’s why you want me to find out about those men?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, I’ll try. And I’ll take Luna through the files.”
“Thanks. See you tonight.”
* * *
I found Anne in the kitchen washing up. There was a stack of plates on the dish rack, and I could see from the empty cupboard that she hadn’t been exaggerating about how much she’d eaten. I guess every kind of magic has its quirks. I sat at the table, not letting myself show how much of a relief it was to get off my feet-I could feel my strength returning but slower than I was used to. “Okay,” I said. “So who do you know who wants you dead?”
Anne turned to me, face troubled. She was drying her hands with a towel and it would have been a peaceful domestic scene but for the bloodstains on her clothes. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve tried to think of anyone but I can’t.”
“Offended any Dark mages lately? Made any new enemies?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What about that girl from duelling class?”
Anne looked surprised. “Natasha? She’s just a bit nervous about me and Vari.”
I thought it had seemed a bit more serious than that but kept my feelings to myself. Besides, I couldn’t really see an apprentice sending gunmen. “Well, someone wants to get rid of you,” I said. “And they weren’t kidding around. Those men were no joke.”
“I know,” Anne said. She looked at me. “Thank you. Not just for coming to help. For afterwards.”
I nodded.
“But. .” Anne hesitated. “How did you know?”
“I’m a diviner,” I said. “It’s what I do.”
As I said it, though, something nagged at my memory. When I’d told Sonder about the attack, he’d leapt to the conclusion that it had been aimed at me. It hadn’t been, not directly: Anne had been the gunmen’s target and they hadn’t attacked me until I’d intervened. But maybe Sonder had been on to something. “You know,” I said slowly, “you might not have been the only target last night.”
“What do you mean?”
“You were meant to be the victim.” I looked at Anne. “I was meant to be the suspect.”
Anne looked puzzled, but it fit. If her assassination had gone as planned, I would have been the last mage to see her alive. The Council Keepers would have come asking questions. Everyone knew I’d been responsible for the deaths of two Light mages already. Having yet another vanish so soon after meeting me. .
It probably wouldn’t have been enough to get me arrested, not on its own. But I’ve got enemies on the Council, enemies who’d be more than willing to overlook the holes in the case and maybe fiddle a bit of evidence to help things along. Even if the charge didn’t stick, it would have made it a lot harder for me to go snooping around.
I tried to explain that to Anne in my halting way but didn’t do a good job. “They wouldn’t have blamed you, though, would they?” she asked.
“Maybe,” I said. “It’d be less effort than sending those gunmen.”
“But you didn’t do anything wrong.”
I looked at Anne, watching me seriously out of those odd reddish eyes, and couldn’t help but laugh. But it gave me an idea. “Have you called anyone yet to tell them you’re okay?”
A shadow passed over Anne’s face. “No.”
Now why not? I thought curiously. You obviously thought about it. But you didn’t call Variam and you didn’t call this Lord Jagadev, whoever he is.
What was the story with Anne? There was no way she should still be an apprentice with the amount of power she’d displayed last night. And her lack of fear or panic was telling. She was used to danger, even if she didn’t look it. She was a weird mixture altogether-grave and wary and oddly naive underneath it all.
I wanted to keep asking questions but held back. Some instinct told me that pressing Anne for information now would make her shy away. So instead I helped her with the dishes and wondered if there was anything edible left in the house. As it turned out, there was.
* * *
The building was an old farmhouse at the very end of a Welsh valley. I’d rented it a few months back during one of my more paranoid moments, as a getaway in case someone attacked my London home. As a place to live it’s a joke-it’s fifteen miles from the nearest village, there aren’t any phone lines, and it floods every spring. But if all you want is somewhere to hide, it’s a good deal.
On Anne’s advice I rested for several hours before trying to travel, and I spent the time talking to her. I sensed she was uncomfortable with talking about herself and her powers, so I didn’t ask. Instead I settled for getting the details of how she’d been attacked last night.
It had been done very simply. While on her way to Archway Anne had received a text message, supposedly from Jagadev, directing her to go to a different address and send the car away once she arrived. Anne had obeyed. She’d noticed the men but hadn’t spotted the guns, and as she pressed the button to call the lift they’d shot her in the back.
Anne hadn’t recognised any of the men, and neither had I. They hadn’t been carrying magic, which along with the guns suggested they were normals. But they hadn’t been fazed by my mist effect either, and from the few words they’d exchanged over Anne’s body they’d known getting too close to her could be dangerous, and that made me think they were at least clued in to the magical world. Maybe ex-Council security, or some Dark mage’s private army. Either way, I’d know more once Sonder had had a chance to investigate.
It was two o’clock when we left the house. I locked it behind us, then slid the key under the door-I didn’t need it to get back in. “Are you sure you don’t want to catch a train or something?” Anne asked.