“Seven out of ten!” Landis said. “This particular design is set to two signatures, not one.”
“Does that mean we can read it?” Caldera asked.
“’Fraid not, dear girl. Set, locked in, and unchanging for ever.”
“Any way to break the encryption?”
“None whatsoever. Otherwise they’d hardly keep using the things, given that searching for any one particular piece of data inside them is, as you so succinctly observed, a pain in the arse.”
“So it’s useless,” Caldera muttered, and rose to her feet. “Damn it.”
“Just a second,” I said. “What was that you said about Council politics?”
“Well, Council are the only ones that use ’em, aren’t they? The old-fashioned isolationist types. Dull buggers, the lot of them, but if you’re going fishing for the owner, that’s where I’d try. Here you go!”
Landis tossed the focus to Caldera, who caught it and shook her head. “Yeah, that’s not really an option. Thanks for the help.”
Caldera and Landis said their good-byes, and Caldera disappeared downstairs with Variam following. I was about to go after them when I heard Landis say, “Oh, Verus?”
I stopped in the door and turned.
“You might be getting into deep waters.” All of a sudden, Landis’s voice was serious. “I’d be careful who you trust the next few days if I were you.”
I frowned, but as I was about to say something Caldera called up from downstairs. “Hey, Verus! You coming or what?”
“Well, you’d best be off!” Landis said, and just that quickly his old manner was back again. “Tally ho and all that, eh? Good luck out there!”
Chapter 5
I came downstairs to find Caldera and Variam talking on the ground floor. Neither seemed to have noticed my delay. “Wait,” Variam was saying. “So you guys were apprentices together?”
“Trainees.”
“Was he always . . . ?”
“Oh, yeah,” Caldera said. “You’re lucky you didn’t know him back in his tech phase. There was this time in our second year when we were living in the same house. Kitchen table kept wobbling so Landis shoved this metal saucer under one of the legs. Wasn’t until two weeks later we found out it was a land mine.” Caldera shook her head. “Crazy bastard. Good guy to have at your back in a fight, but . . .”
“Caldera?” I said. “Does Landis know much about politics?”
“God no,” Caldera said in surprise. “Knows his stuff when it comes to items, but don’t take anything he says too seriously.”
I frowned. “Hey, listen,” Variam said. “Can I help you guys out?”
“Haven’t you got work to do?” Caldera said.
“He’s on standby for that missing apprentice case,” Variam said, pointing up. “So all he does is mess around with his projects. He doesn’t need me here, I can gate back if anything comes up.”
“Sorry, Vari,” Caldera said. “If he’s on standby, you’re supposed to be with him.”
“Oh, come on . . .”
“Don’t give me that. You know the rules. We’re not running a daycare.”
Variam made a face and disappeared upstairs. “Well, that was a bust,” Caldera said. “Let’s head back to the station.”
“What do you mean?” I said. “We know a lot more.”
“Yeah, except none of it’s useful.”
“Yes, it is,” I said with a frown. “We know the focus has some kind of information on it, and it’s keyed to two different magic-users, probably mages. If we can find out who they are—”
“How? Get every mage in the country to try the thing and see if it works? This isn’t bloody Cinderella.”
“So what’s your take?”
“Your air assassin tried to commit a murder and broke the Concord in the process. That’s why we’re here. The focus only matters if it can lead us to him.”
“The focus is the reason that guy was after me,” I pointed out. “Otherwise he wouldn’t have broken off to chase a decoy. Whatever’s on there, it’s important.”
“Important to him doesn’t mean important to us. And yes, I know you’ve got that famous diviner curiosity, but given that the crime was your attempted murder, I would have thought you’d be a bit more focused. He might be getting ready to try to kill you again right now.”
“I thought about that,” I said. “I don’t think it’s likely. He only went after me to get to the focus, and he’d know that I’d have figured that out afterwards, which means he’d know the first thing I’d do once I got back would have been to take the focus to someone else or put it in a safe place. There’s no reason for me to be carrying the focus around on my person, so there’s no reason for him to take the risk of coming after me again.”
Caldera sighed. “You know, normal people, when someone tries to assassinate them? They care a little less about finding out what happened and a little more about staying alive.”
“I’ve got you around to protect me, haven’t I? Come on, let’s get back to London. I think I know someone who can tell us a bit more about this thing.”
We gated back to London and started working our way through the streets around Brick Lane. “Her name’s Xiaofan,” I said. “I met her last year.”
“Mage?”
“Time adept.”
Caldera looked interested. “Timesight? We always need more of those . . .”
“Not exactly. She does objects.”
We’d reached the place: a dimly lit shop with a faded red sign above the top saying Libra Antiquities. Clothing stores were on either side of it, carrying the smell of leather. “Before we go in,” I said. “Xiaofan . . . hasn’t had the best experiences with mages. Try to be nice, okay?”
Caldera shrugged. “Sure.”
The inside of the shop was gloomy, weak yellow lights doing their best to push back the darkness. Furniture and household ornaments were piled all around: chairs, coffee tables, mirrors, vases, figurines, silverware, plates, lamps, and everything else, taking up so much of the space that it was hard to move. They created a muffling effect, and when the door swung behind us, shutting out the noise of the street, the shop was suddenly very quiet. “Hello?” I called. “Anyone there?”
There was the sound of movement, and a young woman appeared from behind a carved wardrobe. I’d known she was there, but I’ve learnt over the years that sometimes it’s better not to advertise. Xiaofan was Chinese, conservatively dressed and pretty, with glasses and long dark hair. Her manner was cautious, but as she saw me she relaxed a little. “Alex. I didn’t know you were coming.”
“Yeah, sorry. I tried to text but it didn’t go through.”
“I changed my number,” Xiaofan said. Her English was good, though not perfect; understandable but slightly stilted. She glanced at Caldera. “Hello . . . ?”
“This is Caldera,” I said. “A friend of mine. We were hoping you could help us finding out about an item.”
Caldera nodded. “Hey.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Xiaofan said. “Just let me change the sign.”
Xiaofan locked the door and flipped the sign on it to CLOSED, then went back and cleared papers and bric-a-brac off a small cluttered desk while Caldera and I took a seat. I looked at Caldera. Caldera gave Xiaofan a dubious glance but took out the green marble and handed it to her. Xiaofan took it in her small hands, then closed her eyes.
A minute passed, two minutes, five. Caldera shifted and opened her mouth to speak, but I put up a hand. She raised her eyebrows but stayed quiet. Divination magic and time magic are different in many ways, but they have a few things in common, and the informational uses of time magic work a lot like my path-walking. It doesn’t look like the spellcaster is doing anything, but they are.
When Xiaofan opened her eyes, she looked troubled. “This is dangerous.” She put the marble down on the table and pulled her hands away.