“Your ‘terms’ are a glorified threat. Either I do what you want, or you’ll keep on being my enemy. You don’t have anything to offer me.”
“Correct. I will ask one final time. What is your answer?”
I looked at Levistus for a long moment. I could lie, obviously. Pretend to agree, then work against him. But I seriously doubted that Levistus was going to act any differently whether I told him yes or no. As far as he was concerned, I was just another Dark mage.
Just another mage . . .
“What happened to Leo?” I said.
Levistus blinked. It was a very small motion, there and gone in a second, but he didn’t manage to conceal it. For the first time in the conversation, I’d surprised him. “Who?”
“The kid Caldera and I found last night.” I kept my voice calm. “The mages who sent the mantis golem took him. What happened to him?”
“I don’t see how that’s relevant.”
I looked back at Levistus for a long moment. “No,” I said at last. “I suppose you wouldn’t.”
“Well?”
“The answer’s no,” I said. “I’m not going to be your agent to protect White Rose. In fact, I’m not working for you in any capacity. I don’t like you, Levistus. I’ve told you that twice already, and I don’t think you’ve really listened, so I’ll explain more thoroughly this time. I don’t like how you act, I don’t like what you do, and I don’t like what you stand for. You represent everything I most hate about the Council. You have no respect for human life, you deal constantly in betrayals, and yet somehow you also manage at the same time to be completely convinced of your moral superiority over everyone who isn’t a Light mage. Maybe you are Morden and Richard’s enemy, and maybe helping one of you does mean hurting the other. But there’s a certain point where trying to choose the lesser of two evils is just an exercise in futility. It doesn’t matter which of you wins; you’re both so bad that I honestly can’t decide who’d be worse. Working for you would be just as corrupting as being Richard’s apprentice, even if I trusted you enough to do it, which I don’t.” I looked up at Levistus. “Does that explain it well enough for you?”
Levistus looked back at me for a second. “You disappoint me.”
“Not halfway close to how disappointed I am in you. When I was a kid, I read stories where the white wizards were all good and moral. Do you have any idea how depressing it was to find out what the Light Council was really like?”
“Enough.”
Levistus didn’t speak loudly, but there was something in his tone that made me fall silent. When I didn’t speak for a few seconds, he went on. “You appear to be under the illusion that you have some level of choice. That this is an option that you are free to take or leave.” He regarded me steadily. “You claim that I have been your enemy. This is false. You are, at most, an inconvenience. Should you continue to work against me, that will change. For the first time, I will devote significant resources to your removal. I will not do so out of any personal grudge. I will do so because, as an active tool of Morden and of Drakh, you are a sufficient threat to warrant it.” Levistus’s voice was quite normal, and he looked at me steadily as he continued to speak. “You will be placed under siege. Your allies will be driven away or killed. Your bases of operation will be attacked. The process will not necessarily be swift. It is possible you will survive for months or even years. However, given enough time, the end is inevitable. You will be destroyed. And when you fall, there will be no one left to mourn your passing.”
I looked back at Levistus, and as I saw the expression on his face I felt a chill. It wasn’t so much the threat. I’ve been threatened plenty of times by mages, often in quite graphic and unpleasant ways. This was something different. I think what scared me the most was the matter-of-fact tone of voice. Levistus didn’t think he was bluffing. He had absolutely no doubt that he could do what he promised, and it shook me more than I’d really expected. For the first time I had a real, almost tangible sense of just how dangerous the man standing in front of me was.
I didn’t have an answer. Levistus turned and walked away. His footsteps echoed and faded into the background noise of the corridors, and I was left sitting alone by the pool. I looked down at the fish swimming in the water and wondered what I was going to do.
A few minutes later I heard footsteps and a woman in mage robes walked through the rock garden. As she saw me she paused. “Hello.”
“Hi.”
She gave me a doubtful look. “Should you be here?”
I took a moment to think about it. “I’m not really sure,” I said at last. I rose to my feet and walked out the way I came.
Chapter 10
It was a couple of hours later when Haken reappeared on the Belfry floor. He was frowning down at the stone and didn’t look up as he made his way over. “How did it go?” I asked.
Haken glanced up. I was sitting in the alcove in exactly the same place I’d been in when he’d left. “What?”
“The indictment.”
“Oh,” Haken dropped onto the bench. “Could have been worse.” He shrugged. “Rain got the worst of it, he’s the one in charge. Going to screw up his chances for his next promotion.”
“So what did they want to know?” I asked. “More about the case?”
“No one cares about the case anymore. This whole thing’s become about White Rose. That’s what the prosecutor was pushing for—they want an indictment against the whole organisation. Centrists aren’t going to agree to that but . . .”
“Then what are they going to do?”
“Fuck knows,” Haken said with a sigh. “All I know is that we’ll be the ones the shit lands on. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
We got up and started walking out of the Belfry the way we’d arrived. “They kept you in there a long time,” I said.
“Lot of questions.”
“When did they let you out?”
“Look, Verus, you know what ‘closed proceedings’ are, right? I’m not supposed to talk to you about this stuff.”
I nodded. “Sure.”
We headed down the tunnels, making the rest of the trip in silence. I didn’t say what I was thinking. While I’d been free in the Belfry, I’d kept myself busy by searching through the futures of questioning the other mages there. Most hadn’t been talkative but I’d found one clerk who’d been willing to help, and she’d told me (or rather, would have told me) that Haken had gotten out of the indictment proceedings forty-five minutes ago.
I was fairly sure it didn’t take forty-five minutes to walk from the judicial chambers to the Belfry. I wondered what Haken had been doing before rejoining me.
Night was falling by the time we made it out onto the city streets. “You’re not on the witness list anymore, but you’re still on call,” Haken said. “When they make their decision there’s a good chance you’re going to be called up. Make sure you’re ready to move on short notice.”
“Tonight?”
“Maybe. They might move fast on this one.”
I nodded. “Oh, one more thing,” Haken said. “You still have that focus you found at the station?”
“Sure.”
Haken held a hand out. “You’d better hand it in.”
I took a green spherical focus out of my pocket and passed it over. “You’re going to drop it off at the station?”
“Yeah. You might as well go home and get some rest. Don’t know when we’ll get the order to move.”
“See you tomorrow.”
I walked away down the road. The entrance to the War Rooms that we’d used was on a side street, and there wasn’t much traffic. Behind me, I could sense Haken taking out his phone to make a call. I turned the first corner, stopped, put my back up against the building, and waited.
Watching through my future selves, I saw Haken talk on his phone for a few minutes. Eventually he hung up, gave a glance in the direction in which I’d disappeared, then turned and went back into the building that led down into the War Rooms.