The blast hit Vihaela and . . . something happened, then Vihaela was advancing. Slate hit her again, crackling black lightning flashing from his hands into Vihaela’s body, but the dark green light of Vihaela’s spells met Slate’s attacks and it was Slate who was driven back. Even watching it clearly, I couldn’t make out what Vihaela was doing. She was so fast, her movements flowing and precise. I’ve met a lot of battle-mages, but in all my life I’d only seen a handful who moved like that. The closest thing that Vihaela’s fighting style reminded me of was a Dark mage named Onyx, but Onyx had relied purely on speed and power. Vihaela was different; every move she made was like a step in a dance, so natural that it seemed effortless. I’d been about to join the fight, but as I looked at the futures, I realised that I was utterly outclassed. All I could do was watch.
Caldera recovered and charged Vihaela from behind. Without turning Vihaela sidestepped the rush, directed a spell into Caldera that sent the heavier woman staggering, and struck again at Slate in the same motion. Caldera sent a ranged spell of some kind: it soaked into Vihaela and slid off, and Vihaela’s next strike snapped Slate’s head back. I understood now why Vihaela had looked so relaxed. She was fighting Caldera and Slate at the same time, and she didn’t even look as though she was going all-out.
Green and black light was thrown back from the walls, mixing with the brown of Caldera’s earth magic. The floor shook with heavy blows, and deflected spells punched holes through the plaster; the air was thick with ozone and the scent of blood. Caldera stumbled over one of the bodies and Vihaela hit her in the instant she was off balance. Caldera shook it off with a snarl. Her protective spells had kept her standing through Vihaela’s attacks, but she was moving more slowly and I could tell she was being worn down. She moved right to flank Vihaela, her back to the other corridor.
The futures shifted. “Caldera!” I shouted. “Behind!”
Caldera turned—too slow. Air imploded, striking with enough force to pulp flesh, and Caldera went down. Slate moved to cover her, dropping his own attacks as he did so.
Vihaela paused. Green-black energy glowed around her; her hair was mussed, but as far as I could tell she hadn’t been scratched. She turned her head to look down the corridor. “I didn’t need the help.”
A man stepped out into view, dressed in grey. A beard covered the lower half of his face, and he wore dark glasses. It was the assassin from two nights ago, Chamois. He inclined his head back very slightly.
“Protecting his investment?” Vihaela said. She shrugged. “Fine.” She turned to leave.
“Hold it!” Slate called.
“Or you’ll do what?” Vihaela said without looking back. She walked away.
Slate half-moved after her. Chamois met his eyes and shook his head very slightly. Slate stopped.
Then Chamois looked at me. He stood studying me for a second, then reached into his pocket, took something out, and tossed it at me. I felt the surge of a minor spell, giving extra force to the throw. As it spun in midair the futures flashed before me—no danger. I caught the thing one-handed, then looked down at what I’d been thrown.
It was a brown cloth pouch. Looking into the futures where I opened it, I saw a condenser. The same one I’d decoyed Chamois away with on the train.
I looked back up to see Chamois watching me. He turned and was gone.
Slate made a move after him. “Don’t,” I said tightly. I hurried to Caldera’s side. She was down on one knee, bleeding from her ears. “Caldera. You okay?”
Caldera looked up at me with a frown and shook her head wordlessly. She hadn’t heard me. “Slate,” I called.
Slate touched Caldera’s shoulder, frowning. “She’s deaf, eardrums busted. Be fine if we can get her to a life mage. We need to go after them—”
“With what?”
Slate clenched his fist. For a moment I saw the flicker of arguments, then he abandoned them. “I’m going to get them.” Slate’s voice was tight and furious. “This isn’t over. Understand?”
I didn’t answer. In the distance, from where Vihaela and Chamois had disappeared, I felt the signature of a gate spell, and I knew they were gone. Slate punched the floor with a sharp crack.
I didn’t move. Caldera shrugged us off and got to her feet, still unsteady. From behind, I could hear shouts and footsteps, and looking into the futures, I saw that they were friendly. The three of us stood in the anteroom, alone with the bodies, and waited for our reinforcements to arrive.
Chapter 14
The rest of the battle was mop-up.
Slate, Caldera, and I fell back to rejoin Haken and Trask. I kept us away from the remaining White Rose forces, and we linked up with a Keeper strike force. Haken and Caldera were shipped out to the back lines, and I went with them.
Slate and Trask went back into the fight, although by this point they didn’t have much to do. In the end, the battle was more one-sided than it had felt. White Rose’s power was in political influence, not in military strength, and their wards and defences weren’t anything like enough to hold off a full Keeper attack force. After half of the defenders had been killed or incapacitated, the rest started surrendering. By the time the Keepers finished rounding up their prisoners, they found a lot of foot soldiers and workers, a lot of slaves, and a scattering of mages and adepts. Vihaela, Cerulean, and Chamois weren’t amongst them.
I went looking for Luna and Variam once the fighting had stopped. They were out on the front lawn, a little way outside the ring of lights. Variam was resting against a tree and wrapping a bandage awkwardly around his arm one-handed. “Look, I can go get them,” Luna was saying.
“Nah,” Variam said. He glanced up as I approached. “Hey, Alex.”
“Hey,” I said. “Glad you both made it.” I nodded at Variam. “Gunshot?”
“He won’t go to the Keeper medics,” Luna complained.
“It’s not like it’s serious,” Variam said.
“You got shot! How is that ‘not serious’?”
“I’ll just go see Anne,” Variam said. “She’s better than the Keeper life mages anyway.”
“I know, but . . .” Luna looked away.
Variam grinned at her. “Upset?”
“Screw you.”
I sighed and dropped down onto the grass near to them. “Luna? You hurt?”
Luna shook her head, but didn’t turn around. I gave Variam a questioning look.
“We were with the security teams around the hill,” Variam said. “One of them caught a bullet from those machine guns right in the head. Splattered like ketchup.”
Luna twisted around to glare at him. “Vari!”
“What?”
“Can you not joke about it?”
“Hey, you were the one who wanted to get in on the battle.”
“Guys.” I raised a hand. “Enough, okay?”
Neither Luna nor Vari argued. We sat quietly for a little while. After you go through a battle the adrenaline rush keeps you going for a while, but once that’s gone you crash and all of a sudden it feels as though you can barely move. All I wanted to do was sit there.
As we watched, a group of people started to trickle out from the front of the White Rose estate, escorted by Council security. The oldest were in their early twenties; most were younger. The clothes they wore ranged from simple robes and nightgowns to outfits with implications I consciously didn’t think about. They moved in an aimless, straggling way, and kept stopping to stare around them, blinking at the lights as though they hadn’t been outside for years. Maybe they hadn’t.
“Those are the White Rose slaves, aren’t they?” Luna asked. “What’s going to happen to them?”
The Council security were trying to chivvy the slaves towards an open meadow to the south. It was slow going. “They’ll take them to the facility in Southampton,” Variam said. “See what they know.”