Burned (22 page)

‘What was it?’ Rain said. ‘A set-up?’

‘No,’ I said. I’d managed to calm myself down. ‘It was Deleo being nuts.’

Sonder nodded. ‘It was going okay to start with. Cinder was talking, but then…’

Rain held up a hand to signal for Sonder to wait, then looked into space; I knew he was listening to something from his earpiece. ‘Okay,’ he said, then turned back to us. ‘Clean-up crew’s on their way. Get back to HQ for debriefing. Caldera, make sure they get there.’

The debriefing took approximately ten times as long as the meeting. The best that can be said of it was that it gave us both plenty of time to recover.

‘No,’ I said yet again. I was sitting with Sonder in one of the interrogation rooms, facing Rain and some Council bureaucrat who’d introduced himself as Charles. ‘Cinder was not trying to kill us. Deleo was.’

‘How can you be so sure?’ Charles said. He was slightly overweight and wore a business suit with a gold tie-pin.

‘Because we aren’t suffering from third-degree burns.’ I was trying to keep my patience, but it was getting difficult. I’d disliked Charles at first sight, and his tendency to ask stupid questions hadn’t improved my opinion. ‘Cinder is not incompetent. Hell, for all I know, he was trying to protect us.’

‘Why would he want to protect you?’

‘Because he was the one actually trying to negotiate. Deleo was the one who started shooting.’

‘Ah, yes.’ Charles picked up a piece of paper from the notes in front of him and adjusted his glasses, studying it. ‘You claimed that the Dark mage Deleo was the one who initiated hostilities, correct?’

‘Correct.’

‘What did you say or do to trigger her attack?’

‘Because she didn’t like my face,’ I said. ‘Or she was in a bad mood and wanted someone to take it out on. Or she just hates me on general principle. God knows that’s logical enough for Deleo. Even if I were a mind mage and could read her thoughts, I guarantee it wouldn’t make any sense to you.’

‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ Charles said. ‘However, on that subject…’ He looked at Sonder. ‘Do you have anything to add to Mage Verus’s account?’

‘No,’ Sonder said. I wondered if I sounded as tired as he did. ‘It happened as he said.’

Charles nodded. ‘Very well. I am required to inform you that an independent time mage will be called in to verify your accounts. I must also inform you that until such verification can be completed, the two of you are forbidden from revisiting the site of the incident.’

Sonder stared at Charles. ‘Why would I
want
to?’

‘He wants to make sure you don’t mess with the temporal record,’ I said wearily. ‘In case you’re trying to cover something up.’

Sonder gave Charles a disbelieving look.

‘It’s standard procedure in cases of violent incidents.’

‘Of course it is,’ I said.

‘Councilman,’ Rain said. ‘If you have no further questions, can we release Sonder and Verus? I’m going to need their services tomorrow.’

Charles nodded. ‘I think we have all we need for the present. Please be advised that you’ll be required to make yourself available for further questioning at any time over the next two weeks.’

Yeah
,
I thought.
I’ll make that my number one priority.
‘Sure.’

‘Thank you for your co-operation.’ Charles stacked his notes, rose to his feet, and nodded to Rain. ‘Keeper.’ He left the room.

‘Asshole,’ I said once the door was closed.

Rain didn’t quite smile. ‘Go home,’ he said. ‘Get some rest.’

I knew Rain was right: the aftershock from the adrenaline rush had faded away, leaving me tired and bad-tempered. Still, there was one thing I wanted to get straight with him. ‘For future reference, when I’m supposed to be negotiating, it’d help if I actually knew the details of what I was talking about.’

‘I know,’ Rain said. ‘Operational security. But tomorrow, the full team is being briefed and I promise you’ll be in on it. Fair?’

I nodded.

Sonder looked troubled. ‘Do we really not have Concord authority?’

‘Legal grey area,’ Rain said. ‘The mission planners say yes. But they’re also very keen that the details don’t leak.’

‘In other words, they aren’t all that sure everyone else is going to agree with them,’ I said.

‘That’s about the size of it.’ Rain got to his feet. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow for the briefing.’

Sonder and I left the interrogation area together. Once we were in the gate room, Sonder turned to me. ‘Deleo thinks you’re going back to Richard.’

I sighed. ‘Apparently everyone does except me.’

‘But you’re not going to,’ Sonder said. ‘Are you?’

I looked up in surprise. ‘You finally believe me?’

‘I never thought you were lying.’

‘About everything, or just that?’ Sonder started to answer and I waved him off. ‘Forget it. Let’s call it bygones.’

Sonder took out a gate stone, then paused and looked back at me. ‘Were you okay with tonight?’

I shrugged. ‘We’re both alive.’

‘I meant working with me.’

‘I never had a problem working with you,’ I said. ‘It was you not trusting me that was the issue.’

‘I know, but…’ Sonder hesitated. ‘We make a good team, right?’

I looked at Sonder for a second, then gave him a smile. ‘I guess we do.’

Sonder smiled back, then looked awkwardly away. ‘Um. See you tomorrow.’

I checked in with Anne to find that her burns had healed and she was walking around. Variam was there too; he’d been guarding her all day. Luna was still training with Chalice, and wasn’t expected back until the early hours of the morning. Anne tried to convince me to stay the night, but I turned her down. Given what had happened last night, I really wasn’t comfortable sleeping over and putting her and Vari in danger too. Instead I took a gate stone to Arachne’s lair.

Gating is one of the fastest ways to travel, but even so, by the time I reached the heath, I was tired and drained. All I wanted to do was find a dark place, sit down and do nothing, and if the night hadn’t been so freezing I think I would have. It took a long time for Arachne to answer the signal and open the gate, and when she did I trudged down the tunnel past the glowing lights, my head down.

‘Hello, Alex,’ Arachne said as I walked in. ‘What’s wrong?’

I dropped on to one of the sofas with a sigh. ‘Really shitty day.’

I told Arachne about the assassination attempt and the destruction of my shop, our abortive investigation and the meeting with Cinder and Rachel. ‘I’m used to bad days, but I think this is the worst I can remember,’ I said once I was done. ‘I just lost my home, my shop and about half my possessions. I’ve had more people than I can count try to kill me, and the only reason they didn’t manage it is that Anne took a fireball to the face.’

‘But she’s alive,’ Arachne said. ‘And so are you. Possessions aren’t important, Alex. It’s people that matter, not things.’

‘Yeah, well, I don’t seem to be doing that well when it comes to dealing with people either. We found out who sent those guys, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Rain says he’ll try, and maybe he will, but I’m not kidding myself. There’s no way the Keepers are going to prosecute someone that close to the Light Council, not for attacking someone like me.’ I twisted around to look up at Arachne. ‘You know the worst part? Nothing’s getting any better. We tried investigating the Crusaders, and it was a dead end. We went to meet Cinder and Rachel, and that was a dead end too. It feels like everything’s getting worse and worse.’

‘I did warn you.’

I had no answer to that.

‘There’s one detail I think you may not have fully paid attention to.’ Arachne had moved closer until she was looming over me, her front legs on either side of my body and her eight eyes and fangs close to my head. It probably would have given most people nightmares, but I actually found it kind of comforting. Don’t know what that says about me. ‘Symmaris took her orders from Maradok, who in turn takes his orders from the Senior Council member Sal Sarque. Yes?’

I nodded. ‘And Maradok’s involved in this operation tomorrow.’

‘And Sal Sarque was one of the two other Senior Council mages who voted in support of Levistus’s proposal for your execution,’ Arachne said. ‘However, it appears he did so for quite different reasons. When it comes to the question of how to deal with you, Levistus and the Crusaders appear to be at cross-purposes.’

I looked up at that. ‘How do you mean?’

‘That assassination attempt represented a major expenditure of resources,’ Arachne said. ‘Whoever that fire mage was, he was clearly one of their heavy hitters. You’re right that the Keepers are unlikely to prosecute them, but even so, launching such a blatant attack will have consequences for the Crusaders. Assassinating an independent mage such as you would already have hurt their reputation. A failed assassination is the worst of both worlds.’

‘I guess.’ I hadn’t thought about it that way. ‘Where are you going with this?’

‘If the Crusaders only wanted you dead, the most logical course of action would have been to simply wait out the week. Instead they took a significant risk in attempting to eliminate you. That indicates that their goal is different to that of Levistus. Levistus wants you dead, but it seems that the Crusaders were quite serious in that message they delivered via Symmaris. Their priority is to keep you away from that relic.’

‘You think Symmaris was telling the truth?’ I said with a frown. ‘They really
do
believe that I’m going to get it for Richard?’

‘All the evidence points that way,’ Arachne said. ‘I suggest you talk to this Maradok. Find out what he wants.’

‘Joy.’ But it made sense. ‘Yeah. I think I will.’

We sat for a little while in silence. ‘You know, I don’t think it was just the attack that really got to me,’ I said. ‘It was the thing with Rachel and Shireen.’

‘With Shireen?’

‘Oh yeah, I didn’t get the chance to tell you, did I?’ There was too much to keep track of. Had that conversation with Shireen really only been last night? I told Arachne the story. ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,’ I finished. ‘Rachel can’t even talk to me for ten minutes without trying to kill me, and Shireen wants me to be her counsellor? And now she’s saying that if I don’t then something worse is going to happen.’

Arachne was quiet. ‘You know more about dragons than I do,’ I said. ‘Draconic prophecies … are they ever wrong?’

‘No.’

‘But isn’t there any room—’

‘No.’

I looked away. ‘Great.’

‘Listen carefully, Alex,’ Arachne said. ‘Dragons – true dragons – do not exist in time in the way ordinary creatures do. A draconic prophecy is not a prophecy, in that they do not look into the future. They perceive all points in time coterminously.’

‘So … they see it in the present?’

‘Present, past and future have little meaning to them. But if they see something, then in
your
future, it will happen.’

‘But I can change my future. I
know
I have free will, I see it every time I use my divination.’

‘And dragons can see your exercise of free will. Including the choices you will make.’

I frowned. ‘That doesn’t make any sense.’

‘Only within your system of logic.’ I started to answer, and Arachne raised a foreleg to interrupt me. ‘Don’t argue this one, Alex; you’ll just become frustrated. It’s not something humans have the capacity to fully understand.’

I still couldn’t make sense of it, but Arachne was right: arguing would only be frustrating. In any case, thinking of Shireen had reminded me of that last request of hers. ‘Do you know anything about creatures that can grant wishes?’

‘That’s an odd question. Why do you ask?’

‘Shireen wanted to know,’ I said. ‘I don’t know why. But she also seemed to think it was something old. And something that wouldn’t be in the Light histories.’

‘Why not?’

‘She didn’t say.’

‘Hmm.’ Arachne settled on to her back legs.

I watched curiously as Arachne crouched in silence. Normally Arachne seems to have all the answers; it’s rare I ask her something that makes her stop and think. ‘Can you think of anything?’ I said at last.

‘I once knew the names of every magical creature that walked the earth,’ Arachne said. ‘Of those that could grant favours or boons, I can still remember three score without trouble. But something hidden from the Light histories … that points to something old indeed. To the jinn.’

‘As in genies?’

‘Genies, djinn, shayatin. They have many names. To the best of my knowledge, they are the only creatures in this world with access to true wish magic. Or were.’

‘Are they gone?’

‘Not gone. Changed.’

‘Changed how?’ I said curiously. ‘And why wouldn’t they be in the Light histories?’

‘The answer to that is a long tale, and a dark one,’ Arachne said. ‘The important part is this: if you care for your friend, tell her to stay away from the jinn and everything to do with them.’

I thought for a second. ‘The jinn are supposed to have come from the Middle East, aren’t they? That item that Richard got hold of earlier this year was from Syria. And just tonight Cinder let slip that wherever this relic is, it’s outside the UK.’ I looked at Arachne. ‘Do you think that’s what Richard’s after? A jinn that’s bound or locked away? And the Council want it too?’

‘If they do, they are fools,’ Arachne said. ‘The jinn have no reason to love mages. None at all. If either the Council or Richard gained the services of a jinn, it would bring them nothing but ruin. If that truly is what those mages are after, then you would be best off having as little to do with that relic as possible. Don’t open it, don’t touch it, don’t try to use it. Keep as far away as you can, and once you’ve fulfilled your obligations to the Council, run.’

I looked up at Arachne. Her eight eyes stared down at me, and I could tell she was deadly serious. Slowly, I nodded. ‘All right.’

‘For your sake, I hope they’re looking for something else.’

I looked back towards the tunnel. It was late, and I needed sleep. ‘Guess I’ll find out tomorrow.’

It was the next day. A night’s sleep had restored my energy and will; I wasn’t quite at full strength, but I was good enough. A little over three days left.