“Except you just said that if he’s going after the War Rooms, then he’s not going to succeed,” Variam said.
“Option two is counting very heavily on the assumption that it won’t be the War Rooms.”
“And if it is?”
“Then either the Council kills us in the attack, or we get hunted down and executed for treason afterwards.”
“That sounds even worse than option one,” Luna said.
“I said I had two options,” I said. “I didn’t say they were good ones.”
“There’s got to be something we can do.”
“We could hope that Morden’s actually just taking us off on a treasure hunt or something, and attacking the Council is just an elaborate disinformation plan,” I said. “But I really don’t think we’re that lucky. As far as I can tell, tipping off the Council or going along and obeying are the only half-viable choices.”
“I can think of another,” Luna said. “You tip off the Council and then we all go take a holiday and stop answering our phones for the next week. Morden goes ahead with his attack and gets his arse kicked. We watch from a really long way away and eat popcorn. The Council can’t do anything because we warned them, and Morden can’t do anything because he’s too busy being dead.”
Variam tilted his head. “That sounds pretty good.”
“Yeah, there’s kind of a problem with that,” I said. “In Luna’s plan, one way or another, Morden ends up gone. Either executed by the Council, or on the run. Either way, he’s not going to have his Council position anymore.”
“So?” Variam said.
I just waited for them to figure it out. “The death sentence,” Anne said quietly.
“How does . . . ?” Variam began, then stopped.
“Morden attacks the War Rooms, he goes,” I said. “Morden goes, Anne and I aren’t his aides anymore. Which means the death sentence on us both goes live. Which puts us right back where we were in January.”
“Well, shit,” Luna said.
We sat in silence for a minute or two.
“Okay,” Variam said at last. “Then in that case, I guess I’m voting for the tip-off plan.”
“Sorry, Vari,” I said. “You don’t get a vote.”
“Why not?”
“Because you aren’t going.”
“If you attack the War Rooms without telling the Council, they’re going to rake me over the coals,” Variam said.
“True, I’ll admit you do have some stake in this, but if things go wrong, you’ll be facing an investigation or a reprimand. We are going to be facing either an execution or instant death. I kind of think our issues trump yours.”
Luna looked at Anne. “What do you think?”
We all looked at Anne, who sat there in silence. The glow of the sphere lamps sank into the hair on either side of her face, leaving her features in shadow. “I think . . .” she said at last, “. . . go ahead and tip them off.”
“You actually want to help the Council?” Luna asked.
“No.”
“Then why—?”
“I’m hoping Richard really does have some sort of secret weapon,” Anne said. “And that he uses it, and he and the Council wipe each other out.” She looked up at me, and there was anger on her face. “I can’t do anything about the Council, but maybe Richard can.”
Both Luna and Variam just stared, taken aback. “That’s . . .” I said slowly, “. . . maybe not the best reason to be making a decision.”
“Maybe not,” Anne said. “But it’s not as though anything we do is going to make a difference.”
There was an awkward silence. I looked at Anne, and felt uneasy. She’d been in bad shape since September, and she didn’t seem to be getting better. Three times in the past fortnight, I’d tried to talk to her about things, and she’d turned me away every time. She’d started finding excuses to put off our training sessions, and when I’d called her a few days ago to schedule a new one, she’d turned me down that time too. I didn’t want to force the issue, but I couldn’t think of any way to—
“Alex?” Luna said. “What do you think?”
“Uh, yeah,” I said. “I’m leaning the same way as Anne, but for different reasons. The way I see it, if we stay silent, it burns our bridges with the Council. No matter what Morden’s planning, if he carries out any sort of attack and we don’t tell them, then we can give up on any chance of ever getting rid of outlaw status.”
“You’re not an outlaw now,” Variam said.
“Because of Morden,” I said. “Which means we’ll be tied to him for the rest of our lives.”
“Yeah, but if we do tip off the Council, then it screws things up with Morden,” Luna said.
“I’m not a hundred percent sure it will,” I said. “The more I think about it, the more it feels as though Morden was almost daring me to tell someone. There’ll still be a price, but honestly, I think if he was going to have me tortured to death for something like this, he’d have done it already. Besides . . .”
“Besides what?” Variam asked.
“Staying quiet and doing nothing is basically the same as helping out Richard,” I said. “Maybe tipping off the Council is going to help in the long run, and maybe it won’t, but at least this way I’ll be fighting back against Richard and Morden somehow. I suppose that’s not the most amazing reason either, but . . .”
“No, I’m fine with that,” Variam said with a shrug. “Screw those guys.”
“Works for me,” Luna said.
I laughed. “So we all end up at the same place, but for different reasons.” I looked around at the other three, and wondered suddenly how many times we’d done this by now. Talking over the latest problem, sharing ideas, trying to come up with a solution. We’d always managed until now, right?
A quiet voice spoke inside my head. Or maybe this time, not all of you are going to come back.
That killed my laughter. The four of us sat in silence under the stars.
| | | | | | | | |
It was close to midnight when I finally got in touch with Talisid. Talisid’s paranoia can be annoying at times, but at least it does mean he keeps his communicator close to hand. Given what we were about to be talking about, it would have been really annoying to have to go around to his house and bang on the door.
The first half of the conversation went more or less as I’d predicted. First Talisid asked if I was sure, then he asked if I’d told anyone else, then he wanted an exhaustive recap of every single word that Morden had said. Once I was done, he wanted to go through it all again.
As I went through it for the second time, though, I started to notice something odd. Talisid was clearly paying attention, but he didn’t seem particularly shocked or offbalance. “Go over again exactly how many mages he suggested he was bringing,” Talisid said.
“I told you, he didn’t give numbers,” I said. “He just said the mages who worked for him.”
“But he also said Vihaela would be leading the attack,” Talisid said. “That implies that Richard’s other subordinates would be coming as well. Do you know which ones?”
“No. Look, Talisid, don’t take this the wrong way, but you really aren’t acting as surprised as you should be.”
“We’ve been concerned about this possibility for some time.”
“Yeah, in the abstract,” I said. “But given that I just told you it’s happening tomorrow night—as in less than twenty-four hours away—you don’t seem all that panicked. Shouldn’t you be running to tell the Council?”
“At the moment, I’m more concerned with verification.”