Twisting my head to look back I could see the facing of the Royal National shrinking behind me. One or two people were staring in my direction but it was the early hours of the morning and the streets were nearly deserted. I couldn’t see Rachel but my precognition was still screaming danger danger danger, and as I looked ahead I felt the surge of another gate spell.
Gate magic isn’t meant to be used in combat. It’s too slow; the minute or so it takes to form a gate is just too long to be practical. You can speed it up, but almost no one does; the chance of something going wrong is so much higher that you’d have to be insane to take the risk.
Trouble was, Rachel was insane. And she didn’t care about risks.
I saw the green flash as Rachel appeared in a second-floor window ahead and to my left. With a flick of her fingers she vapourised the glass and then looked down, her eyes locking on to me as the van carried me towards her. Her hand came up, sea-green light intensifying, and I could feel the spell charging.
The van was going at maybe thirty miles an hour, but I didn’t even stop to think. I jumped off and for one terrifying moment I was free-falling at what felt like fatal speed. The ray hit while I was in midair, and I had a fleeting glimpse of the whole side of the van evaporating into dust, looking like some crazy sort of engineering diagram as the cross-section of the vehicle opened to the night. It slewed sideways and began to crash, and then I hit the road.
It hurt. Rolling, bumping, tumbling, feeling pain in every part of my body before fetching up against a parked car with a final thud. I was half dazed but I knew that I was still in Rachel’s line of sight and I managed to stagger to my feet and start running again just as the front half of the car disintegrated in a dust cloud behind me. A second later I was under an awning and out of Rachel’s vision; there was an alley to the right and before she could get in sight of me again I sprinted down it.
I ran and kept on running. I didn’t even think about turning to fight—it would be like trying to fight a tidal wave. If Rachel got a straight shot at me for even a second, she would snuff my life out like a candle in a storm. But no matter how powerful her disintegration magic was, it still needed a direct line of sight. As long as there was something between us she couldn’t hit me, and as long as I kept running fast enough it would stay that way. I kept turning corners, angling south towards Holborn, cutting across roads and through parks, always feeling Rachel behind me in my future sight. The sounds of the city were muted in the early morning, and the few people I passed turned to stare as I raced by. I hope none of them tried to stop Rachel; I didn’t have time to look and see.
I don’t know how long that chase went on; it felt like hours but was probably only minutes. I could so easily have died that night and in my mind I did, seeing future after future where Rachel’s rays struck me, my world vanishing in a green flash and a moment of terrible agony and darkness. But I survived, and looking back on it now, I think what saved me wasn’t my magic but my legs. Rachel’s water magic is very, very good at destroying things, but one thing it doesn’t give is mobility. She can gate, but trying to gate on top of a sprinting man is like trying to swat a housefly with a hammer. Rachel had to catch me before she could kill me and I could run harder and longer than she could. I kept weaving through the streets, switching directions randomly, always looking ahead.
I finally stopped running somewhere around Covent Garden. A theatre’s back door made a black gap in the wall, and I ducked inside it, my breath coming in ragged gasps. My mist cloak blended with the shadows, hiding my trembling. I was invisible . . . but that hadn’t stopped Rachel so far. I couldn’t see any trace of her in the futures ahead, but that didn’t reassure me; she’d found me in Elsewhere and jumped to me in the flesh. How had that even been possible? I couldn’t see any danger, but I didn’t want to stop. The rules that I’d thought would protect me hadn’t worked and even hiding didn’t feel safe anymore. The only thing I could think to do was to keep moving and I set off into the darkness.
I walked all through the night. I had a destination in mind to begin with but somewhere along the way I got lost and my sleep-fogged brain couldn’t think clearly enough to come up with a new one. I kept moving and searching, looking for danger, finding nothing but afraid to stop and rest. The stars wheeled overhead, the summer constellations dipping below the horizon, and the people I passed in the night became faceless blurs, threats to be avoided.
By the time the sky started to lighten in the east I was too tired to keep going. I was afraid to stop moving and afraid to sleep, but my limbs felt like lead and I was starting to get the weird light-headed feeling that comes with sleep deprivation. Going to Elsewhere doesn’t refresh you in the way that true sleep does; your body rests, but your mind doesn’t. The constant stress was draining my energy reserves and I was reaching my limits.
I didn’t know where in London I was anymore; I had the vague feeling I was south of the river but I’d gotten lost after crossing Waterloo Bridge. I’d passed hotels, but I didn’t want to use them; hotels had people, and people were dangerous. Instead I searched the short-term futures as I walked, looking for somewhere empty.
There was an old building down a narrow back street in the shadow of a red-and-brown tower block. It had been a pub once, but the sign was faded and the windows boarded up. Someone had smashed one of the boards around the back, and I used it to climb in. The ground floor was covered in bottles and plastic bags and old needles and rotting food, and it stank of piss and decay. I found a way up to the second-floor rooms; they were bare planks but at least they didn’t stink as badly. There were signs someone else had used the place—a lice-ridden mattress and some food wrappers—but it was empty now and that was all I cared about. I curled up in a corner and tried to rest.
It took me a long time. Even though I was exhausted, I couldn’t fall asleep; every time I was beginning to drift a noise would jerk me back to wakefulness, searching the future for danger. As long as I stayed awake I could keep watch, but as soon as I fell asleep again I wouldn’t be able to protect myself. Fear isn’t new to me, but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this kind of paranoia. Rachel shouldn’t have been able to find me. I’d been in a random room in a random hotel wearing my mist cloak, and everything I knew told me that I should have been safe. But I hadn’t been, and now I didn’t feel as though I was safe anywhere. The mist cloak felt warm and comfortable around me, softening the bare planks, but I couldn’t stop my mind worrying over what could happen next. The last two times I’d gone to sleep I’d woken up to near-death. I didn’t want to do it again.
But I’m not Anne and I can’t switch off feeling tired. In the end, exhaustion won out.
I didn’t sleep well.
I used to have nightmares about my time in Richard’s mansion. Over the last year they’ve been getting better but sometimes they come back, and this was one of those times. I had dreams of being chased, running with leaden limbs but never being able to get away. I knew the people after me wanted revenge for what I’d done and the worst part was that I knew I deserved it. From time to time I’d drift half awake, vaguely aware that I should be watching for something, but I was too tired to remember what.
And then the nightmares passed and I was in a peaceful dream. I was in my shop, minding the counter. Luna was upstairs and there were customers passing through, and for the first time in days I felt safe.