Or that was what someone would have seen. The truth was, it wasn’t me at all. The steps I took, the movements I made, even where I focused my eyes, were all under Crystal’s control, while I watched helplessly. It was like being a passenger in the back of a car with a screen between me and the front seats. I could see and hear, but I was just a spectator. It was a terrifying feeling, like falling through a black void. Through my eyes, I watched my body go up a flight of stairs, turn into another corridor, then open a door.
The room inside was a bedroom, and Anne jumped up from where she’d been sitting on the bed. Her restraints were gone; her clothes had taken some damage, but she looked in perfect health and her eyes lit up as she saw me. “Alex!”
I wanted to scream at Anne, to warn her. Instead I watched helplessly as my body took her in its arms. “It’s fine,” I heard myself say. “I’m okay.”
Anne held me tightly for a moment, then pulled back to look at me, worry visible on her face. “I couldn’t tell where you were. Vihaela was here and she told me that Richard was talking to you. What happened?”
My head shook. “It doesn’t matter. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. They just wanted to . . .” Anne trailed off and looked me up and down, frowning slightly. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
My heart leapt. No! I’m not! Anne, it’s not me. You can tell that, can’t you?
“I’m fine,” my voice said. “Why? What happened?”
Anne hesitated and for a moment I felt hope, then she shook her head. “We can talk about it afterwards.”
My heart sank. Anne had been scanning me with her lifesight. It’s a perfect tool for diagnosing illness or injury, but it’s useless against mind magic, and right now it was telling Anne that there was nothing wrong with me. “Talk about what?” Crystal said with my voice.
“It doesn’t matter,” Anne said. “How did you get them to let you in here? What does Richard want?”
“He wants us to cooperate with him.” My body walked past Anne, sat down on the bed facing her. “I don’t think we can get away with turning them down this time.”
Anne looked unhappy but not surprised. “When Vihaela started talking to me, I thought that was the deal she was going to offer, or something worse. Though she didn’t . . .”
“Didn’t what?”
“Never mind.”
“I do mind.” My body leant forward, towards Anne. “Something’s bothering you. What’s wrong?”
“She was just trying to stir things up. It doesn’t matter.”
“How? What did she say?”
Anne hesitated, glanced around at the door. “Should we be talking about this here?”
“Richard said he’d give us time to talk privately.”
“That was what Vihaela said too,” Anne said. “Before . . .”
“Before what? Tell me.”
Anne! It’s not me! Can’t you tell? Crystal’s imitation was good, but not perfect. My voice and words were off from how the real me would have acted: I wouldn’t have spoken that way, wouldn’t have pushed so far. But it was close, too close. Maybe in a calmer environment, with more time, Anne might have been able to figure it out, but here . . . I tried to reach out to Anne telepathically, link to her mind, and ran into what felt like a solid wall.
“All right,” Anne said slowly. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”
“What?”
“Anything you want to tell me,” Anne said. Her reddish eyes stayed on me.
“What kind of thing?”
Anne looked at me for a long moment, seemed about to say something, then shook her head. “Never mind. It can wait.”
“No, it can’t.” My voice was harsh, forceful. “I want to hear it now.”
Anne drew back slightly, frowning. “I don’t . . . All right. Back when we first met, how much did you know about Jagadev?”
The question caught me off balance. Jagadev? Why . . . ?
“I’d never met him before,” Crystal said.
“What about after?” Anne was watching me closely now. “Did you find out anything?”
“Nothing important.”
Anne waited. When no further answer came, she frowned. “Do you mean—?”
“Can you get to the point?”
“All right.” Anne seemed to brace herself. “Vihaela said . . . she said that all those deaths in my family and Vari’s, they weren’t accidents. They were because of Jagadev. I mean, I knew he had something against us, but I never knew exactly why. I thought it was just that we were humans, or mages, or . . . Is it true?”
“Yes.”
Anne stared at me.
“When did you find out?” Anne said when I didn’t speak.
“Probably around the time I met you.”
Anne drew a breath. “You knew all this time and you didn’t tell me?”
“Did you want me to?”
“Did I—? Yes!”
I felt myself shrug. “I didn’t think it mattered.”
“How could you think that? These are my parents!”
“I suppose.”
Anne looked at me in disbelief, then stood and walked away. She stood facing the wall, her shoulders rising and falling, before turning. “I spent years thinking about it, after my father died. When it was my mother, I was too young to remember, but after . . . I kept feeling it was my fault. That I’d done something wrong. And that was why I was in that house in Canonbury instead, with them treating me like . . . But if it was my fault, then I deserved it anyway. But now . . . you’re telling me it was Jagadev? For two years we were staying in his house, eating his food, doing what he told us. All that time, it was him?” Anne shook her head. “I know I’ve never talked much about my family. But you had to know how much this would matter. How could you keep this a secret all this time?”
Watching Anne’s expression felt like a knife twisting in my flesh. I wanted to writhe, look away, but I couldn’t, because it was true. I had kept it a secret, because—
“Because I’m a diviner,” my voice said. “Finding out people’s secrets and using them is what I do. And I couldn’t see any good way to make use of that one.”
Wait, no! That wasn’t—
Anne was staring at me. “I thought you trusted me.”
“Yeah, well, maybe you’ll know better for next time. Now how about we deal with the stuff that matters?”
“This does matter—”
“No, what matters right now is getting out of this mess that you put us in.”
Anne had been about to answer; now she stopped. “That I . . . ?”
“Yes, you. We’re here because of you. First you picked up that jinn in the Vault, then you used it to go on a rampage against a bunch of Light mages. I haven’t been saying anything because I figured that maybe I could cover it up, make it work. But you managed to be so incompetent, so stupid, as to let slip to the Keepers that it was you. And that was why they came down on our heads.”
“What? No! I didn’t tell anyone! Alex, I promise, I don’t know how they found out, but it wasn’t—”
“Then who else was it? There were exactly four of us there, and somehow I don’t think Morden and Vihaela are on speaking terms with the Council these days. That leaves you and me, and I know it wasn’t me. So who do you think it was?”
“I—I don’t—” Anne faltered.
“You’ve destroyed my life,” Crystal said. “Do you know how much I’ve lost because of you? I was on the Light Council. I had status, a home, a position. Now I’ve lost it all in a few hours, and if Richard decides he doesn’t need me, I’m going to be dead. Getting involved with you was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”