The instant that it did, the wisps of light around Rachel brightened tenfold. Physical bodies of any kind don’t last long in Elsewhere. A living creature can hold together for a while—a dead one can’t. Rachel’s corpse dissolved from the outside in, the hair and fingers going first and the rest following, the body coming apart into flaring particles in an eerie imitation of the disintegration magic she’d used on so many other people. From start to finish it took less than ten seconds. A last few wisps of light trailed upwards, then faded.
Rachel was gone.
Shireen was left alone, staring at the empty patch on the floor. Even Rachel’s blood was gone. “You . . .” she began, and trailed off.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.
Shireen shook her head.
“I didn’t want it to end like this,” I said. “But I just couldn’t afford to let her keep trying to kill me every time I turned my back.”
“Stop it,” Shireen said softly.
“I gave her as many chances as—”
“Stop it,” Shireen said. “Stop talking!” She turned on me. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
I looked at her silently.
“When Rachel Harvested me, she took a piece of me,” Shireen said. “That was me!”
I sighed. Suddenly I felt very old and very tired. “I know.”
“I told you to redeem her! That was what I was waiting for, all these years! I helped you, because I thought you were going to help her! And you do this?”
“She chose the other way. I’m sorry.”
“She chose the other way? You think this was her? You sound like—”
Shireen cut off. She lifted a hand, staring at it. For a moment I couldn’t see what was wrong, then I realised that I could make out the outlines of her chest through her fingers. Shireen was fading. She stared at her hand a moment longer, then her eyes rose slowly to me. “Oh, my God,” she said softly. “All this time, I never saw it.”
“Saw what?”
“Richard set us against each other,” Shireen said. “He wanted to see who’d be the last one. I thought it was over, but it wasn’t!” Her voice rose. “It was you! First you killed Tobruk, then you killed Rachel, now you’ve killed me! I thought it was Rachel that was Richard’s Chosen. But it was you!”
My heart went cold. I couldn’t answer.
“It was you!” Shireen laughed wildly. She was transparent now, the walls and floor clearly visible behind her. “All this time, I thought I was helping you save her, and you end up taking her place! Well, enjoy it, Alex! You’re the last one, so enjoy it! You finally get what you wanted! You finally get . . .”
Shireen faded away. Her words lingered a little longer, echoing, before dying away.
The jinn had watched the entire exchange from the edge of the room. Now it stepped back, fading into shadow. Its shape merged with the darkness and it too was gone.
Wisps of light were rising from my skin, dangerously bright. I stared down at the space where Shireen had been, then with an effort tore my eyes away to make a gateway back to the physical world. But before I did I took one last look at the mirror.
Rachel’s reflection was still standing there, still bearing the same horrific wounds, still holding my knife. She met my eyes through the mirror, lifted her free hand, and waved her bloodstained fingers with a secret smile.
A thrill of terror went through me. I turned and fled.
—
Cinder was waiting for me in the chapel, standing in the centre of the room. He was favouring one leg and arm, but otherwise showed no sign of injury. As I walked in through the archway he looked at me in silent question.
I came to a stop and looked back at him.
We stood facing each other for a long moment, then Cinder turned and walked away. His magelight followed as he climbed the stairs, leaving me alone in the dark.
As the sound of his footsteps faded, a bolt of pain shot through my right arm, making me gasp. I staggered to the wall, leaning against it for support. It was too dark to see, but as I slid my left arm inside my clothes, my fingers felt the cool, too-smooth material of the fateweaver above my bicep. There were only a couple of inches of flesh left below my shoulder.
I put my back against the wall, slid down to a sitting position, then leant my head back against the stone and closed my eyes. I needed to visit the shadow realms that Karyos had marked out for me. I needed to prepare for the Council, and for Richard, and for Anne. But right now I wanted to sit, and remember the apprentice I’d once been.
chapter 10
But the interior defences are another story,” Chalice finished. “And those are likely to be the most important.”
“That’s fine,” I said. It was Monday and we were in the same park in which I’d met Cinder, shielded by the greenery. I was leaning against a tree, flipping through the folder that Chalice had handed me. “It’s the location I’m most concerned about. You’re sure this is his primary base of operations?”
“As sure as I can be,” Chalice said. “It’s very likely that he also has a personal bubble or shadow realm that he keeps for private use. But this is definitely his primary base. There’s too much traffic for it to be anything else.”
“Good.”
There was a pause. “You don’t need to worry,” I said without looking up. “The Council aren’t tracking me. At least not at the moment.”
“You may say that,” Chalice said, “but that doesn’t change the fact that right now you’re one of the most wanted mages in Britain. Even Crystal wasn’t this high priority a target.”
“Crystal’s dead.”
“Really?”
I flipped another page. “Anne killed her a few weeks back.”
Chalice is slim and a little shorter than average, with light brown skin. She has a graceful, composed manner, but she’d seemed uncomfortable from the start of this meeting. Her next words confirmed why.
“Verus, I haven’t asked you any questions about why you wanted this information,” Chalice said. “However . . . there really aren’t all that many possible explanations.”
I closed the folder and looked up. “Is this the kind of thing you’re uncomfortable with?”
“Frankly, yes,” Chalice said. “Back when I did that research on Lightbringer and Zilean, I thought it was a one-off. I wasn’t expecting you to make a habit of it.”
“Are you concerned I might come after you?”
Chalice paused, her dark eyes weighing me. “No,” she said at last. “But there will be consequences.”
“I understand,” I said. What Chalice was leaving unsaid was that I was running out of credit. This was the second such favour she’d done for me in a short time, and she wanted something back. I tapped the folder against my leg, thinking. “From some of the things you’ve said, you’ve made it sound as if you care about the way this country works. There are things you’d like to see happen, and things you’d like to avoid.”
“Yes . . .”
“How interested would you be in politics?”
“In what sense?”
I shrugged. “For all their talk, the Council hasn’t actually gotten around to revoking that law about having a Dark mage on the Junior Council. Once all this is over, they’ll need one, and that person’ll need an aide.”
Chalice looked taken aback.