As I approached the stairs I saw that Morden had quite an audience going, with half a dozen Dark mages gathered around him. He also had Onyx standing right at his shoulder, which was enough to make me very sure I didn’t want to stop for a chat. Ordith was hovering at the edge of the conversation, looking as though he was waiting for Morden to finish. I stayed out of earshot, but as I did I picked out the futures in which I moved closer, looking to see what I would hear if I joined their group.
“. . . be the case,” Morden was saying. He wasn’t wearing a mask; the really powerful Dark mages usually don’t. Dark-haired and handsome, he looked like a politician, though most politicians can’t kill you from across the room without lifting a finger. “I hope I can count on your support.”
“Your interest in this cause is hardly universal, Morden,” another mage said. “The Light mages have little to offer us.”
“Then perhaps those who feel that way would prefer to take it up with my associate.”
A faint ripple, almost too quick to be sensed, went through the audience. Morden looked inquiringly from side to side; when no answer came, he went on. “Neither of us expects any great sacrifice. All you have to do is stand aside and let nature take its course.”
“Nature?”
“It’s the direction things have been going, wouldn’t you say?”
All the time Morden had been talking I’d been moving, and I was reaching the point where I was about to pass out of eavesdropping range. I could linger, but I’d risk detection, and it didn’t sound as though this had anything to do with Anne . . .
. . . except that Anne had once told me a long time ago that Morden had offered her the position of his apprentice. She’d turned him down—did he still hold a grudge?
As if I didn’t have enough to worry about already.
I took the stairs up to the balcony. A pair of women were speaking quietly under their breath on the landing; they fell silent and eyed me when I passed. Something caught my attention as I searched through the futures, a familiar presence. My eyes narrowed. Her? Now isn’t that interesting . . .
A man and a woman were by the balcony railing. The man was masked, and beyond checking to see that he wasn’t going to cause trouble I didn’t pay him any attention. The woman was another story altogether. She was small and delicate-looking, with coppery skin and deep dark eyes. Her hair was done up in an elaborate style with lacquered sticks, and she wore a narrow black dress that showed off her figure. Right now she was laughing, one hand resting naturally on the man’s arm. “—isn’t it?” she was saying, her voice warm and captivating. “If you could, that would be wonderful.”
“No problem,” the man said. He looked like he was trying to come across as casual and doing a bad job of it. “This evening, then.”
“See you then,” the woman said. The smile stayed on her face as she watched him go.
I’d timed my approach carefully and reached the woman just as she began to turn away. As I passed I caught her arm and swept her along with me. “Meredith,” I said into her ear. From this close I could smell her perfume, something flowery and expensive. “Nice to see you again.”
Meredith is an enchantress, petite and beautiful and, from my fairly definite experience, entirely self-interested. As soon as she heard my voice her head jerked slightly. “Alex?”
“I’d wondered where you’d disappeared to. Who’s your new friend?”
I’d gotten Meredith as far as the balcony railing; she pulled away and I let her go. As I did her eyes flicked quickly down to the club floor. It was so fast it was almost impossible to see, but I’d been watching for it and I knew that the one she’d been looking towards was Morden. When I’d first met Meredith, she’d been working for a Light mage called Belthas—he was gone now but he and Morden had a lot of things in common, and Meredith wasn’t the sort to be especially concerned about whether someone was Dark or Light.
“What are you doing here?” Meredith asked. She was keeping herself under control, but she was on edge, and for good reason. The last time Meredith and I had met, we’d parted on bad terms and she’d given me more than enough reason to hold a grudge.
“Funny,” I said. “I was just about to ask you that. You like to get yourself into trouble, don’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“The name Anne Walker mean anything to you?”
Meredith shook her head; her eyes were wary but her reaction had been instant and I was fairly sure she was telling the truth. “Hm,” I said. “I guess your new boss works on a need-to-know basis.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Anne Walker’s an apprentice from the Light program,” I said. “She’s gone missing lately. The Keepers are concerned.”
“Well, that’s nothing to do with me.”
I raised an eyebrow.
Meredith looked at me, waiting. I counted off seconds in my head as Meredith’s expression began to shade into annoyance. “Is this it?” she asked. “There isn’t—”
Right on cue, a voice spoke loudly from the far side of the club, pitched to carry across the floor. “Announcing Keeper Caldera of the Order of the Star.”
Every conversation in the Tiger’s Palace fell silent at once, as if someone had hit the Mute button. Caldera was a small figure at the front door, with Sonder a step behind, and she was advancing across the floor. The doorman hadn’t announced anyone else that I’d seen, and I was fairly sure the special treatment hadn’t been meant to do Caldera any favours. Nearly a hundred pairs of eyes watched Caldera and Sonder as they came closer.
“What’s she doing here?” Meredith whispered, looking suddenly unsettled.
I smiled slightly. “Done anything the Keepers might object to lately?”
“Don’t be like that!” Meredith kept her voice low. “Do you know why she’s here?”
“Let’s just say that you might want to find out exactly what Morden’s connection with that girl is. Fast.”
“I don’t know!”
I shrugged and started to turn away.
“Wait!” Meredith caught my shoulder. “Can’t you tell me?”
“I don’t owe you anything.”
“Please.”
“You know what?” I said. “I’ll make you a deal. I’m interested in Anne Walker’s location. Morden knows where she is. Find out, and I’ll tell you why that Keeper’s here and what she wants. And what you need to do to stay away from her.”
Meredith gave me an uncertain look, then hurried away. I leant on the balcony railing, watching Caldera and Sonder approach. As I did, the communicator chimed and I heard Luna’s voice in my ear. “Alex? I can’t see you.”
I was turned away from the others on the balcony, but I kept my voice very quiet. “I’m on the balcony. What’s your status?”
Caldera was approaching the stairs up to the balcony at a steady pace. There was a clear path between her and the stairs, and the Dark mages didn’t exactly block her way . . . but they didn’t move aside, either. Everyone was watching the two of them, and there was a kind of lazy tension in the air, a pack of wolves studying a wolfhound. Caldera’s face was stone, and almost against my will I felt a flash of admiration. The Order of the Star goes after mages who violate the Concord, and no matter how you interpret that, Dark mages are right at the top of their suspect list. Caldera was quite literally walking into a crowd of people whom she hunted for a living, and if those people decided to turn the tables and hunt her, she wouldn’t have a hope in hell of making it out alive. But there was no fear on Caldera’s face or in the way she moved, and the Dark mages stood still, letting her pass. Predators are drawn to weakness, and Caldera wasn’t showing any.
Sonder was another matter. He was half a step behind Caldera, and as the two of them approached I saw eyes drift away from the heavier woman and lock onto him instead. Sonder’s head was up and he was putting on a brave face, but his movements were too quick, too nervous. He looked like a new fish on the prison yard. Without Caldera, I put his life expectancy here at about twenty minutes.