“They said it wasn’t them.”
“And there’s no way they could possibly be lying?”
“But they . . .”
The argument went on. Variam and Luna were convinced that it had to be Sagash and his apprentices, while Sonder held out stubbornly. At last Caldera spoke up. “Enough. This isn’t getting us anywhere.”
And this is where she tells us what to do again, I thought.
“Sagash’s apprentices should be the focus of the investigation,” Caldera said, then raised a hand when Sonder started to object. “I know it’s not conclusive but so far they’re the closest match to our suspects and we don’t have any other active leads.” She looked around. “Variam, you’re with me—we’re going to try and track them down. Sonder, I’ll send you the Crystal report. Maybe you can get something out of it that I missed. Luna, Alex, you’re on standby. Once we find those apprentices I’ll call you in.” She gave me a look. “Ordering you to stay out of trouble doesn’t seem to work very well, so I’m going to keep you where I can keep an eye on you instead. Do you think you can manage not to start any wars with Dark mages while I’m gone?”
“I’ll do my best,” I said with a straight face.
The meeting broke up, Caldera and Variam heading out. Luna and I were following when Sonder broke in. “Luna? Can I speak to you privately, please?”
Luna gave him a curious look. “Okay . . .”
Sonder gave me a pointed look. I shrugged. “I’ll wait for you outside.”
I went out of Sonder’s flat and down to the first-floor landing. It was carpeted and well heated, and I looked out the window to see a carefully cultivated area of grass and bushes. The buildings were a doughnut-block design, with a small park at the centre where some children were playing, supervised by an equal number of adults. The buildings muffled the noise from the streets outside and it all looked very peaceful. I’ve always felt that Sonder’s flat suits him pretty well—well off and sheltered. I could have eavesdropped on him and Luna easily enough but didn’t.
After five minutes or so I started to hear raised voices. The volume rose, then cut off and there were rapid footsteps. Sonder’s door opened and Luna appeared; she shut it with a bang and walked quickly down the stairs. The silvery mist of her curse was lashing and twisting around her, reaching out to twice its normal length. I leant back into the wall and she pulled the tendrils in as she passed, then let them expand again as soon as she was out of range of me. “Didn’t go well?” I said.
Luna gave me a look from the landing below and kept going. I started to follow her down, keeping a careful distance. Luna’s become much better at controlling her curse, but there’s no point tempting fate. “What was that about?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Seriously?” Luna didn’t answer, and I shook my head. “Maybe not, but it sounds like I’d better.”
“He wanted me to leave you and be a Council apprentice instead.”
I stopped. “He did what?”
Luna had reached the front door; I was halfway down the last flight of stairs. “Told you you wouldn’t like it,” Luna said.
“What did you say?”
“I told him to get lost, what do you think?”
I stared at Luna. “Okay, screw this,” I said after a few seconds. I turned and started back up the stairs.
“Alex . . .” Luna said warningly.
“We’re just going to talk,” I called over my shoulder as I disappeared from her view.
When I reached Sonder’s flat I didn’t use the bell but banged on the door with my fist. I kept banging until Sonder yelled, “All right, all right!” and opened it. As soon as he did I pushed past into his living room.
Sonder followed, looking peevish. “Would you mind—?”
“Okay, Sonder,” I said, turning on him. “I am officially out of patience. Not wanting me around, I can put up with. Your whining last night—that was just annoying. But this? This is over the line.”
“What?”
“You know exactly what!”
“It’s not your business what Luna does,” Sonder said.
I took a deep breath, trying to control my temper. Sonder was still young; he couldn’t be expected to know how insulting it was to headhunt another mage’s apprentice . . . actually, screw that, he’d grown up as a Light apprentice and he had to know exactly how insulting it was. “If you have a problem with Luna being my apprentice, you bring it to me,” I said. “You do not go behind my back. Clear?”
“Well, what if the problem is you?”
“And what exactly do you mean by that?”
“Maybe if you actually cared about her you wouldn’t be teaching her at all,” Sonder said. “You’d be finding someone else.”
“Not that it’s any of your business,” I said, “but finding chance mage teachers isn’t easy. Especially not with Luna’s curse.”
“I don’t mean that! I don’t want you teaching her to be the same kind of person you are!”
My anger vanished and I looked at Sonder. He was glaring at me; he’d obviously been working himself up to this. “Okay,” I said, holding quite still. “Now we’re getting to it. What exactly is your problem with me?”
“What do you think?”
“I think I can guess, but why don’t you tell me?”
“Remember back when we went after Belthas?” Sonder said. “Two years ago with that Dark mage, Cinder? Up on the mountain, we were trying to find a way in to Belthas past his security men.”
I paused. “Okay.”
“Then before that. When we went to that factory, and that man followed us there?”
This wasn’t how I’d expected the conversation to go—I’d been expecting a repeat of the argument with Anne. “Yeah . . .”
“And before that. When Griff tried to get the fateweaver. Remember that?”
“Are you going somewhere with—?”
“I’m not finished. Those three men that tried to kill Anne, while we were investigating those disappearances running up to the White Stone? Remember them?”
“Yes, I remember them. What are you getting at?”
“Why don’t you tell me what they’ve all got in common?”
“I don’t know. What have they got in common?”
“They’re all dead.”
Sonder was glaring at me. “What’s your point?” I said.
“You know last year, when I found out you’d killed all those adepts?” Sonder said. “It really shook me up. I couldn’t believe you’d do something like that. And then I started going back and thinking about it, and you know what hit me? It wasn’t anything new. Every time you’ve gotten into something like this, every time someone goes after you, they end up dead. You killed those adepts because that’s what you do.”
“Okay, wait a second.” I was starting to get angry again. “Pretty much every single one of those guys you just listed was trying to kill me at the time. What exactly do you think I should have done?”
“That’s what you said back on the mountain. You said it was self-defence, that there was no other way. You made it sound really convincing, but that’s always your line, isn’t it? It’s never your fault.”
“I don’t care whose fault it is,” I said tightly. “It’s about surviving.”
“Well, you know what?” Sonder said. “There are lots of Light mages around in Britain who’ve survived pretty well. And you know what they haven’t done? They haven’t killed anyone. Most people don’t; that’s why we have laws against murder! It’s just you who can’t seem to go a whole year without killing someone. Maybe it’s not about surviving or self-defence, or because there’s no other way. Maybe it’s you.”
I rocked back slightly, feeling a stab of fear. “I see,” I said, once I’d gotten myself just barely under control. “And you’ve felt this way for how long?”