Variam fell silent and I went back to looking into the future, searching for the telltale signs of combat. I’d already confirmed that no one was in the flat, but a common trick mages use is to set up silent alarms in places they want protected. The intruder breaks in and has just enough time to relax before a prepared and pissed-off mage gates in on top of them.
If something like that did happen, then Caldera and Sonder’s chances would be a lot better if they had advance warning, which from this distance was a lot harder for me to give. Yet despite that, Sonder still didn’t want me around, which bothered me more than I liked to admit.
Minutes passed. Sonder had followed Caldera into the flat and shut the door behind them. With no direct physical or visual link I couldn’t easily path-walk to their location, so I switched my focus to the futures of the communication channel, trusting Caldera to stay in touch. If anything happened she should be able to send me a message.
Probably.
It wasn’t a good sign that I was saying probably about something like that.
“Did you turn up anything?” I asked Variam.
“If I had, you think I’d be here?”
We sat in silence a little while longer. “Why do you care so much about protecting Anne?” I said at last.
Variam shot me a look. “This really the time?”
“Maybe not, but I’ve asked you that question a few times now and you always find some reason not to answer.”
Variam didn’t reply. “You said something last year which stuck in my head,” I said. “You said taking care of Anne was your job. I know the two of you grew up together. But the way you act towards her . . .” I looked at Variam. “Has it got something to do with Sagash? Is that why you’re so convinced it’s him? I know you don’t want to talk about it but if there’s any way it could help . . . now might be the time.”
Variam stood for a minute in silence. I didn’t disturb him, watching the futures flicking back and forth: I knew he was making his decision. Slowly the futures firmed and settled. “If I tell you this, you can’t tell anyone else,” Variam said at last. “Not Luna, not Arachne, definitely not Anne. No one.” He stared at me. “You got it?”
I nodded.
“Swear.”
“I won’t tell anyone else without your permission. You have my word.”
“When Anne got taken by Sagash that first time, I went looking for her,” Variam said. “You know how hard it is to find someone when you don’t have anywhere to start?”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t know anything. Didn’t know where to look, didn’t know what to ask. Took months before I even figured out how the Light and Dark thing worked. I tried adepts, independents, the Council. They didn’t know, they didn’t care.” Variam looked up through the window towards the light behind the clouds. “Then one day I heard something. About a creature that could answer any question you asked it. The Fire Dragon.”
I looked at Variam sharply.
“You know what it’s like, meeting a dragon?” Variam was still staring out at the sky. “It was . . . light. Blackness. Flame. I . . . saw a movie about astronomy once, back in school. There were pictures of the sun, solar flares. You saw them and they looked like little flickers of fire, except each one was bigger than the planet. That was what it felt like. Like you were trying to see something on a scale you just didn’t work on. I don’t know where we were or how long it lasted, but when I was done I was just back again.”
“What did it tell you?” I asked quietly.
“It didn’t talk. It was more like . . . visions. I saw what I’d come to ask, and I saw the answers. Other things, too . . .” Variam trailed off for a second, then shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. But some of it was about Anne, and that bit I did understand. I saw Sagash, and I knew she was with him. And I knew if I didn’t get her away, then something would happen to her.”
“Something?”
“Sagash wasn’t going to kill her. She was going to be turned into something. She’d stop being who she was, and become something else. It felt like she was . . . falling into darkness. She’d still be there, but I got the feeling it might be better if she wasn’t.” Variam looked at me. “You get what it means? That would happen if she stayed with Sagash. It didn’t say which time. As long as he’s still out there . . .”
“Does Anne know?”
Variam shook his head again. “I thought about telling her, but . . . I never knew how it was going to happen, you know? I mean, back when I met you and Luna, I thought maybe you’d be the ones who’d pull her back to Sagash.”
I snorted.
“Yeah, you can laugh, but it might have been. How’re you supposed to stop something when you don’t know how it’ll happen? I even thought about going after Sagash, but it’s dumb. Just because he won’t kill Anne doesn’t mean he won’t kill me.”
“Did you think about asking her?”
“No,” Variam said. “Because that vision I got? I was never sure whether it was something that happened to her or something she decided.”
Variam fell silent again, and this time he didn’t go on. The vision Variam was talking about sounded vague, but I didn’t think that was his fault. I met a dragon once too—or at least I think I did—and trying to remember it gives me the same weird disjointed feeling, like you’re trying to visualise something that doesn’t work in human terms. There are stories of mages going searching for dragons as Variam had, looking for secrets or wisdom or prophecy. Sometimes they can be found, sometimes not, but I’ve never heard of them being wrong. If Variam had received that vision, it was worrying.
But I couldn’t see anything useful to do about it, and if we couldn’t find Anne, then it didn’t matter anyway. I went back to searching the futures and saw a strengthening branch of forks heading our way. “They’re coming out,” I said.
Opposite to us, the door to Darren’s flat opened and Sonder and Caldera emerged, locking it behind them. They headed our way along the walkway, disappearing from sight. I walked into the hall of “our” flat and opened the door to let them in, shivering briefly in the gust of cold air. “Anything?” I asked once we were all inside.
“Ask him,” Caldera said with a nod to Sonder. Her manner had been different since we’d met at the flats, though I couldn’t put my finger on exactly how.
Variam looked at Sonder. “So?”
“It’s his flat, but there’s nothing about Anne,” Sonder said.
“Then what was the point of coming here?”
“He still uses it. There might be—”
“What’s going on?” I murmured to Caldera.
“Shh,” Caldera said. She was watching Sonder.
I frowned. For some reason Caldera wasn’t taking command, as though she were waiting for something.
“Then we should be going there,” Variam was saying.
“It’s not Sagash, all right?” Sonder said in annoyance.
“Sonder,” I said slowly. “If it’s not Sagash, and you’re sure it’s not Sagash, what are we doing here? I thought you were sure it was Crystal.”
“It is Crystal!”
“Then why are we searching this flat?” Something wasn’t adding up. “What’s Crystal got to do with Sagash’s apprentices?”
“She’s still the most likely one to be behind this,” Sonder argued. “You know how good she was at using people; maybe she was the one who got them to do it. It would fit with everything—”