I was in Elsewhere, of that I was sure, but not any part of it I’d ever seen. Looking down at the ground and judging the angle, I had to be in some kind of tower. The arc of the walls made me think that they might go all the way around, forming a circle with the tower at the centre. There was something odd about the light: the lakes and the giant trees in the distance were all bathed in sunlight, as was the landscape to either side, but the place I was in now was dimly lit, the black glass reflecting only the light of an overcast day. Something about the layout made me think of the castle in the shadow realm, with the keep at its centre.
I stared down at the black-glass walls. They had to be thirty feet high, and I couldn’t see any gates or ways to climb to the top. They didn’t look designed to keep people out. It was more as though . . .
A voice spoke from behind me. “They’re to keep things in.”
I jumped, twisting in midair, coming down in a fighting stance. A blade of blue-white energy ignited at my hand and I held it pointing down at the floor.
The girl who’d spoken was Anne . . . or something that looked like her. She had Anne’s face and eyes and slender height, but the rest of her was different. Instead of falling to shoulder length her hair stretched down her back, and in place of Anne’s soft-coloured clothing she wore a floor-length dress of vivid scarlet that shone in the darkened room. She held something in her hands, though at this distance I couldn’t see what. “You were wondering about the walls.” She had Anne’s voice, but it was stronger, more confident. “They’re to make sure what’s in here stays in.”
I stared at Anne, or whoever it was. “What are you doing here?”
“That’s a little rude.” She walked towards the table, coming into the light from the windows. As she did, I saw that she was holding a long knife, tapping the blade against the palm of her hand. She placed it on the table with a clack, then nodded towards my right hand. “You don’t need that.”
I was still holding the energy blade. Elsewhere is fluid; creating a sword of magical energy is as easy as thinking. You can make any tool or weapon you can think of, lighter than a feather and stronger than steel, with all kinds of amazing properties which could never exist in the real world . . . and they’re all completely useless. I opened my hand and let the blade vanish. “There you go,” the girl said. “Relax. I’m not going to hurt you.”
I looked at her for a moment. “You’re not Anne,” I said at last.
“No shit, Sherlock. Did you think my hair grew twelve inches overnight?”
“The sarcasm is kind of a giveaway too.” I studied the girl. “Whose Elsewhere is this? Anne’s or yours?”
“That’s a hard one to answer. Do you know how Anne can go without sleep?”
“I know it has to do with adjusting her biochemistry, but no.”
“Human bodies have safety cutoffs designed to force them to operate at lower capacity if they’re short of resources like food or sleep. Anne can override those cutoffs and keep going when normal people can’t—enough to kill herself if she’s not careful. She’s been doing that for three days straight, and that’s why she’s in a deep sleep right now. Too deep to touch Elsewhere.”
“And this is relevant because . . . ?”
“The cat’s away, so the mice can play.”
I studied not-Anne. She did look like Anne, at least physically. But the way she moved and spoke . . . it was like a different person in the same body. “Does that make you the cat or the mouse?”
“Let’s just say I’m a side of Anne that doesn’t get out much. Figures the one chance we’d get to talk would be now, but better late than never.”
“How long has Anne been using Elsewhere?”
“She started during her time with Sagash.” Not-Anne walked towards the windows, approaching me at an angle, shoes clicking on the black glass. “An escape, really. He controlled everything in the real world so she built herself a refuge.” She came to a stop by one of the windows, looking out over the endless view. “It’s not just a backdrop. It’s all detailed, every bit. It’s quite beautiful, you know.”
Something in not-Anne’s voice made me glance up with a frown. She was staring out at the distant forests, and there was a strange expression in her eyes—not hostile, but not happy, either. “Have you been there?”
“I used to.” She stared out for a second longer, then shook her head and turned towards me. “Has Vari told you about what Anne’s home life was like back when they were both in school?”
“No. Wait, so Anne knew about Elsewhere last year? When I was using it with Deleo? She didn’t—”
“In case you haven’t noticed, Anne doesn’t talk about herself much.”
I looked around the tower room of black glass and at the girl in front of me, eyebrows raised. “No kidding. She didn’t tell Vari?”
“No. Now shut up a second and listen. Anne spent a lot of her time as a kid having to take care of everyone else. Cooking, cleaning, nursing them when they were sick, that kind of stuff. She’s always been good at noticing things—she’d see when people needed help, and when her magic developed it was the same thing but stronger. She could look at everyone and see how healthy they were, whether they were hurt, what their bodies needed. And she could fix it, or try to. But here’s the thing—Anne doesn’t actually want to do that all the time. Oh, don’t get me wrong; she likes helping people and she wants to get married and have kids someday, not that there’s much chance of that ever happening, but she doesn’t want to be nurturing and mothering to every single person she meets for the rest of her life. Things like that clinic? She doesn’t do it because she wants to, she does it because she feels like she has to. Because she can heal people, so if she just leaves them alone, it’s her fault, right? But it’s a bottomless pit. Doesn’t matter how many you treat, there’s always another one. And you know what really gets annoying? Half the time they’re not even all that grateful. The better you do your job, the more you fix people’s problems, the more they take it for granted. They think it’s just the way things are supposed to be.” Not-Anne stared at me. “Do you know what it feels like to always take care of everyone and get treated like crap for it? It gets to you. Especially when you’ve got those gossip circles whispering behind your back.”
I looked back at not-Anne. “So what do you want to do about it?”
“Hmph.” Not-Anne looked back out the window. “It’s not like I get the choice. She’s too dutiful.” She paused. “Or she used to be.”
“Before what? Before Sagash? Anne keeps dancing around it but she won’t tell me. It’s obviously really damn important but she can’t make herself talk about it. You’re here because you want me to understand, right?”
“Anne doesn’t talk about it,” not-Anne said, “because she really, really doesn’t want anyone to know what happened in those nine months.”
“I was a Dark apprentice! Does she really think it’s going to be something I’ve never heard before?” I narrowed my eyes at not-Anne. “She’s not just afraid, is she? She’s ashamed of something.”
“Yeah.”
“Ashamed of what? What did Sagash do to her? Did he . . . ?”
Not-Anne looked at me curiously, tilting her head. “Did he what? Wait, are you asking if Sagash sexually abused her or something?”
I hesitated.
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Not-Anne rolled her eyes in disgust. “Use your brain. Anne is a life mage, she can paralyse anyone who touches her. Do you seriously think we need to worry about getting raped?”
“It’s not something I like to talk about, all right?”
“Yeah, well, Sagash doesn’t care,” not-Anne said. “He’s about as asexual as it gets and those bits of him withered years ago. I don’t think he’s got any physical desires left. He’s not human enough.”