“So what does he care about?”
“Power and longevity. He wants to live here forever and be king of his little world. Trouble is, you need subjects to be a king. Another twenty years and he’ll probably go all-the-way crazy and disappear into here with his shadows and never come out, but for now he’s still sane enough to get people to do what he says. And if they don’t do what he says, he makes them.”
“And that was what he did to Anne?”
“That was what he did to Anne. He wanted an apprentice-assassin. Someone who’d go out of the shadow realm, bring him whoever or whatever he wanted for his experiments, and kill anyone who pissed him off. He started training Anne, and when she said no he hurt her till she said yes. Death magic has lots of spells for affecting living bodies, and Sagash knows exactly how far he can go before they get lethal. No chance of the subject dying. Though they might want to. What he wanted Anne to do wasn’t so bad, to begin with. Spell practice, education—used her as a maid, too, when he had guests around. He didn’t need to, it was just to show her off: look how powerful I am, I’ve got a life mage waiting the table. She was still a slave, but it could have been worse.
“So then it got worse. After Anne had picked up the basics he started putting her through combat training. He’d match her up against other Dark apprentices, have them duel until one couldn’t fight anymore. Anne tried surrendering—didn’t work. The apprentice tore her apart and she got a torture session with Sagash for embarrassing him. After that, she fought. She wasn’t much good, but she was powerful. You know how life magic works—it only takes a touch.
“But there was a problem. See, Anne was dangerous in a duel, but Sagash didn’t want a duellist. He wanted an assassin, someone who’d kill for him, and Anne wouldn’t kill. He threatened her, but that was Anne’s line in the sand. She’d given up as much as she was going to and she said no. So obviously he tortured her, but she’d been learning from those fights and she’d figured out how to mute her pain receptors. Sagash could kill her but he couldn’t hurt her. She told Sagash that she’d rather die than become someone like that.”
Not-Anne stopped talking. She looked out at the distant forests, and an unpleasant memory came to my mind. That night when I’d met Anne outside her flat . . . She hadn’t said it in those words, but that had been the subtext, hadn’t it? Given the choice of taking my help or living in danger, she’d picked danger. Better to die than become someone like Sagash . . . or me?
I shook my head hard, trying to forget that last thought. “What happened?”
“Anne made a mistake,” not-Anne said simply. “She thought Sagash needed her alive. But the way he saw it, he didn’t need her at all. He was going to live forever. Sure, he’d invested time in her, but he could always get another. He only wanted her for his Chosen, and if she wasn’t willing to kill she wasn’t any use to him. So he called her bluff. He put her up against a Dark mercenary in the arena. A kid, really, one of those child soldiers. Sagash must have fed him some story or other, promised him a reward, because he didn’t talk, he just went for Anne and tried to kill her. Anne tried to disable him, but Sagash had given the kid a set of wards. Not against lethal attacks, just nonlethal ones. That was when Anne realised that Sagash meant it. She’d said she’d rather die—well, that was the choice he was giving her. Either she fought back and killed the guy, or she was going to die right there. No more life, no more growing up, no chance for a happily ever after somewhere down the line.”
“What did she do?” I asked quietly, even though I knew the answer.
“You know, most people never really think about how magic works.” Not-Anne leant back against the window’s edge, elbows propped against the sill, watching me casually. “Your magic’s a reflection of your personality, right? Well, that goes both ways. If your magic’s good at something, that says something about what kind of person you are. Life magic’s really good at healing. And it’s really good at killing.” She tilted her head. “Do you know just how tired you can get of taking care of everyone all the time?”
I didn’t answer. “Anne got hold of that kid and ripped the life right out of him,” not-Anne said calmly. “Took a few tries, but she didn’t give up. And looking down at his body afterwards . . . In a way, that was where I was born.”
I stared at not-Anne as she leant against the window, the light from outside falling across the scarlet dress. Despite everything she’d been saying, she looked relaxed. I didn’t know what to say.
“So, that night she stayed up thinking about killing herself,” not-Anne said. Her voice was so normal it was disturbing. “Obviously she didn’t. I mean, staying alive was why she’d done it in the first place, it’d kind of defeat the point, right? Things settled down, she recovered a bit, convinced herself she’d never do it again. Then Sagash brought in another kid. Same story, different guy. Second time was easier. Third was easier than the second, fourth was easier than the third. After a while Sagash stopped bringing them in. Either he was running out or he figured Anne had learnt her lesson.”
“How many?” I asked quietly.
Not-Anne shrugged. “Enough.”
I looked at her in silence.
“Anyway, eventually Vari showed up and they broke out. Hurt Sagash but didn’t kill him, more’s the pity, and they got back to London and lived happily ever after . . . except they didn’t. Anne couldn’t accept what she’d done—couldn’t accept me. Oh, she’d been fine with it when she needed me, but once she was safe, well, she didn’t want me around anymore, did she? So she tried to pretend the whole thing never happened. She avoided fighting and duelling, anything that could raise the wrong kind of questions, and put on the pacifist act instead. After all, the only ones who’d been there had been Sagash and the guys she’d been fighting, and since all except Sagash were dead, well, there wasn’t anyone to argue, was there? Except me. So she shut me away.” Not-Anne gestured around her at the black-glass walls. “In here. Where she can forget about me and all the ugly little secrets that don’t belong in her perfect world. But she can’t get rid of me—I’m part of her and she still needs me. When things get really dangerous she’ll bring me out, long enough to keep her alive. She just won’t admit it.”
I remembered the one time I’d seen Anne use her abilities to kill. I hadn’t understood what I’d seen in her eyes, not then. “Okay,” I said. “You brought me here to tell me all this. Why? What do you want?”
“Why do you think?”
“Because you want to be in charge?”
Not-Anne rolled her eyes again. “Jesus, you’re paranoid. Okay, fine, maybe I’d appreciate it if she’d treat me a little better. But there’s kind of a more pressing issue, don’t you think?”
“You mean getting out of this castle.”
“Ding ding, we have a winner! I might have been born here, but I’m not keen on staying for the rest of my life, which isn’t going to be very long at this rate. I’m part of Anne, remember. She dies, I die. Plus no matter how much of a bitch she can be, I don’t actually hate her that much. I want her out of here, and that means she needs to sort out her issues fast, probably within the next twenty-four hours, because somehow I don’t think the Sagash Psycho Club is going to wait around while she takes her time about it. She needs to stop fighting me or she’s not going to make it out.”
I looked at not-Anne with raised eyebrows. “And you think I’m going to be able to do this in twenty-four hours when literally every other person she’s ever met hasn’t been able to do it in five years.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not my first choice either, but it’s not like we’re exactly swimming in options. Pity you didn’t make a move on her last night, would probably have made her open up a bit. You could have spun her the ‘this might be our last night alive’ line.”