I gave not-Anne an irritated look. “That would have been manipulative, sleazy, and extremely stupid given that we’re in a castle of people trying to kill us.”
“Oh, don’t be such a prude. She knows you think she looks hot after last year.”
“She’s eight years younger than me.”
“So? Emotionally she’s probably more mature than you are. Though that’s not saying much.”
I sighed. “You’re a lot less nice than the real Anne, you know that?”
“Yeah, well, next time you’re talking to her remember she thinks all this stuff, she just doesn’t say it. Point is, ever since escaping to London she’s been trying to play the good girl and it isn’t working. That’s why the Light mages don’t like her—they can see she’s hiding something. So we’ve got this stupid situation where she’s too dangerous for the Light mages and not dangerous enough for the Dark ones. She needs to stop pretending.”
“Look, I’m not a psychoanalyst. Shouldn’t you get an actual professional?”
“Right, after you wake up you can go shopping around the castle and find one, maybe have her sit down on a couch for a chat. Oh wait.” Not-Anne glared at me. “We do not have time. You want to drag Anne to a shrink, do it later. Right now you need to do whatever it takes to make her fight her way out of here.”
“Anne does know how to fight. I’ve seen—”
“No, you haven’t. Against Vitus, maybe, and that was only because I was driving. The rest of the time she holds back. If she’d been serious, she’d have killed both those apprentices in her bedroom and we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“And then she would have been breaking the Concord.”
“Fuck the Concord. Every Dark mage in the country breaks it, why shouldn’t she?” I started to answer and not-Anne waved her hand. “Fine, whatever. I don’t care about long-term solutions, all right? Get Anne out of here and you can do whatever the hell you want.”
“That bit we’re agreed on.” I studied not-Anne. “Does Variam know about you?”
“He’s got his suspicions.” Not-Anne glanced out the window. “Let’s wrap this up.”
“One more thing,” I said. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m getting the impression your priorities are a bit different from Anne’s. Are you sure you want to get away from this castle as badly as she does?”
“Oh, please. Sagash has got the right idea about some things, I’ll give you that, but we’re just furniture to him. Anne and I might not always agree, but one thing we know is that we’re not going to be a slave again. You think I want to be his tool until he uses me up? I want to be the one that everyone else is afraid of, who makes the decisions about who lives or dies and makes everyone shut up when she walks in the room. I don’t want to be Chosen, I want to be queen.”
I looked back at not-Anne for a long moment, feeling a chill. I’d heard that speech before, or something very like it. “It might be better for you and for Anne,” I said quietly, “if you don’t get what you want.”
Not-Anne shrugged. “Not like I’ll ever get the chance.” She pushed herself off the window’s edge. “Time’s up.”
“Why? What’s going to happen?”
“You ask too many questions, you know that?” Not-Anne walked away, deeper into the shadows of the tower. Only her voice echoed around me as she faded from sight. “Just keep her alive. There’s more hanging on it than you know.”
I started to answer, but she was gone. The room I was in was empty, and as I looked around I saw that the room was darker, the light fading. I started back towards the place I’d entered from; the lights above me began to dim and go out one by one, and I broke into a jog. I was alone in the tower, the glass corridors silent but for the sound of my feet. The door I’d entered by was at the end of the corridor, clearly visible in the shadows. I pulled it open, and as I did the last lights went out and I was left in darkness. I stepped through and back into my dreams, the doorway disappearing behind me as everything began to fragment and become fuzzy. Sleep came.
I woke up slowly. I didn’t feel rested, but my neck and back were stiff and aching and I was too uncomfortable to go back to sleep. As I realised where I was, I remembered that I shouldn’t be going back to sleep. In a moment I was fully awake and scanning for danger.
I was propped up against the wall, alone. Anne was gone; with her magic-enhanced physiology she’d recovered from the exertions of three days in the time it had taken me to recover from one. Looking into the futures in which I went down the stairs, I saw that she was in the room below. There were no signs of battle or danger.
Now that I was awake, I was uncomfortably aware of just how big a risk I’d taken falling asleep like that. Still, it had paid off, and both of us were rested—we’d need it for the day ahead. I pulled myself to my feet, wincing at the pain in my muscles. Sleeping in armour is really not comfortable.
The window on the north side of the room looked down onto the grass and the pool of water. From the grey-blue sky I knew that the sun had risen, but the bulk of the castle was blocking its rays and no direct sunlight was touching the grassy enclave. White birds—doves, maybe—were gathered at the rushes by the edge of the pool, dipping their heads to sip fresh water. It was a peaceful scene and I stood in the shadow of the window’s edge, watching idly while I scouted through the futures ahead.
A stir of movement from the north side of the courtyard caught my eye; there was something in the shadow of a crumbling archway. Just enough reflected light came through for me to make out a small long-bodied animal, about the size and shape of a cat but with a pointed face and a thick bushy tail. Red fox. This shadow realm really must be old if it had its own predators.
The fox crept closer, revealing a red coat with splashes of white and black on its underside. A low pile of rubble hid it from the birds by the pool. It came to the edge of the rubble and froze, head down, eyes locked onto the birds in a stalking posture. I watched with interest, taking care not to move and draw attention; I’ve always liked animals, especially predators. The fox was quite still, focused on the birds, and it looked hungry. The doves didn’t seem to have noticed it yet, but there wasn’t any more cover. As soon as it took another couple of steps it’d be seen.
The fox held still and I kept a casual eye on it, my attention still taken up with scouting us a way out. It didn’t look as though anyone was searching for us just yet, but I was still worried about the possibility of some kind of magical detection. The shroud over the place looked as though it would block most standard tracer spells, but my divination still worked, which meant other techniques might too. The shroud also wouldn’t rule out more mundane methods of searching, such as just sending out scouts. I already knew those shadows could fly—if I were Sagash’s apprentices, I’d be using them for aerial recon. They probably didn’t have enough of them to cover the entire castle, but . . .
The fox crouched to spring, and I looked at it curiously. It was still the best part of forty feet from the birds—
The fox leapt, vanished. There was a scuffle and explosion of wings and the doves were airborne, flapping frantically up and away. I’d been about to turn; now I looked down in surprise. What just happened?
The fox was by the pool, its weight on one of the doves and its jaws locked tight. The bird was flapping feebly, trying to get away; the fox sank its teeth into the neck and twisted. There was a crack and the dove went still. The fox hoisted the bird up, looking quickly around, then trotted back towards where it had come, head tilted high so that the dove’s wings trailed on the grass. It covered the distance back to the archway and disappeared into the darkness. The surviving doves were still in the air, circling; the whole thing had taken less than twenty seconds. Nothing was left except a scattering of feathers by the pool.