Anne didn’t look up. “Do you think that’ll work?”
I was silent for a second. “No.”
“I can’t fight that many shadows,” Anne said. “I can’t even fight one.”
“I know,” I said. Near the castle wall, Richard and Crystal were talking quietly. With my mage’s sight I could pick out some sort of field around them, probably an eavesdrop ward. Darren was still watching us, and so was Ji-yeong. Two minutes gone.
Anne took a breath. “What would Richard do if we said yes?”
“No,” I said. “Don’t even think about it.”
“I don’t want to! But what else are we going to do?”
“Anything!”
“Even if he’s a Dark mage . . . I’m more afraid of Sagash than I am of Richard.”
“If you knew him, you wouldn’t be,” I said. The old dread was back, gnawing at me. Richard was speaking quietly to Crystal. I was terrified that he’d feel my gaze, that he’d look up and meet my eyes and . . . what? I didn’t know. All I know was that the thought of going back to him was worse than anything I could imagine.
“Then what are we supposed to do?”
“I don’t know.”
Anne hesitated. “What if we . . . left?” Her voice was lower still; she didn’t look towards Richard and Crystal. “Pretended to go with him. Then once we were out of this castle, we could—”
“That would be worse,” I said. I’d thought of that already . . . for about two seconds. “Richard doesn’t lie, not so you can tell. But if you make a deal with him, and break it . . . I did it once. Just once.”
Anne turned to me, and a startled look crept into her eyes. “You’re scared of him.”
“More than anything in the world.”
“Why?” There was frustration in Anne’s voice, now. “I told you what happened to me, when I was caught here. If we stay . . . What could be worse than that?”
“I don’t— Look—” I felt clumsy, weak. Every instinct I had was screaming against going with Richard, but I couldn’t find the words. “You don’t know what it was like. What Richard can do. This is what he does. He finds what you want the most, offers it on a plate. And the price is you. You say yes, he owns you.”
“I know it’ll be bad,” Anne said quietly. “I lived with Sagash and with Jagadev. I’m still here.”
“You’ll be alive. You just won’t be the same.” I looked at Anne. “You’re a good person. I believe that, even if you don’t. But if you go with him . . . you won’t be. Not by the end.”
Anne looked back at me, and this time she didn’t answer. Seconds ticked away. I could feel Darren and Sam’s eyes on us, wolves eyeing their prey. We had maybe a minute left.
“All right,” Anne said. “You choose.”
“You mean—”
“For both of us.” Anne didn’t take her eyes away. “You’re right. I don’t know what Richard’s like, but you do. You gave me some advice, the night before I came here, and I didn’t listen.” Anne took a breath. “So this time I will. You’re better at working out the odds than I am. If we want to get out of this, what should we do?”
“I don’t know any way of getting out of this!” My voice was harsh. “Our odds suck both ways!”
Anne looked at me steadily. “Then tell me which one sucks less.”
I hesitated.
If I’d been alone, I’d have said no in an instant. I figured my chances of breaking away from Crystal and the apprentices were okay. Not great, but okay. Not the sort of gamble I like, but when the alternative was going back to Richard, it wasn’t even a choice. Compared to that, risking death sounded just fine.
But it wasn’t just my death I’d be risking. Taking your life into your own hands is one thing. Taking someone else’s life . . .
I looked down at Anne. She was looking back at me, slim and quiet and trusting, and my imagination showed me a vivid picture of everything Crystal would do if she caught her. When Vitus had tried to use Anne for his ritual, he’d cut her throat. Crystal hadn’t had as much time to practice. She’d be slower, more experimental. It wouldn’t be either merciful or quick.
If I said no, and the worst happened . . . I’d been responsible for those deaths last year and it had been as much as I could bear. If Anne ended up dead as well, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to live with myself afterwards.
What would happen if I told Richard yes?
Then Crystal and the apprentices wouldn’t matter anymore. We’d follow Richard out of here, let him gate us away to . . . what? I didn’t know and I was afraid to find out, but I’d survived time after time by making use of those more powerful than me. Was this really any different?
Yes. I couldn’t manipulate Richard, but he could manipulate me. If I went back I’d be his tool again. I’d spent more than ten years trying to escape Richard’s shadow. The thought of going back was a horror.
But if I said no, I might be sacrificing us both.
The silence stretched out, seeming to sharpen, waiting. The birds outside had fallen silent and the only noise was the rustle of the wind. Richard was finishing up his talk with Crystal, their voices inaudible behind the ward, while a dozen pairs of eyes watched us. I felt as though I were balanced on a razor’s edge. The choice was a horrible one. Go back to the one person in the world I most feared and hated, or risk my life and Anne’s to a fate I couldn’t see any way to avoid.
Richard turned away from Crystal and walked back towards us, stopping at the edge of the pond. Distantly, a corner of my mind noticed that a couple of white feathers were still floating on the water’s surface. It had been no more than an hour since I’d seen the fox. How had things gone so wrong so fast? “Well, then,” Richard said. “Have you made your decision?”
Anne didn’t answer. I hesitated, teetering on the brink. Before me, I could see the two paths opening up. I didn’t know what to do.
Then in that moment of stillness, a memory came back to me, a vision of something which had happened a long time ago. A stone chapel beneath the surface of the earth, two apprentices before an altar, one awake and the other dying. Richard walking a slow circle around them, his voice hypnotic, seductive. The apprentice had listened, been given everything she’d wanted . . . and it had been the worst choice she’d ever made.
I didn’t know which decision was worse. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to make the same mistake that Rachel had.
I met Richard’s eyes. Somehow I managed to keep my voice steady. “The answer’s no.”
Richard looked back at me, head tilted slightly. My muscles were tense, locked. “Well,” Richard said. “I wish you the best of luck.” He gave us both a nod. “Until next time.” He turned and walked away.
Leaving us alone with Crystal and her army.
The temperature seemed to drop as Richard disappeared into one of the archways. Violence loomed in the futures ahead, growing closer and closer, and I took in the stances of the three apprentices. Darren was staring at me as though trying to bore his eyes through my skull. He obviously hadn’t forgotten our last meeting; he’d go for me at the first opportunity. Ji-yeong was standing back, swords still in their sheaths. Up close she would be the most dangerous, but she also seemed the least committed to the fight. Sam was watching Anne, and I knew that unlike Darren, his focus would be on her rather than me. But it was Crystal I was most afraid of, standing on the grass and looking after Richard, apparently ignoring us. She was the most powerful of the four by far, and she was a mind mage. Her defensive magic was weak, and Anne and I would have been able to take her easily if she’d been alone, but as long as she could stay behind the shadows and the apprentices she could just keep hitting us with mental attacks over and over again and we wouldn’t be able to do a thing to fight back.