Sagash had to have some way of controlling the shadows without verbal commands. He didn’t seem to have any trouble commanding multiple shadows at once either, given that he’d done all this while still threatening me. A part of my mind noted that and filed it away, while most of my attention was drawn to the scene below. Two shadows loped in, followed by four more, and between the middle pair, being marched between them with their claws gripping her arms, was Anne.
Anne looked . . . bad. Dried blood was crusted at her wrists and spattered across her shorts and the pink T-shirt, which had picked up some more holes since I’d last seen her. The coat I’d given her was gone, which seemed like an unnecessary indignity on Crystal’s part, though I guess given what else they’d been about to do to her, something as small as that wouldn’t really have been a big concern. But she was alive, and she wasn’t moving as though she were hurt. Her gaze flicked to me as she came in and stayed there for a second before being dragged away to the dark figure of Sagash at the other end of the room.
Crystal was standing on the balcony directly above Anne, but I saw her go still as she finally figured it out. “Anne,” Sagash rasped. “Welcome back.”
Anne was silent.
“This makes no sense—” Crystal began.
“You have difficulty following my reasoning?” Sagash rasped. “Then let me explain. You chose to hide Anne’s presence from me. Verus’s explanation for this lapse of judgement on your part is that you were attempting to consume her and depart. It strikes me that the simplest way for you to prove your good faith in the matter is for you to eliminate her yourself.”
“We need her for our research. If she’s dead we—”
“—can find another,” Sagash finished. “Her continuing presence while we work here would be a . . . temptation, wouldn’t you say? I believe this shadow realm will function more efficiently with only one of you.”
Crystal was still. “Very well,” she said at last, her voice colourless.
“Besides,” Sagash rasped. “I am, after all, a researcher.” His eyes came down to rest on Anne. “Let us see how your skills have developed. Are you aware of why you are here?”
Anne glanced down at the duelling circle on the floor, then up at Sagash. Her voice was quiet in the echoing room. “I know what you want from me.”
“Excellent,” Sagash said. “In which case I see no reason to delay.”
“Mage Sagash,” I said. I kept my voice polite, even though politeness was the last thing I was feeling. “Would it be possible for me to speak with her before the duel?”
“For what reason?”
“Because depending on the possible outcomes, it may be pretty damn difficult for me to speak with her after.”
Sagash gave me a considering look. “You have five minutes.”
I headed for the stairs down.
Chapter 12
By the time I’d reached floor level, the shadows had brought Anne to the far side of the duelling ring. They released her but held their position around her, white eyes staring. I didn’t look around, but as I walked towards her I scanned the area. There were three doors, though only the one through which Anne had been brought was still open, and eight shadows with more above. I briefly calculated the odds of us successfully making a break for it under the noses of Sagash, Crystal, Darren, and Sam, and decided they were close enough to zero to make no difference.
Anne looked worse up close. The blood crusting her wrists was covering two ugly-looking wounds between hand and forearm which looked like they’d pierced through and through. Her skin was paler than it should be, and she’d picked up some new bruises on her face and legs. But her eyes were steady, and she was looking at me with some expression I couldn’t place.
“Are you okay?” I said quietly once I was within earshot.
“Why did you come back?” Anne said.
“Nice to see you too. You got the gist?”
“I’ve done this before.”
“Good. Okay, not good, but—”
“I’m supposed to kill Crystal,” Anne said, her voice flat.
“That’d be the better out of the two alternatives, yeah. You up to it?”
Anne looked at me without speaking for a second. “Why did you come back?”
“Where else was I going to go? You’re welcome, by the way.”
“You’re welcome?”
“Okay, maybe I’m missing something here, but I was under the impression Crystal was—”
“About to kill me.”
“Okay . . . then how exactly is this any worse? Work with me here. We don’t have much time!”
“Time . . .” Anne passed a hand over her face. “You don’t understand what you’ve done.”
“Then tell me!”
Anne closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again. “I told you back at the windmill,” she said. “This was what I was afraid of. Not Crystal. This.”
“You’ve got a chance here,” I said. “Okay, it’s not a great chance, but it’s something. If you can beat Crystal, then Sagash might let you go.”
Anne gave a sort of half laugh, despairing. “He’s never going to let me go.”
“How are you so sure?”
“Because he’s Sagash.” Anne shook her head. “You don’t understand. With Crystal it would have been quick. Now . . . You haven’t made it better. Just slower.”
I stared at Anne, reevaluating. I didn’t like the idea, but I had to admit it was possible. “Okay,” I said. “So, new plan. Don’t kill Crystal. Just take her down, hurt her a little but leave her able to get up again and—”
“Alex,” Anne said, and all of a sudden she looked very tired. “Just stop.”
“And do what? Give up?”
Anne looked past me towards the floor, and when she raised her eyes again there was something distant and alien in them. “Do you know how many people I killed in this circle?”
“No, and right now I don’t care.”
“I do.”
“We do not exactly have very much choice here!”
“There’s always a choice,” Anne said quietly.
“To do what? Stand there and get killed?” Anne didn’t answer and my heart sank. “No! Anne, I’m out of tricks here. I haven’t got anything more up my sleeve. I’m counting on you.”
“To do what?” Anne’s voice was weary. “Be her again?”
“If that’s what it takes to stay alive? Yes.”
“I’m tired of making that choice.”
“The other is worse!”
“Is it?” Anne asked. “Isn’t that how you become a Dark mage in the first place? They don’t come from nowhere. Darren and Sam didn’t. All you have to do is choose yourself over everyone else. You tell yourself it’s just one thing . . . and then after that there’s another and another. Until you’re not sure how much of you is . . .” Anne shook her head. “I’m tired. Of all the death, and justifying it to myself. Getting more like them. If I die here . . . it stops.” She was silent for a moment. “Maybe I deserve this.”
I stared at Anne, frustration mixing with fury. I’d never felt more distant from her than I did now. Guilt I could understand. But just giving up, letting someone destroy you . . . I wasn’t getting through and we were running out of time. I looked around to see that Sagash was out of sight, up on the balcony above, his shadows still watching. Crystal had descended and was standing at the other end of the duelling ring; Darren and Sam watched cautiously from a distance.
This isn’t working. Anne wasn’t listening to me. I needed to get through to that other Anne, the one I’d seen in Elsewhere. Hadn’t she said that she came out in times like this? Why wasn’t Anne acting like that now?
Because that side is weaker. She’d admitted it, or as good as. Anne could keep her bottled up. And if she decided not to fight, then that other side would die with her. Maybe I could persuade her—
No. I was doing this the wrong way. That other Anne wasn’t a creature of reason; she was instinct and emotion. I needed something more primal. “Is that how you think this is going to be?” I said. “You die here as some sort of martyr?”