‘Oh yeah?’ Variam spread his arms. ‘Then how about you fill us all in.’
‘Remember last year at the Vault?’ Luna said. She was wearing a white blouse that left her arms and shoulders bare, with a long pleated turquoise skirt. The fit and design made me pretty sure it was Arachne’s work; she would have drawn plenty of attention at that party. ‘When Alex caught up with Anne, she was out cold, but whatever had happened, it had driven those Crusaders off. And she didn’t remember anything about that either.’ Luna turned to look at Anne. ‘It’s exactly the same.’
‘I didn’t fall unconscious,’ Anne said.
‘Not this time,’ I said. ‘But Luna’s right. It has to be the jinn.’
‘It might not be …’
‘Anne,’ I said. ‘Wake up. There is no way this is anything else.’
‘But how?’ Anne said. She was looking defensive now, hunted. ‘Back then, it was because I picked up that ring. And I know it was a bad idea, but … I haven’t touched it again. I haven’t even seen it.’
The four of us looked at each other. ‘Okay, hear me out here,’ Luna said. ‘Is this necessarily such a bad thing?’
‘Are you kidding me?’ Variam asked.
‘I just think it’s worth pointing out that so far, the only times this jinn has done its possession thing has been when Anne’s been cornered by a bunch of Crusader arseholes trying to torture and kill her.’ Luna shrugged. ‘Don’t know about you, but I’m fairly okay with this.’
Anne shot Luna a grateful look. Variam didn’t. ‘You’re okay with her having a freaking eldritch abomination hanging out in her head?’
‘As long as it’s only eating people like that? Yeah, I don’t really see the problem.’
‘It’s not inside her head,’ I said. ‘I asked Dr Shirland about that specifically.’
‘Then where the hell is it coming from?’ Variam asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘I haven’t touched the ring that jinn was bound in,’ Anne said. ‘I know, I picked it up the first time, and I know, it was a mistake. But I haven’t done it again. I haven’t even gone close.’
‘I know.’
‘Then how is this happening?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I still don’t think you should be beating yourself up over it,’ Luna said. ‘So far, every time this thing’s come out, it’s been pretty helpful.’
‘If it can possess Anne whenever it wants to,’ I said, ‘then I can promise you, it won’t take long for it to stop being helpful.’
‘So what, you’d rather have her be defenceless the next time these guys show up?’
‘That’s how these things work,’ I said. ‘Of course they’re helpful. At first. Then as you start depending on them, the price goes up. Did you forget how Anne got trapped in the Vault with those Crusaders? Richard and Vihaela very specifically engineered that situation to force her into doing it.’
‘Why does that make a difference?’ Luna asked. ‘It’s not like the Crusaders were going to leave her alone if she didn’t.’
‘Think,’ I said. ‘What does Richard gain from protecting Anne? You think he’s doing this out of the kindness of his heart? Or because he’s suddenly so interested in her welfare? There is always a price for this kind of help. And the fact that we don’t know what that price is – that’s what scares me.’
‘So what are we going to do?’ Variam asked.
I didn’t have an answer to that. Neither did Anne or Luna. We stood in silence around the clearing.
We stayed together for another hour, but Variam’s last question hung over the conversation like a cloud. At last Variam was called away on his Keeper duties. Luna stayed; Anne didn’t.
‘I’d better go,’ Anne said, rising to her feet. ‘I haven’t checked on Karyos.’
‘I could come with you,’ Luna suggested.
‘I’d … rather be alone,’ Anne said. ‘Sorry.’ She walked away.
Luna frowned after her. ‘That’s not good.’
‘She’s feeling as though we don’t trust her,’ I said.
Luna raised her eyebrows at me. ‘Yeah, I wonder why.’
‘Not now.’
‘I’m just saying, you and Vari could have been a little nicer.’
‘Not now.’
‘Fine,’ Luna said. ‘So what’s the plan?’
‘Why do you all keep asking me that?’
‘Because you’re the first person we think of when this sort of crap happens, and you’re usually pretty good at it,’ Luna said. ‘Sorry.’
Which was a tacit way for Luna to admit that she couldn’t think of any solution, and she wasn’t expecting Variam to come up with one either. Great. ‘You made it sound like you were okay with Anne having a superpowered evil side.’
‘Well, I kind of am in the short term,’ Luna said. ‘But I learned my lesson from the monkey’s paw. You don’t get something for nothing.’ She paused. ‘You think there’s any way to use that? One jinn to counter another?’
‘Runs into exactly the same problem,’ I said. ‘The thing’s not on our side. No, I think that right now, we don’t know enough. The first step is to find out what we’re dealing with.’
‘Arachne?’ Luna asked.
I shook my head. ‘If she knew anything, she’d have told us already. I’m thinking of something a bit more direct.’
‘Need any help?’
‘Thanks, but no. This is going to be a one-man trip.’
* * *
I stayed in the Hollow after Luna had left, waiting for evening. The sun set beneath the miniature world’s tiny horizon, the sky fading through shades of purple and gold as the stars came out, first in ones and twos and then in clusters, shining down in a million pinpoints. I’ve never been able to work out exactly what the sky is that you can see from the Hollow. They aren’t real stars – they can’t be – but at the same time they seem too real to be just an illusion. Sometimes I wonder if they’re a reflection of another world, just as the Hollow is a reflection of ours.
I waited for an hour after night had fallen. Anne didn’t come back. She knows the Hollow better than any of the rest of us, and with her magic she’s quite capable of sleeping in a tree or curled up in a bush. I could probably have found her if I’d gone looking, but I didn’t. I don’t like using my divination to spy on friends, though I was pretty sure that what I was about to do would be just as likely to upset her, and for exactly the same reasons. But I needed to know more.
Once I knew it was the right time, I stripped to my underwear and lay down on my futon. The night was warm enough that I only pulled the duvet up to my waist. The dreamstone glinted off to my right, and I took a last glance at it before closing my eyes. I didn’t feel the need to touch it any more – I’d been practising enough that it was easy. Sleep came.
I stepped through the door and the world solidified into verdant woodland. Birds sang in the treetops, and shafts of sunlight slanted down between the leaves to fall upon the undergrowth of the forest floor. The temperature was pleasantly warm, that of a summer afternoon, and the air smelled of grass and seeds. This was Elsewhere … or Anne’s part of it.
Arachne had been teaching me about differing levels of dreams. True dreams are constructs of the unconscious mind, and while with training one can learn to become partly conscious of them, there isn’t much you can do with them. A dreamshard – such as the one in which I’d visited Arachne – is created more deliberately. It’s shaped by the whim of its creator, and it makes for a comfortable place in which to meet, or be alone.