‘Ah, ah.’ I stepped backwards, forcing Meredith at knifepoint. ‘I wouldn’t.’
‘You’ve got nowhere to go,’ Rachel told me.
‘I’ll survive the drop off this balcony,’ I told Rachel. ‘She won’t.’
‘I should just kill you.’
‘If you could kill me without hitting Meredith, you’d have done it already.’
‘Who says I need her alive?’
I felt Meredith stiffen and smiled slightly. ‘Richard does, which is the reason he sent you here in the first place. I doubt he’ll be too pleased if you come back with the news that everyone’s dead. That’s the thing about your disintegration magic, isn’t it? Not so great if you don’t want to kill everyone in the room.’
Rachel stared at me but didn’t speak. The two guys behind her exchanged glances. They looked like hired muscle: dark glasses and cheap suits. ‘Maybe he—’ one of them began, stepping forward and reaching into his jacket.
Rachel spoke without turning. ‘Shut up and stay out of my way.’ The man glared angrily at Rachel’s back, which suggested that he was even dumber than he looked, but did as he was told.
From behind, I could still hear Richard speaking, but the crowd was getting restless. ‘… association was formed for your protection,’ he was saying. ‘However, as things stand, it is not strong enough.’
‘Why do you care?’ someone called out from the club floor.
‘You do,’ Richard answered.
‘Why should we listen to you?’ someone else called. ‘You’re one of them.’
‘Looks like the honeymoon’s over,’ I told Rachel. ‘What do you think? You reckon if Meredith got back on that gear, she could regain control of the crowd?’
Rachel’s eyes narrowed. Again the futures flickered, possibilities of her firing on me blinking in and out. ‘Let her go right now, and I won’t kill you.’
‘Nice offer. Did you say that to all the guys you caught at Richard’s mansion too?’
‘You are correct,’ Richard said to the crowd below. ‘I am a mage. I am not, however, part of the Council. I have no investment in controlling or subjugating you, and I have no interest in forcing you to obey mage laws or in keeping you away from the levers of power. What I can offer you is the chance to be masters of your own fate.’
‘So while we’ve got the chance to chat,’ I said to Rachel, ‘there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.’
‘Of course there is.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Though it’s a little different this time.’ Ever since my trip to the tunnels, I’d been turning over in the back of my mind how I ought to play this. The last few times that I’d met Rachel I’d tried to plant seeds of doubt, chip away at her relationship with Richard. But the more I’d pushed, the more resistance I’d encountered, and my last attempt in the Vault had been a total failure. Maybe it was time for a different approach. ‘I’d like to know why you hate me so much.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Of course I have an agenda,’ Richard said behind me in response to some question from the crowd. ‘I have never pretended otherwise. I am not helping you out of altruism. What I offer is an alliance.’
‘We’ve run into each other a lot of times now,’ I told Rachel. ‘Sometimes we’re allies, sometimes we’re enemies, but one thing that’s never changed is how much you hate me. What I want to know is why. I mean, you won. You always wanted to be powerful and feared; well, you got it. You’re Richard’s Chosen, and everyone gets out of the way when they see you coming. Yeah, there are bigger dogs out there, but I’m not one of them. So what’s your problem with me that makes you want to kill me so badly?’
‘You know what you did,’ Rachel said.
‘You mean when I peeked into your head?’ I said. ‘That was four years ago. Get over it.’
Rachel stared at me. The possibilities of her trying to kill me hadn’t stopped; she was still trying to line up a shot. I could feel Meredith’s breathing as I held her close; she was keeping very still, maybe hoping that everyone would forget about her. To my right, Luna was still pouring her curse into Meredith’s equipment. I could feel the volume of the spell building; the focus was probably already beyond repair.
Then the possibilities of violence winked out. ‘All right, Alex, I’ll play,’ Rachel said. ‘You want to know why I hate you? It’s because you’re such a fucking hypocrite.’
I raised my eyebrows. ‘And this is because … ?’
‘You act like you’re better than all the rest of us,’ Rachel said. Her voice became high and mocking. ‘Oh, look at me, I’m Alex Verus! All those other mages are so mean and nasty, but I’m different, I’d never do anything like that!’ She looked at me in disgust. ‘You’re in it for yourself, just like everyone else. That’s why you left Richard.’
‘I left Richard because of what he did.’
‘Bullshit,’ Rachel said. ‘If you’d cared so much, you never would have signed up. You knew what Richard was, we all did. You knew exactly what being his apprentice was going to mean.’
‘Yeah, well, maybe I was slow on the uptake,’ I said. ‘Or maybe I just decided I didn’t like what I was turning into.’
‘Right, because you changed,’ Rachel said. ‘You used to be one of those evil Dark mages, but now you’ve seen the light and turned over a new leaf. That’s the story you tell everyone, isn’t it?’
‘And what if it is?’ I said, nettled. I’d meant to just keep Rachel talking, but she was getting to me. ‘Just because you can’t change, doesn’t mean no one else can.’
‘You never changed,’ Rachel said. ‘You left Richard because you couldn’t handle taking orders.’
‘I left because of what happened to those two kids.’
‘Oh please. You’ve killed more people than most Dark mages do in their whole lives. What, you think it’s different when you do it? You do the same things they do, you’re just more self-righteous about it. You really wanted to be so good and pure, you would have got out a long time ago. You didn’t because you wanted the same things. You wanted to be powerful and feared. And that’s why you’re on the fucking Council right now.’
‘I got this job because your boss forced me into being Morden’s aide at gunpoint,’ I snapped. ‘You have a problem with that, take it up with him.’
‘Yeah?’ Rachel said. ‘So if you hated it so much, why haven’t you quit?’
‘I …’ I trailed off.
‘Go on, Alex, tell me.’ Rachel took a step forward, glaring at me. ‘Why haven’t you? Not like it’s hard! Then you could go back to that stupid shop you won’t shut up about. Except you won’t, because that’s not enough for you, is it? You want to be the boss, you just don’t have the balls to admit it.’
‘And you don’t?’ I said angrily. ‘You gave up everything to be where you are now. You killed everyone who got in your way. The only reason you didn’t kill me as well was that I didn’t give you the chance!’
‘I paid my dues,’ Rachel said coldly. ‘Richard taught us that. Take what you want, and pay for it. But you never listened, did you? You thought you could get it all for free. Richard held up his end of the deal. You were the one who betrayed him. And you’ve been doing the same thing ever since. You trick people into listening to you, they give you an inch, then you fuck them over and leave them holding the bag. You think I haven’t seen what you’ve been doing, trying to use me to get to Richard? How stupid do you think I am?’
Okay, time to give up on that plan. ‘You’d still be better off without him.’
‘You don’t care whether I’d be better off without him,’ Rachel said. ‘You want us apart because it makes us weak, and you want Richard weak because you’re scared of him, because he’s the one person you’ve never been able to con or trick. You want Richard’s power, but you’re too scared to earn it.’ Rachel stared at me. ‘And you wonder why I hate you.’