‘I think,’ I said after a pause, ‘that if you and Dad had focused a bit less on why your ways of doing things were right, and focused a bit more on compromising with each other, then my life would have turned out a hell of a lot better.’
My mother sighed and seemed to deflate. Suddenly she looked much older and much more tired. ‘I was young and full of fire. And stupid. I thought I could handle everything.’ She studied the smouldering tip of her cigarette. ‘You think I haven’t had that same thought, many times? There is much time for regret, at my age.’ She looked up, met my eyes. ‘Do you still hate me for it?’
I took a moment to answer. ‘No,’ I said at last. ‘I carried a lot of resentment for a long time, but . . . no. My life’s my own, and so are my choices. Anyway, I’ve seen what happens when people hold onto grudges. It doesn’t end well.’
My mother didn’t answer, but I thought I felt her relax just a little.
‘Richard came to visit you after I left home,’ I said. ‘It would have been seventeen years ago.’
My mother looked curiously at me. ‘So?’
‘What did you think of him?’
‘What did I think?’ My mother laughed. ‘Now you listen to your mother? I’m going to die of shock.’
‘Better late than never. So do you remember?’
‘Of course I remember,’ my mother said. ‘He was a tolkach.’
I gave her a puzzled look. Tolkach doesn’t have a good translation in English – ‘pusher’, maybe, or ‘fixer’. They’d been the manipulators of the old Soviet system, wheedling and lying and bartering to make the numbers add up to what the government said they should. My mother had told me stories about them, when I was young and she’d been in a good mood. ‘I don’t think he lived in Russia.’
My mother waved a hand impatiently. ‘Every country has tolkachi. Some admit it; some pretend. He was one of the ones who would pretend. Oh, he was charming and cultured and when we spoke he was very attentive. He wanted to be seen as noble, like an old Romanov. But I grew up around tolkachi and I know them when I see them. The look in their eyes, always thinking what they can sell.’
I almost smiled at the image. The idea of Richard as a two-bit criminal was funny. It would be nice if he was only that.
Maybe he is?
I frowned.
‘I told myself it would be good for you,’ my mother said. She was looking past me, lost in her memories. ‘You were so rigid. I hoped it would teach you something.’ She was silent for a moment. ‘Some part of me knew I was being foolish, that he was a dangerous man. But what could I do? You would not listen.’
‘I suppose not,’ I said absently, then glanced out the window. The sun was dipping low over the St Petersburg skyline, and I rose to my feet. ‘I’d better go.’
My mother tapped out her cigarette and rose with me. ‘I hope you don’t leave so long between visits next time.’
‘No promises.’
My mother had closed the distance between us. Now her hand shot out to grab my arm, her grip surprisingly strong. I gave her a quizzical look.
‘I’m not a fool, Alex.’ Her voice was quiet. ‘You didn’t come here just to talk about your old teacher.’
‘No,’ I admitted. ‘But you did help. Thank you.’
‘I won’t ask what you’re going to do.’ My mother’s eyes were dark and intense. ‘But whatever it is, you come back. Understand?’
I looked back at her for a moment before nodding. ‘I’ll do my best.’
‘Good.’ My mother released my arm. ‘And stop calling yourself by that ridiculous name. My mother and father kept our family name alive through the famines and the purges and the siege, and you just throw it away?’
I sighed.
By the time I stepped out into the streets of St Petersburg, the sun was hanging low over the buildings. Long shadows stretched out across the road, and a cold wind was blowing out of the east.
I turned down the pavement and began walking, absently tracking the cars and pedestrians, lost in my thoughts. I’d come to see Richard as a mastermind, someone who was always two steps ahead. And I wasn’t the only one – the Council had developed an almost superstitious fear of him. Mages like Alma liked to pretend the Council was invincible, but he’d outmanoeuvred them too many times for them to believe it.
But my mother didn’t know about the war, and had only a vague knowledge of the magical world. She’d judged him as a man. Maybe she’d seen something I hadn’t.
Tolkachi were manipulators and liars. Richard’s reputation had built him up to be some kind of dark lord. But what if he wasn’t? What if he was just an ordinary man who’d used tricks and leverage to parley up his magical talents to the point where he could punch far above his weight? Like me?
If that were true, then I shouldn’t be thinking about how to beat Richard, as though he was the final boss at the end of a dungeon. I should be looking for the trick. Yes, he’d tended not to lie – at least, not directly – but he’d always used misdirection, hadn’t he? In all his big operations, he’d made the Council look the wrong way before catching them off guard.
Put it all together. He’d said he needed the Council’s help to defeat the jinn – probably true. He’d implied the jinn’s ritual would act on Anne – definitely false. He hadn’t mentioned the isolation ward, but he’d certainly know about it. And he wasn’t bringing as many forces as he could.
A crazy idea surfaced in my mind. That couldn’t be his plan, could it? But no – as I thought it through, it wasn’t crazy. Audacious, yes, and you’d have to be very careful about calculating the risks. But wasn’t that exactly Richard’s style?
The more I thought about it, the more plausible it seemed.
But if I was right, then how to counter it? Richard was a diviner. If I set up anything in advance, he’d see it coming, and I couldn’t project false futures well enough to fool him. There was the jamming technique I’d learned from Helikaon, but that didn’t have enough range.
Well, that just left the more traditional ways of fooling divination. Cloud the futures with randomness and individual choice, and don’t give the diviner enough time to react.
I turned around on the pavement and started walking towards my gating spot. Three hours to go.
6
The War Rooms were full of noise and motion. Even out here in the entry hall, you could feel the change in the atmosphere: clerks and messengers hurried in and out through the security gates, too preoccupied to talk. They were so busy, they hadn’t even noticed me come down from the surface.
I walked up to the security gates, paused to let a Council bureaucrat run by and stopped in front of the officer on duty. He was busy writing on a clipboard. ‘Hi, Fred,’ I told him.
‘Just use the gates, we’re not signing anyone in today—’ Something in my voice made the security officer look up mid-sentence. His eyes went wide.
‘Been a while,’ I said. ‘How are the wife and kids?’
Fred hesitated, his eyes darting around at the rushing crowd. ‘Um—’
‘Relax,’ I told him. ‘I’m not here to pick a fight, and if I was, it wouldn’t be with you. Anyway, I guess they haven’t told you about the truce. I’m not kill-on-sight any more.’
‘Ah . . .’ Fred said. ‘Mage Verus, I’m really supposed to call this in . . .’
‘Go ahead,’ I said. ‘But your supervisor’s not going to answer and the front desk is busy. Ask them to put you through to Mage Talisid. He’ll vouch for me.’