Taken

Anne nodded and stepped up next to me. She seemed to be watching me closely for some reason but I couldn’t see why, so I shrugged it off and spoke the activation words. Again the air shimmered and formed into a translucent oval, and again it shifted colour to a leaf green as Anne’s fingers closed over mine and she channelled her power into my spell. Anne’s magic worked much more easily with gate stones than mine did, but that wasn’t surprising—even if it can affect only living things, life magic can still change the physical world.

We came down into the little back room of my shop and the air went from winter in Wales to room temperature in London. “Will you be okay making it home on your own?” I asked as I led Anne to the back door.

Anne nodded. “There’s somewhere safe I can go.”

“Good.” I looked at Anne. “Can you do me a favour? Could you stay hidden until tonight?”

“I . . . suppose,” Anne said hesitantly. “Why?”

“If I’m right, someone was trying to get rid of both of us,” I said. “If I show up at the party without you, they may think you’re dead after all. Maybe I can get them to tip their hand.”

Anne thought about it, then nodded. “All right.”

We both stood in the doorway, and I realised with a feeling of surprise that I liked this strange girl. “Be careful,” I said.

“I will.” Anne smiled. “See you tonight.”

I watched Anne go, then went inside.

*  *  *

I had a few hours before I needed to get ready for the party, and I’d already decided what to do with them. I was going to Fountain Reach.

Given that I’d been sure only the previous day that the message pointing me to Fountain Reach had been a trap, you’re probably wondering why I’d changed my mind. It’s a fair question, and to be honest I wasn’t quite sure myself. I just had the vague feeling that I needed to do something, keep searching and looking around. With hindsight, I think the attack on Anne and me had made me suspect someone was moving against us, and I wanted to try to turn something up before they made their next move.

I made my preparations, choosing my equipment more carefully than I had for my hurried departure last night. I kept the gate stone for my shop; it would be useless for getting there but would speed up the journey back. A second gate stone keyed to Fountain Reach would have allowed me to travel back and forth at will, but I didn’t have one. I took another pair of condensers as well as a handful of extra items picked with an eye towards trickery and concealment. Finally I took my mist cloak from my wardrobe. When it comes to stealth my mist cloak is far and away the best item I own, and I’d already decided that stealth was exactly what was needed.

As well as my mist cloak, there’s something else I always used to bring with me on these sort of trips: a thin glass rod, designed to call an air elemental named Starbreeze. Starbreeze is scatterbrained and ridiculously unreliable, and she forgets anything you tell her almost before you’ve said it, but she can turn a person to air and carry them faster than a bullet. If I’d been able to call her, she could have whisked me across the length of England and dropped me next to Fountain Reach in the time it takes most people to check their e-mail.

Unfortunately I don’t have the caller anymore. I blew it up in the autumn getting away from a bunch of enemies, and I haven’t managed to contact Starbreeze since. I worry sometimes that I never will: Starbreeze might wonder eventually why I’m not talking to her and come looking for me to find out, but Starbreeze is immortal. It might take her ten or twenty years to even notice.

So in the absence of gates or elementals, I took the train.

*  *  *

The directions I’d found placed Crystal’s family home in the Cotswolds, between Oxford and Gloucester. I got off at the nearest station and took a taxi most of the way before walking the final stretch on foot. I crested a rise and found myself looking across a small valley at Fountain Reach.

My first thought was that it was the weirdest-looking house I’d ever seen. Mages like unusual homes and I’ve seen some strange ones in my time, but this was the strangest. It looked as if it had been grown rather than built, extra wings and storeys added on one at a time, each in a different architectural style. The windows were irregular and didn’t match, changing in height and design, and there were too many chimneys and too many gables. The mansion was blockier and more cubical than it should have been, rather than the extended oblong common to most country houses. The inner rooms must have had no natural light at all.