Taken

The little room at the end of the hall had been fitted out as an office of sorts, with an old computer on a cramped desk. Faded photographs of sports teams were mounted on the walls, and a window looked out onto the London rooftops. Talisid was behind the desk while Luna sat quietly on a table in the opposite corner. She’d agreed to Talisid’s demand for secrecy and now was listening with her ears pricked up.

“Since when?” I said.

“You know there’s always been a certain washout rate in the apprentice program,” Talisid said. “Some give up. Some fail their tests. Some—not many, but more than we’d like—defect to the Dark. And some have something happen to them. That last one’s rare, thankfully. But a few weeks ago some mages noticed that there seemed to be more going missing than there should be. Well, we put someone on it, and we found a very disturbing pattern. Within the last three months we’ve had three apprentices vanish from the program. No sign that they quit or walked out or had an accident. They just disappeared.”

“Just apprentices? No adult mages?”

“We think so, but it’s hard to be sure. Journeymen and masters aren’t accountable for their movements in the way apprentices are.”

“Any pattern to the disappearances?”

“None that we can find.”

“Any suspects?”

“Well.” Talisid looked at me. “There’s the obvious, isn’t there?”

I was silent. Luna looked from Talisid to me. “Um . . . ?” she said after a moment.

“Dark mages,” I said. “They’ve been on a recruitment drive.” I looked at Talisid. “You think they’re headhunting.”

“Or Harvesting,” Talisid said.

There was a silence. “Even the Council wouldn’t stand for that,” I said at last.

“No,” Talisid said.

“It’d start another war.”

“Yes. But there’s no proof.”

We stood quietly for a moment before I shook my head. “Why the secrecy?”

Both Luna and Talisid looked at me. “It’s not enough,” I said. “Okay, this’ll cause trouble. But any mage who put in the work could learn it. In fact, it sounds like lots of them know about it already. And if they do, they can figure out the same things I just did. Why is it so important to keep this quiet?”

Talisid looked back at me for a moment. “If you wanted to find a missing apprentice,” he said at last, “how would you do it?”

“If I had the resources of the Council?” I thought about it and shrugged. “Locator spells and detective work. Then I’d get a time mage and ask him to scry back to the missing person’s last known location.”

Talisid nodded. “We’ve done all those things.”

“It didn’t work?”

“It didn’t work.”

“Shrouds?”

“Yes. And something else. In every case, the missing apprentice disappeared somewhere where they couldn’t be traced. No witnesses, no physical evidence. And once they vanished, they didn’t come back.” Talisid’s eyes were grim. “Every disappearance was neat. Too neat. If these were simple kidnappings, we should have picked up some trace by now. Another apprentice, a witness, something overheard . . . by simple law of averages there should have been something. But we haven’t found a thing. It’s as if every missing apprentice has simply vanished into thin air.” Talisid shook his head slowly. “I don’t believe it’s luck. I think they’re receiving information from an inside source. Someone with close access to the Light apprentice program is providing information on where apprentices can be found and how they can be caught alone.”

The office was quiet. Outside, a flash of white showed against the rooftops; a tortoiseshell cat. It stalked out from behind a chimney stack, stretched lazily, braced itself on the edge of the roof, and jumped down out of sight to a balcony below.

“You don’t know whom to trust,” I said at last.

Talisid nodded.

“But you trust me?”

“You aren’t directly associated with the Council,” Talisid said. “Besides, I think it . . . unlikely that you’d be responsible for something like this.” He looked steadily at me. “There is another issue. If we accuse someone without evidence, it will not only cause enormous discord but also put those responsible on their guard. We have to be sure and we have to have proof.”

I thought for a second, then shook my head. “So no leads, I can’t ask for help from other Light mages, and even if I do find out who’s responsible it’s useless unless I can prove it. You don’t ask for much, do you?”

“I warned you it was difficult.”

“No kidding. You’re at least going to give us copies of your research, right?”

“A little better than that.” Talisid handed me a thick brown folder. “I can put you in touch with the one who wrote them.” He smiled slightly. “I believe you know him?”

I opened the folder, flipped to the name at the bottom, and laughed. “Okay. So I get some help after all.”

“Let’s hope it’s enough.” Talisid’s smile was gone again as he rose to his feet. “I’m afraid everything I’ve tried so far has brought me up against a blank wall. So I hope you succeed, because if not, I don’t know when these disappearances will stop.” He nodded to us. “Verus, Luna. Good luck.”

*  *  *