Veiled (18 page)

Caldera snorted and closed her eyes. “Always the pragmatist.”

A man I didn't know stuck his head around the corner. “Hey,” he said. “We're heading back. You riding along?”

I shook my head. “It's just her.”

The man disappeared. I got up, started to leave, then paused. “Caldera?”

“Yeah.”

“That was half the reason. The other half . . . I'd rather you stayed alive.”

Caldera looked back at me for a long moment, then nodded. I climbed out of the ambulance and went to find Vari and go home.

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A
s Vari and I walked out of my downstairs storeroom, there was a clatter of footsteps from upstairs. Luna poked her head out from around the banister, and she seemed to relax as she saw us both. “You're okay?”

“We're okay,” I said, wearily starting up the stairs. “Looks like you're getting better at sensing gates.”

Luna had an endless stream of questions, and I used the excuse of making tea to let Variam do most of the talking. When it came to the fight in the safe house though, I had to tell the story, sitting in the armchair with legs crossed, a tiny trail of steam rising up from the mug in front of me.

“You're so lucky,” Luna said disconsolately when I finished.

“I just had an eight-foot golem try to redecorate the room with my internal organs,” I said. “
Lucky
is not the word I would choose.”

“Can I come with you tomorrow?”

“It's a police investigation. They don't run ‘Bring Your Daughter to Work Day.'”

“Yeah, well, I spent the day on Theory of Magic makeup classes,” Luna said. “At least you got to do something fun.”

Even I have trouble believing Luna sometimes. “Luna, I swear, by the time you're thirty, either you're going to have more combat experience than any other girl in the British Isles, or you're going to be dead. And no, I don't know which.”

“Okay,” Variam said, “you're not going to like hearing this, but I'm going to say it. Your new magic teacher, this Chalice? Maybe this whole thing was a setup.”

Luna frowned. “How?”

“She was the one who sent him to Uxbridge, right?”

“That doesn't prove anything.”

“Yeah, well, she's a Dark mage, and the first place she
sends you, you nearly get your head chopped off. You don't think that's a funny coincidence?”

“Just because—”

I raised my hand and Luna subsided. “I did think about it,” I said to Variam. “When Chalice was doing that spell, I didn't sense any magic. Could mean that I just didn't spot it, but it could mean she wasn't doing anything at all—she just knew the address already. That's what you were thinking of, right?”

Variam nodded, but I kept going before he could answer. “But there's a problem. Remember what I told you about the icecats? They went after Leo. Same for that force mage. Caldera and I weren't the primary target. Leo was.”

Variam frowned. “Okay.”

“So if Chalice was behind the attack, why send me to Uxbridge at all?” I said. “We'd never have found the place in time without her help. If she wanted Leo dead, all she had to do was go there herself. And if she
didn't
want Leo dead but she was behind the attack, why was Leo the target?”

“Maybe they didn't agree—”

I shook my head. “What Chalice did helped us get to Leo. Whoever was behind the attack, their objective was to get rid of Leo. Most logical conclusion: they're different people. Don't make things more complicated than they have to be.”

Variam didn't look a hundred percent convinced, but he shut up. “So does that mean you trust her?” Luna asked.

“No,” I said. “Just because she's not on
their
side doesn't mean she's on
our
side. But I think there's more going on than she's telling us.”

“So if she wasn't behind the attack tonight, who was?” Variam asked.

“The Keepers think it's White Rose,” I said.

“Who?”

“No clue,” I said. I was starting to realise just how out of my depth I was on this case. I needed to talk to someone who was more up to speed on Council politics, and soon. “But
whoever they are, I'm not buying that it's nothing to do with the Council. You know what mantis golems are used for.”

“They're Council bodyguards,” Luna said.

“They said these ones were reported stolen?” Variam said.

“Bullshit,” I said. “That's like a Challenger tank getting stolen from the British Army. The army doesn't lose battle tanks, the RAF doesn't lose jet fighters, and the Council sure as hell doesn't lose mantis golems. Whoever went after us tonight, they're in close with the Council.”

Luna started to say something, but I held up a hand. “There's something else. Leo was holed up in that house for two days or close to it. We find him, and he gets attacked less than half an hour afterwards. I don't think that's a coincidence. I looked into the futures while I was waiting for Caldera. There wasn't any danger, not as long as we stayed outside. Maybe those guys were looking for Leo, but I don't think they would have found him on their own. I think something we did brought them there.”

“Could have been tracking you,” Variam suggested.

“There's a simpler explanation. Between going into that house and the attack starting, we did exactly one thing that could have given our position away. Caldera used her com disc to get in touch with her order. And she activated a locator beacon.”

Variam frowned. “Wait,” Luna said. “I thought you said those communicator things were supposed to be untraceable? And no one could intercept them?”

“He's not saying they were traced,” Variam said. He was watching me, his voice flat. “You're saying you got set up.”

“Wait,” Luna said, her eyes going wide. “You're saying the
Keepers
want to kill you? You managed to piss them off that much
already
?”

“If the Order of the Star really wanted to kill us, we'd already be dead,” I said. “I told you, the target was Leo.”

“What happened to him, anyway?”

“We couldn't find him,” Variam said. He didn't take his
eyes off me. “You think someone in the Order of the Star's a traitor.”

“I hate to sound cynical, but it's probably more than one,” I said. “You know how many factions there are on the Council—they've all got their agents and their areas of influence. Leo was connected to the Rayfield case, and Haken already told me that half a dozen factions are interested. One of those factions must have not wanted Leo brought in.”

“Do you think they wanted to kill him first?” Luna said.

“More likely they kidnapped him.”

“Who was it?” Variam said.

“That I don't know.”

“You said there was an ice mage and a force mage,” Luna said. “You could try that . . .”

“Doubt it'll help,” I said. “Whoever's behind this probably isn't the kind to do their own dirty work. No, what we really need to figure out is what Leo knew that was enough of a threat for them to move like this.”

“He was a witness,” Variam said. “If he'd made it, first thing they'd have done would have been pull him in for an interview . . .”

“. . . and find out what he saw,” I finished. “But we do know what he saw, because of Caldera. He saw the guy the rest of the Order of the Star's been looking for. Rayfield.”

Luna's eyebrows had been gradually climbing higher and higher, and at this point she put up her hands. “Ugh, God. This is
so
confusing. I have no idea what's going on anymore.”

“Maybe if you actually went to your politics classes,” Variam said, “instead of bunking off to go duelling.”

“Oh, like you're some sort of—”

“Luna, Vari! Not now!”

Luna and Variam shut up. I pulled over the notepad that Chalice had used earlier in the evening, flipped to a new page, and began sketching. “It's not as complicated as you think. Here.” I turned the pad around; I'd drawn an equilateral triangle with the three corners marked and labelled. “There are three factions that we need to worry about. First
is White Rose.” I tapped my pencil to the first of the three corners. “Whoever they are, they're the ones who sent Leo to that meeting with Rayfield two nights ago. As far as we know, they haven't done anything else, but if Caldera's that careful around them then they're not anyone we want to mess with.”

Variam looked down at the diagram and then up at me. “You're explaining this by drawing it in a triangle.”

“And . . . ?”

Variam shook his head. “You are
such
a geek sometimes.”

I moved my pencil to the second corner. “Next faction is our mysterious group who were behind the attack tonight. We know they've got ties to the Council and some way of getting supposedly secure data from the Keepers. They also wanted Leo silenced, so I think it's a safe bet they've got some kind of investment in the Rayfield case. Either they don't want the truth getting out, or they want to learn it first.”

“The Keepers think those people and White Rose are the same people,” Luna said. “Right?”

“Right, which I'm not buying.” I touched the tip of the pencil to the last corner, labelled with a name and a question mark. “And finally, we've got our dark horse. The ones who hired Chamois. That's where this whole thing started. Chamois crashed the meeting between Rayfield and Leo at Pudding Mill Lane, he either killed Rayfield or made him disappear thoroughly enough that no one's found him, and the focus got lost in the fight.” I tapped my pencil on the question mark. “This is the key to the whole thing, I'm sure of it. If we can figure out who Chamois is working for, and why he attacked Rayfield, we'll understand what's really going on.”

“Okay . . .” Luna said. “So how do we do that?”

“That's the problem,” I said. “I have no idea. So we'll have to work on the two groups where we
do
have something to go on.” I moved my pencil to the other two points. “I'll go talk to Caldera tomorrow, find out what she knows about White Rose. What I
can't
ask about is this Council group.
I've got my suspicions, but if I go poking around it could lead to really bad things. You guys are apprentices though. Especially you, Vari—I think Landis might know a bit he's not telling.”

Vari nodded. “I want to try talking to Chalice,” Luna said.

“In the middle of this?”

“Well, since
someone
won't let me come along on their important official Keeper stuff, there's not much else I can do, is there? Besides, none of the guys you're talking about would know anything about what's happening on the Dark side of the fence. And we already know she wants to talk to me.”

I sighed. “All right, but I want you to take Anne along for backup. We don't have any good reason yet to believe that Chalice is a danger, but that doesn't mean she isn't.”

“Oh well.” Variam yawned and stretched. “I'm off home. Sounds like tomorrow'll be interesting.”

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T
he next morning was overcast, white cloud filling the sky all the way to the horizon. It had rained during the night, and the weather forecast promised more to come. Luna had stayed over, and we had breakfast together and discussed plans before I went off to see Caldera.

Caldera lives in Hackney, in a seedy-looking area with a lot of council estates. It's not quite a dump, but it's not high-class, either, and I doubt you'd find many other mages living there. Caldera has a flat on the second floor of a converted house; I got inside, climbed the stairs, and knocked.

There was a pause. The door and walls around the flat were warded, and I could feel the latent energy waiting to be used. Then they shifted slightly, and all of a sudden the configuration was less threatening. Caldera opened the door and looked me up and down. “Oh, it's you.”

Caldera was wearing a baggy T-shirt, tracksuit bottoms, and slippers. It was the first time I'd seen her dressed in something that you couldn't do heavy manual labour in. “Hi, invalid,” I said, and held up a package. “I brought grapes.”

“Okay, you can stay.”

I handed her the bag and walked in. I've only been to Caldera's flat a couple of times, but I quite like it. It's messy and comfortable, filled with old bottles and coffee mugs, the kind of place where you feel as though you're allowed to put your feet up. “Going for the casual look?”

“I'm on sick leave,” Caldera said in distaste. “Can you believe they wanted to keep me in the bloody hospital?”

“Yes. Yes, I can.”

“Oh, and by the way, if you want to get inside, you're supposed to ring the bell and wait for me to buzz you into the building. Not knock on my door.”

“Sorry.” I dropped into one of the armchairs and grinned at her. “Every time I see a security setup that bad I just have to go through it. I'm doing you a favour, really.”

“You're a pain in my arse is what you are.”

“You feeling better?”

“Course I'm better. Only reason I'm here is because Rain made it an order.”

I made a noncommittal sort of noise. I'd been watching Caldera since I came in and she didn't seem to be in pain. Still, as she went to get a bowl and a drink from the kitchen, her movements were more sluggish than usual, and it wasn't until she returned and dropped into the sofa that I saw her shoulders relax. Caldera's tough, but whatever healing she'd received had obviously taken a lot out of her. I had the feeling Anne could have done a better job but decided not to say that out loud.

“So the indictment's set for this afternoon,” Caldera said. “I want you at the War Rooms at noon, okay?”