Veiled (32 page)

I hated that things worked like this. I hated that children like Leo and that nameless slave of Vihaela's could be casually murdered, while the rulers slept easy at night, protected and safe. Sometimes a mid-level mage like Marannis would fall, but for the most part the ones who paid the heaviest price always seemed to be the ones who had the least to lose.

“It doesn't feel like we won,” Luna said.

Luna and I think alike in some ways. “White Rose is gone,” I said. “Maybe Leo didn't get to see the benefit of that, but the other slaves did.”

“This . . .” Luna took a breath. “This wasn't all because of me, was it? I mean, I was the one who talked you into joining the Keepers, wasn't I? Everyone who was killed in that battle . . .”

“No,” I said. “This fight was going to happen, one way or another. If it hadn't happened this way, it would have happened somewhere else.”

Luna nodded. I could tell that it was still bothering her though, and I had the feeling that might be a good thing. In a few more years, if everything went to plan, Luna would pass her journeyman tests and become accepted as a mage. She was going to have to get used to her actions having consequences, even for people she didn't meet.

“So who was Vihaela really working for?” Luna said.

“The Keepers don't know, and neither does the Council,” I said. “But we can take a guess. Levistus has been weakened, his puppet candidate for the Council seat is gone, and the status quo's in chaos. Who's the one person who's going to profit the most from all that?”

“Morden.”

“He's wanted that Council seat for years. Now there's nothing standing in his way.”

“So Levistus loses, and it just means Morden wins instead.” Luna grimaced. “Great.”

I didn't answer; it was too close to what had been going through my head a minute ago. It's not the first time I've been caught in a power struggle between Levistus and Morden, and once again, the most I'd been able to get was a partial victory. I was still alive, but so were they.

But sitting there in the Belfry, I made a decision. I was tired of Levistus and Morden. I'd seen enough people sacrificed as pawns in their political games. I wanted them to pay for what they'd done. Maybe for someone like me, they really were just untouchable. But if I had the chance . . .

Then I'll bring them down. That's a promise.

Something in the futures caught my attention, and I looked up. There was a mage crossing the floor towards us. Luna followed my gaze, and her eyes narrowed as she saw who it was. We watched in silence as he walked up to us and stopped. I didn't say anything, and Luna didn't either.

“Hey,” Haken said. Given what had happened to him, he looked in pretty good shape. It wasn't really a surprise;
Keepers get a good health plan. “Can I have a word?” His eyes flicked to Luna.

I paused just long enough to make it clear I was thinking about it. “I'll be back in a bit,” I told Luna, then rose to my feet. Luna didn't answer, and her eyes stayed on Haken as we walked away.

Haken and I crossed the Belfry, footsteps echoing on the stone as we traced the lines of the patterns beneath our feet. Other mages were scattered around, but none came close. I could sense subtle wards meant to detect eavesdropping. We rounded a column and turned left, still in silence.

“Committee are dragging their feet about Cerulean,” Haken said at last.

“Yeah, I bet they are.” Cerulean hadn't shown up for his inquiry, even though they hadn't officially suspended him yet. That one was going to be a major embarrassment for the Keepers. Informing on the side was one thing, but having one Keeper outright betray another was not going to do their reputation any favours. About the only consolation from their point of view was that with all the other political developments, no one had all that much attention to spare for a Keeper being fired.

“The guys we're holding from White Rose are saying they didn't know anything about it.”

I shrugged. “Might be true.”

“Yeah.”

There was a pause. We rounded another column and passed by the reception desks, heading back across the floor.

“So . . .” Haken said.

“Go ahead and ask it.”

“Why'd you do it?”

“Do what?”

Haken gave me a look.

“I don't know
everything
,” I said. “You'll have to narrow down the question.”

“I talked to Slate,” Haken said. “He said that it was because of you that they found me.”

I grinned. “Slate must have loved having to admit that.”

“So . . . ?”

“So?”

“You could have led them somewhere else.”

“I could.”

“So why'd you do it?”

I walked for a little way before answering. “Maybe it helped me prove my innocence to the Keepers,” I said at last. “Maybe I didn't see any profit in holding a grudge. Maybe it was some other reason.” I shrugged. “From your perspective, does it matter?”

“Maybe not,” Haken said. “All the same . . . I'm curious.”

“When Cerulean tried to shoot me, you had a split second to decide whether to try to kill me, or whether to try to stop me,” I said. “You tried to stop me. If you want a reason, you can go with that.”

“And I assume you're not going to tell me how you went through that wall of fire or how you vanished off our senses.”

“Yup.”

We'd done nearly a full circuit of the Belfry, and as we turned the final column, Haken stopped. “Then just so you know,” he said. “Levistus isn't going to forget this. Right now he's going for that Senior Council seat. But sooner or later, once that's done, he's going to come after you. There won't be any more threats or warnings. If I were you? I'd start working on an escape plan.”

I looked back at Haken for a second. “Thanks for letting me know.”

“Yeah,” Haken said. “Good luck. You'll need it.”

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I
t was the next day when I stuck my head inside Caldera's office. “You rang?”

“Yeah,” Caldera said. She was frowning at her computer. “Be with you in a sec.”

I crossed the room and sat in front of her desk, stretching out. To the right was the small workstation I'd been using. To the left was Haken's half of the office. The desk looked a lot clearer than the last time I'd seen it. “Haken moved out?”

“Yes,” Caldera said without looking up. Her tone made it clear that she didn't want to talk about it. I took the hint and stayed quiet.

The only noise in the office was Caldera's fingers on the keys. She wasn't a fast typist, and watching her, it struck me how awkward she looked sitting at a computer. Every time I've seen Caldera out in the field she's looked confident and capable, but in front of a keyboard, she just looked out of place. At last Caldera took her hands off the keys and reached down to pull open a drawer. She took something out and set it down on the desk with a click. “Here.”

The object on the desk was a small silver signet, with a stylised flame and coat of arms. With my magesight, I could sense a faint magical trace. It was a focus, and as I looked at it, I realised I knew what it did. Keepers carried focuses like these as identification symbols. This one was smaller, with a different pattern, but it was recognisable as the same basic design. It was an official Council signet.

“Congrats,” Caldera said. “Welcome to the auxiliary corps of the Order of the Star.”

I blinked at her.

“No smart-arse comments?” Caldera asked.

“I'm, uh . . . just surprised.”

“About what?”

“Honestly?” I said. “I had the feeling you were going to blame me for what happened with Haken.”

“You followed the orders you were given,” Caldera said. “You did your job.”

I looked at Caldera for a second. “Don't take this the wrong way,” I said, “but you don't exactly seem happy.”

“About what? That Haken was the one who set us up in Uxbridge?”

I didn't answer.

“I'm not a fucking idiot, okay?” Caldera said. “I put it together. And yes, we've noticed how you kept quiet about it instead of laying another charge against the order. Sure Rain'll appreciate it.” She gave me a look. “Picking up our politics fast, aren't you?”

I raised my eyebrows.

Caldera stared at me for a second, then passed a hand across her eyes. “Fuck.” She paused. “Forget it.”

“The thing with Haken's getting to you, isn't it?”

“He was my partner for a year,” Caldera said. “I knew him when we were apprentices. Yeah, it's getting to me.”

“If it's any consolation, he did try to help,” I said, then shrugged. “A little. I don't know. Maybe give it some time, talk to him. You might be able to work something out.”

“Yeah.” Caldera pushed a set of stapled sheets of paper across to me. “All right. Take a look at these.”

I flipped the report around, started reading it, blinked, skipped to the end. “Smuggling?”

“Yeah, looks like there's a new source of meld. We had a handle on it for a while, but seems like a new supplier's got into the market. Best guess is it's coming from Thailand.”

“This doesn't have anything to do with White Rose?”

“Not really.”

“So . . . we just go on to the next job?”

“What were you expecting?” Caldera said. “Victory parade?”

“Would have been nice.”

Caldera snorted. “How'd you think this was going to go? It was just a case. They come and they go. Some are easy, some are hard. But you know what they've all got in common?”

I looked at Caldera, interested. “What?”

“They end,” Caldera said. “And you go back to your desk and start the next one.” She shook her head. “You still think like an independent, Verus. There's trouble, you fix it, and everything goes back to normal. But that's not how it works now you're in the Keepers. For us, this
is
normal.”

“Mm. By the way?”

“What?”

“You can call me Alex.”

Caldera gave me a curious look. After a moment, she nodded.

We sat in silence for a little while, broken only by the
rustle of paper as I turned the pages. “Do you think what we did to White Rose will change anything?” I asked.

“Short term?” Caldera said. “Sure. Longer term?” She shrugged. “Demand's still there. People are still the same. You can make things a little better if you work at it. But in the end, nothing really changes.”

I thought about that for a moment. I remembered the Keepers, and the feeling of sitting in the Belfry, watching the mages of the Light Council go about their business. Even in the middle of everything that had happened, there had been a sense of inertia there, a stability. It was easy to believe it would always be the same. Caldera was paging through the report, distracted, and all around us, the bureaucracy of the Keepers hummed quietly. It didn't feel any different.

At least, not yet.

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I
t was a month later.

The Conclave is a semicircular amphitheatre, the largest of the three chambers at the heart of the War Rooms. Gold leaf covered the domed roof above, and gilt-framed paintings and works of art looked down from between velvet curtains. I'd never been inside the Conclave before. Usually the room is forbidden to all but an inner circle of Light mages, but there are a very few events where the gates are (reluctantly) opened to outsiders. This was one of them.

The room was crowded. Mages sat in rows at the curving benches, while those who hadn't been able to get a seat stood in the stairs or at the back. Security was everywhere, Council operatives and Keepers standing at vantage points at the lower levels and scanning the crowd from the balconies above. I could feel the presence of literally hundreds of defensive wards and spells, but few of the mages seemed to be paying attention to them. Everyone was focused on the stage below.

Thirteen chairs stood at the centre of the stage, one row of seven, slightly raised, and a second row of six in front and below. Ten of the chairs were occupied. One of the ten
people was Levistus, sitting still and silent. The other nine I'd never seen before. All wore elaborate mage robes; none were young. The one thing all shared was that each of them wore a simple gold chain over their shoulders. These were the Junior and Senior Councils, the leaders of the Light mages of Britain, and collectively they wielded more power than any other group in the country.

I wondered what they thought of what was happening in front of them.

“Who comes before the Council?” the master of ceremonies asked.

The man he was addressing looked about thirty, though I knew he was far older. He had dark hair, the polished good looks of someone who spends time cultivating them, and a half smile that rarely left his face. His robes were black, which I was sure had been a deliberate choice. This was Morden, one of the most powerful Dark mages I'd ever met. If the mages sitting in those chairs were the strongest amongst the Light faction, Morden was their counterpart. “One who is summoned,” Morden replied. He didn't raise his voice, but it carried to the edges of the room.

“How do you come before the Council?” the master asked.

“In humility and in obedience,” Morden said.

“Why do you come before the Council?”

“I wish only to serve the Council, in heart and mind and soul.”

“Where would you serve?”

Morden's voice stayed quite steady. “On the Council, should it please the Councillors.”

I heard a slight murmur go through the crowd. It was as if they hadn't quite believed that this was really going to happen until they heard the words. I'd read the histories: in all the thousands of years that the Council of Britain had existed, a Dark mage had never sat upon it. Until now.