I raised a hand, palm towards her. “Anyway, I imagine Levistus wasn’t all that far down your list in the first place. He and Barrayar spent more than enough time trying to nail us when you were my aide, and I’ve always had the feeling that he had a hand in that interrogation order.”
“I already said yes, you can stop selling. So what’s the plan?”
I didn’t have one, but I didn’t want to admit that. “Not here,” I said. “You have somewhere more secure we could talk?”
“Yeah, the place you used to meet me,” Anne said with a grin. “If it’s not broke . . .”
Of course she’d want to go there. “Works for me. I’ll find you in a couple of days.”
We stood in the twilight for a few seconds, facing one another. Anne watched me with a secretive smile, her reddish eyes dark in the reflected light, the wind from the streets making her hair drift slightly. I wondered what she’d say if I asked her to stay with me, and had to force myself not to look into the future to find out. I wasn’t sure I trusted myself with the answer.
“Well, got to go.” Anne stepped back and the moment was broken. “Catch you later!” She turned and vanished into the night.
I stood there for a minute after she’d gone. Half of me was disappointed, half relieved, and I didn’t know which half was smarter. I hadn’t realised how badly I’d missed hearing her voice.
Threatening futures loomed and I sighed and pushed the thoughts aside. The Council were hunting me yet again, and they were using those new-model tracking spells that had proven so annoyingly effective. If I wanted to give them the slip, it’d take me the rest of the evening.
But I had other things I wanted to be doing. Anne’s sales pitch to Luna and the hints she’d dropped about other jinn were bothering me, and she’d agreed to my offer too easily. She was up to something, and I needed to know what.
* * *
—
The flat in St. John’s Wood had that blandly tasteful look you only find in the parts of London that are ridiculously expensive. The building security gave me little trouble; the security on the flat itself gave me even less. Once I was inside I took a glance around. There were more papers than the last time I’d been here, as well as a lot more magical auras, but fewer computers and electronics. It had also gotten even messier, if that were possible. The only chair was stacked with overflowing folders, so I gave up and just sat on the bed.
It was a little over an hour before I heard the rattle of the door, which gave me more than enough time to sort through the futures of the Council hunter team and nudge them in the direction I wanted. There was a click and light flooded in from the hallway, then there were footsteps, and the room lit up as a mage in his twenties walked in.
Sonder was dressed as if he’d just come from the office, and his head was buried in a sheaf of papers. The combination of smart clothing and messy hair made him look like a programmer at a big tech company, or maybe a political aide. He hadn’t changed much since I’d last seen him, but then I’d been through a lot more lately than he had.
It was tempting to wait and see how long it would take for him to notice me, but I was on a clock. “Hi, Sonder.”
Sonder jumped, scattering papers, and whirled. One hand started to come up, then he recognised me and froze.
“Nice to see you too,” I said. “Okay, so I’ve got good news and bad news. Bad news—that slow-time field you’re thinking of using, or that stasis field? You wouldn’t get it off fast enough. Good news is I’m not here for a fight.”
From looking at the futures, I could sense Sonder’s thoughts racing. Slowly they calmed down and the possibilities of a fight vanished. “How did you get in?” Sonder asked cautiously.
“Your security sucks,” I said. “So, how are things with the Council? I imagine after what happened to Sal Sarque they must have a bunch of openings.”
I saw Sonder flinch slightly at the reminder. “It’s . . . going well.”
I sighed. “Oh, relax, Sonder. I’ve never lifted a finger against you in all the years we’ve known each other and I’ve got no intention of starting now. Not unless you try to arrest me or something equally stupid.”
Sonder grimaced slightly. “Not much chance of that.” He sat down, a little of the tension going out of him. “So are you . . . ah . . .”
“Doing well as an outlaw?” I finished. “Can’t complain.”
“Um. Good.”
I looked at Sonder.
“I mean, not good,” he said hastily. “It’s good that, well . . .”
“Okay, you know what, let’s skip the small talk,” I said. “I’d like to quiz you about a research subject.”
“Which subject?”
“Project Catalyst.”
Sonder paused for just a second too long. “What?”
“After Morden did his raid on the Vault two years ago, the Council issued an order to investigate the imbued items that were stolen. You were one of the project leads and did most of the item reports, which I was reading the same day you delivered them, so can you not play dumb, please?”
“You know all this was top secret,” Sonder said.
“Sonder, let me explain something to you,” I said. “Right now, there is a team of Council Keepers hunting me. The longer I stay in one place, the better the chances that they’ll track me there. When they do, there will be a fight. Once the dust settles, any survivors will be in an extremely bad mood, and when they discover that you and I were in this room, they will have questions. These questions will be uncomfortable and potentially highly embarrassing for both you and any allies you happen to have on the Council. So I would suggest that it is very much in your interest not to dick me around.”
“Okay, okay,” Sonder said hurriedly. “I get what you’re saying, but Project Catalyst was huge. You can’t expect me to remember all of the details.”
“I don’t need to know about all the items, just one. Suleiman’s Ring.”
“Well, I can remember that, but . . . look, there was a reason that thing ended up in the Vault. No one’s going to go running experiments on a ring with a jinn.”
“I know, I read your report. I’m not interested in what the ring can do. I want to know about the jinn inside it. Specifically, its history.”
“Oh. Well, that’s easy.” Sonder seemed to relax a little bit. These days Sonder was a politician, but he’d started his career as a historian, and this was his home ground. “It’s the marid sultan. It’s just referred to as the sultan in the records, because it was unnamed . . . you know about that?”