TWENTY-THREE

Jonas opened his eyes, blinking up at the sky above him, dark clouds piling up against afternoon-blue, and for a moment had no idea where he was. Cold roof-tiles under his head. His feet wedged against – more tiles? Warmer than he ought to be for the chill in the air. He sat up and rubbed at the sore place on his head, then looked around and recognised the tall peak of the main Guildhall roof. Everything clicked back into place like a series of dominoes falling. On the Guildhall roof. Chasing flickers, because he was a damn idiot. Thank goodness he’d been smart enough to move down here. He could have come off far worse for it.

He’d been floored by flickers before, but never that badly. He shut his eyes again, still rubbing at his head, and reached for the memory of it before it could escape. A tall figure, someone Jonas didn’t recognise, but they had long hair braided right down their back. What overwhelmed the flicker, what had Jonas shivering just as he experienced the memory again, was the shadow that fell across them, growing as he watched. Usually Jonas’ flickers were fairly concrete – he saw real people, doing real things. This might be like that, too; but it felt like something else. The feel of the shadow was larger than its look, as though it were falling not just over this one person but across the whole of the city. And though there was, unusually, no background to the flicker, he was certain that it was Marek.

What was the shadow? It was the one he’d seen before, in that flicker of catastrophic dread from Marek Square. His image of it was still shapeless, yet it felt like it had more arms than it should, and more teeth. He shivered.

So, on the bright side, the experiment had worked. Kind of. Fine, he might have nearly knocked himself out. But he’d taken an existing flicker, and he’d obtained more information about it, through the same means as he used for sorcery. Not as much as he might have liked – he still didn’t know what that shadow was – but he would know the person he’d seen, if he saw them again. At least, from that angle.

He rubbed his hands over his face. He had to tell Cato. This was important. He couldn’t doubt that any more; couldn’t push it away again. He had to tell someone. And Cato took him seriously, albeit in his own special way. Cato would listen.

Jonas held his hand out to be sure it had stopped shaking, then climbed back out of his protective roof-dip, back up to the roof-ridge of the Guildhall. How long had he been out for? The sun had dipped from its noon height, though he wasn’t sure quite how far. Still mid-afternoon, sometime. He couldn’t read the Guildhall clock from up here, owing as how it was underneath him. It couldn’t have been all that long, surely. He hoped. He shivered again. His warmth charm was wearing off, but he didn’t know how long it was supposed to have lasted.

It didn’t matter. He just needed to go and find Cato, whatever the time was. If he was going to do this, he should get on with it.

It didn’t take him long to get over to Cato’s. Through the door, up the stairs, and he paused just outside Cato’s door with its red C, frowning a little. He could hear voices inside. If Cato had a client, he’d likely not be thrilled to be interrupted. But then, nor would he be thrilled to find Jonas skulking outside the door when the client left, and some of Cato’s clients might take that particularly badly. He rubbed his tongue against his teeth a couple of times, and knocked.

The door swung open with no one behind it. Jonas had been intimidated by that trick the first time he’d come here. Now he just stepped forwards. Cato was lounging on the bed; a tall figure was behind him, outlined against the light from the window, looking out at the city. Presumably this was the client.

“Jonas? What are you here for? I wasn’t expecting you today.” Cato was frowning at him.

“Yeah, well.” Jonas took a deep breath. “I had…” Now he was here, the words were hard to get out, and he didn’t want to talk about this in front of some stranger, either. “I needed to talk to you about something. Urgently.”

The figure in the window turned round and moved slightly away from the window, and Jonas got a good look at them. What he had thought was short hair was long, with a braid thrown forwards over their shoulder, and that face…

Jonas took a step backwards. He couldn’t think properly. Whoever it was stood now next to the window, the window’s edge throwing its shadow across them, just like his flicker. But that shadow had been bigger, darker, more significant…

“Oh, right,” Cato said. “This is Tait. They’re from Teren. Also a sorcerer, but here to find out a bit more about Mareker magic.”

A friend of Cato’s? From Teren? The shadow moved again, across Tait, and Jonas bit back on a scream. He was being completely irrational, but he couldn’t think of what he could say next.

“Jonas?” Cato asked, frowning. “Is something wrong?”

“I think it’s me,” Tait said. Their voice was soft, and their whole demeanour was unthreatening, but that shadow that wasn’t there, that had nothing to do with the sunlight and the window, it was looming over them, getting darker…

“You’re bringing danger,” Jonas blurted out. “I… I saw it.”

A number of expressions flickered across Cato’s face, too fast for Jonas to read, before Cato leant forward, his face serious. “A flicker?”

Jonas nodded. His legs felt wobbly, and he couldn’t look at Tait any more. His head throbbed.

“Let him sit down,” Tait said, and moved towards Jonas, who shied away without even meaning to. Tait stopped dead.

“Honestly, Jonas,” Cato said, exasperated. “I don’t know what you’ve seen, and I don’t know how reliable it is anyway, but Tait isn’t a threat to you, for fuck’s sake.”

Tait moved back again, hands spread open, unthreatening, their eyes on Jonas. “Whatever’s going on here, he’s distraught and scared. Get him sitting down.”

Cato, scowling, gestured the stool across to Jonas, before throwing himself back on the bed.

“Right. You’ve seen something, and Tait was in it? I don’t think…”

“It could be true,” Tait said, quietly. “Couldn’t it.”

Cato bit his lip and stopped talking.

Jonas swallowed. “Normally I get something – specific. A place, a moment, even if I don’t recognise it ’til I get there. This was – like that; Tait in the shadow there. But it was more than that, too. The shadow grew, it wasn’t just a shadow, it was something… It was over Marek, the whole of Marek. It’s bigger than one person, but.” He stopped, made himself look at Tait, quickly, before he looked away again. “But it’s attached to you. It’s not your shadow, it’s the wrong shape, and it has…” teeth, it had teeth, but he couldn’t say it. “It’s attached to you,” he said again, instead.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Tait hunching into themself.

“No one person can risk the whole of Marek,” Cato said, bracingly, then turned to look at Tait, and blinked. “Tait?”

“It’s the demon,” Tait said. Jonas glanced at them again. Their arms were wrapped around themself, and they were staring at the floor.

“You banished it,” Cato said. “It’s gone.”

“But maybe I didn’t,” Tait said, miserably. “The Lieutenant said… maybe she’s right.”

“I didn’t trust her,” Cato said.

“The Academy…” Tait said, then stopped.

“Right,” Cato said. “The Academy. How about you tell me about the Academy, then. Inasmuch as I thought about Teren sorcerers at all, I thought they worked alone.”

“It’s new,” Tait said. “They’ve been… recruiting. Students.” He looked at Cato. “That’s new. It used to be, you’d have to go seek someone out, if you wanted to learn. And not that many people did. But they came into the university and the colleges, and they looked for people.”

“They recruited you?” Cato asked.

Tait shrugged a shoulder. “They made it sound good. And they paid. I was running out of money anyway, I was going to have to leave the university. They housed you and they paid and they said you’d learn to do magic, for the good of Teren.”

“Mmm,” Cato said, his tone very neutral.

“Blood magic, fine,” Tait said. “They were a bit unhappy that I wouldn’t use animals. But even with my own blood, I’m strong. They told me that, too. And then, there was the demon.”

“Just the one?” Cato asked.

“You train a lot before you do it,” Tait said. “And I didn’t… well, anyway. You summon it and you bind it.”

“It’s a lot easier to negotiate with a spirit, you know,” Cato said. “Why didn’t you try that first?”

“Negotiate?” Tait said blankly. “You… you have to bind it, to keep it safe.”

“No you don’t. But fine, that’s what you were told. And then what?”

“They wanted me to use it.”

“Ye-es?”

“On people. There was… a demonstration. Students. I knew some of them. I… I said I wouldn’t, and they said I would, and I banished the demon before they could make me. And then I ran away.” Tait’s voice broke. “I banished it! I did!”

“Right,” Cato said. “Your so-called tutors at the Academy wanted you to bind a demon and use it against your fellow citizens. Well, fuck them, then. You did the right thing. You banished it, end of story.”

“But there’s something attached to them,” Jonas said. He felt that Cato was perhaps missing the point.

“See?” Tait said. “I must have made a mistake. Like the Lieutenant said.”

“Or something else has happened,” Cato said. He was chewing at a fingernail. Cato didn’t normally have tells. “Jonas isn’t seeing a demon. He’s seeing a shadow. That could mean quite a lot of things, and none of them necessarily your fault. Right? Teren is definitely after you in some way. Maybe the shadow… it needn’t be the demon, Tait. It could just be Teren putting the screws on Marek over this matter. The shadow of the Academy, kind of thing.”

“But if there’s someone chasing me… if the Academy are bringing danger, and it’s down to me… I should go,” Tait said.

Cato shook his head. “No you shouldn’t. You’re in Marek, now, remember? I don’t care what the Academy are up to. Their power is in binding spirits, right? Which means you’re safe. Other spirits are not welcome, here. We have our own.”

There was a crack in the air, and Beckett stepped into the room, from nowhere. All three of them swore. Jonas nearly fell off his stool as he cringed backwards; Tait was pressed against the wall. Beckett’s thin face was blazing with rage.

“Who has brought this thing to my city? Who?”

A wash of relief overwhelmed Jonas’ shock and fear. A shadow, a demon; whatever it was and whether or not it was Tait’s fault, regardless of any fast words Cato might bring to this, Beckett wasn’t going to tolerate someone putting Marek at risk. And if Beckett got rid of the shadow, Jonas didn’t much care how he did it.

k k

“Right. Hang on. Let’s all slow down a bit here,” Cato said, attempting to regain some control of the situation.

He felt out of his depth, which was both an uncommon, and a deeply uncomfortable, experience for him. This was his room. He was supposed to be in charge. He was supposed to know what was going on.

He had a horrible feeling that he did know what was going on. He just didn’t like it.

Beckett, over by the door, was nearly shooting sparks out of their fingertips; and at the best of times Beckett took up more space and light in a room than they should. Cato really hated Beckett’s new-found habit of just appearing out of nowhere, but there was sod all he could do about it.

Jonas was clearly scared out of his wits, and Cato felt obliged to take Jonas’ flickers seriously. And given what Tait had said, and what that Teren woman Selene had said, he was coming to some uncomfortable conclusions, which Beckett’s arrival merely underlined.

Tait was hunched into themself, next to the window, with their back against the wall. Cato fought a strong urge to get them to sit down next to him and be reassured. It didn’t look like reassurance was on the cards right now.

“How about everyone just calm down a bit, and let’s start this from the top,” Cato said, doing his best to be soothing, with no idea whether he was succeeding. Soothing was hardly his forte. “Jonas, you’ve seen – foreseen – something alarming involving Tait here and Marek. Beckett, you say there’s something – a demon, I’m going to assume – coming to Marek? How can that even happen?”

“Because I summoned it,” Tait said, wearily.

“Because they summoned it.” Beckett’s voice had risen. Threads of magic pulled and twisted through the air, moving towards Beckett.

“That’s the shadow I saw, then,” Jonas said. He sounded either resigned, or so far past scared that he’d run out of emotions.

“You didn’t summon it in Marek,” Cato corrected, speaking clearly and with as much conviction as he could muster. “Because that wouldn’t work.” Or, Beckett would have known a lot more immediately than that, and reacted a lot more strongly. Not that the cityangel wasn’t quite pissed off right now.

“Reb said you summon spirits,” Jonas said.

“I don’t summon them as such, and also I am not in Marek, technically, when I do it,” Cato said, casting a nervous glance over at Beckett, who didn’t react. “We are straying from the point. Tait summoned and bound a demon, in Teren, yes, fine. But they banished it.” He turned back to Tait. “That’s what you remember, isn’t it?”

“Obviously I didn’t actually do it.” Tait’s voice was a tiny thread of sound.

Cato shook his head. “No. I don’t buy that. You’re not stupid, Tait. And you’re evidently a strong sorcerer. The demon-bear, remember? You wouldn’t have just… not noticed a failed banishing.”

“You don’t know anything about Teren magic,” Tait said. “How would you know?”

Cato fought back the impulse to scream. Did Tait have some kind of death-wish?

“No, indeed, I don’t go around binding spirits,” he agreed affably. “As previously discussed. I negotiate with them instead. And from time to time, I have made an agreement.” Not often, because it was easier just to store power, but he had done it when the need arose. “Which is, I believe, analogous to a binding, just agreed rather than imposed. I know the drag of an active agreement. You can feel the thing, all the time. I can’t believe a forced binding would be any less obvious. You would know.” He paused. “Also, by your own account, you were trotting up and down the damn mountains a fortnight or more before you came here. If you’d just bungled the banishment, you’d be eaten by now.”

“And yet it is here,” Beckett said. Tait, who had been looking a little bit reassured, sagged again.

“Hang on, wait. Here, as in, here in Marek?” Cato asked, startled. More than startled. Beckett had said coming to, he was sure of it. If this spirit had found its way past Beckett’s boundaries… but surely Beckett wasn’t furious enough for that…

“Not in Marek,” Beckett said, almost impatient, and Cato’s stomach somersaulted in relief. “Outside. But I cannot dismiss it. Or overcome it. It is attached to this plane.”

“Just because it’s attached to this plane doesn’t mean it’s attached to Tait,” Cato said, then turned to Tait. “Because I’ll tell you what my working theory is, and that’s that the Academy want you back, and failing that, they want you dead.”

“Why?” Tait said. “Why would they bother?”

Cato shrugged. “You’re middling strong, which might make it worth it, depending on who else they have available. But in all honesty, given what you’ve said about what they’re up to and why you ran away, I think this is more about demonstrating that you can’t run. Do you think you’re the only one who wouldn’t have wanted to use a demon on your fellow citizens? What about the other students?”

“Some of them wouldn’t care,” Tait said. “Some of them would be happy to. But… some wouldn’t, if they thought there was another option.”

“But there isn’t an option?” Cato said.

“Once you’re in, you stay, or you fail,” Tait said. Cato had a sneaking suspicion that ‘failing’ in this context didn’t mean you got a cheery handshake and booted out of the back door. He kicked himself for not having followed up on Tait’s initial references to the Academy until just now; he’d meant to, and then he’d forgotten about it. If he’d known all of this, he might have thought a bit more seriously about this business of the Teren Lieutenant and her claims – her lies – about demons, and what the implications of those lies might be.

“So if you’d banished the demon and then said, no thanks, I want out?”

Tait shook their head with utter conviction. “No. You can’t just leave. You can’t just stop. That’s why I ran.”

“Right,” Cato said. “So. You ran away. If they let you run, what happens? Everyone will be at it. But if they drag you back and feed you to a demon… it shows their power. It shows there isn’t an option. Or, I suppose, they could feed you to a demon down here and report it back, but it would work better if it’s more public.”

Tait swallowed. “Punishment is… usually in public, yes.”

“The demon is here,” Beckett said impatiently. “Trying to get in. I want it to go. Why are we talking about this?”

“To find out how to achieve that,” Cato said patiently. “Look. If Tait raised it and didn’t banish it, and we feed them to it, then fine, it goes away. But if someone else raised it again, bound it, and set it on Tait – which I am pretty sure is what has happened here – then we wouldn’t achieve anything.”

“It would have what it wants and it would go away,” Beckett said.

“I am not feeding anyone to a demon just to get rid of it unless there is absolutely no fucking alternative,” Cato said. “End of story. And it’s hardly Tait’s fault that they’re being chased.” He looked over at Tait and winced. “There will be an alternative. I’m not falling for that wretched story that Teren woman fed me.” Except he had fallen for it, when Selene had spun him the yarn, which was perhaps part of why he was so angry. He took a breath. “Do we have to care, if it just hangs around outside Marek?

“It won’t,” Jonas said. His face was pale, and he was fiddling with his hair. “It wants in.”

Beckett was scowling. “I am not invulnerable. My power is not unlimited.”

“Your power is the whole life-force of Marek,” Cato said. “That might not be unlimited, but it’s surely bigger than any other spirit can call on while they’re here.” Cato knew spirits could do a great deal while in their own plane – he’d rather counted on that, in fact, when working with them – but were rather weaker, though still more than strong enough for human purposes, while they were wholly over here. Of course, mostly Beckett wasn’t over here either; mostly, Beckett stayed spirit-side, and handled their peculiar connection to Marek from there. Or something like that. Cato would be the first to admit that he wasn’t… entirely clear on the matter, because before this year it had never bloody mattered.

“You misunderstand,” Beckett said. “I will not accept this continued threat of intrusion. I will not accept this draw on my power. We must break the link, and the link is through that one.” They nodded at Tait.

“Well, if you’re certain the link is through Tait, I suppose that confirms that it’s them it’s after.” Cato looked over at Tait. “Still doesn’t make it your fault.”

“Even if I didn’t summon it,” Tait said, their voice shaking a little, “if it wants me… killing me will get rid of it, won’t it? It’ll protect Marek.” They straightened up, set their shoulders.

“Very well,” Beckett said, and raised their hands.

“No!” Cato yelped.

Beckett turned and scowled at him. “This is not endurable.”

“I can’t believe that there’s no way other than Tait dying to break this link of yours. Especially since Tait didn’t damn well summon the thing. Not this time, anyway. I will not give in to sodding Teren on this.” Especially not when he’d been lied to. He rubbed at his forehead. There had to be another solution. “Let’s go through this again. You summoned it, you didn’t do anything much with it, you sent it back again, someone else raised it and set it on you. Giving it some kind of link to you, which we need to break.”

“There is a simple solution,” Beckett said, in what they probably thought was a quiet voice.

“No! For pity’s sake Beckett, have some patience.”

“Marek’s in danger,” Jonas said, tension thrumming through his voice. “We may not have much time for patience.”

“Look. We can always just kill Tait, any time,” Cato said, through his teeth. “Especially since they’ve just expressed their intention not to resist. Let’s take a few minutes to see if we actually have to, all right? We have three sorcerers here, even if Tait knows a different form of magic. Are we all entirely useless?”

“It might be linked to me, but it’s not bound to me the way I recognise,” Tait said. Which at least suggested they’d accepted Cato’s argument about the banishing. “I can’t feel anywhere to push. I can’t feel that it’s there at all.” Their voice wobbled.

“Wait!” Cato said. “Hang on. It’s not bound to you, but Beckett says it’s linked. So. Talk me through how this stuff works for you, in Teren. If you summon a demon, and bind it, do you just bind it to the sorcerer, or to the job that you want it to do?”

“Both, usually,” Tait said.

“Usually. Right. And this one is outside Marek, in this plane, and it’s linked to you. You’re not the sorcerer that bound it – which means there must be someone out there who did, but I don’t think that’s relevant right now – you’re the job.”

“That’s right,” Tait said. They were frowning at Cato. “Or – not necessarily. But probably, if there’s a link.”

“There is a link,” Beckett said again.

Cato ground his teeth and just about managed not to tell the cityangel to shut up; restraint made easier by the fact that he could feel his fingers beginning to tingle with rising glee. He could feel the edge of a solution. “So… if we have strength, and we have a link… who’s to say that we can’t just break it.”

Tait’s expression hadn’t changed. If anything, they just looked more bemused. “But you can’t give me your strength.”

“No,” Cato agreed. “But Beckett can. And Beckett can take our strength. Right?”

Beckett still looked sulky, but marginally less so. “I may not be able to link to this one. They are not Mareker.”

“Try it and find out?” Cato suggested. “If Tait doesn’t mind?”

Tait shrugged. “It’s this or get eaten by a demon. Or whatever else the Academy can think up. Try whatever you want.”

Beckett’s expression grew concentrated, then they looked over at Tait. Tait flinched, then their eyes widened, and they stared at Beckett. Beckett, suddenly, looked slightly less grim. Cato could feel his own victorious grin. Then Beckett blinked, and Tait flinched again, and rubbed at their arms.

“It will work,” Beckett said, unnecessarily.

“Well then,” Cato said. He’d realised what they were missing, although he didn’t much like it. “We need as much power as possible, which means we’re currently short one sorcerer. Let’s go find Reb.”

He was not looking forward to this conversation. But Reb was a soft touch. Sort of. She’d be up for this.

k k

Beckett had disappeared into nowhere, and would doubtless reappear from nowhere again at Reb’s place. As they made their way across Marek, Cato was bracing himself to not be incredibly pissed off at this. He realised that Jonas was hovering with intent, as much as one could hover whilst walking.

“What’s up?” Cato asked.

“Do we have to… I mean, can we…” He was looking shifty. “I’d rather not tell Reb about my flickers, just yet. Can’t we just let Beckett be the one who says about it all?”

Cato considered the matter. Jonas was right; given that Beckett was making such an almighty fuss, the whole thing where Jonas was prophesying doom could probably be left out. It might even make for a somewhat smoother explanation, with fewer awkward moments and unnecessary side-tracks centring around the question of why Cato had not previously informed Reb about these flickers.

“Fine,” he conceded. “Unless she won’t be convinced, in which case we might need it.”

Jonas scowled, but nodded.

“Did you hear that, Tait?” Cato asked. Tait was walking on his other side, shoulders hunched.

“Eh? What?”

“Leave out Jonas’ whole ‘foreseeing the future’ thing, yeah?”

“Oh. Of course.” Tait’s good manners resurfaced, and they attempted a polite smile. Jonas didn’t look convinced.

It was late afternoon now, the sun beginning to cast long shadows; there were dark clouds off in the distance, coming in towards the city. Just their luck if they had to go out to the city boundaries and chase off a demon in the rain.

It didn’t take long to reach Reb’s. Cato could have wished, in fact, that it had taken a little longer.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Reb demanded, on opening the door. Then her gaze switched to Tait. “And you!” She glared viciously at Cato. “What is going on?”

“How about, you let us in and we’ll explain,” Cato said.

Reb’s eyes narrowed, and he thought she was about to refuse.

Then Beckett, from behind her, said, “Let them in.”

Reb actually jumped, which pleased Cato greatly, although he tried not to show it.

“I told you not to do that,” Reb said, through her teeth, but she stepped back into the room and let them all in anyway.

To Cato’s immense surprise, Marcia was there too, wearing what he recognised as the tunic that belonged under her full Council formal robe, and a deeply anxious look.

“So,” Cato said, brightly. “Turns out there’s a demon on the doorstep – Marek’s doorstep, that is – which appears to be after Tait here. A bit like Selene said, except it wasn’t Tait’s fault.” He wasn’t sure Reb accepted that part, from the expression on her face, but he kept going. “Beckett can’t get rid of it on their own, but I think that together, using the link it’s made to Tait, we could manage it. Without feeding Tait to it. Are you in?”

“No,” Reb said, flatly.

Over her, Marcia said, “It’s Selene. Selene summoned it.”

“Selene isn’t a sorcerer,” Cato said.

“Then someone summoned it on her behalf,” Reb said, impatiently. “And I said. No.”

Cato blinked. “The alternative is to feed Tait to it,” he said again, in case Reb had missed that part.

Reb shrugged. “Why do I care?”

“What the hell?” Cato demanded. “Aren’t you supposed to be all moral and stuff? Fuck knows you keep bloody lecturing me about my decisions.”

“I don’t like demons,” Reb said. “And I don’t like sorcerers that run away from their mistakes.” She glared at Tait, then back at Cato. “I thought I warned you.”

“You sent a message,” Cato agreed. It had been a bit too late by the time he’d got it, of course, but she had sent a message. “Yes indeed. But I think you were then, and apparently are still, under the impression that Tait failed to banish this thing. Not so. I am moderately certain that someone else dragged it back onto this plane and set it onto him, to avoid him getting away from their demons-as-guard-dogs setup.”

“Cato. Stop. What in the hells are you going on about?”

At least he’d got her attention now. Cato, as briefly as he could – which was more briefly than it might otherwise have been, given Beckett’s deep scowl and Tait’s look of being about to collapse inwards on themself – explained the whole situation with the Academy and Teren, as he understood it.

“Setting demons on people?” Reb asked. She turned to stare at Tait, who nodded miserably. “You’re certain?”

“Absolutely certain,” Tait said. “There wasn’t – I didn’t misunderstand. That was what they wanted.”

Cato forebode to point out that not two minutes ago, Reb had been happy to have a demon set on a person. To be fair, she’d thought this situation was Tait’s fault; but still.

“Tait ran away rather than comply,” Cato said, in case Reb had missed that part. “Seems understandable to me. Moral, even.” He gave the word a bit of a spin.

Reb turned to Tait. “You didn’t tell me that.” She sounded annoyed. Possibly with Tait; possibly with herself. Possibly with Cato himself, come to that.

Tait shrugged. “You didn’t seem like you wanted to believe me.” They were pulling at their fingers. “I don’t think I believed me, not really.”

“I still don’t really want to believe you,” Reb admitted. “But…” She sighed. “I don’t want to believe Selene either, I suppose.”

“I didn’t think much of Selene,” Cato muttered. Reb ignored him.

“The demon is close to Marek,” Beckett said, apparently under the impression that any of them might be forgetting that part.

“Does that mean it’ll do anything here, though?” Reb asked. “Must we barge out there and deal with it, which I assume is the aim given you’re all on my doorstep like this? Can’t we just wait for it to go away?”

“Assuming it does go away,” Marcia said. “If you think this is Selene’s doing somehow – she’s really pissed off. And she wanted Tait back.”

“She can’t get Tait while they’re in Marek,” Cato said. “So she can want whatever she likes. She isn’t getting it.”

Just as he finished speaking, he felt a shiver in the air. Beckett swayed slightly.

Reb looked sharply over at Beckett. Marcia hadn’t reacted.

“Uh,” Cato said. “Who just felt that?”

“Felt what?” Marcia demanded, at the same time as Reb and Jonas both nodded.

“It is trying to get into Marek,” Beckett said, sounding much calmer than Cato felt they ought to.

“But it can’t, right?” Cato demanded.

“I will not permit it,” Beckett said.

The shiver came again. Was it stronger?

Cato licked his lips. “Uh. I ask this merely hypothetically, you understand, but… what happens if it keeps trying?”

“I have the strength of Marek,” Beckett said. “I am stronger than any of my kind can possibly be.” Their voice held, perhaps, just a shade of nervousness.

“How much of the strength of Marek are you using, though?” Cato asked.

Beckett didn’t answer. Cato exchanged glances with Reb. He was fairly certain that Reb was drawing the same tentative conclusions as him. He turned his hand up, and made the gesture for a witchlight. The first trick he’d ever learnt as a baby sorcerer, still hiding out in his room in House Fereno and trying to work out what he was doing. Something he could do without effort or thought or concentration.

There was a tiny, faint, flash above his fingertips. That was it.

Reb, watching him, looked alarmed. She reached into her pocket for a pinch of something, tossed it into the air, and blew. The tiny pieces fluttered, without a twitch, to the ground.

“Well, shit,” Reb said. “Beckett, you’re using all of Marek’s strength for this? There’s nothing left over?”

“I will prevail,” Beckett said.

“But what if you don’t?” Cato muttered under his breath, then, louder. “Or, we could deal with it ourselves, directly, right now. Get rid of the thing rather than waiting it out. Fine, Beckett can hold it off forever, or maybe it’ll tire out eventually,” it rather depended on the power source, and Cato wasn’t sure that Beckett could hold it off forever, but he didn’t want to head down that track, “but I’d really rather not find out how long that will take by destruction testing it. And Beckett said before that they didn’t want to have to keep doing this.”

“The shadow’s coming closer,” Jonas said, quietly. He was shivering, and his eyes looked distant. It was unnerving. Also, at this rate Jonas wasn’t going to be able to keep his damn secret that much longer. Reb wasn’t unobservant.

Reb glared round at all of them, then threw her hands in the air. “Fine. Let’s go face down a sodding demon, then, and risk all of our lives instead of just one.”

Cato winced. “I wasn’t planning on risking any lives.”

“The demon is,” Jonas said.

Once again, Cato exercised massive restraint in not just telling someone to shut up.

“The Group of Marek should be stronger,” Beckett said.

It was Reb’s turn to wince. “I know. I should have built things back up sooner,” she said.

“Well,” Cato said. “You and I are strong. We have Beckett. And Jonas and Tait both have at least some ability.” He gestured at Tait. “Did Tait tell you that they opened a vein and sent off a dragon-bear? By themself?”

“They’re hardly versed in Marek sorcery,” Reb said.

“But Beckett will be right there,” Cato pointed out. “And will have to connect with Tait for any of this to work. It could hardly be easier to practise Marek sorcery, in the circumstances.”

“Very well,” Reb said. “I suppose…” The air shivered again, and her lips tightened. “Well. There’s no time like the present. Let’s go.”

“Finally,” Beckett said, and strode out of the door. The rest of them followed him like a set of magical ducklings.

Cato managed to catch at Tait’s hand, as they went out of the door behind Reb, and smiled at them.

“It’s going to be all right,” he said.

Tait smiled wanly back, and Cato really, seriously, hoped he was telling the truth.