“Are you—”
“I want to stay with you. And I won’t be useless. I can help.”
Now it was my turn to hesitate. But Meredith’s answer had put me on the spot and it was likely I really would need the help. “All right,” I said at last. “We could ask around to find out more about this cabal. But that was what you were doing when you got targeted, right?”
Meredith nodded. “Did you have any leads?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. I thought I was getting somewhere but …”
“But some of the people you were asking tipped off the people you were looking for.”
Meredith looked at me in surprise. “How did you know?”
I shrugged. “Not hard to guess.” Asking around about a mage is dangerous. Mages who aren’t prepared for trouble tend not to live very long so one of the first priorities of most mages is to establish an early-warning network to spot potential threats, in the same way I’d been warned by Starbreeze. And anyone willing to sell you information about the mage you’re looking for is just as likely to sell the information to them the instant you turn your back. “Anyway, it sounds like this cabal’s gone into war mode. I don’t think there’s much point going fishing. Last thing we want is for them to jump us halfway through.”
Meredith nodded with obvious relief. Apparently she hadn’t been looking forward to that idea either. “So let’s try Belthas’s plan,” I said. “Check out the factory.”
“Right now?”
I shook my head. “Not yet. I need to make some calls.”
The classic thing to do in this situation would have been to go to the factory, magnifying glass in hand, and look for clues. There were several good reasons why I wasn’t going to do that, the main one being I’d already tried it and it hadn’t worked. I hadn’t been able to find much on a search even
I called Talisid but came up dry. The investigation of the barghest and factory hadn’t turned up anything else useful. In exchange, I relayed the information from Arachne. “Harvesting nonhumans?” Talisid said in surprise. “Really?”
“Do you know anything about it being tried?”
“God no.” Talisid sounded revolted. “In every instance I know of, the harvester went violently insane. If that was what they killed the barghest with, I’m surprised we didn’t find their bodies too.”
“Why’s it so lethal?” I kept my voice casual, as if from idle curiosity, though I didn’t expect Talisid to believe it for a moment. “Harvesting works on humans, doesn’t it?”
Talisid snorted. “If you can call that ‘working.’ It’s like ripping out half someone’s mind and injecting it into your own. Usually turns whoever did it into a deranged psychopath, though if they were willing to use Harvesting in the first place, most people probably wouldn’t notice much difference.”
It matched with what I’d heard. Magical power isn’t something that can be given away; it’s part of who you are. The only way to take a mage’s power is to rip out most of him with it. I can’t imagine what it would be like to try to merge that maimed fragment with your own self, and that’s if what you were taking came from a human. Trying to assimilate something totally alien, like a barghest …
“So now what are you up to?” Talisid broke into my thoughts. “Trying to track down the mages who did it?”
“Yup,” I said. “Anyone still searching the factory?”
“Empty.”
“Okay.”
“You didn’t have anything to do with that business on Hampstead Heath, did you?”
“What would that be?”
“Someone tried to settle a disagreement with military-grade weapons.” Talisid’s voice was dry and I knew he had his suspicions. “Anything you want to tell me?”
“Yeah, but I shouldn’t.”
“Hm. Watch yourself.”
Talisid broke the connection and I dialled another number, and this time I had more success. It took only a few minutes to tell the story and fix a time for the meeting. I dropped my phone into my pocket and went back to Meredith. “We’re done.”
Meredith looked up from her coffee. We were sitting in a Starbucks, the late afternoon sun slanting through the glass of the shop front. “Did you find the guy you were looking for?”
“He won’t be here till tomorrow.” My meeting with Luna and Martin wasn’t until the morning either, meaning I had nothing immediate for the rest of the evening. “Want to get dinner?”
“Really?”
“Not much we can do for the rest of the day. Besides, we might as well relax while we’ve got the chance. There’ll be trouble enough soon.” Which was about to prove more prophetic than I would have liked.
There was a beat, then Meredith nodded, looking at me appraisingly. “I’d like that.”
