‘Uh …’ I heard Luna stop and turn around. ‘I don’t know the name of the street. It’s the one off Camden Market with that glass building on the corner.’
Luna was only a short walk away. But if she wasn’t going to arrive … I felt a chill. That meant that whatever was going to stop her was there with her right now. ‘Turn around! Go back into the market!’
‘What?’
‘Back into the market, or the shops. Anywhere there’s lots of people.’
‘But your house is the other way.’
‘I know! Luna, please, just trust me. Do it now!’
There was a moment’s silence. I’d broken into a run, and I was quickly covering the distance. Then I heard Luna’s voice. ‘All right …’
‘Are you in the market?’
‘Yes, but Alex, there are people everywhere! I can’t stay far enough—’
‘I’ll be there in two minutes. Just keep moving, and—Luna? Luna!’
The line had gone dead. I swore and kept running.
Camden Market is one of the big tourist attractions of London. It fills the blocks between Chalk Farm Road and the Grand Union Canal, and even on off-days it’s busy. On Saturday mornings it’s packed to the seams with street sellers, tourists, arts-and-crafts types, teenagers, goths, punks, trendies, performers, bargain-hunters, antiquists, dealers, kids and just about everyone else, all forming a seething mass. The shops sell antiques, knick-knacks, and fashions of the kind that newspapers call ‘alternative’ and most people just call ‘weird’, and everywhere is filled with people, talking and eating, bargaining and shopping, filling the place with noise. Finding one girl in Camden Market is like looking for a contact lens at a football match. It’s impossible for a normal person.
For a mage, though …
Luna turned off Chalk Farm Road and down Camden Lock Place. To most eyes she would have blended in with the crowd, a girl of medium height wearing casual clothes and backpack. Only the way she shied away from anyone who got too close made people glance at her. From time to time she would look nervously over her shoulder, scanning the bustling crowd.
Luna turned down a side-street where there were fewer people. She shook her head at a man trying to give her a leaflet, skirted a clothing stall, crossed onto the pavement.
Something appeared out of the shadows next to her. Luna jumped, then stopped as she recognised me. ‘Alex?’
‘This way. Quick!’
One of the best things about Luna is that she knows when not to argue. She’ll ask questions for hours without a break, but when I tell her to
We were in an underground parking garage, filled with rows of cars lined neatly between support pillars. Fluorescent lights cast a weak glow over the concrete floor. The sounds from outside were muffled, a steady buzz. ‘Alex?’ Luna asked. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Two people after you,’ I said. I hadn’t laid eyes on them yet, but if Luna and I hadn’t ducked out of sight I would have done. ‘A man and a woman.’
Luna just looked at me, confused. ‘They would have moved on you as soon as you got to the end of that street,’ I said, and pointed. ‘Find somewhere to hide. We’re not out of the woods yet.’
As Luna hurried to the side wall, I pulled the packet of trail dust from my pocket and tore it open. I ran to the other side of the garage and opened the door at the other end, leaving it ajar so that a sliver of light crept through. Then I paced the distance back, sprinkling the trail dust left and right. The brown powder sparked briefly as it touched the floor, vanishing. Once I’d covered all the floor we’d stepped on, I walked quickly to where Luna was waiting. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
I threw the last handful of the trail dust back where we’d gone, then crumpled up the wrapper and stuffed it into my pocket. ‘Covering our trail. Are you okay?’
Luna’s face clouded. ‘I touched someone. I was trying to get away, but he bumped into me, and … Alex? What’s wrong?’
I’d been looking into the future; now my heart skipped a beat. ‘Get down. Behind the car!’
Luna’s eyes went wide and she obeyed, kneeling down next to the wheel of a big 4 x 4. I yanked my mist cloak out of my bag and pulled it around my shoulders, then stepped back into the shadows and flipped the hood up over my head, feeling the cloak blend with the wall. Luna had looked away for a second, and now as she turned back, her eyes passed over me without seeing me. ‘Alex?’ she whispered.
‘I’m here,’ I whispered, and Luna started. ‘Stay down, stay quiet.’ I shut up and an instant later I heard the door rattle. Luna heard it too, and went very still. I stood upright in the corner, just another shadow in the dark.
The handle of the door we’d entered by was rattling. There was a moment’s pause, then a flicker of sea-green light. Dust puffed into the air, and suddenly there was a hole where the handle had been. The door swung open with a creak.
The two people who stepped through wore different clothes from last night, but I still recognised them. One was Khazad, spindly and stick-thin, his movements birdlike and quick. Now that I could see his face I could see he looked vaguely Middle Eastern, his eyes darting from side to side. The second was the woman who’d been ordering him around. Unlike Khazad, she still wore her mask, and as I saw that I leant slightly forward. Khazad came down the steps and turned from left to right. He was holding something in one hand, frowning.
‘Well?’ the masked woman said after a moment. She was still above, scanning the area. I saw her eyes pass over me, but she gave no reaction. I knew she shouldn’t be able to see through my mist cloak at this range, but it
